The double meaning is probably triple or quadruple. CPAP machines have “events” measured (apnea, hypopnea, 7 others. Oximetry has only 2 events (pulse and oxygen saturation percent). Add the other events that happened this week and the subject line makes sense (at least to me).
Saturday, Nov 22
CPAP report. Reported figures: 7 hrs 35 min with AHI = 0.00.
The oximeter arrived, and I have removed it from the packaging, stuck it on my finger, and recorded my O2 and pulse. Now I need to read the instruction pamphlet to learn how to download the data and maybe run it tonight as I sleep. (No chance for tonight).
I spent awhile unpacking it and trying to read the small printed instructions but looked on line for some too. These are written in a font that’s too small to concentrate on until tomorrow after a good night’s sleep and more energy.
Sunday, Nov 23
CPAP report. Reported figures: x hrs xx min with AHI = x.xx.
I forgot to transfer my SD card from my computer back to the CPAP machine — so I wore the mask all night and don’t have any record of it. Sadly, I did not have my oximeter hooked up yet to record my O2 (without the CPAP recording properly; at least I would have had something). I waited until today and was able locate a more legible set of instructions in an on-line User Manual, which I downloaded and printed this morning. The small folded user manual that came with the unit from China, is a challenge to read. This better manual also has some typos in it and strange wording, as if it was written by someone for whom English is a Second Language. Yet, it has some very good information (much exactly the same as the minuscule version), but it has a large font I can read (and the diagrams are realistically in color that match the unit). I also found another on line write-up for the unit by the President of the CPAP-Supply place in Spokane (that several of my friends use for supplies). The write-up has some humor in it, which never hurts, when describing technical things. I have to share one, which is very meaningful to me, but probably won’t be to the rest of you:
Recording and Uploading Data Using the CMS 50E Pulse Oximeter
To record data, press the button until the settings menu appears. Then click the button until Record is highlighted. Press the button with Record highlighted, then set the current time by clicking to the appropriate hours/minutes field and pressing the button to adjust that field. Then click the button to underline the Y and press the button to exit the time setting menu. It’s much easier to do it than to write how to do it, so just figure it out on your own if this all sounds like nonsense.
Now that I have figured it out (by trial and error), I might be able to write the instructions better than he did, yet I do like his last sentence (above). This whole experience has been an example of learn by doing because thorough user manuals do not exist for the CPAP software I use (SleepyHead), but I have a computer guru friend in Moscow, ID who also has the same machine as I and who introduced me to the software to display the daily graphic evaluations. He has been able to convey to me what he learned by doing, and now I’m conveying my experiences with getting the oximeter to talk to the CPAP software (because the CPAP does NOT measure and report the blood saturation oxygen percentage or the pulse). Much of my day was spent messing with this new oximeter.
Change of subject (another event). A sub-plot to one of WA’s wildfires; north of us about 70 miles. The July, 2014 fire was the largest wildfire in the history of our state.
This is a shaggy bear story – a young female that survived the Carlton Complex Fire. They called her Cinder. She had burned paws such that she was walking on her elbows but made it to the backyard of a house and crawled under a horse trailer. About Cinder. In this morning’s email, came this report came from my friend Sonja on Cinder’s re-homing. Sonja is married to Kevin Willitts the main veterinarian for Cinder’s care since arriving in S. Lake Tahoe this summer.
Hi All,
Good news for Cinder the bear! She’s heading for southern ID today to a new rehab center. The new center has an outdoor area where she can roam to help re-acclimate her feet (toughen them up) to dirt, etc. She was on concrete and wood here in Tahoe. Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care center doesn’t have any outdoor bear-secure areas.
Next spring the plan is to then release her back into the wild. I’m not privy to where or when or if it’s even known at this time. I’m told this rehab center is very good in its own right and since the critical portion of Cinder’s healing is complete, they are qualified to continue, since, essentially, she won’t be under a doctor’s care anymore. What needs to be done now is up to Cinder.
So wish her well!
Sonja
Whoopee — the sun just came out and the rain stopped. That will give John more time to work on the racks for our newer (Ford) truck. He worked and then the clouds came in for quite a contrast with the blue sky. He made a fast descent from the bed of the pickup working on the racks and went down to the far end of the pasture to feed the horses. He took Annie along but they didn’t get back before the rain started. It rained quite hard for awhile
The first photo below is the earlier work on the rack building project. The idea is to have easily removable panels that will carry a cord of firewood. The panels are being made with reconfigured pallets we bought from the CWU Surplus Department.
This one is of “angry clouds” contrasting with blue skies.
Monday, Nov 24
CPAP report. Reported figures: 8 hrs 37 min with AHI = 0.00.
