Monday 15th April - My Oxygenated Life

One tries to stay cheerful - but there are times - yesterday morning threatened to be one of those times but luckily I got out into the garden in time and had a chat with the broad beans and the Egyptian Walking Onion. Replanting the poppies which were growing in a vegetable planter, to be transplanted into a bare patch of the flower border opposite helped as well. 

I was impatient for the next steps which will make life easier. 

Today some those steps have been taken. An extra long lead for the upstairs oxygen concentrator was delivered this morning. We have attached it and tested the length and there is plenty for me to be able to get into every room, including the all-essential bathroom and loo. 

I've also used a new arrangement to help with getting dressed; a medium height footstool strategically placed near the bed is a great help. I sit on the stool so that I can easily reach my feet for getting the lower half of me dressed without so much bending over.

We also, daringly (!) tried adjusting the flow rate of the concentrator. Up until now I was only using it overnight, as prescribed by the consultant. I think that's probably still ok for night time, but when I'm up and moving around or getting dressed or hanging things up in my wardrobe, it is not enough. The dial is very easy to twiddle, and simple to set at 2 or 3 for when I am active. As long as we remember to turn it down at night... I forsee a Big Red Notice going up where we can see it from the bed!  

The stairlift man came round this morning. It will be installed on Thursday or Friday. Wonderful.

I'll tell you the story of that wallpaper (I've probably blogged it before...) About thirty or more years ago, when we had been living here for several years, the furniture was arranged differently and the wardrobe was in that niche, facing out. The bedroom was decorated with two walls in that depressing greyish greenish yellowish wallpaper on two walls, and depressing stripes in the same colourway on the other two walls. BB was away on a course for several weeks, and I finally cracked. I went and about several tines of 'applewhite' paint and a couple of brushes, set about painting everywhere I could reach. Son, aged about two years or so, was very happy indeed to be kept quiet by being allowed to use my cassette player. He was always very precocious with 'mechanicals' and the cassette player sort of survived the experience. As in it still played cassettes pretty well without the door mechanism.

Of course, all was revealed several years later when we rearranged the furniture... 

the trouble with us and home decor as we seem to be pretty good at 'out of sight, out of mind'. So I see the paper (and it makes me giggle a bit) several times a day, and then all the time I can't see it, I sort of forget about it.