Death Abatement Equipment for T. Greg

TL;DR for folks who hate reading these pitches: my body stops breathing at night when I sleep, I need an absurdly expensive machine to fix it, and I don't have health insurance to help cover the cost.

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More details for folks who don't hate reading these pitches –

You probably know me from Twitter. For the past three years, I've shaken folks down every 2-3 months to donate to assorted charitable causes here in Durham, from abandoned pets to under-resourced teachers to hungry schoolkids.

I'm doing it again – except this time the charity is me.

You see, some years ago I downloaded an app for my iPhone called SleepTalk. The idea is that the app records you over night, filters out the time when nothing happens, but keeps the records of when you talk in your sleep. Fun idea, right?

Except when *I* used it... all it recorded was me snore-choking, dozens of times an hour, every hour, alllll night long.


I had sleep apnea.

But all sorts of folks have sleep apnea, so I assumed it was no big deal! I tried to fix it with exercise. I tweaked my diet. I even tried stupidly ineffective things like thinking it made a difference whether the fan was on in my bedroom.

Fast forward to February 2019, and things got so bad it started to affect my job. I'd have to sleep 10+ hours a day just to feel "normal"... and even then I would still be exhausted and take a nap when I got home. Work backed up, I fell behind on my podcast, and I didn't even feel rested to at least let me pretend like the exhaustion was worth something.

So I finally decided to get a sleep test. That's the über-sexy picture of me you see up above with hoses up my nose, an oximeter on my finger, and a machine strapped to my chest.

Turns out I still have raging sleep apnea...



...but not just any sleep apnea. I have bougie "complex" sleep apnea that's actually multiple problems all wrapped into one!

There's obstructive sleep apnea (my throat closes in on itself at night), plus central sleep apnea (my brain forgets to tell my lungs to breathe), plus hypopnea (the times I do breathe are shallow so my blood oxygen level drops dramatically).


I've got it all!

So even though I often say "Anything worth doing is worth overdoing," I actually need to fix this ASAP.

I've had a couple doctors appointments since the sleep test, and my doctor is concerned that having untreated apnea for so long has affected my heart. I need an echocardiogram and an ASV, but until I can afford to get that done I've been prescribed an auto-BiPAP machine that I need to start using.

The problem? Amid doing a lot of research, even the cheapest machine I've found that gets the job done – plus the required "extras" like the mask I have to wear – costs a bundle of money. And I don't have insurance to help cover it because I'm self-employed, too "wealthy" for Medicaid, but too broke to afford North Carolina's insane insurance premiums.

I do have a savings account where I'd been putting aside money for a certain piece of jewelry, and I'm cashing that out to go toward the equipment costs (can't get married if I'm dead!). Beyond that, I need your help.

The goal amount is for the machine, the "extras" (mask, hose, etc), and the stuff to clean it all so I don't get some weird brain amoeba.

Every dollar is appreciated, and even if you can't chip in yourself, I'd appreciate you spreading the word.

Many thanks in advance,
-T. Greg