Week #25 - My Airvo 2!

It makes me feel so ick that I missed last week's Sunday post, not that it matters to anyone else but I've not missed one this year so I was sad to break my record haha. But last week I wasn't feeling too happy but I didn't feel like talking about it and I didn't want to lie by pretending I was fine either. It's not like me to feel like that but it's probably just me feeling weird after being in hospital for so long! In there I get stuck in my little bubble where all I really focus on is hospital life so any 'scary' thoughts gets pushed to the back of my mind until that bubble pops and I'm free and I panic haha. More on that later but first - my home Optiflow!

  

This is the machine I use when I'm in hospital and am needing a higher dose of oxygen than usual. At home on my regular oxygen concentrator I'd be using 2L or 3L which is barely anything, then increasing that to about 4L for physio and exercise. However when I'd get these bad chest infections and would be struggling to breathe I'd need a much higher dose. Anything above 4L on the regular concentrator is uncomfortable to wear as the higher the dose the colder it gets - so as you can imagine cold air whooshing up your nose isn't very pleasant! What's great about the Optiflow is it's humidified because of the water that you can see in the pic, making the air warm so it's so much more comfortable to wear and it also doesn't dry out my lungs as much as the cold air does. It also delivers the oxygen at a faster flow, again making life a lot more comfortable. All in all, it's a brilliant piece of kit!

I've mentioned it before on my blog and twitter etc, which was seen by the lovely people who make the Optiflow and they got in touch to ask if I'd like to try a machine at home. Obviously I said yes so they came all the way to the hospital to go through it all with my physios and I took it home with me after my last admission. Without it I'd have definitely have had to have spent another week or so in hospital! My lungs aren't really comfortable on 2L or 3L of oxygen anymore, I'm needing at least 4L at rest but now this is making life so much easier. I can increase the oxygen on the machine for exercise and physio and because it's more comfortable I've found it's making those a lot more effective aka it's easier to shift the rubbish off my lungs which is brilliant. I just love it and I'm so grateful to Fisher and Paykel for the opportunity to use it at home - you could say it's the best 'blogger freebie' I ever got ;-)

I guess the only downsides are it's not the most subtle thing to wear, as you can see (especially compared to the normal cannulas) so contour and blush is a bit of a waste of time ;-) Also, sadly for me Freddydog doesn't like it at all!! When I'm wearing it he won't come near me, won't look at me - basically he avoids me as much as possible </3 It's only been a couple of weeks so I just need to give him time haha. I'm on it most of the time at home but not always so just have to make the most of Freddy cuddles (and a full face of make up haha) when I'm on my normal cannulas.

Before I go I'll quickly explain what was making me sad and worried, it was about my antibodies. When I first got assessed for transplant I had 0% which is perfect, it's exactly what you want. However now it's gone up to 9%, probably due to the infections I've had recently. They said which to put in basic terms means if there were 100 lungs that matched me 9 of them would be no good. This doesn't sound like much to worry about but there's not 100 lungs, there are barely any so any little thing that makes it harder to match me is a huge blow. I know it could always be worse but it's still sucky news that really worried and upset me. I'm less panicky about it now though, there's not much I can do about it other than stay as well as I can (which is what I'm doing anyway!)

Well I'm sorry for this monster ramble! I'm sure it's probably not interesting to anyone who doesn't need oxygen but I wanted to do a post on the Optiflow because I'm just so happy and grateful to have it! Hope you've had a fab week!