Can't go anywhere with COPD, if I'm out of breath after just by walking across a room anyway. Deliveries take longer & it's harder to deal with them. Everything has to be wiped down after dragging everything in, & hands washed. Then every item unpacked has to be wiped down & hands washed again.
On a bad day when it may take 40-50 minutes just to go poo because I have to stop & rest for a while on the way there & back often, it can take all afternoon or evening just to unpack a couple bags of groceries. Prices on most items continues to spiral way out of control, items I need are frequently out of stock, or some stuff I have to wait 2 months to get it.
A few weeks ago my O2 machine died. I picked up that one used in a hurry with already 7,000 hours on it, so I predicted it would die around April. I had to use my small backup O2 machine for about a week, until another used replacement one arrived. The backup machine only put out about 20% of the O2 of my big regular machine. So it was an extremely desperate ordeal of gasping for a week barely surviving until the replacement arrived.
I got lucky on a used one this time with only 500 hours on it, so it will last me a lot longer. But it cost me a little over $1,000. I had to borrow a shytload of money. I was already going deep into debt as my work has slowed down a lot, & prices keep going up. So now it's even worse.
I was planning on moving in late spring. Due to the virus, all of that has been canceled, & I will probably be stuck here at least another year. All my saved moving money got spent on survival.
Got a scare last week when the power went out for a half an hour. I had to switch to my backup O2 machine. Because it uses only 100 watts, I'm able to run it on a couple expensive lithium battery packs for a few hours. The big one draws 350 watts, & takes a surge of over 1,000 watts just to start the thing up, so can't use batteries on that one. No place to set up a generator here, & they're too heavy & hard for me to manage in my condition.
We had 2 days in a row where it got up to the 90s F up here, peaking at 93F (34C), & did not cool down much overnight. It got over 100F (38C) up here with my undersized air conditioner on full. I hope we don't have many summer days like that. Heat & humidity is very hard to breathe with COPD & wears out the O2 machine fast -- which also gives off tons of heat.
A few days later we had a low of 42F (5.5C), but I don't think we'll get snow anymore.
With the cooler weather I've been breathing a little better. But the barometer has dipped low again, & humidity is high, so it's not too good yet.
We had a riot in the area Saturday. Fires, looting, smashed cars, & broken windows, with helicopters circling overhead from the afternoon, through the night. Looting was as close as 2 blocks from me. Today smaller street gangs were around the area smashing some windows, looting, or beating people with bats & golf clubs.
It's quiet in my neighborhood now, but am hearing lots police & fire sirens in the distance. We're expecting another round of protests & riots Monday.
Betty's Pub 20.1
Topic: Sissy stuff to keep warm with during the "VORTEX"? (Read 93033 times)
