Adventures in Adaptive Technology

One thing I miss about my old day job is that my employer provided bleeding edge techie toys, and expected me to play with them. Indeed, it was part of my job description; how cool is that? They were mobile devices, mostly – laptops, smartphones, and the like. It’s coming up on four years now, but I’m still suffering withdrawal. When the pangs of deprivation get particularly intense, I’m likely to wind up on the ‘net, looking for new software. This frequently turns out to be a bad idea.

 Most recently, I found myself looking for a workable voice-recognition solution for Linux. I torture myself with this from time to time. If I could use voice recognition with Linux, I could ditch Windows, and I’d do it in a heartbeat.

 I didn’t find anything this time, either.

 Found this, though:

“Enable Viacam (eViacam) is a mouse replacement software that moves the pointer as you move your head.
It works on standard PC equipped with a webcam. No additional hardware is required.
It's completely free, open source and easy to use!” 

 Too good to be true? One sure way to find out…

Well, no, apparently it’s not. I’ve been using ViVo Mouse, a commercial ($$$) head tracking software, for several years, so I’m familiar with the concept. I installed eViacam, just for grins, just to see how a free, open-source product would stack up against my $$$ ViVo Mouse. I was dubious; it didn’t have nearly as many settings and configuration options. You didn’t have to tell it how to find your WebCam, you didn’t have to do anything to get it to work with Dragon NaturallySpeaking, none of that. You just install it, and it’s supposed to work. Too good to be true, I’m thinkin’.

 Except it’s not.

 You just install it, and it works, pretty much. While I did tweak a couple of settings, it was more like adjusting preferences than making functional changes. One thing I could do in ViVo Mouse that was awkward in eViacam could be managed easily enough with a macro. And I will happily write a lot of macros for $$$.

So I’ve been using it ever since. It works at least as well as ViVo Mouse which, by the bye, hasn't released a software update in almost three years. If anything, I’d say it works a little better. So there you go.

If it seems like I failed to get myself into enough trouble this time, fear not. Those macros? I’ve been using AutoHotkey for a while and have largely come to terms with it, but I just found NatLink, and Vocola, and Unimacro… extensions to Dragon NaturallySpeaking, and extensions to the extensions. Beta versions! Life at the bleeding edge! This will probably turn out to be a bad idea.

 Fun though.

Bareit Is Ready for His Close-Up

I dithered about posting a link to the video the King County Library System made about how people (being, specifically, Scarecrow and me) use their library. However illusory the veil of Internet anonymity might be, I still find myself clinging to it. KCLS will probably make the video available from their website at some point anyway, but that’s OK because, really, how many people will find it there? Then I figured, what the heck? How many people will find it here?

The whippets, who have never been to the library and can’t even read, pretty much stole the show anyway. As you can imagine, there’s no living with them now.

Edited 12 March 2013, to remove the link to the video on Scarecrow's Facebook page, which was apparently protected by Facebook's privacy controls. (Facebook has privacy controls? Who knew?) Anyway, I'll post a functional link if/when KCLS makes it available from their website. If you'd like a preview, it's here, in PC and Mac format:

http://cardinalmedia.com/cardshares/KCLS-Symphony/

Edited some more on 17 March 2013, because I noticed the above link wasn't actually a link. Duh. I know you know how to get there anyway, but I try to be considerate about things like that.

How Much Does an E-Book Weigh?

As grateful as I am that e-books became widely available just about the time I began to have trouble managing regular physical books, some e-book features require this elderly canine to attempt some new tricks.

I've been reading regular books for a long time, you understand, and I'm pretty well accustomed to that way of doing things. For example, just about any e-reader gives you some way to tell how much progress you've made through the book, and while I know the slider bar on the edge of the screen (or whatever) is conveying that information, it is not (yet) as intuitive as comparing the difference in thickness between the pages on the left side of the open book with the thickness of the pages on the right.

I also seem to have a heck of a time remembering to note how many pages are in an e-book. With physical books, it's obvious, isn't it? The breadth of the spine, the weight when you pick it up — it's not something you have to remind yourself to do. E-books, on the other hand, all look pretty much the same. It was only after I got started onCryptonomicon (Neal Stephenson) that I noticed that turning virtual pages seemed to have remarkably little effect on the position of the slider bar at the edge of the window. I guess it wouldn't. Turns out the darned thing is 1168 pages long, although admittedly that includes what they call "e-book extras".

If I'd been paying attention, I would've realized that I didn't need to check out any other books at the same time; particularly not The Game of Thrones (George R.R. Martin, 835 pages) and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (Haruki Murakami, 640 pages). The Game of Thrones returned itself to the library when I was part way through it, thoughtfully sparing me any overdue fines. I had to put it back on hold, and I'm waiting for my name to get back to the top of the list.

Format aside, I guess it's a good sign when you finish a really long book, and would look for other books by the same author. Cryptonomicon is something of a classic in its genre, and deservedly so. Parallel storylines, engagingly geeky characters, elements of the theory and history of cryptology — it took me a while to get into it, but it was a lot more fun than I expected.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle… not so much. My English-major daughter recommended the author, so I expected it to be challenging. Opaque was more like it.

