When the Grid Fails: Chronic Illness Continuity Planning

0:00Most preparedness advice starts with a quiet assumption, and that is that you are healthy mobile and independent, but millions of families are not living that reality, even on their best day. If you take regular medications, need dialysis, insulin, oxygen, a CPAP, or a home ventilator, your life is tied to systems that run on electricity, staffing, transportation, and supply chains. This is not about an apocalypse scenario. It is about the very common interruption, a storm knocks out the power. The clinic closes early, the pharmacy shipment is delayed, the roads are iced over. Suddenly, it's not just inconvenient, it could be dangerous. Today we're talking about medical dependency, which is really infrastructure dependency, and what continuity planning looks like when you cannot simply tough it out.

1:13Welcome to Practical Prepping. Today is March 16th, 2026, and this is episode 546. This is the Prepping Podcast with no bunkers, no zombies, and no alien invasions. Just practical prepping, where we teach everyday people how to prepare for life's emergencies, disasters, and crises, and we're here to help you get prepared. I'm Krista. And I'm Mark, and everything we mention today will be in the episode notes, and you can get those by going to practicalprepping.info, forward slash 546. Most of the prepping advice out there assumes that we're healthy, mobile adults, and we're able to do things like building shelters, fighting zombies, and carrying a heavy load, like a backpack, but millions rely on daily medical infrastructure. And this episode is about interruption, not apocalypse.

2:16The concept is medical dependency equals infrastructure dependency. And I'll tell you that the medical infrastructure is definitely fragile. Look at it this way. Modern healthcare is electrically dependent. It's digitally dependent. All the records are computerized, and there's some pros and cons with that type of system. You know, I went to the doctor the other day, and he was able to pull up the lab results from the other doctor. Sure, yes. All connected. They're all connected. You know, it's saving me blood tests there, because one doctor can do it, and the others can see it. Yeah, you know, used to be a... That's a pro. It used to be a pen and paper type of thing, but now it's just a click of a button. And you think about this, too, with the medical infrastructure, it's also logistically dependent. That your medications and supplies have to be delivered to the pharmacy or delivered to you. We're going to talk about that, you know, the things that fail first in real events. But before that, we'd like to say, today's cup of coffee comes from Heidi.

3:19She is a new supporter of our podcast, and she has purchased a $5 monthly membership. Heidi, we really do appreciate your support. Now let's talk about what fails first in real events. Number one, transportation. Right now, the United States is getting under blizzard warnings and some severe thunderstorm warning. So for a lot of people, millions of people, they're going to be dealing with snow and ice on the roads, road damage, power outage. There's also going to be staffing shortages. You know, when people can't get to work, that also includes people that can't get to your clinic or, you know, your doctor's office. That increases the patient load. Now that... Especially at ERs. Oh, absolutely. People get injured in ice and snow and they can't go to a freestanding clinic so they go to the ER and it just increases the caseload. Definitely. I mean, that's a real kind of thing that actually happens. There's also supply chain delays, you know, if the roads are impassable, the delivery

4:21trucks can't make it either. You've got to factor that in as part of your plan. And the all too normal thing to happen is the power outage. And for who knows how long it just depends. And generally, urban settings try to get power restored first to the hospitals and the places that need it the most and then they work their way out into the rural. Now short disruptions are more common than a total collapse, but if you're medically dependent on some things, this could really be a seriously critical issue for you. And one medical dependency that we rarely hear anything about on prepping podcast is dialysis dependence for sure. And that requires three weekly treatments and that's about five hours per treatment. Wow. And missing sessions can quickly become life threatening. And I understand that some dialysis has moved to the home, but still their power dependent.

5:21Yes, it's a whole different type of thing and that has to be done daily. But I remember back in 1978, Central Alabama had one of those rare snows and there was a hill that going from our little city into Birmingham, there was a hill you had to go over. And people were having trouble getting, I'm sliding back down that hill, tractor trailers and everything. But we had a dialysis patient in town and I had a 1977 Toyota Land Cruiser. Okay. I picked up that patient and I put a blue light on my dash so that we could get through any roadblocks or anything like that. And I took him to his dialysis, so he was able to get there. But you need a plan for that kind of thing and we'll talk about that in just a minute. But there's some risk during disruptions. It's true. I mean, there are times when like the local emergency clinics, like we call them like the

6:24Dock and a Box type clinics, a lot of times there's nobody that can get through until somebody with a Toyota Land Cruiser can pick up the doctors and the nurses and get them there. And I'm talking about the dialysis clinics, they will close, they may be without power, they may be high steam. Exactly. That creates some travel barriers. And if it's, you know, a lot of folks travel quite some distance for their dialysis. That's true. But they may be in an area that's able to travel, but their clinic is shut out. Their clinic is closed for the day. Well, those folks start going to other clinics that they don't normally go to, that they don't normally go to and that can create a regional overlap. Yeah, because somebody else is going to have the same idea. So you've got to think about some practical continuity planning. Here's what we're suggesting. Know the emergency relocation protocols. Ask your dialysis medical professionals for a copy of those relocation stations if you

