The oxygen has left the building!

We know a lot about oxygen now in our house!  We know about concentrators, different sizes of cylinders and their names, cannulas, regulators, tubing, humidifiers and turn keys.  After 15 months and clearance from her doctors...it all left our house!

Bye-bye hissing concentrator that ran 24/7 and beeped when the power flickered and made whistle sounds when the humidifier was out of water and produced heat and dust on whatever it was near.

Jacob helps wheel a giant tank out the door.  These tanks accompanied us on many Atlanta trips for check ups.

We used perhaps close to 100 of these little tanks over the year...the company constantly came out (rapidly) and replaced them when they were depleted.

Two hilarious stories about the oxygen in our life -

One was the night we went to the ER in town then were transferred by ambulance to Atlanta's ER where we stayed for 4 hours and were released at 11:00 at night.  In some confusion I had sent the portable tank home with my mom who had sat with us in the local ER because I was sure we'd be admitted to Atlanta.  So when Jeff got the call that we were not being admitted, he jumped in the car, my sister went to sleep on our couch and he was almost to the hospital at 1:00 a.m. when I called to make sure he had gotten the tank from my mom.  The answer was no.  So painful a phone call.  Luckily, the O2 company is amazing and agreed to meet Jeff halfway in the middle of the night.  (no, the hospital does not loan out oxygen tanks - I tried!) So at 2:30 he pulled in with the goods and scooped us up and we headed home.  About an hour later, Jeff was in need of a coffee refill so we stopped at an exit with one gas station and one red light.  When waiting to turn at that light we noticed there was only one car around us and that was behind us.  So we agreed making the turn on a red light would be justified in these circumstances.  We. Were. Tired.  And Ellie's time on oxygen tanks is always limited.  Once we made the turn, we were then introduced to a nice, merciful, compassionate man who gave us this nice memoir of our night.

Luckily, it was only a warning. Our bank account did not need the hit of a traffic ticket!  We got home safely and it definitely "woke us up" in more ways than one.  The kids love this story.

The second story was our July hospitalization - we were there three whole weeks.  We had plenty of oxygen with us for the drive home and we were READY to hit the door when we got the word we were being discharged.  Going over the checklist with the nurse, we started to unlock a new tank but could not find this magic little "key" which is actually called a wrench that opens a new tank.
And again, the hospital could not help because all their tanks are different than what home supply companies give you.  So we had to ask an Atlanta company drive to the hospital and loan us a key but first had to go through insurance to get them approved!  The nurse let us stay in our room with our luggage all packed and Ellie just sitting there looking at us like "can you people puh-lease get it together?!"  I now have three of these wrench/keys and am going to somehow make them into Christmas ornaments and hang them on our tree.

So we are all taking a deep breath of ROOM AIR as they say that this part of our lives is complete.