Skip to main content

Password, Please!

Have you ever had password problems,? If you're online, the answer is probably yes. You go through your litany of passwords until you're locked out, happen onto the correct one, or you have to reset and pick another from your litany or, God forbid, you have to make up a new one! It can be a test of patience for an able-bodied person but consider the challenges to the physically-impaired.

I have A.L.S., Amyotrophic lateral  sclerosis, otherwise known as Lou Gehrig's Disease or Motor Neuron Disease (MND). My disease process has left me a quadriplegic, and I'm fortunate enough to own  a Tobii alternative and augmentative speech device. This device enables me to communicate using eye gaze technology. It's amazing and brilliant and totally infuriating when it doesn't live up to expectations. It doesn't function exactly like your home computer, in that there are a lot of extra steps. For example, typing this blog entry requires forethought and few options for making corrections. I type a line or two, then must press 'Insert Text'. Then press another 'Insert Text' button (virtually). To access special operations, one must press the 'Link' button followed by a combination of numbers that correspond with the operation desired. Choosing the wrong key is extremely easy to do and I have to be vigilant about typos lest I choose the wrong operation. Happens all the time! I was a more accurate typist with my fingers than my eyes!!

Back to passwords. Password retrieval is nightmarish! I've spent, literally, hours plugging in passwords to end up unsuccessful, deciding to sleep on it and try again the next day. Bitter frustration has kept me from favored websites, like PatientsLikeMe for months at a time. I, currently, cannot log into GoodReads due to not remembering my FaceBook password. (I log in by logging through FaceBook.) And not having my Facebook password keeps me from viewing videos and photos and being able to change settings since the Tobii SonoKey menu tiles don't facilitate these activities.

Why not simply change the password? Then I would have get help to change the settings in the control panel because not everything is accessible by eye gaze. Asking for help is not a problem. Getting competent help that won't mess up other parts of my computer is a big problem.

Help, oh help, oh help me, please. Make better solutions for people like me!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Kate

I think about my friend, Kate Struby, who died from this horrible disease in 2013. She lived here at Bailey Boushay House before I did. I reached out to Kate online through FaceBook because I loved her photograph with her head thrown back in laughter. I also loved her posts. I guess I just loved her spirit. I got to finally meet her one month before she died. I happened to be at the University of Washington Medical Center for my quarterly appointment when I saw her FaceBook post. She was awake and in the medical ICU. She was a mere few floors down. I would not be stopped. Relativeor no, I would meet my FaceBook friend. Thank God I did. I rolled into the room to find a beautiful, ethere.al woman flanked by two friends. Although it was an impromtu visit, she said she knew me immediately.I was in awe of her with her fiery spirit despite the ravages of our shared disease. She, unable to lift even a finger, lifted my spirit.

Immersion Therapy

Please excuse my selfish absence from posting to my blog. I wish I could say that I've been out diligently finding a cure for ALS, or tirelessly working to fund research, or hunger-striking to bring public attention to beacon the cruelty of not having access to care facilities geared specifically to the specialized needs of the ALS patient. Alas, I have been binge-watching Scandel, The 100, and binge-listening to audiobooks. I'm currently enamored of mystery and thrillers by Chelsea Cain and Lisa Unger. I cannot do a Helluva lot these days but I can still waste time. ALS ought to have some perks. I can immerse myself in completely in entirely new situations, raise my excitement level and learn something new to me.

Tuesday

Tuesday is shaping up to be my best day of the week. Every day holds the requisite eating, changing, television, and napping. But Tuesday, I got a glorious, hot bath in a handicap-accessible bathtub with my Angela and Lisa, reorganized my shower caddy with my Lisa, read "The White Album" by Joan Didion with my Lindsey, "supervised" doughnut-making and sampled same with my Sandra among others, and listened to Ryan Feng play classical piano. A new book fell into my lap today. Of course, I mean that figuratively. "Play It As It Lays" by Joan Didion was just laying on top of the informal Bailey Boushay House library cart, so I borrowed it. .Guess what we'll be reading? I feel very blessed!