7:29don't happen to have that. And keep your medical summaries printed, something in hand because if you have to click it off a computer and you have no power, you see where I'm going. So have printed medical summaries and be able to identify backup clinics far in advance of anything like this happening. Have a point. But consider what sort of transportation redundancy may need to take place in order to enable you to get the treatment you need. Yeah, you might need to check in your area and see if there is a Jeep club. There are some in some areas. There's some in some areas and they will pitch in and carry nurses and doctors to and from the hospital when they're unable to travel. So just check on that or find a buddy with a full-wheel drive. Yeah, exactly. You just need to have a backup plan. You know, because some dependencies cannot be self-solved. So you need some planning to be network-based.

8:29Are you learning something today? Are you getting an idea for something to you that you might need to do or somehow receive value from the podcast? Would you help us out by giving back a little? Put a practical prepping dot info forward slash support and you'll find several ways there to support us. It can be a monthly coffee membership or a one-time gift to help us out. Whatever it is, we greatly appreciate it. Now, let's get back to the show. I want to list out some power dependent devices, CPAP machine or a BIPAP machine, an oxygen concentrator, a home ventilator and nebulizers for those of you with asthma or asthma-like indications. You need some planning layers in here when you're talking about backup devices, backup power for these devices. You want to measure the actual watt-hour use of that particular device.

9:31Explain that a little more detail. Somewhere on there, it will tell you how many watts it uses and you compute the watt-hours and... The length of time that it takes to. Yes. How long is it going to be and that figures into the size of the battery or whatever backup you have. And then you need to understand inverter losses if you can't run this device off of 12 volts. Okay. And what that does is that inverter itself uses up some power. So that depletes your power availability. But use the DC adapters when possible. We have in the nightstand beside my bed or our bed, on my side of the bed is what I'm trying to say. Under my CPAP, there is a 12 volt DC adapter with a lighter plug on it.

10:35Now I have a three lighter plug receptacle with alligator clips that I can clip to a battery and I can plug that lighter plug into that receptacle and use that DC direct DC. And that uses less power in the long run rather than running some type of an inverter. And I think you have thought about that for your CPAP use. Now, are you saying that that would be appropriate and completely usable for like an entire night sleep type of thing? Yes. Yes. In fact, down in the Hutton Club one time we got down there and we didn't have a charged battery. Sun and low and I neither one took a charged battery to run things off of it. Well, you weren't a serious prepper back then. Not well. Not like today. It's just one of us should have taken a battery, but that ran the TV and the satellite

11:36system. Well, that's an important stuff right there. It wasn't a ball game day, so we carried two batteries on ball game days. But what I did in not having that charged battery, I went out to my truck and I put an inverter attached to the battery in my truck and then I ran an extension cord into the camp. Did you have any concerns that it would run the battery down for your truck? I had a little bit of concern about that. But you had other vehicles. I we had other vehicles that could jump me off if I needed to, but what I did is the next morning or the next day during the day when we'd come in from lunch, I started my truck. Was a little bit slow to start, but I'll let it sit there and charge the battery back up. And I did that like three nights in a row and was able to get through that. So it's an option you can connect it to your car battery and run a long extension cord

12:36if you'd have to. That's really good to know. And I promise you, we have listeners right now that that never occurred to them to use the vehicle battery for such uses there. And talk to us about a dedicated battery system. This is where you actually have a battery dedicated for that purpose, probably for a CPAP. You could probably run it off of a long tractor battery, but it's dedicating a battery. It's not having to take one out of the car. I see what you're saying. It's basically having an extra battery. Part of your redundancy program. Right. I have it in my homemade jump box that's on the patio. That's really a battery sitting in a milk crate that's attached to hand trucks. And that way you can just tow it around. And one end of the jumper cables is already attached and I'm doing it now with clamps. Or I'm going to stop by the automotive store and pick up two battery cable ends to use

13:43that. I know what you mean. It's just a dedicated battery system that I don't have to go pulling one out. Now for an inverter, we have a 1,000 watt inverter and we're using a DeWalt. And I've actually put this in the show notes, the DeWalt 1,000 watt power inverter. And it's an ideal setup if you use a lifepo battery and an inverter. That could be your ideal setup. I've put a 100 amp hour lifepoat battery. Yeah, that'd be great to add to your preps. For those of you that are hearing this and realize, I don't have any kind of, you know, some of you don't even have a generator. We may talk about that later, but this battery power for medical devices, this is a game changer. Yes, it is. Now, I found another portable inverter that I want. I'm going to order this one. And it's a 200 watt portable inverter that uses a DeWalt 20 volt battery.

