048 - CPAP Update

I have yet to make it a full night wearing my CPAP stuff, and I know the reasons why but I don't know how to fix it. Posting about it so all you experienced CPAPers (Sea-pappies?) can advise me:

• ALLERGIES - Having always had severe allergies that no doctor has been able to sufficiently treat, I have no idea how to deal with this. I've had shots, I take Zyrtec, but STILL I spend all night long with a slightly runny, over-sensitive nose and throat which are both agitated by the constant blowing of the CPAP. I have a super-fancy unit with a humidifier and a heated hose, but I'm not sure of those options will really help me with this and I'm usually too tired by the time I put the thing on my head to bother fiddling with the settings.
  
• SINUS HEADACHE - The CPAP Tech warned me a bit about this, said that the machine would basically be inflating/flexing my sinuses all night long and that I may have headaches at first but in the long run it will make my sinus issues go away. I wake up about half of the mornings (maybe more) staggering around with a terrible sinus headache that I have no idea how to treat - Sinutab? Allerest? Is that okay???
  
• COUGHING - Because of the allergies, I clear my throat every night several times. Witht eh CPAP blowing, though, the simple "Ht-Hrrrm" turns into a full-blown coughing fit that wakes me up. Any suggestions? Third coughing fit usually results in me taking the machine off and never putting it back on again.

049 - A Parent Dies A Thousand Deaths

I think that the reason why I and so many of my fellow parents these days are so overly protective is because we remember how many times we almost died as children when our parents just let us go anywhere and do anything willy-nilly all across the countryside.

I would NEVER let Molly do half the stupid stuff I did when I was unsupervised:

• Run across a busy highway at the blindest of blind corners just to get to a convenience store.
• Tear apart an abandoned building
• Go camping in the woods overnight with two other 8-year-olds and no one else
• Cross a swamp/marsh where I sank in up to my bellybutton when I was luckily loosed by a particularly strong surge of water from a neighbors septic system
• Jump off the roof of the garage to see if you can make an effective parachute out of a blanket (you can't, BTW)
• Making a "Fort" out of a grove of dry blackberry vines and a "torch" (gasoline and electrical tape on a broken chair leg) to burn our path through
• Jumping bikes over bonfires
• Playing frisbee with sawblades
• Going outside with a lighter and a bag of expired fireworks just to see what I could blow up
• Fireworks in general (Roman Candle Fights, Bottle Rocket Fights, "Who Can Hold The Firecracker The Longest" challenges, seeing if a Whistling Pete can get hot enough to melt a Hotwheels car, etc)
• Peeing anywhere and everywhere I Gawd Damn FELT like
• Ditch Swimming
• BB Gun Battles
• Standing up by the highway and chucking rocks at cars we thought were going too fast
• Forgetting that the rock on the beach I am sitting on is only visible at Low Tide, and not remembering that till the tide is so high that I can't find my bike any more so i have to swim back to shore and come back the next day to look for my bike

...And those are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head!