Yes, truly terrifying situation but becoming quadriplegic does not mean an end to spending inordinate amounts of money on technology and owning more Raspberry Pi's and you're willing to admit to publicly.
Not my intent to minimise obviously, but I can move one finger in my head and I have a job and technology sector that I love.
I think I really just wanted to say that if you're going through this, Chin up! :-)
First, I don't wish for anyone to become quadriplegic.
I have a few questions:
1. How does your body react to not moving. Part of the problem I face working in Technology is that I have to spend lots of time in front of the computer. After a few hours my body needs to move. Does your body need to move? Or are you fine not moving for all day long?
2. It might be a bit of a creepy question but I have always wondered. If an eye lash gets inside your eye, how do you get it out. Is there someone out there looking out for you for these small details? Also does your eyes still get tired from looking at the screen.
I'm sorry if these are weird questions. Just a bit curious of how life is for a quadriplegic.
I checked out your site[1] and stumbled upon Dasher[2]. That is an amazing way to type! Do you still use it? I would love to think further about the typography and spacing to make it clearer, but curious what your experience has been.
Using Dasher at this very moment to write this very comment, I absolutely love it and would be lost without it. are useless dictation software for the bulk of my writing for the web, emails, coding etc as you might imagine that makes it somewhat impossible to have a private conversation without a carer's/PDAs/anybody overhearing. It's not as easy for me to just tap out a quick, silent and private text message for example. Privacy is one of the first things to go, you are constantly having to give people your password to unlock your devices for you. This drives me up the wall!
Dasher put some of that back, it really is invaluable. But I think it's been abandoned because it's not been updated for years and while I think it doesn't need much more polish in the functionality department; I think it could do with a little bit of a shine in the UI and the typography as you quite rightly point out.
Thanks for the response! I can imagine how losing privacy would be extremely frustrating.
I played with an iPhone app[1] version for a while and was able to get moving pretty fast. It makes text input feel like a game. Also, I realized that a lot of the colors are customizable in the settings.
Looking into the project further, it looks like it was run by David MacKay's research lab (Inference Group) and he unfortunately passed away a few years ago. Will continue looking to see if I can find anyone still working on it. Most interesting innovation in input tech that I have seen in a while!
No problem, just bought a new iPhone X which has been very awesome Face ID which means I don't mean to give anybody my passwords any more. Wooooooo!
That really gladdens me to see that there is a mobile app, although in a massive (and really funny) ironic twist is quite difficult for this disabled person to use! I can see how it will be much much easier and faster for able-bodied people though, and I'm so glad it exists.
I do use it for coding sometimes on my, but mostly it's a mixture of an on-screen keyboard and by situation with DragonDictate for Mac using Sublime Text.
Agreed. Your optimism is awesome and I love seeing people who, without seemingly any question about what they have to do / want to be, go after what they want regardless of anything else. The bigger the hurdle the greater it is to see great people achieve their goals.
I'm not even sure that it's me buying them at this point, I think people are buying them and planting them in my big draw of Electronics crap. That's about the only reasonable explanation I can come up with. :-)
It would be great if you could share your computation setup with accessibility modifications; it would be great not just for quadriplegic, but for anyone who is in bed rest.
Edit: Other commentators have posted his site [1].
I posted on another comment higher up before I saw this, if you scroll up you should be able to see it and forgive me for not posting it here again but it would be a little bit spammy I think.
I used to 'nah' at quadri|hemi plegic disabilities, because I have a near masochistic love for challenges. Until 2014 when my health crashed and I started to have very mild loss of finger control; it was soul crushing. It was like a broken bone that forbids you to move, it felt like a little sting of death inside my head everytime I tried to move and nothing happened.
I'm not sure if it's appropriate to ask someone to talk about this, if you don't mind I'd like to know if that's a common experience for disabled persons.
I'd really love to learn about how you work - in particular, what's your workstation like, what IDE(s) do you favour, and how do you actually input into the computer?
I'd also be really interested to hear about the challenges you may have encountered while job hunting and interviewing?
Edited to Add: I completely didn't see your last question! Put simply, I couldn't find a job anywhere so I had to start my own company, it's as simple as that. I would absolutely love to be DevOps at a company and get to play with a really big network, I Would be good at the job and have the chops to carry it off but no opportunities so far. I'd also love to get into more penetration testing, security research types that which is where my real love is what most places want me to attend a place to do the work. No can do unfortunately, which is slightly mystifying when you consider you're hacking networked computers!
