Shabbos, Dovi Style

Most of you know that I am an Orthodox Jew. That means that our Shabbos, or Sabbath, can look a little interesting to someone who has not experienced it. The main thing you'd notice is that we don't use electricity. No, no, we don't sit in the dark. What we do not do, though, is turn things on or off. So if the light is on, it stays on from sundown on Friday until sundown on Saturday. We do use timers to turn lights on and off, but we do not do so directly.

The real only exception to this rule is when you have someone who is sick. Not "ooh, my head hurts a tad, I'd be happier with a dark room" but a real, sick person. There is a name for someone who qualifies for this specification, a Choleh SheYesh Bo Sacanah-a sick person who has a risk-as in if they didn't get _____, they'd be in danger of getting sicker, or, G-d forbid, dying.

So Mr. D is a such a person. Thus, we turn on and off his feeding pump, his BiPap, his oxygen, his pulse ox, and his nebulizer on Shabbos.

Not only are you allowed to do such activities, you are REQUIRED to do so.

So.

Let me introduce you to this past Friday night/Saturday morning, Dovi Style.

8pm: Dovi Nebulizer on and off

8:30pm: Dovi to bed-turn on BiPap and oxygen concentrator

12:45am: Dovi's concentrator starts beeping error...turn off concentrator. Turn concentrator back on. Turn off BiPap while working on it. Check liquid tank that's supposed to be backup....oops, it's empty. Spend 1/2 an hour turning concentrator back on and off, taking the battery in and out, until it starts working...go to sleep and hope for the best

2:00 am: Dovi's pulse ox starts alarming because I had to unplug it to plug in the concentrator straight into the wall and there is now nowhere to plug in the pulse ox so it's alarming low battery, loose connection, turn that off because otherwise it will alarm at 100 decibals all night and Dovi won't be able to sleep

7am: turn off concentrator and BiPap when Dovi gets up

8am: Nebulizer on and off

8:30am: plug in feeding pump to charge because it's on low battery and he can't eat otherwise.

8:45 am: hope it got enough juice and turn on the pump to make Dovi's feed

9:15 am: everyone else went to shul, call Home Health agency to come do an emergency refill on Dovi's empty liquid oxygen so he can safely go to sleep tonight. Speak to answering service

9:30am: answer call from Home Health answering service calling me back to CONFIRM that the concentrator is not working and the liquid is empty. Yes. It is erroring. Error 90 if you must know.

9:45 am: answer call from Home Health AGAIN telling me that the on call oxygen guy will call me to confirm that he's coming

10:15 am: answer call AGAIN, now talking to on call oxygen guy. Yes. I'm home. Please come and refill his tank. I got his concentrator to work last night but am not confident it will work again tonight. Yes, we still have the Sequal Eclipse. What? I was supposed to return it 9 months ago? Well no one told me that and no one from Home Health called me to get it so if the insurance denies it I am certainly not paying for it. Whatever. Come fill my liquid, take my erroring Sequal, and we'll work it out on Monday (currently waiting for a call back)

12pm: Oxygen guy comes. Refills tank. Takes Sequal. You don't sign on Saturday, right? Nope, I don't. Have a nice day.

Good Shabbos everyone.