Surgery wrap-up
Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 8:07 pm •
Some of you may know that I had surgery yesterday. In case you were out of the loop, here's the run-down: I had a tear in one of the ligaments in my left wrist, which was caused by my improper guitar technique. After about a year and a half of looking for a diagnosis, I finally found a specialist at the Mayo Clinic who knew what the problem was and how to fix it. You can see a nice informative video about the problem and its surgical fix here. Yesterday was finally the big day. Apart from some excitement when I fainted from the IV being inserted, everything seemed to go according to plan. Now we are back home and I'm doped up on Vicodin and starting to adjust to the one-handed life (I have a big cast that goes up past my elbow!). In six weeks, the cast comes off and hopefully everything will have been worth it.
Wondering how I typed all this with just one hand? I found out about this very interesting program called Dasher, which lets me type by just "steering" the mouse cursor. I don't know whether it's faster than just typing with one hand (doesn't seem to be for me yet), but it definitely takes less movement (so I don't risk overworking and injuring my other hand) and is definitely more like an arcade game, which is always a plus... Check out this video demo. I used it to type this whole post!
Good luck on your recovery Mike! Of course, my wrist started hurting as I was watching the video. They simplify it enough for even me to understand.
Improper guitar technique? You? I wonder how many extremities I would’ve lost by now had I not become lazy and quit guitar long ago.