Anyway, onto my computer setup:
* Retina iMac 5K[1] for when I can get to my office
* MacBook Pro[2] for when I can't
* TrackerPro[3] camera which tracks a small silver reflective dot on my glasses converting my head movement into cursor movements on-screen
* A Buddy Button[4] To give me my mouse clicks
* Apple's integrated Switch Control[5] accessibility software gives me an on-screen keyboard which I can customise to control every feature of my laptop, iMac and my iPhone. (Full disclosure: I helped to beta test this stuff)
* Komodo labs Tecla Shield[6] Bluetooth adapter which enables me to connect the button under my right index finger to my phone, it also enables me to use the chin controller in my wheelchair to control my iPhone. That is pretty sweet. *
* DragonDictate for Mac[7] is whether used for voice dictation 90% of the time, it's what I'm using now to write this comment. Nothing really comes close to it. Also, Sennheiser headsets; don't bother with anything else.
That's the basics, but my whole house is voice controlled essentially using the very awesome https://home-assistant.io home automation software. I can control the curtains, every light in the house by the LIFX lightbulbs, open the front door, play music, mess around on twitter, monitor how much electricity I'm using etc etc etc.
There's also 1.4 million metric crap-tonnes of shell scripts, AppleScript's hand like I've built up over the years to solve lots of little problems are far too numerous to list. Brett Terpstra writes some amazing software I use everyday.
Hope that answered your questions and was useful, feel free to ask whatever you like :-)
Switch Control means that with one button I can have an able-bodied person turn on my new laptop, iMac, iPhone or whatever and from that point on I can do anything an able-bodied person can do. Apple has their faults, but their accessibility stuff is absolutely phenomenal it really is. I would love to use open source software on some souped up Linux laptop but the software doesn't exist to allow me to physically interact with them yet. Yet.
Apparently the new Google phones have very recently gained similar switch functionality but I haven't got my sticky mitts on one of them yet to try.
* If any of you guys are reading this, how is the new version coming along?
Wow, the TrackerPro sounds great - there's a whole world of tech here I know nothing about! Do you think it works well for you?
I remember trying DragonDictate on Windows in the 90's, and it was light years ahead of anything at the time, but still not 'good enough' as an alternative to keyboard entry (for me). A lot of time has passed, so I imagine it's a lot better now - do you actually use it for inputting code, or just for general text? (like HN comments :)
Also, thanks for taking the time to answer and educate so fully!
As for Apple, they do make very very shiny things but that would not be enough to keep me with them if it wasn't for the accessibility stuff. I've always really wanted an alien ware laptop, but I can't use them!
(Is it bad that I think that's one of the worst things about being quadriplegic?)
I'd be curious to know more about how you got there, and what you do to adapt.
It's actually interesting, I have a friend who was born without an arm just below the elbow, he cant tell me how he adapts, because he's never done it any other way.
Yes, they are not quite at the point where I can replace DragonDictate for Mac but they are slowly getting there. Google are totally winning as far as I'm concerned with the voice recognition, but I find (and use) all of the big three digital assistants on a daily basis and would be pretty lost without them.
I personally just don't know if I wanna life like this after lived a "normal" life.
Probably it is harder to imagine it than just living it. On the other side I thought and decided already when I was twenty something that I do not life if I become blind.
Not sure why you're being down voted, this is a perfectly normal view and probably one I held myself. But you would be surprised, life has a way of wanting to persist.
You never really know how you're going to react until you're faced with the situation, but I mean really what else are you going to do and think your life?
It's live or play in traffic, same as for for everybody else.
I have syringomyelia which in the worst case can result in paralysis and the surgery is one of those 50/50 cases (50% improvement, 50% a lot worse - They put a shunt into your spine to drain it which means pretty high risk of infection in the spine).
Spinal stuff scares the crap out of me but at least the periodic MRI's show it's stable, so I'll 'just' be stuck with numbness/pain and a limp in the best case.
I'm glad you did documented this, anyone googling their medical condition (and everyone does) may find it :), glad you are on the mend as well.
I remember being about 13 or 14 years old and sitting in a meeting with my parents and a few surgeons discussing the probabilities of left-side paralysis in my younger brother pending a brain tumor removal (roughly the size of a navel orange, if I recall correctly). That prospect was frightening to consider... he thankfully survived with few side effects, and no paralysis.
I wish you and the author all the best. People like me who've never had to stare into that abyss personally can only imagine.
> People like me who've never had to stare into that abyss personally can only imagine.
I found out about the syringomyelia 3 weeks after an 8 year relationship broke down (she cheated) and my business was failing.
4 years later I'm in a happy relationship with the woman I want to spend my life with, I have a job I love with people I like and the business is a distant memory.
