kerravonsen | Jul. 17th, 2004

Well, I guess I'd better say what the outcome of seeing the CPAP man was...
Very friendly guy is Jeff. He works out of home, so I said hi to his wife and kids before we went to his office. After discussion, Jeff persuaded me to go for the nose mask without chin strap (if you really need a chin strap, he said, use a stocking). Since we'd already talked about international travel on the phone, we really only considered one CPAP pump machine, the smallest, lightest, quietest one he had -- which was definitely small, light and quiet. The fan heater in the room made more noise than the CPAP machine did. He also told me something I didn't know: that since CPAP is required medical equipment, it doesn't count in the hand-luggage allowance. So I'd just need to put it in its bag (with convenient shoulder strap) and tell the airline people what it is. It wouldn't hurt to get a medical certificate for it, but he said that most airline people know what a CPAP machine is. And this little beauty is light -- weighs less than a kilo.

As for international power, I already know it will work in the US, as it's a made-in-the-US machine and has a US plug on it. But it has its own transformer, because all it needs to work in Australia is a convert-US-plug-to-Australian-plug gizmo, which came with it. So all I need is a convert-US-plug-to-UK-plug gizmo, and it should be fine. Though I may end up having to ask a US friend to get me such a thing, for I suspect that the travel stands where such things are sold, here in Australia would probably concentrate on converting to and from Australian plugs. I'm not really happy at the idea of getting a convert-Australian-to-UK plug and having a three-tiered tangle of plugs -- that's asking for trouble.