"One-Handed Typing Sucks" by Troy H. Cheek on Jan 07, 2005

As my idol Lewis Grizzard once said, "Surgery will change your mind about narcotics."

Pain medicine is a wonderful thing. Looking back over what I've written the last few days, I can see that I've been taking a lot more pain medicine than I thought I was. Or maybe it's just hitting me harder than I thought it would, since I seem to still have most of my pills left.

For those of you haven't been keeping track, on Tuesday, January 4, 2005, I went into the hospital for a "minor procedure" consisting of carpal tunnel release and ulnar nerve transposition. I was scheduled to register at 7:30 a.m., be moved to preop at 8:30 a.m., and began surgery at 9:30 a.m. which would last an hour and a half.

The first problem was when I received a call from the hospital the day before. In spite of the fact that I had double checked the schedule with Day Surgery just a few hours before, apparently my registration time had been changed to an hour earlier. The only person who could tell me why the registration was changed was the supervisor. Three guesses who had already gone home for the day and would not return until the next day after my procedure was scheduled to start. I called to complain.

"Mr. Cheek, is there some reason why you can't come in early?"

"Other than the fact that I'm bringing along my 70 year old mother as a driver?"

"Well, just get here as early you can."

The second problem was when I arrived and tried to park in the patient parking area. Since I was a patient that they, I figured it was okay for me to park there. So, apparently, did several nurses and other employees who were not scheduled for surgery that day. I wish now that I had worn my security uniform. I gave my mother permission to go out and write tickets on my behalf later if she got bored, but I don't think she took me up on it.

I got signed in, put in a room, changed into a gown, and otherwise prepared for surgery long before my original registration time. Then I had to sit and wait until long after before I was taken to surgery. The trip over was interesting. I got to spend the time answering questions about parking policy for the transport team.

My doctor scared me a little by not showing up until just before the procedure was scheduled to start. I suppose it was a busy day for him. I know it was a busy day for me. The anesthesia took hold and the next thing I knew, I was in a recovery room.

A few of my friends dropped by to visit. One of my coworkers did as well.

"Troy, how do you log onto the computer in the office again?"

"Mark, we don't have a computer in the office today. The tech-support guys came and took it away yesterday. They'll bring it back when they fix it."

"Well, I saw the keyboard on the monitor there on the desk, and I couldn't remember what else we needed to make it work."

"The extension for the help desk is 1750."

"You'll be home most of the week right?"

"1750, Mark. 1750."

As soon as I was able to prove that I could stand up and make water without mechanical assistance, I was released to go home. My mother drove me home, stopping only occasionally to tell me that I've gone pale and was talking out of my head. We also stopped at the pharmacy to fill my pain pill prescription. In spite of the fact that filled several prescription there before because of my arm, they seemed surprised that I had had surgery.

During our last office visit, the hand doctor had described where he would be cutting and how much of the arm would be bandaged up afterwards. Apparently, his estimates were a little conservative. I was braced and bandaged from biceps to the ends of my fingers. Not only that, but instead of being immobilized for two or three days as we had discussed previously, his orders were now that I would be immobilized for over a week. I wasn't even allowed to look at the stitches until he examined me in his office. After that, my wrist and fingers might still be immobilized for weeks.

No problem, I thought. I had made plans for this possibility. I had been practicing my one-handed typing. Unfortunately, I had been practicing with the assumption that I would still have some minimal use of the fingers of the other hand. More specifically, I thought I would have enough use in that arm to handle a mouse. I most certainly did not. Using a mouse wrong handed is even harder than typing one-handed.

The answer? I installed some voice recognition software. I had to train it for a while, but it finally picked up on my accent. Oh, and I had to stop drinking beer and eating pretzels while dictating. I won't mention the name of the software just yet. If it continues to work as well as it has so far, I will write a full-blown review and give it an official Cheek.org endorsement.

On the other hand, I want to wring the neck of the engineer who thought it was a good idea to design a headset mike which requires two hands to put on and take off. I mean, after all, in theory anyone who is using the microphone is doing so because of hand problems. What kind of logic is that? Plus they knock my glasses off every time I try to take them off.

I've written several e-mails and articles with the voice recognition software over the last couple days. My friends tell me that the e-mails were very entertaining. The articles are just a tad less coherent than I member dictating them. Those that I remember dictating, anyway. I probably won't be publishing any of them.

I can actually feel my face again. I think it's time for another pain pill.

Just kidding.

Maybe.

Copyright 2005 by Troy H. Cheek. Reprint with prior written permission only. Comments and questions to $mail:theview$