The Middlesex Hospital Lives On!
To me, two London hospitals hold pride of place in my mind, St. Bartholemew’s or Barts, as it was the local hospital, when we lived in the Barbican and the Middlesex, as our oldest and youngest sons were born there.
The Middlesex is now just a bricked and boarded-up chapel, surrounded by a vast deserted building site, as it has long been demolished to make way for a hotel and housing.
But something from the Middlesex lives on; the art. Or rather some of the most amazing pieces of Victorian art, that used to be in the hospital reception area.The paintings are now on display at The National Gallery until October. See more here on the BBC. The artist was Frederick Cayley Robinson. Note that the link points to a French entry in Wikipedia, as there is no English one! What does this say about our views on artists?
Bonkers Windows
Because of my gammy left hand Windows is a nightmare.
Take just now. I was writing a post using WordPress and typing things into a large text box. For some reason, it just locked up and refused to accept any characters. I must have hit some control or Windows combination. It did allow U and then started talking to me through a dialog saying it would make my computer easier to you. What a load of crap!
Now if I try to restart the computer, it says my password is wrong. So I have to login to another account and then switch to the one I want.
It’s bad enough having a stroke, without having to fight all the way to work on the computer.
I’m actually on another laptop now, as the other is completely unworkable. For instance if I type a search into this blog, each key seems to bring up a new dialog. It’s almost as if the computer, thinks that the Windows Key is locked down.
Does anybody out there have any idea what is wrong?
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I’m Feeling A Bit Better
Could this be the weather, which is less oppressive, the B12 shot, which seems to have improved my nails or just generally getting better.
Sorbitol
I hadn’t even heard of sorbitol until I got some comments about it in this post.
It would appear that it comes from two sources;wheat and corn. I do wonder whether I am affected in the same way as I am by maltodextrin. So I’ll cut out the tooth products with wheat sorbitol. This web site gives some more details and says that Colgate Palmolive don’t use wheat sorbitol in any products. I have changed to one of their mouthwashes.
Feeling Permanently Glutened
I’ve been glutened a few times and now I feel like that most of the time. I’m tired all the time, not very positive at times, my nails are very soft and I’ve had a lot of the runs. In some ways I feel a lot like I used to before I was diagnosed as a coeliac. Especially in hot weather, like we’ve had recently.
Could it be that recovering from a stroke uses up a lot of vitamin B12 and this causes the problems? I don’t know! But there are web sites that hint that B12 can aid stroke recovery. But they are sites that try to sell you all sorts of vitamins and supplements you don’t need or want.
I did find this and you can read it how you like.
In an article published by the Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Geriatrics Society, a 2006 study concluded that increasing levels of B12 following a stroke would be appropriate, though there was no conclusive evidence that an increase in the vitamin following a stroke would aid in recovery, specifically in lowering homocysteine levels and decreasing the risk of dementia.
Anyway, I’m having an injection tomorrow and that might make a difference!
An E-Mail To The University of Ulster
I wrote this e-msil to the team developing the computer games at the University of Ulster.
You could argue, that I’m in a sorry state, being a 62-year-old widower of three years, who has just lost his youngest son at just 37 to pancreatic cancer. To cap it all I have just had a series of strokes,which have left me with a gammy left hand amongst other smaller issues.
As someone who has spent nearly 50 years programming, writing reports and lately blogging on the Internet, the standard PC keyboard totally frustrates me. You want to hit shift to get a capital and you hit caps lock or control, which means the precise document you are creating gets into a mess, because you have capitalisation all over the place or say you hit something like control-W which opens a new window in Internet Explorer.
I have found a partial solution in the Microsoft Comfort Keyboard, but sadly it doesn’t quite go far enough.
One of the features of this keyboard is the ability to disable individual keys, so they don’t work.For example, I have disabled the Caps Lock key and this now means that I don’t have to rewrite large portions of documents, when I accidentally toggle the key. Having no Caps Lock is no problem to me, as I have never ever used the key in my work.
I also want to disable other keys :-
- One and/or both of the control keys – Disabling just the left would be an interesting option, as for things like control-C and control-V, which I still use would be available using the right one. My right hand is still 100%.