Taught me a valuable lesson, not giving up is more important than pretty much anything else.
Found out 6mths ago I also have Crohns, just shrugged and carried on, life is full of shit you can't control so focus on the things you can - mainly your reaction to events.
> Taught me a valuable lesson, not giving up is more important than pretty much anything else.
That's a lesson often hard-learned. Sounds like you've gained a lot of wisdom through those experiences. I wouldn't wish those conditions on anyone, but it sounds like you've come out better anyway. All the best.
I feels good to know that your surgeries were helpful & you are doing better.
Information on the risk of infections on the permanent implants are very minimal albeit unclear. Recently on a Reddit thread this was widely discussed[1]; some say the risk is only for couple of months after surgery & others included papers to say the risk is permanent - I didn't include this in my content as I didn't feel confident to do so without proper research.
I would be careful using BMD in this case. It's a funny metric, so-called aereal density, grams per centimeter squared versus grams per centimeter cubed you'd normally think of as density. Given perfectly normal bone structure the BMD is gonna be smaller on a smaller person. It's not clear that the linked study controls for this. Consider seeking out a facility with HRPQCT machine to better evaluate bone microarchitecture.
Also, any particular reason they're not using a newer anabolic osteoporosis drug on you? Meaning teriparatide or abaloparatide.
You have raised some interesting questions, are you in medical field?
>grams per centimeter squared versus grams per centimeter cubed you'd normally think of as density.
BMD results are measured as differences with normal healthy 30 year old (T-score) in Standard deviations (SD).
>Given perfectly normal bone structure the BMD is gonna be smaller on a smaller person
Density should be within acceptable range for a smaller person & a healthy person of same age right?
> they're not using a newer anabolic osteoporosis drug on you? Meaning teriparatide or abaloparatide.
As soon as it was found that I was suffering from osteoporosis (from BMD), I underwent zoldronic acid treatment along with calcium, vitamin-D supplements with the orthopedic.
During diagnosis by spine surgeon, I was asked to take BMD again as the results I had was equal to that of an 85 year old (in his words). New results showed similar values & I was referred to an endocrinologist.
The endocrinologist did mention that there were powerful medications than zoledronic, but since I had already administered it just a couple of weeks earlier & that my spine surgery was to be held in next week; he asked me to continue with the present treatment for osteoporosis.
After surgery, I did visit him again; he increased the dosage of calcium(500mg - daily) & vitamin-D3 (Cholecalciferol 60,000 I.U - monthly) supplements for a year and continue with zoledronic treatment for next 2 years.
Consider watching lectures by Dr. John Bilezikian on YouTube. He is one of the top osteoporosis doctors in the world. Here's a link to the first one in the latest series, but all his stuff on YouTube is great:
To your question, no, you would expect BMD to be a function of person size. Because it's not actually density. The bigger the person bones are the larger BMD you would see given the same volumetric density. DEXA measures how many grams of calcium fall on a square centimeter, and bigger bones will result in higher numbers.
For people close to mean in size the difference is academic, for somebody 3-4 standard deviations below the mean in size not so much. This is covered in Dr. Bilezikian’s lectures. You can also Google [BMD areal volumetric].
In any case, this may not matter, BMD is predictive of fracture risk regardless of size. There seems to be some but not much science there on achondroplasia and osteoporosis. The few papers that pop up do suggest a link.
Since you are an outlier I'd consider doing this:
-learn more about osteoporosis from these lectures on YouTube
-find a facility with a HRPQCT which is a gold standard for diagnosing bone density issues
-the doctor who owns this machine is going to be a researcher who should find this case interesting, and will be able to reason from first principles not just follow guidelines, the guidelines that may not be applicable to somebody of an outlier size. Consult with his doctor
Feel free to friend me on LinkedIn if you want to talk more.
This is really very nice of you to document your treatments and their aftermath. I wish this page gets stored permanently in Internet archive for parents whose kids suffer from this and for a better idea of how this could be approached I studied in the same college you studied and for quite sometime I was a silent admirer of your startup and hacks (starting from hackintosh). You have been an inspiration for many of your college juniors (like me). I wish wholeheartedly you get well soon and document that too!
It seems his childhood doctor missed something. It's always worth getting second opinions.
A friend of mine got in a fight at his 10 year high school reunion (when, not ironically, confronting some bullies from back in the day). He went to the ER with his eye bleeding and the doctor there told him he would have to remove the eye. The surgeon wanted to do the operation right then.
My friend went home instead and saw another doctor the next day, who said "if you do everything I tell you to do, we can save the eye."