Just because I knew you'd want my opinion.

Record Straight-Setting

Looking back over my last post, hoping for a blinding flash of inspiration which, in case you're wondering, totally failed to materialize, I realize I've been somewhat unfair. Dragon NaturallySpeaking isn't really as bad as I made it sound. Not nearly.

That's not to say that it didn't record the stuff I attributed to it last time. It did. But none of it was while I was dictating something I expected it to transcribe. It recorded most of those examples when the microphone was listening to me talk to someone else, or someone else talk to someone else, often in a different part of the house, or the radio talk to nobody at all. Sometimes I left the microphone on by accident, other times it turned itself on spontaneously, which is an annoyingly frequent occurrence.

Voice-recognition software really is pretty amazing. I use it, with head tracker mouse software, all day, every day. I use it to work on the desktop, clamber around the web, and use programs that don't know anything about voice-recognition, and I spend a lot more time doing that than I do dictating text. Although I sometimes get tangled up in too many layers of technology, for the most part, with a little patience and creativity, I can do whatever I need to do you dog wants you to do anything she's trying to be polite but you're not paying attention these are you think it's bug in the meantime I'll let you know

Sorry. I was talking to Scarecrow, and the microphone turned itself on.

Sometimes Dragon NaturallySpeaking really does misrecognize what I say. This can be either funny or annoying, depending on my state of mind, and the kind of mistakes it attempts to attribute to me can be devilishly hard to find. But really, most of the time I get caught writing something stupid, it's because I wrote something stupid. Without any help from anybody. Voice-recognition software can be a pain in the butt, but without it, I'd be in a world of hurt.

So, there's that.

It appears Tuffy is going to survive her latest medical adventure. What is it with this kid? She had a small sore get infected. It was looking pretty bad, and considering that she spends half her life on pestilential wrestling mats, I suggested she have a doctor take a look at it. It must've really hurt, because she did. The provisional diagnosis was MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), which sounded pretty bad. The doctor drained the owie, put her on antibiotics, and told her to come back every day for the next four or five days. Turns out it wasn't MRSA, just garden-variety staph, which is bad enough. It's healing up surprisingly well, considering how bad it looked. The doctor says she won't even have much of a scar.

So, there's that.

Stalking Sparky

Sometimes, I swear, if I didn't have vicarious adventures, I wouldn't have any adventures at all. Pathetic, I guess, but there it is. Fortunately for me, my brother Sparky (the electrician) is off on quite the adventure, and thanks to modern technology and his unhealthy obsession with electronic doodads, he's taking me along.

Having recently married off his number two son, Sparky took off on a motorcycle trip. The first leg of his trip took him from Southern California up here to Seattle, mostly following Highway 1 along the coast. An 1100 mile warm-up, shakedown kind of thing. He spent a couple of days here, checking over his bike and messing with his GPS, then took off on the real adventure. From here, he's off through Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, to Yellowstone and the Continental Divide Trail, and over the next couple of weeks, somehow, back home.

The techie stalker thing comes in because he's wearing a little doohickey (my voice recognition software, about which more later, suggested "too geeky", and while it's not what I was after, it's eerily apt) that tracks his location and displays it on Google maps in near-real time. (I don't mean to shill for this place, but if you're interested, it's this.) So I know, for example, that earlier today he got a spot at Norris Campground, then he stopped at the Canyon Visitor Education Center and the Canyon Village Gen. Store, and now he's at Old Faithful. And at 8:44:32 a.m. on Wednesday he was at the Oasis Bordello Museum in Wallace, Idaho. Not really. He probably stopped for gas. At a gas station right next to the Bordello Museum. But still, is that creepy, or what?

Now, I'm all about technology. I'm sitting in a power chair, talking to my computer, using a head-tracker mouse. I'm first in line when it comes to taking advantage of technological advances, but I'm sometimes confronted with the downside. The same technology that I use to stalk dead people makes it possible for me to stalk my brother. The same technology that I use to talk to my computer makes me write really stupid things.

Here, for example, is my latest batch of Dragon-isms, collected over the last couple of days:

a guy is a will is will is a you will you as a is will is a you will you as a all will is a you all you as you rule is a you a you as their root, you will will will show you will you will a you a you a you as you as you as you are a you a you and you as you you he is cool you are you as a will is a you is you are you are a cool day and a you and you and you as you are you as you rule to the city a is a more is that I and you and you shall know a you as you as you as he is in is cool and he is a is a you he you a you as you you as you shall know he is a you a a a a a a a a you and a you as you as you as you are you will you and will you know you are you are you a woman will be

as I will you will you go. On the road and would very very short or will she will will will a a will and a you are you are you a you  are you will you as a you as you have is a oh

worries what will is router that was just a West is losing the Yankees you pull my copy of where to reach a good sleep it' Or actually warhorses for. Are you a

Woodruff: well for you as you and the

A save you a you are you are you will and you as a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a you as you are you are a is a and he is is is is you will a a a you he is a you and a you and I and. I and you are you I will and I and is he is an and he is a y and I and you as a you and a a a you a will is there is all I is a you will you a a a a a a is is him and you as a a a a a a a a a a a a a little while you as you are in a a will and a you and you and you as a you and you and you and you and a a a a a a a a a a a you know is will you are you are you as you are you are you as you go is a a a a a a a. A a a a a a a a a a a a a is a you are you in and I are you are you a you a you are you are you a you will you will just a you a you are you will you will you will you a will all go a and are you as you will will will you and you and I and is is is is is is is is is a on a Ou as you will soon is a a a a a a a a very a a a a a a a a a a is a law is is you as a way

in K she growls item you were when you now am I haven't find are OK of them could you L controllability of the details you will are you getting ready to go are you OK

qeasu)rifile

My world, and welcome to it.

