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Comment by diob | Hacker News Reader

For me, the issue is I have severe sleep apnea. I was recently at the Hawaii airport and my layover got delayed 12 hrs. None of the power outlets worked. I was like, guess I'm not allowed to sleep. I was awake almost 48 hrs by the end of the trip.

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And no help from airport staff? One would think "passenger with medical device that needs charging" would be a common-enough scenario to handle somehow :/

The particular airport I was at was something else. Looked like it hadn't been changed / updated in 40 or more years, and had nothing more than skeleton crews working. I vowed to never fly Hawaiian airlines again, a nightmare all around.

Delta was having issues so they moved me over to a Hawaiian flight (they aren’t really partners) The flight attendants where so rude (and other problems) I’ve vowed the same.

Airport staff and help are metaphorical antonyms in my experience.

They are notoriously unhelpful bordering on openly hostile to any sort of disability accommodation. It depends on the individuals you run into but it's widely known in disability communities that when flying you need to prepare to fight to even keep your medical devices with you, and then have a backup plan for if they don't allow it and then negligently break your device.

Why not bring something like this?

https://shop.thesleepdoctor.com/products/medistrom-pilot-24-...

Yeah, I have something like this, but wasn't thinking I'd be needing it this trip. Learned the hard way.

There are portable devices: https://www.resmed.com/en-us/sleep-apnea/cpap-parts-support/...

Do you mean you need a device to sleep ?

Probably a cpap machine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_positive_airway_p...

Yep, keeps me alive.

Would you die of apnea in while sleeping ? IMHO the biggest risk is increase of cardiovascular problems (in the long run). Some may die from ventilation reflex deficiency but that not necessarily linked to sleep apnea, and don’t even if this trouble exist and its frequency.

It's not really sleeping if you take like one good breath every minute and your O2 saturation is around 80% max.

You wake up more tired than you started, plus you're sweating and your throat is sore.

Source: have sleep apnea, tried sleeping without my CPAP for two nights (forgot it at home, noticed when I was 200km away and already late). Haven't forgotten it ever since.

My issue is I can't even sleep without it anymore. I used to be accustomed to the constant waking (since you have low O2 you typically forget), but I've had it for over 10 years now, so if I try to sleep without it I wake up constantly with my heart racing / gasping.

It's something that gets riskier the older you get. Folks don't understand how much of a killer it is since it's just reported as so and so had a heart attack and died in their sleep. Basically just rolling the dice as to whether you'll wake up.

What happens if you fall asleep without the device?

Are you able to go camping?

OP probably has the risk of slowly dying in his sleep without the machine as the brain is not getting enough oxygen.

As some with ~120 AHI (> 30 is considered severe) I often go camping with a battery. I can only do long stays at places with a charging station. Also I've found that hammock camping helps a lot since position affects how bad it is.

Edit I was measured 120 AHI in the lab (hooked up with a ton of sensors and monitored by someone in the next room) originally - I suspect it's gone down since then as I've lost weight. But for nearly a year before getting tested I was a walking zombie.

People usually bring power banks/batteries/generators with them.

Look up most reviews on various "solar generators" and a vast majority of them are about keeping CPAP machines powered during outages, camping or off the grid situations.

I’ve read of people taking large batteries with them to power machines while camping, RVing, etc.

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