Archive | oxygen | Breathinstephen

Breathing Basics —O2 Saturation and Oximeters

Filed under Arterial Blood gases, Asthma, Asthma Education, Asthma Education, Asthma medical tests, oxygen, Respiratory Therapy by Stephen on November 30, 2010 at 10:26 am {20 comments}

Today’s Breathing Basics review is all about Oxygen Saturation and Oximeters. If you have lung disease of any kind, no doubt you’ve come across the words “Oxygen saturation” or “O2 Sats” , “Pulse-Oximeter”? I use those terms on my blog all the time, but do you really know what they mean ? I suppose you [...]

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I think I’ll go climb a REAL mountain

Filed under COPD, Exercise&Fitness, Fitness Walking, Friends/Bloggers, lung disease and exercise, Other Lung diseases, oxygen, People, Places and Events, Walking, walking events by Stephen on July 7, 2010 at 7:19 am {10 comments}

How’s this for a view! In just a few weeks , if all goes as planned, I hope to be standing on that very same rock with a half a dozen of my COPD friends. The brainchild of my Boston marathon walking partner Mike Mc Bride, the “COPD Mt Evans Challenge” as he calls it, [...]

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Knocked down, but not defeated

Filed under Arterial Blood gases, Asthma, Asthma hospitalization, Asthma Symptoms, Asthma treatments, Bipap, Nebulizer treatments, oxygen, Respiratory Therapy, Sally Wenzel, Shortness of Breath, Steroids ( prednisone), Wheeze by Stephen on February 5, 2010 at 1:23 pm {12 comments}

(Arterial Line) Thanks everyone for your support and especially to Dr Wensel for staying in close contact during my 98th hospitalization. Thanks also to ALL the wonderful nurses who took care of me..You guys are awesome! Most of all, thank you to my dear Douglas who goes through hell every time I get sick. I’m [...]

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#97 , misinformation and a virus from Hell

Filed under Arterial Blood gases, Asthma, Asthma exacerbations, Asthma hospitalization, Asthma medical tests, Asthma Medications, Bipap, Dyspnea, Exacerbation Recovery, Intubation, Nebulizer treatments, oxygen, Peak Flows, Pulmonary function tests, Respiratory Therapy, Sally Wenzel, Shortness of Breath, Ventilator, Wheeze by Stephen on January 9, 2010 at 10:52 am {27 comments}

Battle scars: 4 failed arterial line attempts and 12 failed IV attempts. I have no veins left and my radial arteries are so scarred up from previous insertions, that it’s virtually impossible to get access unless they put a central line in. Very frustrating for the doctors and very painful for me. I’d been having [...]

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Number 96

Filed under Arterial Blood gases, Asthma, Asthma exacerbations, Asthma hospitalization, Asthma Symptoms, Asthma treatments, Bipap, Exacerbation Recovery, Nebulizer treatments, oxygen, Respiratory Therapy, Steroids ( prednisone) by Stephen on October 10, 2009 at 5:34 am {9 comments}

Thanks everyone for all your kind emails while I was in the slammer. The hospital volunteer who brought the messages to my bedside, said he’d never delivered so many messages to one person , and that I must be pretty popular:-) Sorry I couldn’t respond to each one individually, but I read all one of [...]

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72 hours of hell.

Filed under Asthma, Asthma exacerbations, Asthma hospitalization, Asthma Symptoms, Asthma treatments, Exacerbation Recovery, Nebulizer treatments, oxygen, People, Places and Events, Respiratory Therapy, Steroids ( prednisone) by Stephen on July 14, 2009 at 4:12 pm {7 comments}

I always try to write a little something about each and every hospitalization Ive experienced, but this is one Id just as soon forget about. In total , I spent 7 days in the hospital, 6 of them in the Intensive care unit, 3 of those days spent on continuous Bipap with an Albuterol bleed-in [...]

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Mike and Roxlyn “Slacking” off again.

Filed under COPD, Fitness Walking, Inspiration, oxygen, People, Places and Events, walking events by Stephen on June 29, 2009 at 6:57 am {no comments}

Check out Roxylns Slacker half marathon/relay/4m run in Colorado. Boy, those mountains sure look beautiful don’t they? What blows me away, is that this race STARTS at an elevation of 10,600 ft….thats 2 miles up! These two never cease to amaze me. (Mike and Roxlyn as they prepare their rigs) (to climb this mountain!) Related [...]

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Number 94….

Filed under Arterial Blood gases, Asthma, Asthma exacerbations, Asthma hospitalization, Asthma medical tests, Asthma Medications, Asthma Symptoms, Asthma treatments, Bipap, Dyspnea, Exacerbation Recovery, Intubation, Nebulizer treatments, oxygen, Respiratory Therapy, Shortness of Breath, Ventilator, Wheeze by Stephen on June 8, 2009 at 10:02 am {12 comments}

…………..As in my 94th hospital admission for asthma. I had been feeling really crumby most of that weekend prior. My dyspnea was increasing and my peak flows were gradually trending downward. By Sunday evening it was pretty evident that this flare-up was getting worse , not better. I bolused myself with 60mg prednisone and decided [...]

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