The e-Library

The thing I really like about checking an ebook out of the library is that when it's due, it just goes away. No pestering Scarecrow to return it, no overdue fines, nothing like that. I'm ashamed to admit that it's saved me a chunk of change. This is a very fine thing.

The thing I really don't like about checking an ebook out of the library is that when it's due, it just goes away. Even if I'm part way through and really want to finish it and I can't renew it because I know there are holds on it so I know this is evil but I want to just pay the fine and hang onto it for an extra day. Or maybe two. But I can't. When it's due, it just goes away. I have to put another hold on it and get back in line. By the time I can check it out again, I'll have forgotten where I left off.

On the bright side, if you'd call it that, by the time I can check it out again, it'll be like a brand-new book. I must've liked it, because I wanted to finish it. So there's that. I don't know that my pathetic reading retention is an MS thing. I'm more inclined to think it's an easily distracted old lady thing. In either event, I can reread my favorite books, and enjoy them all over again. I can even reread mysteries, and not remember who done it. It's a silver lining type of thing.

Also, getting back to ebooks, the whippets have yet to come up with a way to chew them up. It's not that they're all that bad about chewing up books. They've only totally decimated one hardback, and nibbled around the edges of a couple of paperbacks. The commute to Scarecrow's new job way down at the other end of town makes for a long day for them to be all alone, poor dears. Of course the paperbacks were ours. The hardback was a library book.

Where was I going with this?

In a comment on an earlier post, which I know I should respond to but rarely do, Donna at Arranging Shoes wanted to know how I manage the reading thing anyway. Here's the scoop.

I used to use the eraser end of a pencil to turn pages on a real paper book. Sometimes, at a good time, on a good day, with a cooperative book, I can still do that. Sometimes I have to ask Scarecrow to turn pages for me, and amazingly, sometimes he's willing to interrupt what he's doing every minute and a half to do that. I've got to say that struggling to turn a page, or having to ask someone to turn it for me and waiting while they do that, does not do good things for my reading comprehension. Yeah I know, excuses, excuses. But some books just aren't available in a digital format, and won't be anytime soon. You do what you gotta do.

For digital books, I really like the whole eReader idea. Books and gadgets – what's not to like? I wish I still had enough manual dexterity to hold one and make it go, but I don't.

Audio books can be nice, especially when they're read by somebody good. My problem with them is that when I'm distracted, or stop paying attention, or fall asleep, the reader goes merrily on without me. Finding where I left off has not been easy. With a real paper book, or even an ebook, I can always pick it up where I stopped turning pages.

So mostly I read ebooks on my laptop. And wait to get to the top of the library hold queue.

Communicado

I'm communicado again, more or less. That is, after having been pretty much in-communicado for the last couple of weeks. Having to choose between a keyboard (= voice recognition software) and a mouse (= head tracking software), and having to disable this before I could enable that, and applications crashing right and left, was making me kind of cranky.

Then Scarecrow's laptop died.

So I've got a machine that can't do what I need to do, and Scarecrow's got no computer at all. Tuffy's been using the laptop my former employer let me keep – that's how old it was – since her laptop was stolen, but it's running the wrong operating system. Before Tuffy took it over, I replaced the pathetic Windows Vista with Fedora, which I really like but Tuffy… ah… doesn't.

Everybody has their priorities. Some people expect to buy a new car every couple of years. I've never done that. I'm not a car person. For me, a car is just a way to get where I'm going. As long as it can manage that, I don't really care how old it is. Our four-year-old minivan still seems pretty new. We sold the car I used to drive, and since Tuffy doesn't drive, we're a one car family.

We don't have a travel budget and we don't eat out much. We don't have an entertainment center or a big-screen TV. No TV, no cable subscription or satellite dish, no game console.

We have our fiscally irresponsible hobbies. There are the dogs, for example. And we are a three computer family. At least.

So we bought a refurbished laptop, and we're playing musical computers. I'm shifting my stuff onto the new laptop, and Scarecrow and Tuffy are negotiating the allocation of the remaining two machines.

It will take me a while to figure out this new operating system, get everything installed and configured and what all. But I'm communicado again. More or less.

Decisions, Decisions

I've spent the last couple of weeks trying to decide which I need more: a keyboard (that is, voice-recognition software), or a mouse (or the head tracker equivalent).

