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I was feeling more or less okay for quite some time, but the other day I started feeling run down & it’s been getting progressively worse. I’m not sure if it’s my bed, or my Cpap, or a third thing, but it’s something. I’ve been researching medical grade silicone so I can make custom masks for my face. It’s a shame that my health care should be left to my own DIY efforts, but welcome to America, I guess. I’m not the only person doing it either. There are specific reviews under products I’ve looked at where people outline their own experiments with customizing cpap supplies. The bill for one round of supplies is about $300, which is absolute robbery. Since the insurance system is totally fucked I don’t know, from month to month what it will pay for anymore because they change their terms seemingly at random now. Recently I needed to prove that I was using my device properly & the company in charge of that, which has been doing it without any trouble at all for 2 years, suddenly forgot how to read my machine from the internet & told me to send them the memory card… It’s a slowly deteriorating circus.
In any case, making molds of stuff and sculpting is actually what I studied in college so I have the skills required to do this stuff. Make a casting of my face, pour the gell over the parts, the whole thing. I may have to make a vacuum chamber, but that’s not particularly complex. I just need the materials.
Unfortunately I think my machine might be getting ready yo fail. It seems weaker & doesn’t seem to know how to automatically adjust itself anymore. Dorothy knocked it onto the floor a couple weeks ago & it think it might have gotten slightly damaged. At minimum that’s am $800 expense if it actually does malfunction. I don’t trust my insurance to take care of any of that.
I’ve contacted a couple of companies to see if any of their products are reactive with certain kinds of plastics, but haven’t gotten a response. I’m suspecting they don’t actually know for sure. The silicon should be fine, but the molding glue I’m not sure about. I got a sample of skins safe formula & I may just have to sacrifice some of it to the gods to see what happens.
In any case it’s all a big hassle, but this is the reality we’re stuck with for the time being. On some level it actually very interesting and fun because I like playing with this stuff. I’ve always been a tinkerer at heart.

23 Comments

I’ll never understand why health care in America has to be treated like a business.

Because the rich own our asses and believe that these things should be “privileges to be earned.” And in capitalism, money speaks to your privilege.

The whole systems boils down to the simple statement – your money or your life.

I’m not suggesting this for everyone, but at least the majority can consider it (because that’s how insurance is supposed to work): do what I do and just don’t participate in such a seriously corrupt and dysfunctional system. Take control of your own health care. Especially with the Internet, you should be able to take care of most (minor) problems on your own. Sure, I have to pay the uninsured “tax,” but it’s still less than the cost of insurance and my herbs. A few years without money and the current system will collapse, hopefully leaving room for new innovators to enter the market (thereby taking advantage of the capitalist system to simultaneously enrich themselves and serve a need.)

Unless, of course, the powers that be tax our guts out to prop up the old system and punish us for thinking for ourselves…

Well it’s Al Capone owning all the hospitals and cooking the books, for big pharma & co. Unfortunately, your population as a whole is too corrupt and stupid now to stand up to this.

if you want universal health care you’ll need to accept the strict screening that many other countries which have such a system have. Are you prepared to deny those migrants you desperately want to cover, and deny care to non-citizens in the process?

You can’t have open borders *and* have the taxpayer pay wildly high rates to care for people who do not contribute to the system. Many EU countries are already straining under the burden of incoming non-payers who are heavily using their systems. its like they’ve learned nothing from the reasons *WHY* the states do not embrace this.

They think they can force it through sincerity of intention, and the rude awakening is already in progress.

Narrow & steep stairs save space in a building. Space is a valuable commodity.

Somewhat recently, that standard for stairs has gone to even wider steps, with less height between them. It was intended as a safety measure, to reduce accidents. However, architects and contractors don’t like them because of the space taken up.

I hated being so short in school. It made it so hard to fight back fairly. … Until Dad said, I shouldn’t fight- but if I had to fight, I didn’t have to play fair since they weren’t. (Pick on someone your own size was the ‘gentlemanly’ thing to do).
The only sympathy i have for Reggie, is his name and his size.
@Jackie: tinker away! It’s Fun! Making stuff= my greatest joy.

Safety is more important than space. If any architect or contractor disagrees with that notion, they should turn in their credentials.

It’s a sliding scale, safety vs. space. The change started in the mid 1980s. Still lots of the stairs from before then in place, in homes, schools, and other public buildings. All of which people go up and down every day, safely and without incident.

Are the old stairs unsafe? No. Are the new stairs safer? Slightly. What is that safety worth?

For a few years I lived in an old house with the very narrow, steep stairs. I never got hurt.

When you started to fall, you just shot your arms straight out and caught the wall on each side. Worked even when I was 5 years old, the stairs were so narrow.

You can’t put a price on safety as the well being of an individual is priceless.

Plus, while good for you that you never had an accident, qka, anecdotal evidence alone isn’t enough to tip the scales here.

“You can’t put a price on safety as the well being of an individual is priceless.”

Of course you can. Would you spend your lifetime earnings to prevent a guy from stubbing his toe?

My grandparents, when they built their house, had the stairs to the second floor made as narrow and steep as they were legally allowed to. They were VERY awkward to get up and down. Especially if you were helping to move heavy and bulky furniture(I had grave concerns when I helped carry that wooden filing cabinet down…).
The staircase had a wall on one side and a wrought-iron banister on the other that I suspect wouldn’t have actually held if someone tripped and fell into it hard enough.

Apparently they didn’t want the banister at all, and the stairs were supposed to just be open to the floor below. They were required to install the banister by the safety code of the time(I think it was built in the 60s). Hooray for building codes!

Knowing what I know of my grandparents, I vaguely suspect that had the law allowed, there would’ve just been a ladder in the corner to get to the second floor.

I hear what you are saying about the insurance. I worked for the State of Texas long enough to qualify for insurance. It is a comfort to have the insurance but it is irritating that every few years they shop it out to some new provider and something about coverage always changes.
Finding an appropriate glue can be a tough call, especially with silicone. What about a mechanical interface such as tab and slot. You might research your local maker community for someone who can 3-d print something for you as a project.

How ironic (and appropriate!) that Reggie should be seemingly insecure about his height after all the shit he handed Ed about his.

I love the way his sister’s “in his mind” sounds like an insult at first but then it turns out that’s literally what he’s talking about.

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