>It seems his childhood doctor missed something. It's always worth getting second opinions.
The doctor who performed Ilizarov surgeries, was the 4th or 5th Orthopedic doctor my parents consulted for me. He trained directly under Ilizarov himself & my treatment was conducted in 'the best' hospital in India which gets patients around the world where he was the chief Orthopedic.
Considering the above, my parents were satisfied to hear his diagnosis that I'm a normal kid & would grow taller than my dad (5.3") [Something which any parent would like to hear].
Now, looking back; he might have lied; It wouldn't be a surprise as he's definitely corrupt - He demanded ~ 1500 USD as un-accounted money the day before surgery (at both times) while working in the most expensive hospital in India at that time.
----
I'm glad your friend didn't loose his eye, as you said second opinions are recommended. I did consult 4 orthopedics (of which 3 Spine surgeons) before my spine surgery.
> Achondroplasia is prone to loss in bone mineral density & spinal stenosis.
Discontinuing the supplements seems like it was an error. Were there symptoms that led you to fear the impact on your kidneys specifically? Having the luxury of hindsight it seems like it would have been much better to consult with a physician about changes to dosage or other treatments that would still preserve bone density. Also might be useful for physician to realize how critical it is to impart details about the supplements as treatment and risks of stopping to the patient.
>Discontinuing the supplements seems like it was an error.
Yes, it was foolish of me. But to cut some slack, I was starting my Engineering course; starting of my life outside hospital & I felt healthy. It wasn't like the doctor had detailed any supplement plan nor I was informed of the potential consequences.
I have commented more details about that doctor here[1].
>Were there symptoms that led you to fear the impact on your kidneys specifically?
Too much noise about kidney stones as a result of calcium in-take. I concluded it's time to quit, I didn't check with any orthopedic as I had cultivated a severe aversion to medical practitioners by that time.
>Also might be useful for physician to realize how critical it is to impart details about the supplements as treatment
>In hindsight a DNA test might have revealed achondroplasia
It might have, but remember my diagnosis were conducted in 1994,2001 (though best hospital in India of that time) to conclude I was a normal kid with some vitamin deficiencies.
Even now, I doubt whether even now pregnancy scans test for achondroplasia. I was informed recently that it was mentioned by a doctor in Singapore that, achondroplasia tests should be requested during pregnancy tests.
I'm not sure whether it is part of pregnancy scans in Western countries & how common is the DNA tests for achdonroplasia.
My point was that when discussing DNA tests, people often argue that they don't want to know if they are at a higher risk of cancer.
But this is a good example of something that they would want to know. Because it can likely be mitigated.
That's a good point to keep in mind next time someone says they are unsure if DNA testing is a good idea.
--
To your point, I don't know if this disorder is something we screen for. But the cost of full DNA sequencing is falling fast, and it's just a matter of time before we start screen for genetic disorders. Thus, the future is bright.
Living is dangerous. I was told I was very, very lucky to be alive.
I had three vertibrae fused similarly ten or so years ago after a climbing accident smashed the middle one into pieces. Many days it doesn't even cross my mind unless I have more pain than usual for some reason; but now and then I realize how surreal it is to have those pieces of metal inside my body, and how much my life has changed as a result.
Definitely a near-life experience, wouldn't change it for anything in the world; but you can't really go around and recommend people to fall of cliffs.
Not that I notice any more, took me about a year for everything to settle though. What really helped me (and people will think I'm crazy, but here it goes), both mentally, emotionally and physically; was Yoga. The real deal, not the hipster kind.
Carrying heavy things and performing unpredictable, physical activities changed. Recently tried surfing for example, but since I can't control the motions enough to protect my spine and the price for a mistake is so high it takes the fun out of it. And I stopped climbing for mostly the same reasons.
As someone who is going through some much milder spinal stenosis, I find it extremely frustrating that fusion is still the most common surgical procedure to address it. Aside from being as effective as conservative treatments over 10 years, it deforms the spine further and puts more strain on neighboring disks. I don't know what the long term outcome is of ADL's, but it seems that they at least preserve spinal anatomy.
Whether conservative treatment is equivalent to surgery varies with underlying cause of stenosis and what disks are involved. The blanket statement that conservative treatment is as effective as surgery over 10 years is highly false.
I wonder whether spine fusion surgeries can be compared with conservative treatments (I presume which means less intrusive).
I was asked to fill 5 consent forms acknowledging the risks of undergoing the surgery, 5th was supposedly a handwritten one explaining I understand that the surgery might result in my death. I asked a doc to write it himself & I signed it.