Not surprisingly, both voice-recognition and head tracker mouse software place considerable demands on processor resources; resources which my aging laptop does not possess in any abundance. The CPU, which was quite the ticket in its day, is just not up to the task. It was doing pretty much OK with Dragon NaturallySpeaking, as long as I was using a regular hardware mouse. However, replacing the regular mouse with head tracker mouse software, which is a total CPU hog, was just asking a little too much. They would both load, and run, but I couldn't... do... anything. If I opened a browser (Firefox) or an e-mail client (Thunderbird), they would crash. Same for my database and checkbook applications. Nothing spectacular, just...*poof*

By alternately disabling DNS or the head tracker I might be able to get through checking my e-m*poof*

Or not. Sending e-mail wa*poof*

I tried balancing my checkbook, but th*poof*

OK. I need both a keyboard AND a mouse, or their logical equivalents. I want both. And I need to have enough system resources left over to run applications without crashing.

Software is available these days that can do ever more magical things, if you've got the hardware to handle it. It's shallow of me, I know, but one of the things I miss about working for a software company was always having a computer that was fast enou*poof*

This is not a great time to buy a new com*poof*

Well cr*poof*

PFM

Long ago and far away, an eager young tech writer asked a senior software developer what protocol a server used to send configuration settings to a client device.

"PFM," the developer replied.

The tech writer looked blank.

"Pure F#@kin' Magic," he explained.

Smartass.

But now, many years later, I've come to believe he was probably right. Technological advances notwithstanding, I think a lot of things still rely on that protocol.

As we were leaving the UW Medical Center the other week, a woman was watching as I drove my power chair into the elevator and turned around.

"How are you doing that?," she asked.

"PFM," I wanted to reply. But I didn't. I explained about the head array control.

It might not be magic, exactly. I leave gouges in the walls and  dents in the furniture. I go backwards when I  meant to go forward, and vice versa. I whine and complain about how it makes my awkward, clunky power chair even more awkward and clunky. In spite of all that, I'm using it. I'm glad to have it. I'm keeping up with the Red Queen. That's pretty magical.

My latest adventure in assistive technology, and the reason I've been away from this blog for a couple of days, has been a search for a way to control a computer mouse without using my hands. I can get by without a keyboard. For entering text, Dragon NaturallySpeaking does fine. For moving around the desktop, it's beyond awkward. I'm not the first person to run into this problem. There are solutions. It's time to start checking them out.

The most likely-sounding options use head tracking. A webcam tracks the position of your head, and moves the cursor accordingly. They can be pricey, but there's an open-source option. I've spent the last couple of days playing around with it.

Like the head array, you wouldn't use it if you could use a regular mouse or trackball. It's a major drain on system resources. And something keeps crashing Firefox and Thunderbird. But it kinda works. No hands! How cool is that?

PFM.

All in My Head, Part Two

After another week using the head array control to steer my power chair, I think it's working pretty well, considering.

It's not as convenient or as easy to use as a joystick, if you can use a joystick. I can tell you from personal experience, though, that it's a whole lot better than trying to use a joystick if you can't use a joystick.

For the most part I've still been keeping to a speed that can be best described as 'glacial', although I prefer to think of it as 'stately.' Or perhaps 'dignified.' Getting down hallways and through doors at home and at the warehouse where I spend my days is enough of a navigational challenge for the time being.

Turns out one of the hardest things to do is go in a straight line. My chair (Permobile C300) doesn't track worth a darn anyway. With the lateral switches on the head array being either on or off, it's hard to straighten out just a little bit. Being front wheel drive, the chair has a tendency to fishtail when going downhill. I don't remember noticing it that much with a joystick, but it's really hard to control with the head array.

We've been dinking with the position of the headrest and the lateral switches. Really small adjustments can make a huge difference in how easy this thing is to use. If the side pads are in close, it's easier to turn the chair but harder to go straight. The best position for the head rest really depends on how you're sitting in the chair, which changes during the course of the day.

To respond to the comments on my last post (which I do appreciate very much even if I hardly ever respond to them directly because I'm a lazy slime weasel), using this thing does require a fair amount of head control, but not that much range of motion.

I don't need Scarecrow's help to change the speed profile. Although I can't press the buttons on the display, I've got a separate switch I can use as a kind of mode selector. That gets me to the settings menus, where I can select a different speed profile, or change the tilt, recline, etc. Navigating the settings menus and selecting options entails a series of taps on the side and back pads of the array, which is kind of awkward but not complicated. Sure beats having to ask somebody to do it for me.

Yes, I'm still learning (the hard way) that leaning my head against the head rest when the chair is on can send it crashing into walls or furniture. The dogs? Well, they're whippets. If they can't stay out of the way of a chair set to 'glacial', there's no hope for them.

I haven't taken it out in the real world much, yet. Excursions to the UW Medical Center and the optometrist went OK. I'm feeling like I'm safe enough to give it a try, but the weather has been crummy. This being Seattle, it should stop raining sometime next July.

OK, so. Mobility problems under control, for the moment. Thanks to TinMan, Cupholder v.3 is working great. My next quest is to find a hands-free way to control the cursor on my computer.

It'll be fun!

It's All in My Head

I've been using the head array control to drive my wheelchair for a couple of weeks now, and I know you're just dying to hear how it's working.

No?

