Dropping the Soap
Every now and then Life smacks you 'upside the head' to remind you not to take things for granted. Three weeks ago I could touch type around sixty words a minute, not record speeds, but quick and accurate enough to turn out flawless scripts and blogs, the only errors engendered by the immutable fact that I use English spellings.Of course I could teach them to Word or use another dictionary, but those reminders of fallibility serve to keep me aware of what I am writing. Now I have the added boon that my left hand has forgotten how to type. It has become imprecise and lost the easy flow of rhythms and placement.
This leads at times to the blossoming of strange concoctions on my screen, so strange I am not always sure what a word was meant to be before random finger blindness took over, but I am learning. An "a" may transform into q,w,s,z, and occasionally an 'x' or 'e'.
Sometimes the smallest finger doe not strike a key with any certsinty at all and gapds occutr, it is mazing how one csn become undone without the slightest effort, and how gfrustrating the need to concentrzte precidsly toschieve wht ued to be sutomastic is.
My eyes fill with tears when I look back at the jumble where my thoughts should be. Certainly I will grow accustomed and adapt if it cannot be mended, but while I can type one handed, or get a speech recognition program I am not quite sure how to deal with the fact that I can no longer hold on to the soap.
It was never any effort to pick up bar of soap, turn on the tap, snd rotte the sosp betwen my hsnds to produce lather now I csnnot even type that sentnece clenly... gods this is a tough one to come to terms with.
To overcome the staggering of my fingers I have to rein in the free flight ogf my thoughts, my voice is muffled by the clouds of concentrztion as my perfectionist observer nit picks over placement of each letter as though somehow it mskes as difference. Well, it does to me.
As I tried to say, the simple act of rotating a bar of soap between my hands has become a slapstick farce where suds and soap go flying asnywhere but where I want thrm. Much like the letters of my beloved words.
I will learn to be slright with this. I weill learn this new lesson of letting go but right now I am miserable sbout it, I am ngry at the unexpected walls that turn my path into s maze.
I saw zas neurologist yesterdasy, the sppointment moved forward from next week. He says I have 'very impressive' symptoms but no definitive signs on gross examination beyond the fact thast my typing is shot to hell, most of my left side ids numb nd it took me about three minutes to figure out I was holding a coin with my eyes closed.
As a first step towesrds acceptance I asm going to let the typo stsnd rsather than go through th painstsaking correction process. And hopefully they will find a cause to go along with the symptoms. Just giving it a name will help me live with this a a friend rather than an opponent.
At least, I hope so.
Comments (1)
btw good blog as usual, love your style