Little Oxygen Tanks

She went on oxygen in 2002 - concentrators for the house and office and portable tanks for the car and getting out.

We first used the little tanks that you fill yourself from an outside liquid oxygen supply that the O2 people - Lincare - periodically topped off. But that didn't work because the fittings would freeze up. (I remember going out in the rain in the dark in the winter filling up a tank before she went to work and being shrouded in steam cominng from poorly connected fittings.) We switched to the small tanks that you carry around.

She has always hated the portable tanks because they are so heavy. In the beginning, half the time, she wouldn't even bother to carry one. Seeing other people in Wal Mart with their various styles of tanks - apparently not having any trouble, she wondered how they managed to get the good stuff.

We have gone through a variety of shoulder bags and back packs trying to find the ideal carrier. I always told her she tried to carry too much other stuff but she shrugged that off. All the bags had a tendency to slide down and cut her arm with the strap when she leaned over - for instance trying to get something from a shelf.

Over the years, we gradually increased the O2 setting - on the house concentrator and on the regulator on the little tanks. We started out at 2 and are now at 5. At 5 (4 actually because our old regulator doesn't work at at 5 and she can't breath in strong enough to trigger puffs in the new regulator) a tank lasts about an hour. So when we go out (which we haven't done lately) she carrys one tank and I carry two spares in the good shoulder bag that I got for her from some semi-fancy luggage shop (Sharon Luggage - I remember now).