14:48Oh, that's cool. Now, it's not going up. That won't run my CPAP. But that's great for charging phones and devices, but it changes 20 volt DC over to 120 volt AC. Okay. That's good. I put on the, in the show notes, has USB ports, it has the Type-C fast charging port. And it also has a 200 lumen flashlight, and it's only around 30 bucks. Yeah, that's actually, for what it can offer, that's very affordable. Yeah. I mean, it would make a good flashlight if that's all you needed to use it for. 200 lumens is plenty around the inside of the house. It's like you're saying, though, this particular type of battery isn't necessarily going to run your CPAP or your oxygen generator, but you can dedicate other power sources to your medical devices and use that type of battery. Like you said, charge up your laptop, charge up your phone, your computers, your tablets,

15:50the types of things that would require a lesser amount of charge and can be charged longer. And there are several options there on the site for different brands of batteries. I saw one for Milwaukee, so whatever your preference of batteries, you probably have a few. Okay. You can find one with that. These are all in the episode notes at practicalprepping.info, forward slash five, four, six. And we mentioned using the long extension cord in a pinch. Right. Yeah, you've used it in the camper in the woods, but yeah, this is great. We know that we're throwing a lot of information at you, but we just want to remind you, again, you can find all of these links to the products and the information in the show notes at practicalprepping.info slash five, four, six. Now let's talk about some temperature-sensitive medications. You're a prime example. You're a patient who has to use insulin. Talk to us about that. I'm on insulin that I take.

16:51It's the long acting. I take one shot each night. I take it out of the refrigerator. It's good outside the refrigerator for 30 days, but my next one is in the refrigerator right now. Sure. But folks that are type one, that insulin needs to be refrigerated at all times. Yeah. It's not something that you can leave out here as far as I know. It's not something that you can leave out here for very long. But the stability of that insulin ranges across the type. Okay. Let's talk about heat versus freezing risk. Oh, okay. Heat degrades insulin. That's why you want to keep it cold. Keep it cold, okay. Cool, but not frozen. But if it's frozen, that kills insulin. So refrigeration only for refrigeration only. And your healthcare provider would give you those instructions, but I'm just putting it out here for the benefit of those that may not know.

17:52Now, during power outages, refrigerator temperatures can swing. Yeah, that's true. And you need some continuity planning for temperature sensitive medications. Okay. Why put a thermometer inside the refrigerator? Right. We've got that linked in the show notes as well. I'm sure that the package information on the type one insulin has your range of temperature like from so many Fahrenheit to so many, like it's probably from like 40 up to one in a 50. I don't know exactly what it is. It should state that somewhere. Right. But have a thermometer inside that refrigerator. You might want to back up many cooler. That's a good strategy. There are some insulated carrying cases. There's one. And you can see them in the show notes there in the link. But there's one that carries quite a bit of insulin. There's another one that's just transporting the insulin that you might need for a day.

18:58And they're available for both the pens or the vals, so you can get either one of those. You can use rotating ice packs, put those into a little cooler, or you can have a battery back up for a small medical fridge. Some of them are actually labeled insulin refrigerator. Oh, okay. They're very small. And there's one that I put on there that's kind of a little desktop model. I'm actually seeing that little desktop fridge in a photograph of a college dorm room where someone had their insulin in that specific dedicated fridge. And I think it's got enough room in there to how old three soda cans. Yeah, I'm just not a lot of room in there. Right. But you know, monitoring that temperature, that's a way a little bit better than guessing. You don't want to take a chance on your insulin. Now, let's talk about medication buffering. What does that mean? I see a lot of this in some of the groups and forums and stuff. And it's, how do I stock up on my medication?

19:59Oh, that's a good question, because insurance a lot of times limits you to like a 30 day or a 15 day. Right. Well, there's some work around. It's a 30 day is kind of a trap, because you're only going to get to refill it like four, five, seven days before, and you wind up running a lower on your medications before the refills. Oh, yeah. And if you've got five days of medication and you're just getting ready to renew it, and you have a seven day ice storm, you kind of cook directly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's why we're saying, have that discussion with your doctor, because in many cases, you can get a 90 day supply. And that's certainly going to put you ahead where you need to. I'm on a 90 day supply for my high blood pressure medicine. And so yeah, I'm just refilling three, four times a year, but I've gotten 90 days. And so that helps me a lot to be putting it in.

