As I mentioned before, being in my condition and being able to communicate somehow even in a basic way is very important to me. I’m not alone either, a brief search on the internet turned up a lot of people like me and they all indicated that Communication was their #1 Hurdle to overcome. (sidenote: I hated to see that other people have to deal with a situation similar to mine, some better off and some not so much better off, but it’s kind of comforting to see that there are a bunch of others having the same challenges as me.)

After about a day I woke up from my ‘stroke coma’ (all freaked out to say the least!) and my neurologist: 1. Was probably a little surprised I was alive 2. Quickly recognized that I was “in there and with it” and 3. Taught me a simple way to answer Yes/No questions. For ‘Yes’ I blink two or more times, for ‘No’ I blink once or just keep my eyes closed. This system works well and we still use it to this day.

Since that time and pretty early on, Jen and I have expanded that method of communication to include letters and numbers. A short demonstration can be seen here:

This way of “speaking” requires a lot of time and effort on both Jen’s and my part, so as you can probably imagine, I don’t say a lot!

Another way I can communicate is with my right index finger, a little switch and a regular old laptop outfitted with special hardware and software called EZKeys that does the talking for me. The company that developed it, Words+, has ceased to exist as of 2013. Because of this, I’m currently in the hunt for a new system and this search has proven to be more difficult than I anticipated. As far as EZKeys goes, it’s the same communication system that Stephen Hawking uses and I think he helped develop it. My similarities with him pretty much stop there!

With my current setup, I have complete control over my computer and I can do anything that can be done with a laptop and very little expertise. I’m showing my age some but I never cease to be amazed by technology and how much computers can impact our lives. As I’ve often thought and said before, I’m so thankful that I was born in 1967 and not 1867!