OK. Most people will never need to know this. Even people with MS will probably never need to know this. I sure as heck didn't figure that I ever would. But in the unlikely event that you should go looking for information about using a head array -- what the equipment looks like, and how you use it to steer a power chair -- I can tell you from experience that there isn't much of anything out there. Besides, Herrad at Access Denied was curious about how it works and how it looks. So, here:

 

This is the head array control installed on my power chair. There is a switch installed in each of the three sections of the headrest. Touching the headrest lightly activates the switch in that section. All the rest is software.

The way my chair is currently set up, touching the center section of the headrest makes the chair go forward. Touching a side section makes the chair pivot that direction. Touching the center and a side section simultaneously makes the chair veer to that side. 

Unlike a joystick, where the distance and direction you move the stick controls where you go and how fast, each of these switches is either on or off. To change speed, reverse direction, or control other chair functions (tilt, recline, etc.), you select options from menus on a control unit.

If you could see this better, you could see that it displays battery status and whether the chair is moving or on standby (duh). It also shows which speed profile is selected, and whether the chair is going forward or backward. Each of the five speed profiles is preset to accelerate, travel, turn, and decelerate at a selected speed. To change speed, you go back to the menu and choose a different profile. The profiles are configurable, but the wheelchair tech is probably the only one who has the software to do it.

This is just one example of a head array control set up. There are head arrays with more switches, fewer switches, or different kinds of switches. Newer control units are a lot cooler, but my three-year-old chair is too old to be compatible with them. The software is pretty much totally customizable.

So what's it like to use?

It takes some getting used to. You'd expect that it takes practice to direct the chair where you want to go, and that's true. It does. And you might expect that your neck gets sore, because you're using it in unaccustomed ways. That's true too. You might even expect that you need to make sure the power is off before you rest your head on the head rest. Unfortunately, I keep forgetting to do this. And it's surprising how often you need to look at the display to see if you're going to go forward or backward. And it's surprising how often I forget to do this, too. It's not nearly as convenient or intuitive as a joystick. It seems like I'm always having to stop and dink around with a menu to change a setting.

Still, I have better control with the head array now than I have had for a long time using a joystick. Although it took forever and cost a lot, I've caught up with the Red Queen again. For a while.

Doc Ock

It might not be quite as cool as this, but it's pretty close.

TinMan (Scarecrow's senior sibling) was pretty sure he could design and build a better hands-free cupholder than the one I had. I needed something that would attach to my chair or a table, and hold a drink where I could get to it without needing to use my hands. To my surprise, there weren't a lot of commercially available devices that would do this. The closest thing I could find was a bright yellow plastic baby bottle holder that worked, kind of, but broke the first week I had it.

TinMan was all over this. Scarecrow sent him photos and measurements of my chair, and the two of them had lengthy discussions about various design and material options. He contacted the chair manufacturer (Permobile) for dimensions of possible attachment sites. He put his son, who was home from summer session for a one-week summer break, to work building it. (Sorry, Tin Jr. This was not my idea!)

It arrived Thursday, and I've got to say it's pretty cool. There are brackets to attach it to either side of my chair so it reaches around over my shoulder, and it's quick to install or remove. It can also attach to a plate that slides under the seat cushion. The gooseneck is flexible (duh), swings out of the way, and is attached to a telescoping rod for height adjustment. The cup holder part snaps onto the end of the gooseneck. Designed for use on a boat, it's self-leveling, so tilting my chair back doesn't dump the contents of the cup in my face. It's no uglier than the rest of my power chair, in fact, it kind of blends in. And it's sturdy. It may just be a cupholder, but this puts the durable in durable medical equipment.

Although in my past-tense day job I've been through lots of software development cycles, this is my first experience with hardware development so I don't know if you'd call this a prototype, or an alpha, or a beta, or what. Anyway, I expect software and hardware development are similar in that having the first example be perfect in every way would:

1. be a miracle, and
2. take all the fun out of it

So, yeah. I'm having to take back what I said about engineers being impervious to user feedback. TinMan and Scarecrow have already been modifying the attachment bracket, so installation and removal will be quicker. The gooseneck needs to be able to support more weight without sagging (hence the tasteful and stylish lightweight plastic cup in the photo, a relic of the days when Tuffy, who is now 20, could order from the kids' menu in a restaurant). The self-leveling cupholder is a brilliant idea, but it turns out, in practice, that you want more control over the position and angle of the cup than this allows. I expect this batch of fixes is only the first of many rounds of tweaks and adjustments.

But you know, for now, I can drink (from a lightweight cup) without pestering anybody for help. Scarecrow doesn't have to keep handing me my drink at meals. And the utilitarian design, far from detracting from its appeal, makes me feel like Doc Ock. How cool is that?

TinMan said he could build a better cupholder than the one I had. And he was right.

Enablers Needed

The wheelchair guy has figured out what bits I need to install a head array control on my power chair, and my insurance company has graciously granted the regal okey-dokey. My coinsurance is 20%, and they'll let me pay half now, and half at installation. So we're good, right?

So, yeah. There's that 20%, and 20% of the lift, and 20% of the lung vac... But here's the thing. 20% of a big number can still be a pretty big number. Especially if there are dollar signs attached.

