Liquid Oxygen vs Gas

I have been using liquid oxygen since 2005. It is clean and pure and the large holding tank is refilled every two weeks.

At bedtime, a hose is attached to an external nozzle and is run through the house to our bedroom. For yard work and when I work out at the other rehab, I take a portable small tank, fill it from a separate valve on top of the large receptacle and wear it as a backpack.

It was shocking to learn that so many of the large hotels - especially in Las Vegas - refuse to allow these holding tanks to be delivered to a hotel room anymore. Apparently, there is fear that someone could use it as a bomb as liquid oxygen is very flammable.

The problem is that soon, as my oxygen needs increase, I will need to be able to refill the smaller portable tank throughout the day when we travel but will not have access to a large holding tank. It is then that I will have to change to the heavy green gas cylinders. What a pain.

For our trip, I ordered a large concentrator to be delivered to Anna's house. Michael hauled it up the stairs to our bedroom. At night, it was loud. When we travel and pre-order these for the hotel rooms, we always put them in the bathroom and shut the door.

It also eats electricity. Talking with the others in my rehab class, they told me that they applied and received huge discounts for electricity because of these concentrators. Some of them use their concentrator at home all day and have a long hose attached so they can easily move around the house.

The day we left on our trip was our day to have the large holding tank filled with liquid oxygen. As they usually come while I am at the rehab class, I always roll it outside to the side of the house, the driver fills the tank and I roll it back into the garage for another two weeks. Our neighbor Ron kindly rolled it back into the garage after it was filled last Thursday. When we got home from the trip, we found it covered in ice. The driver had filled it but left the dial all the way up to 6 liters from Thursday afternoon until we found it on Sunday afternoon. There was very little left in the tank.

I phoned the oxygen company on Monday and they are coming back to refill it this Thursday. I will barely have enough for nighttime use.

Maybe it is time to reconsider the heavy, large, green oxygen gas tanks.