I am currently traveling with friends on the neighbor island of Hawaii. We are having a fun visit. Sadly my smaller stationary concentrator stopped working the other night and I got tired of fighting with my portable pulse concentrator last night so I slept without any O2. It’s not ideal but we will only be here 3 more nights so I think I’ll be ok until I get home.

I’m having a replacement machine sent to my home and will be sending back the malfunctioning machine for servicing.

There’s really no point in listening to gloomy predictions. We will live as long or as short as our bodies allow. I want to live as well as I can. My docs have agreed I will likely live a long life (my folks both died recently in their 90s). I am fortunate that a pulse dose portable oxygen concentrators allows me to be mobile AND stay well saturated.

For folks with higher flow oxygen needs liquid oxygen is an amazing resource. We are supporting the bipartisan SOAR act that among other things will help increase reimbursement for it for patients with high flow needs. It is stored in a medical grade thermos that turns from liquid to gas O2 that you breathe. You refill it from a small reservoir that you periodically get refilled. I first used it in Denver about 20 years ago and was able to get it prescribed for me in 2016 until Apria took it away from me and everyone in our state 4 years later in 2020.

The COPDfoundation.org and American Lung Association and others are urging all to contact and met either members of Congress to have them cosponsor the SOAR act on supplemental oxygen THIS year.