Scooter Saga

The ironic thing about having a progressive, neurologic disability is that I often find myself wanting to do things I never did before.  For some reason, I want to play the piano or any stringed instrument.  My hands look as though they were made to play an instrument.  The problems—no prior interest, no musical aptitude, and an ongoing loss of manual dexterity.  Go figure.  Fortunately, I have full function of my hands and strength, but definitely lack the control and fine motor precision I used to have.  I blogged about it four years ago, but I viewed the bigger deficit to be more visual than manual*.  Hand tremor isn't an issue most of the time, but hand–eye coordination is. I wish I could find the humor in it, but I can't always.  Lack of coordination is often the first and most noticeable sign of ataxia, but it can feel like clumsiness.  I sometimes find it hard to take it in stride.  It's worse if I try harder and wil...

I know I just blogged about technology's role in helping with disability, but our digital doorbell is a bit different and deserved its own place in my world.  Sue me. The ring, my new BFF First of all, our nephew ordered and installed it at his house.  It was nice not to be the early adopter this time.  Secondly, it does help me as a person with disabilities and limited mobility to feel safer in responding (or not) to the door. Thirdly, installing it by our front door, required some simple tools.  What else was different from my more recently acquired 'gadgets'?  A total absence of ridicule and laughter. *  Must be the tool time. I can choose to answer and open the door in the usual way when someone's there.  But it's often too much effort to get out of a wheelchair and stand to reach the peephole.  So when the old doorbell rang, I would often opt to not answer it or take a leap of faith that there wasn't a magazine salesp erson, non...