It has been 40 years since the Internet
was first switched on. Without it, I would not have discovered
Savella. Without the online forums, I would not have known the
difficulties of getting started with Savella and probably have quit
before it became effective. Without being able to do research on the
Internet, I would not have learned so much about how to cope with
fibromyalgia and what to expect.
I am not in the larger percentage of
people with fibromyalgia who can hold down a regular job. That does
not mean that I want to stop being productive. I do want to work.
Technology makes that possible as well.
In fact, my current career as a writer
is because of technology. Many years ago I was performing on stage
and doing live presentations for companies that became increasingly
more technologically sophisticated. Then I got hit with pericarditis
that knocked me down for months. We had a very primitive by today's
standards Radio Shack laptop at the time, since I traveled so much.
It allowed me to write from bed, and I began writing about using
computers for presentations and video and submitting the articles to
magazines. A very lucrative technology writing career emerged from that, with less work for more money and a lot less travel. I have
been writing professionally ever since.
My current laptop is not only far more
powerful than my first, it also connects me to the world. On days
when I can not get out of bed, I can do research easily accessing
resources that would have been nearly impossible to get to even ten
years ago. I can do almost anything I can do while sitting at my
desk, including sharing files between all of my computers.
It is, though, a big and not
particularly lightweight laptop. There are some days when the pain is
so great that the weight of a laptop physically on my body is too
much. For that, we have a slightly less capable but very light weight
netbook.
There are days when my range of motion
is too limited and sensitivity is to high even for that, and that is
where my smartphone comes in. With Internet voice commands, I barely
need to move at all. I can do my research just using my voice,
without any typing. I am amazed how well it works. Even on days that
combine fuzziness with pain and very limited motion, I can search for
articles, save them to Dropbox, and follow up later from my main
computer when I am doing better.
Technology is like magic was for me
back in the days when I was designing magic illusions- it is still
amazing even though I know how it works. I am grateful everyday for the many innovations that make my life so much easier.
There are so many simple
technologies that make life easier. Bending over is often a difficult
thing to do when you have fibromyalgia, as is lifting or moving around anything heavy. One of
our great purchases was a Bissel Versus, an ultra-light battery
powered vacuum that I can easily move around and use standing up even
on a painful day. It is perfect for getting up the cat hair from our
beautiful but ridiculously furry Norwegian Forest cat. A full sized
vacuum is out of the question, moving around a cord and plugging it
in hurts, and a hand model would require too much bending. This is
perfect.
I also love remote controls. I have a
small heater under my desk. For most people, bending down to turn on
the heater is a trivial task, but for me that can be quite painful.
Picking up the remote on my desk is so much easier. There is also a
cooler that blows air on me, but it is further away. I have full
control over it from another remote so that I don't have to get up
and walk over to it. The hardest part for me is when I first get up,
so this is an enormous help.
When I went through over a year of
almost continuous fuzziness, it was my computer and Photoshop that
saved my sanity. I was so fuzzy I could barely do anything, and yet I
discovered that I could do image clean up, perhaps even faster and
better than when I was clear headed. Thus began a project that would
involve the digital cleanup of over 30,000 paintings, drawings, and
photographs and become the core for the five part history of censorship I had begun. Part one will be released in the second
quarter of this year, the first truly productive and creative thing I
have accomplished in years.
Now what I am waiting for is for Google
to perfect their self-driving car technology so that I can get out of
the house even on days when I am too fuzzy to drive. I love
technology.
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