My mother has COPD. She is on oxygen most of the time. We moved her in with us two years ago. At that point she had already had an oxygen concentrator for a couple of years. She got it when I lived out of town. Well, I just stumbled over information about it having a filter that is supposed to be cleaned once a week. I should have thought of that, but this whole caretaker thing is often overwhelming and I'm always playing catch-up since my mother is not a fountain of information. Even my little sister, who is often the one who sorts out care issues (long distance), didn't realize about the filter. I feel like an idiot. The oxygen people never told me either. Now I'm thinking that the concentrator has been working harder, wearing out faster, and being less efficient because I never realized it needed its filter cleaned. Who knows where the original product info is. Mom used to keep product info for appliances all in the same place, but the concentrator info is not in that pile, and I don't recall seeing it when we moved her out of her place and into ours.
So this morning I'm trying to stop kicking myself because that doesn't really help, and as soon as my mother gets up I'm going to drag that concentrator out of her room and look it over. And I'll have to call the oxygen people because I don't think it has been serviced in the last couple of years. Sigh.
We cannot know everything.
Thank you for sharing this info.. I didn't realize there was a filter either, but it makes sense.
If we are not there to ask the questions when something new comes along....how are we to know????
Virtual hugs to all of you.
Long before she ever needed help with her life she was always annoyed by what she calls "the sleazy mundane." That includes everything from record keeping to cleaning house, to taking a bath, to doing laundry. Back when she could still do all those things, she rarely bothered. Now she doesn't have the energy to do much of anything, but getting her to do something as simple as passing on information to me is like pulling teeth. And her room is a disaster zone. I refuse to clean it. I finally took pictures of it and sent them to my little sister, who said, "OMG, NOW I understand!" I change her sheets once a week and remove dirty dishes and empty her trash basket. The clothes I wash for her are piled on top of the clothes I washed from the previous week, which are piled on top of the ones from the week before that. I took the doors off her closet so she would have easy access without shoving heavy doors. He dresser is so full she bought a couple of little shelf cupboard things, but then just piles stuff on top of them. I really need to clean her curtains and mini blinds, but I can't get to them. Too much stuff piled in the way.
That's the way her entire apartment was before we moved her in with us. I won't let her do that to the rest of the house. She has her easy-reach open shelves in the kitchen (huge amount of space, all at no-bend level), her lazy susan on the dishwasher with her daily supplements, her little paper/mail pile at the end of the table, her little stack of books at the end of the couch, and her odds and ends basket near the hall. When she tries to expand her zones, I contract them. She also has her own computer, with lots of convenient storage next to it. She has 2/3 of the shelf space in the bathroom.
Every morning I get up and tell myself that I'm going to have that conversation with her about going to Alaska for a couple of months to stay with my sister. Every day I chicken out because we have trouble talking about issues now without fighting. I hate snapping at her, but any time something besides tv or weather comes up, I end up getting hopelessly annoyed at her.
I NEED her to go to my sister's place for a couple of months. I need the break and it is the only way I will be able to clean and organize her room. She won't leave the house long enough for me to do it, and we can't work together on it because she has to fuss over each and every item and decision.
We used to get along pretty good before she started needing so much help and then moved in, though I've always thought of her as a rationalizer. I wish I could get along with her better, but I just mostly avoid her because she makes me want to scream. At least she's not mean like some of the moms I've seen described on here.