What a great day! The sun is shining, the Seattle Mariners haven’t lost yet, and I got a new oxygen concentrator. First of all, for those of you who didn’t smoke for 40 years, I’ll explain how they work. Don’t stop reading, it’s very simple!
Our atmosphere is composed of 79% nitrogen, 20% oxygen, and 1% other stuff (the other stuff comes from the breath of vampires, Bigfoot, NJ Devil, etc.). Anyway, an oxygen concentrator sucks in room air and passes it through a molecular filter, and it comes out as 90% oxygen. You’ll have to Google to find out which parts of that are true; I told you in my first post this blog would be educational! So, when the guy delivered my new machine, I decided to read the instruction manual (I do that a lot). Imagine my surprise when I found out the following:
1. The tube that I connect to the machine is a cannula , not a catheter. No wonder I was in such pain.
2. The instructions also said that it wouldn’t use up all the oxygen in the room. That was good to know, because I went all winter long with the window open.
3. Bad news when I found out I’m not supposed to smoke in the same room.
Anyway, this is the really cool part, and this part is all true. As I was at the end of the first paragraph of this post, the machine’s warning alarm went off! At first, I thought I was sitting on the tube, or it got twisted up or something, but we couldn’t find anything wrong, so my wife had to call them back (he had just delivered it about two hours ago). The reason my wife had to call was that I was moving around too much (which wasn’t really that much). For those of us with severe Emphysema, sometimes moving fast or exerting yourself too much will result in big-time shortness of breath. Plus, I was freaking out. So, that was my day so far. And to top it all off, the Mariners are winning (also true).
Word of the day: Dyspnea (shortness of breath; air hunger; I can’t f*****g breathe)
Update: Mariners ended up losing. Also, after input from a few sources, I guess I should tell you that I no longer smoke. That was supposed to be funny. So, for those who wondered how stupid could I possibly be to still smoke, you can go back to wondering how stupid I was to smoke in the first place!
David's Days 