I’ve typically used a fan, but have experimented with various sound files like rain and thunder and ocean waves. It is just as much to drown out ambient noise nearby (I think a 1st grade boy has the bedroom on the other side of my b. wall, often hear him talking if not laughing or screaming) as it is to relax my mind. If a fan is considered to be a “noise machine” I can change my vote to that from other.
It’s not my poll, but if you’re using the fan for the purpose of creating ambient noise rather than creating a breeze, then I would count it as a noise machine.
I have one of these noise machines, except an older model. My dad gave it to me when I was in high school after I complained that he was waking me up when he made himself breakfast in the morning (he got up very early to go to work, and my bedroom was adjacent to the kitchen, so I could hear him opening and closing kitched drawers, running the microwave, etc). IIRC he had previously used it in his cubicle because it was right next to a common area where people often had conversations, but then they moved his cube so he didn’t need it anymore. And I’ve been using it when I sleep ever since. It’s got to be well over 30 years old at this point, and still works perfectly.
But, in recent years I sometimes just crank up my air purifier to high when I go to bed, instead of using the noise machine. But I find that creates too much of a breeze during the colder months, so I still use the noise machine when it’s colder.
Also, when I travel I use a white noise app on my phone that can play a variety of ambient sounds. I prefer the “heavy rain” one personally.
When I say “Alexa, goodnight”, it plays Rain Sounds by Sleep Jar.
My wife has to have the fan on, partly for the noise and partly for the breeze. I don’t mind it, but can sleep fine in the silence. (we have no street noises where we live, it’s completely quiet)
I wear earplugs to bed. I started doing so 20-some years ago when I got my first CPAP machine, which was rather loud. Current machines are practically silent, but I’m so accustomed to earplugs that I can’t sleep without them. So no noise machine for me.
& I have the pictures to prove it:
- Her, kissing one of the world’s largest frogs.
- Me, lit up, at night, wearing armor.
IOW, she kissed a frog & got a knight in shining armor!!!
I write romance and my feelings about it are largely based on my relationship with my husband of (almost) twenty years. He came into my life at a time when I was really struggling, showed me compassion and kindness, and we fell in love. And are in love. The best moments are definitely comparable to the ideal of a romance novel. Every romance novel has an All is Lost moment (most genre stories do.) So even in an “ideal” romance novel, there is still a rock bottom. Sometimes love will get you through rock bottom and sometimes it won’t. But in our case it did. It’s an astonishing thing to know love like this, and have it endure. I can’t help but write about it.
I don’t think i wore wonder bread bags, but yes, i wore plastic bags between my boots and my socks to keep my feet dry when i was a kid playing in the snow.
I never did, but I think that’s how you’d have to wear them. If you tried wearing them on the outside like in the picture, I don’t think they’d last five minutes.
I wore bread bags, yes, though they were a liner between the boots and socks, rather than being worn as the outermost layer. As I understand it, the main purpose was to make it easier to put the boots on and off.
I walked to the ER on a broken foot.
(Context: I drove to my doctor, who said it wasn’t broken, but when I argued, he said I should go to ER for X-rays. I drove home and walked the three blocks to the hospital ER, where they confirmed that it was, indeed, broken.)
ER visit transportation:
- Driven once by my parents’ neighbors (they were visiting us, and their car had my parents’ car parked in)
- Driven once by a campus police officer (when I was in college)
- Driven once by a friend (suspected stroke, turned out to be Bell’s Palsy)
- Driven once by my wife (I had a broken elbow)
- Drove myself four times (kidney stones)
I said 6 or 7 ER visits for me, but it may be a few more. Three non-stitches visits, but I went many times for stitches, I just can’t remember how many I had a cut treated, vs how many I just let heal themselves. I did a lot of dumb things.
I drove myself to the ER when my gallbladder went! That was fun.
I answered the ER question wrong: I said I’d only been for myself once, but I forgot about when I was nearly 5 and my family’s apartment building burned down and I was taken to the hospital (via ambulance) because I’d gone into shock. The other time was 43 years later: I drove myself, for a bad headache that was persistent and OTC-med-resistent and starting to disrupt my sleep. Turned out it was my first migraine.
One time, I walked. A coworker came with me. The ED was only 5 blocks away. I had some non-central chest pain and thought it was probably nothing, but wanted to check it out. It was diagnosed as “ideopathic.”
The second time, my lovely wife drove me. I was having sharp pain at my chemo port and my surgeon wanted to be sure the port hadn’t fractured. It hadn’t, but the port hurt constantly the whole time I had it.
The third time, my lovely wife drove me. My balance suddenly disappeared and I began wretching and crab-walking. What was it? No one knows. Maybe a bout of intense vertigo?
The fourth time, I drove myself. Went to a doc in a box for a recalcitrant cough (actually, a nurse, the facility misrepresented his credential) and he tried to set me up with an inhalation contraption in the office. I insisted on knowing what was being dispensed, which pissed him and his actual nurse-identified nurse off. It was albuterol. I pointed out that I’d written in 3 places on their form that I took tamoxifen, which “can increase the risk of an irregular heart rhythm that may be serious and potentially life-threatening.” This pissed him off more and he told me I had to go to the ED immediately. When I asked why, he said, “You have wheezes in all four quadrants of your lungs.” I wasn’t wheezing at all, just coughing. I drove = other in poll myself to the ED, where they checked me briefly, then sat me in a waiting room for an hour, followed by more than an hour in a chair in a hallway. I had to be X-rayed, because asthmatic wheezing had been reported by the doctor (sic). This was difficult to agree to because after radiation therapy, I was told never to have unnecessary X-rays, but I did it. Lungs totally clear. Much staff eye-rolling at “doc.” They offered me the totally low-grade cough syrup with a smidge of codeine, which is what tends to clear up my reactive airway coughing when it kicks up every few years. I requested to make a report to the doc in a box company, and was refused access to anyone. I was just too tired and busy at work to file a big old complaint with the Nursing Board, but I regret it.
I should add, my wife sleeps deeper than anyone else I’ve known. When it really started hurting, I woke her up and said “I’m going to the emergency room”, and then half an hour later while I was waiting in the ER I got a text: “Wait, WHERE are you??” Apparently it took a while to sink into her brain.
Oops! When I first posted the poll about ER visits and getting there (inspired by my 2nd visit in a lifetime yesterday), I included the “I drove myself” option, which I know isn’t uncommon.
Then I realized that I needed to give the possibility for multiple answers, and in the process, that important option got left out. Thanks @Little_Nemo for posting it!
What can I say except that I’m a bit out of it with 2 injured knees (a sprain in one, and a possible ACL and/or MCL tear in the other), painful bruises, and painkillers.
The reason I gave the public transport option is my local ER a 5 minutes’ drive from me, where I’ve never been treated, but I’ve taken relatives there a number of times. Except in the wee hours, they’re very crowded, and I was told that it’s because it’s a block away from the commuter rail station. Apparently, people who would rather be treated at a suburban hospital and want to avoid NYC hospitals take the train to our ER.
Ouch! Sorry.
Aha, the campus police officer reminds me of another ER transportation option that I was thinking about including: law enforcement, security and the like.
And @kenobi_65, like you I’ve had Bell’s Palsy (but went to my GP for it) and a broken elbow. Fingers crossed for those to be the only similarities and for me to avoid kidney stones!