- The Windows key – I’ve never used that key and used with some keys it does lot of things that you don’t want to do in a Word Document or Internet Explorer. With L it locks the computer, which is something you don’t want to do inadvertantly.
- The ALT key – Who uses that? Except in control-alt-del.
The driver of the keyboard should be able to be modified to disable any key and perhaps allow certain combinations, such as those commonly used ones with Control, but that would need co-operation from Microsoft. Microsoft’s driver and control panel is a good template and starting point.
I should say that I programmed quite complex keyboard drivers in some of my software, but that is actually a level above the actual deep-level driver. When you hit a key, you first check which of the modifier keystrokes, (control, alt etc.) are depressed and take an appropriate action, so it should be easily possible to ban single keystrokes as Microsoft do in part, but allow the combinations you want. If I could write a Windows keyboard driver, I know I could do it. I also have the money to pay someone who can to create something that would ease the lives of many stroke sufferers and disabled individuals.
I have discussed this driver with my doctor at Addenbrookes and he feels it would be worthwhile, but has never come across anything like it. If you search my blog for keyboard you will find more thoughts. As this e-mail is effectively a specification for the driver, I shall probably post it on the blog, together with a link to your work.
I see that you have developed computer games for stroke sufferers. I have never played any computer games, as I prefer games to be real. I am going to get back to playing real tennis, which is a game with a world-wide handicapping system, that can be used to measure your progress. You can also find quite a few gentle players, like the elderly or kids to play with, so that you can build up your skill and power levels gradually.
Keep up the good work.
But as my Irish racehorse trainer, Tadey Regan says, “The Struggle Continues”
Some might say that publishing here is just giving away an idea, thst might be stolen by someone else.
As Rhett Butler said in Gone With The Wind, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn”. If I get my driver I’ll be pleased.
Computer Games For Stroke Rehabilitation
Researchers at the University of Ulster have been carrying out trials of specially designed computer games to help rehabilitate stroke sufferers.
Ulster’s School of Computing and Information Engineering in Coleraine has collaborated on the project with fellow researchers at the Health and Rehabilitation Sciences Institute at the Jordanstown campus.
The Games for Rehabilitation project, which has been funded by the Department of Employment and Learning over three years, focuses on rehabilitation of the upper limbs and involves the player using their hands and arms to touch targets which move around the screen.
Read the full article here.
I can see the point, but I’ve never been someone for computer games. On the other hand, I’ve had some good physiotherapy in both Hong Kong and Addenbrookes. The stuff that I liked had an element of play in it. Especially, when you were playing with an attractive twenty-year-old or so ypung Chinese woman. Addenbrookes were also using a Nintendo Wii.
Memories of Childhood
I’ve said before that I spent a lot of time as a child in my father’s print works in Wood Green. I used to set all of the handbills for the Dunlop tennis tournaments held all round the UK. But my father did other jobs for Dunlop including their industrial gloves catalogues. These were uprated and reprinted each year and as I got more older and more literate, he sometimes asked me to proof read them. They had gloves for all different purposes.
Last night as I was cooking, I felt that an appropriate glove on my left hand might help. It would offer protection from say a knife, when you were cutting something, a sure grip when you picked something up and as I cook using an AGA, which has lots of hot bits, perhaps it would be insulated.
I can’t be sure, but I think Dunlop had a lightweight industrial glove all those years ago!
But something like that would certainly help!
A Visit To The Optician
Yesterday, I had my eyes tested in Vision Express in Bury St. Edmunds. They supply my glasses and the optician had examined me twice before a couple of years ago. He said that the eyes themselves were fine, but that I had lost some vision to my left in both eyes, due to nerve damage. They also refitted my glasses, so that they don’t fall off my face. My glasses had started to do this, probably because of the weight I have lost!
And all that for a tenner, as the very thorough eye test itself was on the NHS. The charge was for a digital photo of the retina, which seemed to compare well to those taken two years ago. All results will be sent to my GP.
My Poor Feet
My feet are very painful at the moment! Is it the stroke, some of the drugs I have taken like Warfarin, a lack of vitamin B12 or just the shoes, I have been wearing?
At least, I’m seeing the GP tomorrow!
The Anonymous Widower 