Power Outage & Northern Lights

This weekend we had our first full power outage with Arden at home. 

There are definitely big considerations when this happens, because Arden’s ventilator and oxygen need to be operating 24/7. Luckily, his vent and portable suction machine can run on battery power for quite a few hours. We also keep backup oxygen tanks in the house because if the power is out, that means his oxygen concentrator can’t function. 

The power went out at our house around 12:30AM on Saturday morning. Brodi and I, and our night time caregiver, quickly switched everything over to battery power. We expected that the power wouldn’t be off for long, so we decided to wait one hour on battery before doing anything else. When the power was out for an hour, Brodi got the generator and we made sure that all of Arden’s equipment had power to operate with. It was a good idea to do it at that time, because the power outage lasted until 5:30AM. 

In the midst of the chaos of making those changes in the wee hours, we were blessed with a beautiful surprise. Just after we had gotten everything organized, our night time caregiver said, “Wow, look at the sky!” Just by looking through the front windows of our house, we were able to witness the most beautiful show of Northern Lights! We’ve seen the Northern Lights quite a few times living in this area, but these ones were particularly bright and beautiful. 

We usually have a yard light that comes on as soon as it gets dark enough, and if the power hadn’t gone out, I doubt we would have been able to view the Northern Lights* so clearly. To me, it seemed like a beautiful metaphor. It’s amazing how sometimes bumps in the road seem to occur, so that we can learn to view another aspect of life more beautifully. 

Happy Monday! I hope you all find time to view life a little more beautifully this week! 

XO, Rayel

*You can see some great pictures of the Northern Lights that we saw here.