And what is it going to get me? For now, I would be able to drive my monster robo-chair more-or-less safely, and adjust the seat without help. I would be able to get out of the house, without leaving a trail of devastation and chaos in my wake. At least, not all the time. That would be cool. But for how long? We would be throwing a significant chunk of change at a solution for a progressive disease. Another run with the Red Queen. If I knew I would be able to use it for a year, say, it would be easier to commit. For six months? Maybe. For only a month or two of enhanced mobility, it probably wouldn't be worth it. And, of course, there's no way to know.

it's not like I can't think of other things to do with that money besides pouring it down the MS rathole. Assuming that MS always has first priority when allocating family resources just seems wrong to me.

But it would be cool to walk through the park across the street with Scarecrow and the dogs. It would be very cool.

Everybody's an Engineer

I know a lot of engineers. My dad's an engineer. My brother was an auto mechanic, and is now an electrician, so is an engineer in a practical sense. I worked with more software developers than I can remember. Some of my best friends are engineers. (Scarecrow is not an engineer. Might this be significant?) If there is one personality trait that engineers share, it's that they're never happier than when they've got something to build. Whether it's a machine or a software program, tell them, "I need something that will do XYZ...", and they're off.

After my post the other day about trying to find a no-hands beverage holder, I wasn't surprised to find that a lot of people were surprised that there weren't very many off-the-shelf choices available. What surprised me was the number of people who suggested something that might work.

Scarecrow's brother (I'll call him TinMan), was on the phone that very afternoon. TinMan is an engineer, for real. He designs and manufactures large machines. He has a machine shop, and a son who is an engineering student, conveniently home from college for the summer. His son is, as yet, blissfully ignorant of the project his dad has in mind for him. TinMan asked Scarecrow to send photos of my chair, so he could decide how a cupholder might best be attached. They discussed at length the best way to hold a cup. He says he can come up with something better than what I've got.

For as long as I can remember, my mom found the solutions my dad designed and built for household problems to be a seriously mixed blessing. Missile guidance systems are one thing; an indoor clothesline is something entirely else. While they generally performed the task for which they were intended, the execution was frequently not at all what my mom had in mind. Whatever the problem, my dad was always pretty sure that his solution was the best way to solve it. He was not real receptive to what we would call "user input." I thought it was just my dad, but I've since come to believe it's an engineer thing.

When TinMan says he can design and build a better hands-free beverage holder that I've got now, I believe him. He's a talented guy, with a lot of resources at his disposal. And I appreciate the heck out of the fact that he's even interested in having a go at it. And he reads this blog so I can't say anything bad about him even if I wanted to, which I don't. I'll leave him to do his engineer thing, and I won't try to tell him how it should be done. He wouldn't listen anyway. He's an engineer.

He'll come up with something that works better than the yellow plastic baby bottle holder I've got now, for sure. It is, after all, a pretty low bar. As durable medical equipment goes, it wasn't very. It already broke.

Gotta Want It

There have been times in my life when I knew that pursuing a particular course of action would invite ridicule, and test my capacity to endure public humiliation. Sometimes I did it anyway. If I wanted it bad enough.

An example that comes painfully to mind was competing in obedience trials with a Gordon setter. Although Gordons are lovely dogs, people looking for an obedience prospect don't typically choose one, for good reason. It's not that they're stupid. They've just been bred to have, how shall we say?, an independent turn of mind. In consequence, commands are likely to be perceived as suggestions. Instant and unquestioning obedience will never be at the top of their list of priorities. That's just the way they are. I knew that.

On top of this, the individual at the center of this story was a born clown. She was never happier than when she was the center of attention. She loved to make people laugh. You can imagine where this is going, and that's pretty much the way it went. Her interpretation of commands issued when she had the show ring all to herself were amazingly creative and, I admit, pretty darned funny, although it took me a while to appreciate the humor. She collected a devoted gallery of spectators who could be counted on to show up at ringside to see what she would come up with this time. She eventually earned an obedience title, even ranking among the top 10 Gordons in obedience in the nation that year, although it might only have been the top seven or eight, since I'm not sure there were 10 Gordons competing in obedience that year because most people know better than to try this. In the pursuit of this goal, I learned that my capacity for public humiliation is greater than I ever imagined. Gotta want it.

I don't remember when I last could pick up a cup and drink out of it like a normal person. It was that long ago. I'm almost getting used to drinking everything with a straw. Coffee, hot as well as iced. Wine. Beer. Scotch. But a straw only solves part of the problem. A drink with a straw is still no use to me unless it's sitting on a table where I can reach it by bending over (a maneuver of which I suspect Emily Post would never approve), or there's somebody to hold it for me. What I wanted was a way to drink wherever I happened to be, without having to pester anybody for help. Preferably without creating a spectacle, although I can do spectacle, if need be.

I didn't expect it to be that hard. I am not, after all, the first quadriplegic on the planet. I wasn't surprised that the bountiful array of cupholders available for walkers or wheelchairs generally assume the user can extract the cup from the holder and convey it to the user's mouth. Most people can, but that's not what I need. We could rig something with a mic stand and boom, but I was hoping to find something a little more portable. I eventually located only two commercially-available devices that would attach to my chair or a table and hold a drink where I could get to it. Only one looked like it might work for me.