I finished music, Over the River and Through the Woods, and sent to the group, along with We Gather Together. I sent as .pdfs and then Wednesday at our “event” Evelyn found two chord problems to change. I have since fixed and will resend to the others before next Thursday.
I charged the Oximeter’s battery last night, read the instructions for settings several times (13 pages), but have not yet attempted that chore.
I finally figured out Oximeter settings and loaded the software, SP-02 General, onto my computer to display my oximeter through graphs, daily. Now to record tonight with the CPAP on.
I just went outside to document John’s work on the pallet-racks. He’s making progress.
This LINK is to a YouTube video of John disassembling the rack.
http://youtu.be/MpxzYcPG5fU
Tuesday, Nov 25
CPAP report. Reported figures: 8 hrs 1 min with AHI = 0.00.
Managed to sleep on the CPAP with the Oximeter also recording. Have been checking details to try to upload the data from the device. Once I get it into SP02 I should be able to import into my SleepyHead CPAP analysis software.
First try did not work the way it was supposed to. Technical discussion — skip if you wish. This is for my records. I loaded the drivers for SPO2 and am proceeding to create the stats in a file,
Nancy Brannen Hultquist_201411251328 on SPO2 Review. I thought that would be saved in the data folder, under the software, but it was not. The folder is there, but empty. I can only view it through the software and print out a report. Data are accessible through the program but not to be imported into another.
If I cannot import it to SleepyHead I will not be able to synchronize it with my CPAP machine data. Again, rename the acronym, CRAP.
Okay — next chapter. I decided to link the oximeter with the USB cord and to use SleepyHead software to import directly the data.
John planned to move some wood to a friend’s house 1.5 mi away, but it has been raining all morning and still is at 1:00 PM so he will likely skip today. Yesterday would have been the day to do the work, however, then John wouldn’t have been able to finish the racks. This morning, in the rain, I captured a picture of the racks where he put them to drill holes in the corners (for pins).
Wednesday, Nov 26
CPAP report. Reported figures: 7 hrs 56 min with AHI =0.13.
one Hypopnea about 12:30 a.m.
The fog was extremely bad and had been for many hours in the valley, and we had a lot less with sun! Visibility at the airport (5 miles S) was 0.25 miles.
John left to deliver firewood in the old hardly-fit-for-the-road 1980 Chevy truck. As I left for the Food Bank and Hearthstone, I found the battery dead in my Subaru. I transferred all my stuff from my car to John’s Subaru, and in the process missed the stuff in the front seat (my pocketbook and a package I intended to deliver to a friend at the courthouse).
On my way in, I realized John’s car’s dash was showing a bright orange warning light in the lower right I had not before seen.
I called Subaru because John has the user manual in the house. The gal in service we know there said it was a tire pressure warning. I didn’t see any obvious lowness and had no gauge, so once done at the Food Bank, I drove it to Les Schwab and was quickly on my way with fully inflated tires. Must have been a temperature and time thing – all 4 were low.
Food bank for music .. excellent food today: steamed/roasted chicken pulled off bone, great gravy, baked potato with fixings, salad strawberries/walnuts/greens, butternut squash cooked as I like it, lemon Bundt with sauce of fresh pineapple and cooked apples.
Then on to Hearthstone, a day early because of Thanksgiving being on our normal Thursday play date. We had community guests in attendance besides a large group of residents: Gloria & Paul Swanson; Anne and Glenn Engels (gave them a box of apples), George Macinko, Gerald brought macadamia cookies & cat food for me. It was a great music day. Our sometimes trumpeter returned to sing with us.
FIGURED OUT MY SLEEPY HEAD IMPORT OF OXIMETER !!!!
Thursday, Nov 27 HAPPY THANKSGIVING
CPAP report. Reported figures: 5 hrs 28 min with AHI =0.00.
I had problems entering my data from last night after thinking I had solved the problem. Will work on it later.
We received 3 phone calls from friends around the PNW. John got in on one from friends in Eureka, CA. Missed the others from WA.
I succeeded in viewing the Oximetry data from the SPO2 software. The first five hours was with the CPAP and my finger pulse oximeter came off (where the flat line is), around 5:00. I awoke at 5:28 and realized it was off, so I replaced it, went down the hall to potty, and went back to bed OFF the CPAP, for 2 hours.
I guess the beauty of this graph is that it shows the CPAP is keeping my O2 saturation level above 90% (green line), the whole purpose of using the machine. I had no sleep apnea events during this period. Also, I now realize the scale of time at the bottom. This starts at midnight and the numbers to the right of +1 reflect the hour. You can see where the 5:28 time occurred on changing from the CPAP machine, and the short moment’s lowering to 85% for the low of the oxygen saturation level for the night.
