I want to thank my good friend Joe.
That’s because I am typing this faster. And hopefully
my typing will get faster.
And less tiring.
Because
of Joe, I am now able to use my p.c the
same way I use my Vmax speech device.
That is, I am able to use it without using my hands.
This
involves three components, which were installed last week after a long process
that began last Fall with an evaluation by an occupational
therapist. One component is a tracking
device called a HeadMouse Extreme, which follows a shiny dot that I have on my
glasses. The second
component is an onscreen keyboard that includes a word
prediction feature (which gets better as
it adds words that I use). Then there’s something called the
dragger which clicks the key or icon
or whatever I hold the mouse on. It is all pretty amazing.
I
should say that this is still very much a work in progress. Although this works
better than
my Vmax, in terms of consistency, it is a challenge to
use. Having to always move my head so
that
the mouse doesn’t click (I can slow down the clicking, but I
don’t think I would like it any slower – I’m
too impatient) and having to frequently adjust my head in
order to reorient the mouse are
among the challenges.
But I do see that my typing is speeding up, and I’m hoping I will get to
the
point where using my head will be less tiring than using my
hand (and really much of my body).
Unfortunately,
I am not able to thank Joe. I found out
that he left me the money to get
this set-up after he died unexpectedly in December, about six
months after his husband died. Joe was a
mentor to me, showing me how to be my true self, both as a
Quaker and then as a gay man. I posted a
few years ago about how powerful attending Joe and David’s
wedding was. I now call my computer
Joe.
(PLEASE
NOTE that I will be doing some traveling and catching up this month and may or
may
not post. I plan to resume my regular schedule
of posting at least twice every two weeks in August.)