21:00And I picked up new prescription yesterday, not a new prescription, but a refill. This one came out on the auto refill. And it came out when I was allowed to fill it. Well, I still had a fair amount of my last 90 days. Okay. So now I'm about 10 days. That gave me about 10 days ahead with that medication without you having to skip anything. Without me having to skip anything. And please don't skip your medications at all. But you can refill that immediately when you're eligible. And that builds a reserve. It does it buys you some time. And you can rotate that stock. It came in two bottles, what was meant for them? And it comes in two bottles, a 90 day supply. Those are big gigantic pills. One of the tall ones and one of the short ones. Okay. And so I've got the short fat one out. And this one, which I have in my hand right now, is actually going to go into our medicine

22:02cabinet with store our medications. Okay, dokey. Want it in a cool, dark, dry storage. But as Chris to say, I'd work with your doctor and build that redundancy slowly. Also make sure that you have that documentation. This is an area that is often ignored. You want hard copy, paper, printed medication list with all the migs, the dosages, the frequency, whatever the details of that particular prescription have that printed. So that if you have to show that to a clinic, you're not familiar with, they can easily see what the details are without you having to remember everything. Because they always ask you, what medications are you on? And you're just in a high blood pressure or worse. If you go to a new doctor and I do know the names of my medications and I know the dosages, but it's so much easier to just hand them a piece of paper. And I don't list just my medications. I also list vitamins and supplements.

23:04That's very important. Anything that you're taking that might be like essential oil-based, herbal supplements. Yep. Tell your doctor about that and the easy way to do that is to have that printed on a piece of paper and then like to take the dialysis. If they have to go to another location for dialysis, then you're carrying that medication list in there. And whatever your dialysis details are, they're not going to be the same for everybody. No, no. And you'll get that info from your provider, list any allergies, list the prescribing doctors for those medications. Carry your recent labs if you're going to a new doctor. Like you've had blood work done, you've had some test run. And having your insurance information available with you as well. That just speeds up the paperwork. It really makes it easier for the ones trying to get you registered in. And here's why the paper matters, okay?

24:07Hospital systems go down. They do. You might evacuate to another state. That's happened many times to people. The clinics may be overwhelmed and you have to go find another. But that's why it matters that you have that. And if you haven't ever thought of this before, this is exactly why we are producing this podcast for you to get something new to think about for those of you that are affected by chronic or long-term medical conditions where you must put this into your prepping plan. And think about the unthinkable and form a plan. And here's a seven-step action plan that you can take. This is listed in the episode notes as well at practicalprepping.info forward slash 546. It's all of the medical dependencies that you have. Identify which one of those require electricity. For me, I require a CPOW and I require a medication.

25:11My dependency, I require electricity here. I require a pharmacy. So identify those kinds of things and identify which ones need refrigeration. Like my insulin. Exactly. And then calculate your actual power needs if you're looking at building some type of backup system. And that 1,000 watt inverter provides 8.3 amps and the CPOW just uses a few amps, so I've got plenty. That's good to know. You want to build that refill buffer. Print out that documentation. Know the location of your backup facilities. Try to get this done within a week, maybe less. Hopefully before you encounter any of these weather systems or utility systems that may go off and impede your ability to be able to get those supplies and get to where you need to go. Now preparedness isn't about paranoia.

26:11True. It's about reducing dependence on a fragile system. I mean, just think of the sigh of relief that you and your family can breathe, knowing that you've got a plan when everything else is out and you must get this done. I mean, people are doing this for themselves and they're also doing it for their family members that live in their household and well, Christa, Christa is relieved, very relieved that I have a backup plan from a CPOW. You got that right because, you know, she doesn't need more sleep on the same end of the house with me. No, no, that CPOW is the greatest thing since sliced bread. That little tiny bit of white noise helps me go to sleep because I'm not hearing you snore. Ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you something. Bless him. Love him dearly. I mean it. But he could pull the wallpaper right down off the walls with his snoring and it doesn't bother him. Not one bit. Not one bit. Well, I'm asleep.

27:11But when the doctor first asked me, did your wife complain about you snoring? I said, the neighbors have complained about my snoring. Yeah. Status or Olympic quality snoring. But it's about reducing that dependence on a fragile system. So are you getting value from our podcast? I certainly hope the answer to that question is a resounding absolutely. And if so, help us out by giving back a little, why don't you? You can go to practicalprepping.info slash support. You will find several ways that you can support the show. That would include a coffee membership and even shopping from the Amazon banner. These things will really help us offset the expenses of our show so that we can continue to bring this to you which we love to do because we really appreciate you friends. Please consider doing that at practicalprepping.info slash support. And the links to everything we've mentioned on today's episode can be found in the episode notes. And I'll say it one more time, practicalprepping.info, forward slash five four six.

28:18And we really appreciate you being here today. We appreciate you taking your time and selecting our podcast when you could listen any other one you wanted to. And that umbles us and we do appreciate it very much. And as Christa always says, stuff happens, stay prepared and we'll see you next time.