Here is some interesting genealogy prompted by an email from our friend, Gene Bobeck, in Moscow, ID. Gene found a reference in one of his retirement holdings to a well-off business man and wondered if we were related. Below is John’s response that I am sure many of our friends and relatives will appreciate.
About G. L. Hultquist
The Swedes and others of north-European heritage had the peculiar custom of changing the last name of children to reflect the first name of the fathers. Also, depending on the group the ending could be -son, -sen, -sson, -zen, -zon/zoon, and -ssen. Using modern country designations, in Norway a name might be Johnsen, while in Sweden it would be Johnson. The ‘John’ is not common but Johansson, Jonsson and Jönsson all are.
This apparently worked well in small communities and when lives were nasty, brutish, and short.
Still if a man had several male children and they lived long and had male children then the community would have lots of folks with the same last name.
The female children were ‘daughters’ in some places and ‘datters’ in others.
Beginning a couple hundred years ago this naming convention (patronymic practice) became stressed as national organizations took folks out of their local community and agglomerated them in places not their home and not where they were known. A large group (say an army barracks or navy ship) might have a dozen or so Anderssons and another dozen Johansson, and none closely related to any of the others. It became somewhat common to sign people up in such groups with a newly selected name, no two having the same last name.
In 1901 in Sweden, the Names Adoption Act was passed, which abolished the patronymic practice. From 1901, everyone had to have a family name that was passed down to the next generation.
My relatives came to America before that time. I was told that in order for members of one family to keep track of their kin was to agree on a new last name and keep it. One of the name-selecting strategies was to pick a prefix that would mean something to them and then tack on the ‘quist’ part. This last indicating something like a twig or branches of a tree. In the case of ‘Hultquist’ (Holt– and Holz– have the same meaning) the reference is to a small grove of trees or a woods (Anglo-Saxon ‘wold’). References are often more specific, such as with ‘lind’ – from the Linden tree, so there are Lindquists, Lindstroms [ström (Swedish), -strøm (Danish, Norwegian) “stream”], and more. Streams have tributaries in the same geometric fashion as trees.
Now to the point. There are many but limited choices folks could make in the naming of their kin. Many families still ended up with names that do not distinguish them from others. The last name Johnson (having pitched the Swedish spellings) is one such.
Hultquists are few. In my family’s case several males came to western NY & Penna and had the name. Some returned to Sweden without leaving a trace in the USA. Others had only female offspring. Only my grandfather had male children that also had male children and on it goes – like the branches of a tree. This shortness of our tree means that we know everyone that we are closely related to – in contrast to the idea that we are related to all Swedes.
I have only ever talked with one other Hultquist and made contact with another – oddly a geographer type in Calif. The other fellow lived on the Gulf Coast and was displaced by Hurricane Katrina (2005) to a relative’s house. She had a computer and an internet connection. He searched. Found my name. And called. We chatted for 20 minutes and determined that we were not closely related. End of Story.
About that same time ( + or – a year), my sister found a brochure for a foundation.
Hultquist Foundation of Jamestown continues support for MSFOhttp://www.lutheran-jamestown.org/assisted-living
They also support animal shelters and so on. Not a real big foundation but several million dollars big.
Seems someone went to Minnesota and made some money (forestry, I recall) and some kids and one of those went to Jamestown, NY and became middling wealthy. That is the part of NY State where my grandfather and siblings first went. Grandfather went south into PA and had a small rocky hillside to (not) make a living on. Thus, those that know of the Warren County – PA Hultquists and also know of the Jamestown, NY Hultquists can be excused for thinking we might be closely related. We are not. Some years ago I noticed an article about an ice skater from FL with my name.
The G. L. Hultquist that is helping to support your lifestyle in retirement is no kin to me.Cheers,
John
This was Gene’s inquiry:
G.L. Hultquist is a member of the board of trustees of Kinder-Morgan Energy Partners, a master limited partnership, in the oil and gas transportation business. The company is in the midst of a merger. I own a few shares of the company, was reviewing a Standard & Poor’s report of the firm and noticed a familiar name. Since there are but a dozen or so Hulta-kuh-vists in the world, surely G.L. is a close relation.
Dijoo know you (John) had a rich relative? Cultivate him.
Lemme know how it works out. Gene
PS: Having wild turkey for T-Day, the bird kind, not the booze?
Friday, Nov 28
CPAP report. Reported figures: 6 hrs 32 min with AHI = 0.15.
Morning brought memories from Alabama of a discussion John and I had last week and left out of this blog on Jack Frost at work. Now, we shall add it. Below is a“frost flower” growing out of the frostweed plant (White Crownbeard) in Alabama photography early (1:00 a.m.) this morning, followed by our story, and a wonderful link to a time-lapse video made by Dr. Roy Spencer.
