I know that a battery portable oxygen generator will not give me the 2L of oxygen that I need, but I thought 2 meant two liters on the regulator of a portable tank. I thought that pulse meant just wasting less oxygen (and increasing tank time) but that 2 pulse still meant 2 liters. Stupid me!
The technician said to set it to 3 on pulse during exercise, but I thought he meant to increase from two because I was exerting myself.
I have been struggling in the pool at 3, so I upped it to four. (And felt guilty about that.) That has not worked very well, but I have pushed through it. And four has not been enough when on hands and knees in the strawberry patch. I am about to plow in the patch. (And that would be sad.) I had learned to change to "continuous" before leaving the pool for the showers, but I thought I was doing that to keep from sniffing water when activating the pulse.
After all this, I looked up the specs for the regulator on the tank. 2 does not mean 2L.
Turns out the
- 2 = 420 mL/min
- 3 = 560 mL/min
- 4 = 700 mL/min
- 5 = 860 mL/min
At four I am getting 1/3 of what I need.
Boy do I feel stupid. And boy, am I mad.
Why have I been uninformed? Who gets to take credit for making me miserable? For making me ready to give up the activities I enjoy? And why have I been tolerating the struggle for six months? I felt like such a failure. I felt like it was the beginning of the end rather than a hurdle to jump.
I guess now I know better. If it's not working, figure it out and fix it. I'll change to continuous when I'm struggling and carry more tanks.
But, it should not have taken me six months to discover this.
Thanks for reading my rant!