Me and my big mouth

The last post was Saturday evening when I said things were improving. Wrong. At least now I can laugh.

Now that we are using the sling all the time everything takes longer. So it is 11:00 and I am finally in bed. Kelseyann turns on the bedside vent and the heater that supplies moisture to the air I breathe starts beeping. She checked and rechecked the hose and heat sensors. It was all good. Fortunately there is a 24 hour on call person she can call. Once again Kelseyann reviews every connection with the phone on speaker. Solution? Sleep with the three note chirp of the heater unit or use the HME (I don't remember what the letters stand for.) or nose that I use in the daytime. Did you know that your nose helps keep the air you breathe moist? The HME basically does the same so is often called the nose. That was a quick and easy solution. This was followed by the on-call person making an appointment at my convenience to come to the house and replace what ever was needed. The agency sends someone out monthly to do vent checks so all the techs know the house and Quincy.

Of course I bragged about not having to do anything with my chair. Big mistake. My vent hangs on the back of the chair. Holding it on is a carabiner welded to a back plate. Not the kind of thing found at Home Deport. One of these broke so United seating gets another call on Monday. I think I should just plan on Mondays being repair day.

Let's see, I broke the BCI computer on Friday, the heat unit on Saturday and the chair vent holder on Sunday. Any bets on what happens on Monday?

Looking better

This week is better. The van ramp now works without the hair-raising squeak. I did not have anything go wrong on my chair. The stoma has just a tiny amount of green goop so the witches brew is working. ( Thanks to several of you I now know that line is from Macbeth.) The loaner computer is working adequately. Dynavox will be quick to remind that it is communication device not a computer. Whatever it is, I can make it talk and send and receive email. The second loaner has a nice on screen keyboard but I don't know how to move it around on the screen. That has a solution, email to Kari and let her post it. In general life is better, flowers are beautiful and trees are leafing out.

Opps, I spoke to soon. I had been saying that I could break any computer as a joke. It came true. The first and last session of the meditation research sessions included BCI. Friday was the last session and part way through the computer decided it did not want to run the next section. No matter what she it did not work. I didn't tell them what I had been saying. Monday we will try again.

Always something or pity party 2

Computer problems only got bigger. :-(  After spending another hour plus on the phone with teck support trying to get the loaner computer to work with me we were partly successful.  We had to give up on mine because the power cord or the port for it was damaged.  Perhaps that was because I forgot I was plugged in one to many times and tried to make the 20 foot extension cord 25 feet long.  Dave had bought a spare battery and external charger for that very reason.   

Pity Party

I feeling overwhelmed. The last several weeks have been rough. Most of the problems are small, but when put together they grow.  
I think the biggest one happened last week.   We went out to the van and the ramp would not open. Todd happened to be here and he checked the fuse box.   What we did not know was the fuse for the ramp is in a different place.   After calling the van conversion place and being directed to the override buttons to operate the ramp I did remember Dave showing it to me.   Missed him.   After endearing a horribly rough ride to several appointments we were able to get it in the next afternoon.  They only had a hour time slot so basically did troubleshooting.   Several parts had to be ordered but the controls now worked almost as well as they had.   Even better we now know where the fuse is.   Apparently the van was stuck in the kneeling position giving the horrible ride.   At least it was not the shocks.   Parts are ordered so hopefully all will in be good there.  
One of the places we had to go when the van was bad was the wheelchair repair place.   Somehow I was on a weekly visit with them for:the last 3 weeks.  : - )  Fortunately nothing big needed do and they are really nice people.   Might have to take cookies to them.
Another adventure going on at the same time involved the hole in my throat called the stoma.   The tube going into to had been changed a few weeks,  but it was still goopy.   Taking an antibiotic had not helped.   Since I did not have any other symptoms of infection the doctor decided that more antibiotics would not be helpful.   Instead he suggested that we make a bleach solution called Dakins.   As we were following the instructions on the web site he gave us we had to laugh.   First we had to boil 4 cups of water in a covered pan.   As it bubbled away a memory from high school jumped into my head.   Toil and trouble,  witches brew and witches bubble.   I can not remember the rest but it was something from Shakespeare.  The witches brew and another trache change seems to be working.   So maybe that problem is solved.  
 The next problem is with my computer and that is still being worked on.   The good news is that having a dynavox gives me direct tech support.   When given the serial number they can go directly into my computer.   It is really strange to see the cursor move and screen change without doing anything.   The bad news is that she spent more than an hour and could not fix it.   She is coming back on to keep working later today.  
That is all for now.   I will share tales of lift and sling training when the computer is happier.