Big

My hands and co-ordination are a bit off the wall today, so I was thinking about what will happen if they get really erratic at some point and an ordinary keyboard becomes useless to me. I did a bit of googling and some one else found some stuff for me and I came up with a few potential solutions - some bigger keyboards and some software that places characters on the screen and it tracks where you are looking via a camera mounted on your PC, so only eye movement is needed to "construct" words from a list of letters on the screen. You can see this stuff here

Well, I checked out the software first, and came to the conclusion that all that eye movement would either bring on those huge skull-crushing migraines and trigger the optic neuritis, or I would lose my balance and fall off my chair every 15 minutes. Seeing as how getting up off the floor isn't one of my preferred pastimes and I like my eyes without a million pins sticking in them, I figured there must be some bigger keyboards available out there, and I was right, there are. Well, that's if you want to use something with a truncated collection of keys put together to look like a kids sugarfix nightmare. I mean, c'mon, these things had keys an inch across and still packed into the same footprint of a standard keyboard. And they were ugly. Now, I can forgive a lot of things, but I like things to look reasonably good, you know? And I could not live with an ugly keyboard. I mean, have a look at 'em here, they suck. And they are expensive.

Same with mice. My arm and hand gets really tired sometimes using an ordinary mouse, and when it gets tired it aggravates my RSI so I get a double handful of shite to deal with. Now I have an old castoff scroll mouse from Colin, and it's a lot better than my old mouse and I tend to use my arm a lot less, which is great. I tried an old trackball but it was just wrong, and I like the concept of a trackball mouse with the ball under your thumb, but I don't know anyone who has one to beg a borrow and see how it goes. And they are way too expensive to buy one "just in case". Then there are those joystick mouse thingees. They look quite promising, too, but again I don't know anyone who has one and I'm not laying out $$ on a punt. I don't think it would quite qualify for my Disability Allowance.


Irene wants me to get into voice recognition software, but I don't think that integrates with applications where you still want to type stuff, like my graphics apps. Mind you, once I can't do graphics any more, I will be straight into check out mode so it won't matter for very long anyway.

I would be quite happy with a keyboard that had all the right keys in the right places and took up a bit more room. Even keys half as big again.

Maybe I just need some hugely magnifying specs and the keys will look that much bigger, so the problem will be solved!

Wow, wasn't that easy, hmmm?!! Now I'm off to solve the issue of World Peace... back in a tick.

~~I said "no" to drugs, but they just wouldn't listen. ~~

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Confusion

I get really confused sometimes. It's not just the "what was I going to buy here?" stuff, or the "why did I come in here again?" nonsense, this is more of a deep down, intrinsic lack of comprehension at a really profound level. And I can usually cope with profundity. This is a little bit different.

I don't know why the hell I am here.

I guess everyone goes through stages in their lives where they question their own reason for being, their own value or worth, and reach a new understanding within themselves of who they are and what they want to achieve, and then go out and do it/say it/make it happen. I think I used to manage that reasonably well. Now all I see is a blank wall, a dead end.

What Faith I had has been so badly shaken. Especially the bit where I thought I could cope with the kids and raise them to be good people and follow the example I have tried so hard to project for them - be honest, be fair, do unto others... all that stuff.

So why are they so out of control?

If I am to stay this sick, and be this useless as a parent, as an employee, as a friend then what is the point of being here? And if all I am is to be some glorified pin up of how things can be, why won't a bloody poster do and let me out of here now?

Look, Karma is one thing, but this is ridiculous. There is nothing I can think of right now that has any value. My kids punish me for being sick; I don't belong in any peer group, there is no commonality; my skills are waning rapidly; my motivation is heading down the long drop and the dregs of a once productive life are trailing along with it.

Everyone goes through periods like this in their lives where they shift focus, find a new reason to carry on. They ride up over the hump and sail down the other side. I used to do that, too. I can't do it any more.

I wish it was checkout time now. Oh, how I wish.

Where do I belong now?

~~Life is tough. It's tougher if you're stupid.~~

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The Clean Up

I took my pills a little while ago and now I feel sick. Really, really nauseous. So it's 11 o'clock at night, I feel like shit and there isn't anyone to tell how bad I feel except the animals. Somehow I don't think they would care a whole lot, so I haven't bothered.

I have two kids. Each kid gave me go-to-hell morning sickness. For at least 7 months. I used to hurl so many times a day I felt that everyone must live on their knees like me. I always say I'm too old to be on my knees now, and maybe that's why. When you have morning sickness, you just know that, while it feels dreadful now, it will eventually stop. This time it's a little more open ended, if you see what I mean. It might last as long as I take the medicine, in fact will likely dictate how long I take the chemo for. But I don't want to stop. There's that bloody independent streak again. I have felt nauseous for the better part of 9 weeks, and I don't want to quit. Little Miss "Do It My Way".

