Flash-back Friday- coming home on oxygen





Does anybody like using oxygen at home after your kids have been discharged from the hospital?

I'm can't remember how many times the kids were discharged on oxygen, but it always made me nervous. Sometimes, they can discharge a patient if all they need is oxygen or they can stay for another day or two in the hospital. There's nothing like being back home in our own beds! And there can be other risks of picking up infections in the hospital-I don't want the kids coming home with any infection they didn't already have!

By the end of the hospitalization, the kids are pretty hyper from the steroid IV. Once they get home, they're still a little crazy. They want to run around the house, but usually get to the end of the oxygen tubing and are yanked back like a dog who has reached the end of his chain. It's hard to keep a straight face when that happens.

If one of the kids was going to be on oxygen for a while, they gave us an oxygen "concentrator" instead of using tanks. It turns room air into oxygen by concentrating it. That way, they're not coming out all the time with a new tank. They can also bring a travel size tank so you can take that when the kids have to go back to the doctor for a follow up appointment.

It's amazing the things you can learn over the years (and things you wish you didn't have to know about.) Here's hoping the kids don't start getting sick again now that school is about to start! I do not want to know how germ infested the classrooms can be.

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