In Praise of Tech

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.