The O2 Struggle

Everyday seems to presents itself with challenges, sometimes reoccurring ones and sometimes new challenges that force me to get creative. As I sit here with my concentrator humming its usual tune, I reflect on the first week a few years back when I started on Oxygen at night and how annoyed I would get at wrapping it around my head just to get a good night sleep and how many hours I spent looking up the best soft and squishy cannula to fit my head and smallest size (pediatric) so they don't dig too far up my small nose! (Haha) Now that I am on oxygen 24/7, I’ve had some challenges more with my patience and endurance. One challenge I come across often is trying not to trip over the cord that follows me around the house….or keeping my cat from sitting on it and giving me whiplash when I turn corners too fast. Another is portability, obviously things get a bit tricky with leaving the house. A task such as getting a carton of milk at the corner store turns into a half hour ordeal because it takes me 10 minutes just to switch from the home concentrater to a tank or my portable concentrator carry enough to make the trip get inside the store then grab more than I need (because who wants to load the car more than once today) then another 10 minutes to get a bunch of groceries and oxygen out of the car and back into the house! By this time, I’m exhausted and switch back to my home concentrator with the long cord and trip over it a few times on my way to the couch to temporarily pass out as my milk and groceries sit on the floor patiently waiting for the cool chill of my refrigerator.