Update 8.30.15

Yesterday, Saturday we had a big storm.  Lots of needed rain.  Huge winds that we didn't need.  The winds broke down some of the dahlias, broke off about 60% of the salvia plant that the hummingbirds love.  They were looking for it during the winds!  Lots of tree branches down as well.  Debris all over the yard and lawn.

But, the reason for this tale is that we lost power from early afternoon until almost 5 am.  Not a huge inconvenience for most, but with an LVAD, it could be an issue.  We have eight rechargeable batteries for the LVAD, and it used two at a time.  Another two are in bag that never leaves our side along with an extra controller/computer.  So we need four charged at all times.  But we need 120v house power to charge.  The recommendation from the UWMC in case of a power outage is to find a fire station or hospital to charge the batteries.  With the storm, the fire station was probably not an option since the trucks would be out for downed power lines and such.

So, we did some math and figured that the usual life of the batteries is over 15 hours, that we could easily stay home for one night, John needing to sleep with the bag that has the batteries and controller.  At night, he parks the battery pack bag and hooks up to a Mobile Power Unit, a power supply that plugs into the wall.  The battery pack bag is about 12"x12"x3" and weighs over four pounds.  It is worn as a sling over the left shoulder and carried under the right arm.  It is not designed for comfortable sleeping! 

The power came back on at 4:50am with beeps, bips and blinks and jolted us both awake.  We discussed whether or not to hook up to the 120v source and decided against it.  A minute later there was an explosion outside somewhere and the power went back out.  It came back on almost immediately. but we decided on the battery bag for the rest of the night.

At our old house, we were used to having power outages, sometimes for a week at a time.  We installed a gasoline generator that would power about 65% of the house.  But it was a drag, having to go out and refill the gas tank.  When we bought this house we thought that we would install a generator that would run the whole house and turn on immediately when the poser went out.  But the neighbors assured us that power never went out for more than an hour or so.  We compromised and had all of the switchboxes for a generator installed and the needed wires run to the outside of the house where a future generator could be installed.  Good move, John and Colleen, because now we will be buying a generator!  It was nerve-wracking last night, running on batteries, not knowing how long the power would be out.

Colleen & John