I have some, usually staunch friends. These friends sort of ganged up on me, in the nicest possible way of course, and made me start putting new routines, new methods into place to enhance the quality of our living environment. In other words, sort myself out, get my shit together and get a cleaner in.

In their heads and hearts they knew it was the right thing to do, but to me it signalled the beginning of a new dependence, cos I can't do my job.

Bugger.

For a few months, I have been cleaning out boxes of stuff that was stored in the spare room. There was shitloads of stuff that hadn't seen the light of day since I packed them away 6½ years ago when the kids and I moved here. Things with an emotional bond at the time, things I thought helped define who and what I was. Things that once seemed important.

I burnt nearly all of it.

Feng shui says "clean out the clutter around you and clean out the mind". I figured it was worth a shot. It's funny how you outgrow some things. So I cleaned it out, purged it from memory, found resolution, if you like. The emotional attachment was gone.

I guess it was the first step in the road to accepting I can't keep knocking myself dead doing housework any more, and accepting that a cleaner is needed. So I trundled off to the MS Society like a lamb to the slaughter and let them do the paperwork to restart my disability allowance and have a cleaner assigned. And today my new housekeeper arrived.

What a rude awakening as to my limitations. She did in half an hour what would have taken me half the day. Every day seems another inch backwards. And there isn't anyone to thrash this concept through with, either.


Yesterday, in the car coming home, Adam said he wished he had a different mother, one that wasn't sick.

I wish he did, too.

~~Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm ~~

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Dragons

" In days of old, when Knights were bold
And condoms weren't invented
They stuck some socks upon their cocks
And the maids were quite contented "


   St George


According to History, St George once battled and slew a Dragon to save the life of a Princess in the little pagan town of Silene in Libya. Whilst the King and Queen looked on, he battled the Dragon for the life of his princess, and when he had so bedazzled it that it became submissive, he placed the Princess' girdle around it's neck and led it into town where it was subsequently beheaded.

Bit of a bugger for the Dragon really, but hey, that's history for you.

Kids have always been scared, enthralled and fascinated by dragons. They still appear in popular cartoons and movies. Some people think the Loch Ness Monster is a long lost Dragon. I think it's more likely too many drams of Auld Scottish blend. But kids have always had bad dreams about monsters under the bed and dragons in the closet, and they have grown out of it and learnt to battle their Dragons on their own terms, their own way.

Well, that is until a new Dragon hatches, grows and begins to torment the town.

MS came to me like a hatchling, still stretching it's wings and flexing it's muscles in preparation for the battle to come. It crept up on me and slowly engulfed me in it's fiery breath and I could not run away. And now it has me, it never lets go, not for a minute. Sometimes it sleeps, sometimes it rages, sometimes it merely strolls and meanders at a restful pace. But it is always there, always with me, always burning quietly in the background.

And I burn along with it. The Princess being slowly fed to the Dragon.

Where the Hell is George when you need him?

~~Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious~~

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Faith

1 a : allegiance to duty or a person : LOYALTY b (1) : fidelity to one's promises (2) : sincerity of intentions
2 a (1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2) : belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2) : complete trust
3 : something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially : a system of religious beliefs

People talk about having "Faith". I used to once, too. Now, I'm not so sure what it is.

If we look at Faith as allegience or duty, it comes down to something we owe. So it's a debt of some sort. Loyalty is sort of the same, we owe loyalty usually in return for some benefit - love, employment, friendship, whatever. I guess at times people might inspire great loyalty through their ideals, or their actions. I know poeple like that.

If we take out the religious aspects of it, what is left is complete trust.

So I guess we are loyal to people we trust.

Voltaire said 'I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it'.

How many people are you loyal to? How many would you defend? These things are really important when you are sick and you are lost.

~~Dogs have owners. Cats have staff~~

If I could wish for anything
I wonder what I would
Maybe wish for what I want
Or wish for what I should?

Should I wish for health, or a life of wealth
Flash cars and clothes and stuff
What some perceive to be success
It wouldn't be enough.

Would I wish for peace, a long life's lease
Excitement at every turn
Or a state of Grace and Enlightenment
Of what these lessons I am to learn.

My choice of wish is easy
Or is it really so?
I wish that folk would listen
Not tell me that they know

I'm not a robot or machine
I'm not a piece of wood
And I don't know what to wish for
What I want or what I should.

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