Here is his video of Frost Growing near Huntsville. Here is an image from the web of frost on a window.
John writes:
Earlier this week a person wrote a comment on a web site, thusly
“piffle! Ah bet ya’ll neva scratched yo name in da frost on the INSIDE of yo bedroom winda!!! An dats a fact Jack!”
I (John) responded: “Of course I have. If you put this string ‘jack_frost window’ into a search engine, say Bing, using the images tab – it will bring back memories.”
Here is an example (follow the link to others)
http://www.scottshephard.com/2013/12/30/12-30-13-jack-frost/
[The photographer mentions that modern house windows no longer provide such entertainment.]
When I was young, our house was already about 40 years old and had a chute from the outside into a small dugout basement for the storage of coal. A coal stove provided the heat. Later on that stove was replaced by a natural gas stove. It was at the center of the house in a corner of the living room. The stove had the footprint of a modern refrigerator but was only about 4 feet high. It had a 2-quart water can on the back to help add humidity and windows on the lower front so the flames could be seen. The windows of such heaters are made from mica – called isinglass.
http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-isinglass.htm
On winter days, the bedrooms were cold and the windows became canvasses for Jack Frost. Scrapping ice was something to do. Or, putting a hand flat on the window would melt the ice and leave a print. With warmer temperature, the ice would all melt and water would collect on the lower frame and sill of the window. This process degraded the painted wood and so, occasionally, we would remove the old paint and add new.
Some folks, even then, missed out on Jack Frost visits, and few now ever experience it. Pity!
(Nancy, here). I was raised in a 5-room house built in the 1920s in Atlanta, GA. My bedroom was at the opposite diagonal from the living room where we had our only heat source. I recall carrying my clothes to the living room, putting them on top of the unit (that sat in front of our fireplace), and warming them as I put them on and took off my pjs. I remember all those things about ice on the windows and the moisture causing the wooden window stills to get messy. My room was on the corner of the house and had two sets of windows on each side of the room and I got to view many versions of Jack Frost’s handiwork.
Next is a MAJOR late week event.
Devastating news this morning about the 100% fire loss of the F.I.S.H. Food Bank to which I have been going weekly to make music. F.I.S.H. is for “Friends In Service to Humanity.” The first picture was taken around 8:00 a.m. when the fire personnel made it to the site.
The second photo was taken by a bystander at 9:00 a.m. People all over Ellensburg could hear the sirens and see the smoke.
Very sad because of all the good they provide the community–just yesterday providing a Thanksgiving dinner at 4:00. Throughout the year they provide perishable and non-perishable food stuffs (fresh, frozen, canned, boxed) and supplies (such things as Depends) and meals to anyone in need. I was just there Wednesday this week “serving” music. It’s hard to believe the destruction, yet John and I witnessed it from across the street after all the excitement was over. I do believe the community will help in the recovery efforts to be in another facility feeding meals and distributing food Monday. Plans are currently in the works from a 3:00 meeting of the FISH board on Friday.
John and I went to town for a 50% off coupon at Ace Hardware and bought a snow shovel of black heavy steel for $12.50 On over to Ranch & Home where we got 50% off horse meal for our oldest horse, Ebony. We looked at Carhartt jeans and other clothes but decided they were overpriced and we have enough clothes anyway. One could only use the discount on one item.
On the way home, we drove by and walked a block+ to see the activity of the burning building, take photos, and while there, it started raining.
Here are a few of our views, followed by one from the web of the warehouse on the bottom floor that was destroyed.
We have confirmed with grandmother-in-law Karen in Issaquah that Sarah, now one of EBRG’s fire department EMTs, is on ladder duty in this photo.
The fire crew had to cut into the side and roof to get to the fire on the second floor. Note the chainsaw near the front wheel of that firetruck.
Finally, the old photo from the web of the now gone warehouse on the first floor of the north side of the building, under where the ladder above is headed.
Now sun is shining. We are home, and I ended up eating breakfast for lunch. I skipped out without my morning toast. Was busy working on the oximeter stuff and the SH software to display the results between both machines.
I continued with the perplexing hidden file(s) in the SPO2 data folder (that’s where it is, but SPO2 will not let SleepyHead (SH) access it).–UPDATE another success.. I managed to make SH find it (so I only have to upload my Oximetry data once!).
Saturday, Nov 29
CPAP report. Reported figures: 5 hrs 3 min with AHI =0.40.
SNOW on the west side — link below to Seattle. North Bend had 3″, Sequim had 3″ (very unusual as it is in the rainshadow of the Olympics) — but the snow is coming from the north.
Puget Sound area gets snow.
The weather system that brought the snow to the Seattle area is going to bring cold to us tonight, possibly 9° F. Ouch!
Hope your week was fine.
Nancy and John