This particular example of assistive technology was intended to clamp onto a stroller or crib and hold a baby bottle, hence the Fisher-Price color scheme. So much for being inconspicuous. There was no choice of color. The plastic clamp is about as sturdy as it appears in the picture, which is to say, not very. It can support maybe 12 ounces of liquid in a lightweight cup. My 16-oz double-wall stainless steel insulated coffee cup with a full load of coffee is definitely not happenin'. It's huge and bright yellow and looks like, well, like a baby bottle holder. But it works. Scarecrow can load it up and go about his business, and I can drink whenever I want. I had forgotten how cool that was. If it makes my ginormous black Robo-monster power chair look even more ridiculous than it did before, Ch. MacTyke's Heartbreaker CD showed me I can deal with worse than that. Way worse than that.

In Patrick's immortal words, "Freedom is always fashionable." You've just gotta want it.

The Lung Vac

Seems like I've had a flurry of doctor appointments lately. Two weeks ago, I checked in with the rehab medicine guy. Since I was whining about being short of breath, he referred me to a guy in the pulmonary clinic. I expected it would be a total waste of everybody's time; they would listen to my chest, decide I didn't have pneumonia or asthma, and send me on my way. The rehab guy allowed as how that might be the case, but said he was referring me to somebody with a particular interest in neuromuscular disorders. I was pretty sure they wouldn't find anything wrong, and if they did, there wouldn't be anything they could do about it. But I went.

So last week I show up at the pulmonary clinic. After some puffing and blowing, they tell me my lung capacity is about 50% of normal, and ask if I have any trouble coughing. Well, yeah, as it happens, I do. Giving in to my penchant for overstatement (hyperbole is the best thing ever!), I tell them I'm afraid if I ever get a respiratory infection, I'm toast. So they make me an appointment with a respiratory therapist.

So on Monday I see the respiratory therapist. After some more puffing and blowing, he tells me if I ever get a respiratory infection, I'm toast. Somehow it's more disquieting, coming from him. He gives me a thing that looks like a purple balloon with a hose, and takes Scarecrow and me through some exercises that he describes as range of motion for the lungs. Then he pulls up a machine that is basically a vacuum cleaner with a mask attached. It blows air into your lungs, then sucks it out. It feels... weird. It sounds like, well, like a vacuum cleaner.

The dogs are going to hate this.

The Red Queen and the Wheelchair Guy

"Well, in our country," said Alice, still panting a little, "you'd generally get to somewhere else - if you run very fast for a long time, as we've been doing."

"A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place."

Lewis Carroll
Through the Looking-Glass

Last week we finally got to meet with the wheelchair guy. He says a joystick control is really the best way to control a power chair and he's probably right about that, but having tried a variety of shapes, sizes, and locations for the joystick on my chair, we had to conclude that I just can't do it that way any more. When a 350-pound chair goes unpredictable places at unpredictable speeds, bad things happen. The plan was to install a head control, to see if it might enhance the safety of persons and property and inattentive whippets in my immediate vicinity. If it works, we can start worrying about what it will cost, and how to pay for it. No point going through the agony and expense involved in procuring durable medical equipment, only to find that the Red Queen is still winning the race.

So the wheelchair guy (I'll call him Mike. Because that's his name.) shows up with an extremely large, user-hostile-looking contraption, which he proposes to install on my chair and position around my head.

After about an hour of plugging and unplugging and twiddling and muttering, he gave up. The control unit, switches, head array, and chair, all made by different manufacturers, are apparently not plug-and-play. At least, they are not plug-and-play-nice. Just as well. The hardware cobbled together for the trial, which Mike assured me was a lot scarier looking than the equipment I would finally wind up with, was plenty scary looking. I already feel like a robo-monster in this chair. I would rather not make it even worse. I would do it, if that's what I have to do to be able to drive this thing. But I would really rather not.

Mike's fallback plan is to get the chair manufacturer to provide a loaner with head controls that I can try for a couple of days. He'll call us when he's got something set up. So once again, we're waiting to hear from the wheelchair guy.

Can You Hear Me Now?

If you want to use voice recognition software, you need a microphone. Counting the one that arrived two days ago, I'm on my fifth.

The problem has never been the accuracy of voice recognition, although that is better with a better microphone. It's more a matter of comfort and convenience, which can be a big deal if you use it all day every day.

My first microphone was the one that came with the Dragon NaturallySpeaking software. I pretty much immediately replaced it with a similar, but higher-quality, wired headset. It worked fine and was comfortable enough, I had to take it off every time I wanted to leave my computer. More accurately, I had to have someone else take it off for me. And every time I put it back on, I had to adjust the position of the microphone. More accurately, I had to have someone adjust the position of the microphone for me. If that's the only choice, that's what you do, but it's kind of a pain in the butt.

Imagine my excitement when I found a wireless microphone that was accurate enough to use for voice recognition. I could leave my computer without having to be untangled from my headset. The Bluetooth connection was not as reliable as one might wish, but I was willing to deal. And there was still the issue of microphone position, but since I wasn't putting it on and taking it off as often, it wasn't as much of an annoyance.

