The unit is a Resmed Airsense Autoset 10 for Her.
I walk in to the room, and the CPAP is sitting on the desk. It looks a little shop-worn to me. Just an itsy bitsy bit. Could have been from the lighting.
The salesperson showed me a few things and got the hose out of its sealed bag. I made sure I watched her open it, since now I was suspicious.
When I had a chance, I looked down at the power cord. It had no kinks where it had been folded in the factory. It had specks in the lengthwise fold between the wires.
So, I asked the salesperson to show me on the unit what the usage hours were. I said the CPAP was out on the desk when I walked in, and I hadn't seen her get it out of the box. (There was no box in evidence in the room, either). So I just needed to verify that it was new equipment, since my insurance company was paying for new equipment.
She said, "I took it out of the box just before you came in. It was new."
I asked her to show me on the user panel what the user hours are. She point at usage, noted the zero. Ha! She pointed to MY user hours, which indeed should have been zero.
I told her I needed the machine's user hours.
She said, "No one has asked me to do that before" Secret wink from me to ApneaBoard.
So I showed her, thinking to myself: "they said to press this one and this, oh yes, dang that didn't work, oh, you have to do that for a few seconds, and then where....got it!"
544 hours.
I said, "My insurance company is paying for new equipment."
"Let me check with my supervisor." Righty-ho.
She returns and says, "We're a rental company. You're just renting"
Moi: "My insurance company is paying for new equipment, and besides, after the rental period is over, it'll be mine. How would you like to handle this?"
She: "This is the only one we have in stock."
Moi: "It's used. My insurance company is paying for new equipment."
She: "Well, you can take this one and use it while we order you a new unit."
Moi: "How long will it take to get the new unit?"
She: "A week." (Ya'll know she could have overnighted it if she had wanted to.)
Moi, hyper-alert at this point: "I'd like that in writing. That there'll be an exchange in one week for a new unit."
She: "Absolutely. No problem. We'd be happy to put it in writing."
She starts to write stuff at her desk. She seems to be writing a whole essay, and I can hear her crossing a whole lot of stuff out.
She bolts from the room.
The other person in the room (maybe a trainee) decides that would be a good moment to try on masks. She decides to measure my nose with a plastic thingy, making no effort whatever to Purell it before she places it right under the nostrils. She hung the thing back on the wall, likewise with no attention to cleanliness. [Pity the next person: it's flu season.]
By now, I'm thinking I'm not sure I want to try on masks attached to used equipment, since disinfection doesn't seem to be their strong suit.
I had a little list in mind (I have a wonky jaw, so my top priority is where the headgear goes across my face.) for masks, including priorities. They had never had anyone come in requesting a specific model.
The trainee could only find one that was close-ish: a Resmed N10.
I watched her get it out of a brand new bag.
I probably could have got the N10 to work. Heck, I realized I could breathe more easily with a CPAP than I can when I'm fully awake. It was like breathing nirvana. Plus, my mouth shuts very nicely when I have fresh air running through my nostrils.
[One of the hardest things about the N10, by the way, was that I couldn't take it apart: my fingers are too stiff. Luckily, from my prior prep work, I knew to make sure I could do that.]
In the meantime, the salesperson returns to the room with a pristine box. Yeppers, a brand new Resmed A10A for Her. It was "in the back". She assembled it and showed me that it had 0 usage hours.
Back to the masks. I thought I'd just go with the N10, but at the last minute decided to try on another model for comparison's sake. They don't have most anything, no Dreamwear cushion, no Swift FX Nano...
Scrape my brains: "P10?" [for my part, this was blind faith in y'all, 'cos I know you're P10 fanatics] She didn't know what that was.....
The trainee came back with an F&P something or other, but since I didn't know anything about it, I didn't want to go there.
Finally, the salesperson told the trainee what a P10 is and where to find it. But that it was a pillow and I would be unlikely to like it.
I pretty much slung that P10 on, experienced another batch of breathing nirvana until I tried to talk, and decided it was so "easy breezy beautiful" whatever, I would make it work. I could be in for a rude shock, but I knew I could get my advisory committee at ApneaBoard to guide me through leak perfection.
I also double-checked that my fingers can disassemble the mask for cleaning.
The salesperson leaves the room AGAIN. She neglected to close the door to the hallway completely. I hear a VERY loud voice.
"Just get her to SIGN. Get her to sign." How did I know she meant me?
All this made me read every detail in that paperwork before I signed...I questioned everything I wasn't sure about. I verified the supplies schedule, the compliance schedule (I actually think what they told me is incorrect, so I asked for the correct one in writing.), the type of filter, the SD card.....
All I wanted to do was get out of there at this point.....I practically RAN to the car. Sloshed Purell hither and yon to get rid of cooties and a bad experience. Zoomed out of there.
Gads, these people could have saved themselves a whole lot of CPAP by doing this right in the first place.
I can't even imagine trying to deal with all this without thorough preparation from y'all. I needed every little morsel I gathered from here.
Now I just have to make the mask work, but you'll help, correct?