My right hand didn’t want to cooperate with everyday tasks. I couldn’t get my fingers close enough together to wash my face. My hand would seize up if I held my grip in the same spot of the steering wheel for too long. I had butterfingers. Without notice, I would drop whatever I was holding. To this day, I don’t have much strength in my right hand.
Work was becoming problematic. I couldn’t type for any length of time before the pain was too much and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t move my fingers. The remainder of the day I used only my left hand to peck at the keyboard. Since I deal with numbers all day, it was challenging entering numeric values. I struggled to grip a pen in order to write. When I could hold the pen, my penmanship was difficult to read.
This was a hard reality that truly scared me. I wasn’t sure what the future held for me.
It was time to think outside the box. I found a keyboard with the 10-key pad on the left side. My boss approved a lefthanded rollerball mouse…and the biggest game changer was the voice recognition software. The software even learned my commands when my vocal cords would break while speaking.
Things seemed to plateau for a while and I settled into my new normal. I learned how to hold things against me instead of relying on my hand to hold something. I got a cell phone ring holder so I wouldn’t drop my phone. With trial and error, I found an adaptive writing device. Everything else I’d learned how to do lefthanded.
I had already adapted to the limited mobility of my neck. My eyes were responding well to the treatment. Occasionally I struggled to open my eyes and I worried someone might think I was rolling my eyes at them.
I was back in business baby!!
Me Myself and My Dystonia 