The latest version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking came with a special offer on a different style of Bluetooth headset. The price was right, so I gave it a try. Accuracy was fine and the Bluetooth connection was much more reliable, although this was probably due more to an updated driver for the Bluetooth adapter than to the new headset. The problem this time was the earpiece. If it was in exactly the right spot, it was comfortable, stable, and kept the microphone in the right place. Getting the earpiece in the right spot, however, required that the ambient temperature, relative humidity, phase of the moon, and traffic on I-5 all be exactly right. And you had to recite a special incantation. And I had to be careful not to move my head too much. Most of the time it would start to sag after a while, recognition would get less and less accurate, and eventually it would fall off entirely, wind up on the floor, where it was in danger of being flattened by my power chair. This wouldn't have been a problem if I could reach up and adjust it when it got loose, but I can't. I started looking around for something else.

My latest attempt to attain microphone nirvana isn't a headset at all. It's a microphone on a cable that plugs in to the USB port of my laptop. No Bluetooth, so there's one less layer of technology, which is always good. It doesn't seem like the cable would be able to keep the microphone where you put it, but so far so good. Accuracy seems to be at least as good as any of the headsets, even though the microphone is not always in exactly the same position relative to my mouth. I can move my head without being afraid I'm going to dislodge the darned headset, which, by the end of the day, is a lot easier on my neck. I can move away from my computer without having to be untangled first.

I think it'll do until the next new toy comes along.

Adventures on eBay

If they put s#!t in a can, I swear, my mom would buy it. Every time I venture onto eBay, I realize she's not the only one.

In our ongoing effort to bring the volume of our belongings into closer  correspondence with the available space in our house, I came across a couple of things I will never again use in a million years but which seemed too valuable to throw away. I decided to put them on eBay. Who knows? There are people like my mom out there.

I've been giving desk-drawer space to a K&E Leroy lettering set ever since my brief and unremarkable career as a zoologist, many many many years ago. It was quite the indispensable tool in its day, for preparing technical charts and graphs. It's now totally obsolete, archaic, even, superseded by garden-variety software installed on pretty much any computer. And it wasn't really something you'd want to keep around to do for fun. Really. Trust me on this. So I put it on eBay. Not only was it not the only item of its kind offered for sale, far from it, but somebody actually bought it. Go figure.

Encouraged by my success, I put up my Olympus OM1 SLR 35mm film camera (remember film?) with f1.8 50mm and f5 85-250 zoom lenses, and a bunch of accessories. It was a fun camera in its day, but I can't remember when I last took it out of the case. And really, film? I invested a fair bit of time in creating a listing that would stand out from the surprising (to me) amount of other old Olympus OM Series hardware. With so many people selling this stuff, I can only assume that there are people buying it. Who knew?

There really are people like my mom out there.

In other developments, Ernie's pain meds seem to be helping, thanks for asking. He is moving a little easier and seems to be resting better.

The ARNP in my family practitioner's office filled out the latest Attending  Physician Statement for the long-term disability insurance company, declaring that as much as I wish it were otherwise I am, in fact, still disabled. Since we will apparently need to do this every 6 to 9 months for the next 10 years, she cleverly saved a copy so it will be a quick and dirty process next time.

The wheelchair guy says a joystick of some sort is really the best option for controlling my power chair. I'm sure he knows what he's talking about, but I'm also sure any joystick-type solution is only going to buy us another couple of months before the Red Queen catches up to us again. And since another joystick modification is not that much less expensive than going with a head control, how about if we just cut to the chase? So, he's going to put together a head control for me to try. We'll see how that goes.

So. It's Friday. And it's a beautiful day. (Guess who was re-watching Fargo the other night.) They say the sun may make a few brief appearances this weekend. For March, in Seattle, that will be a beautiful weekend.

Beginnings and Endings

Thirty greyhounds, with their people and assorted hangers-on, welcomed spring with a walk around Green Lake in Seattle yesterday afternoon. Ernie would've loved it, but he was too sore and wobbly to go.

His visit to the vet this morning turned up about what we had expected. The new lumps on his leg are malignant (duh). There's no easy way to remove them, even if we were inclined to put him through that, which we're not. His joints are sore. His legs are weak. He screamed pretty much every place the vet poked him, but Ernie is kind of a weenie that way. The vet sent him home with some pain meds. We'll keep him comfortable. He'll let us know when he's had enough.

I'm OK with that. We'll enjoy being with him for as long as we can. When he's ready to go, we'll let him. It hurts that dogs don't live as long as we do, but they don't. Still, when you weigh the pain of losing them against the joy we get from their company, it's always worth it.

I admit I was looking forward to making the walk (roll) around Green Lake myself, even if Ernie couldn't. It wasn't his fault that I didn't go. I've been limping along (figuratively speaking) with bubble gum and bailing wire modifications to the joystick control for my power chair, but I'm afraid the Red Queen has caught up with me again. It's just too hard to make the chair go where I want it to, which, considering the size of this thing, could be really bad. I need a solution that doesn't depend on being able to use my hands. I need to talk to the wheelchair guy again. Maybe he'll have something the Red Queen hasn't heard about yet.