My best thoughts and wishes to the OP for his future. Hope he manages to successfully sell his startup and focus on his health.
My first business partner (who was my best friend at the time) experienced something similar second hand. His wife (whom I was also close to) was told she had a cyst in her spine which affected her walking, and it needed to be operated on, with a 50/50 chance that she would become a paraplegic or by totally cured.
Unfortunately, it was the wrong 50% and she ended up in a wheelchair, and terribly sadly, their marriage ended after a couple of years because of all the strains and challenges of her new situation.
My former business partner in my second business was an extremely fit and athletic woman, who one day found that she struggled to walk up some stairs. It turned out she had an extremely rare condition called Pompe disease, which affects the muscles in your extremities at first, then slowly moves towards your core muscles before finally leading to heart failure. She is playing the waiting game now while fighting for the experimental stem cell treatment that helps her to be officially approved by our government.
It was heart breaking to hear about your friends & their family. I'm sure it is very hard for friends like you to see your loved ones suffer & feel helpless.
I would wish greater focus towards medical science, promote factual information & medical ethics to hope for a future where chronic illness is not common.
Damn. I can't quite imagine. But damn, you are brave.
The odontoid process on my C7 got snapped many years ago, perhaps in an auto accident. And there's also some osteoarthritic cervical stenosis. But I have no serious chronic symptoms. If I strain to move heavy stuff at full arm extension overhead, with my head bent back maximally, my arms sometimes become totally unresponsive. So I just don't do that. Maybe some cardiac and gut issues too, but it's hard to tell.
Ah, I didn't read carefully enough. I'm no anatomist, and my memory is iffy.
It's the spinous process on C7. Apparently not so serious. It's called "clay-shoveler's fracture", as I recall. The fracture healed, but the process is bent over sideways.
But whatever, I clearly remember being unable to feel or move either arm, for a minute or two. However, it's been almost ten years since that happened. I did get a consult with a neurologist, and he basically said "don't do that". I've also made more of an effort to stay in decent physical shape.
Maybe it's too early or there are other restrictions, but I don't fully understand how the only option to type sitting, is with the keyboard on his lap and then having to deal with the fact that it's out of his sight. It was probably just an example to demonstrate the limitation, but it seemed weird that you can't have a setup that still allows you to just look at the keyboard without turning your head.
> but I don't fully understand how the only option to type sitting,
My accessibility issues was during my bed rest after spine surgery. I mentioned in the article that, I'm typing now by keeping the keyboard on my lap (as I'm unable to see the keyboard on the table anyways).
During bed rest, I tried different accessibility mods such as using lazy glasses (which generated 90 deg vision of monitor), keeping bed table at 45 deg with laptop, hanging tablet before face with tablet/smartphone holder, hanging smartphone before my face & using physical keyboard; none of them worked. I will detail this experience in a separate article.
>but it seemed weird that you can't have a setup that still allows you to just look at the keyboard without turning your head
Placing keyboard on the top of the table, where I could see creates strain on my shoulders leading to pain lasting for a day for just 30 minutes of typing.
“I’m winding down operations at our startup & en-route to sell our products to interested companies; to focus on physical & mental health.”
Admire the fighting spirit. But this is rough. If you are planning to do some limited amount of remote work going forward this might be a good platform to mention it.
Thank you, your suggestion is much appreciated. Once I adapt to the accessibility limitations and able to sit for longer duration; I'll definitely look forward to remote work & support from HN community.
As I understand it you were given supplements to prevent loss of bone density, you unilaterally discontinued them, and then suffered fractures due to low bone density.
It seems like a relevant take-away should be “do not unilaterally change the treatment plan without discussing with your chosen expert first.”
Potassium is not usually a big issue for me. I do get bananas when it's an issue and I can't think of any other high potassium foods because it isn't something I struggle with.
I usually get magnesium from nuts, like cashews, and dark chocolate. If you supplement magnesium, look for magnesium glycinate as a highly bioavailable form.
Fats:
I have a different genetic disorder from you. This may not apply to you. I specifically misprocess fats. I have done some reading and tracked my diet and found which fats work for me by trial and error.
Medium chain triglycerides are medically recommended for many conditions because the body has an easier time processing them. Butter is a reasonable source. Coconut oil and palm oil are high in MCT.
I avoid peanut oil and canola oil. I mostly avoid corn oil. They all aggravate my condition.
I strongly favor butter. When I was sicker, I looked for organic butter and sometimes clarified it myself to make ghee.
I also tolerate animal fats well. When my lungs aren't bothering me, I eat bacon regularly. My genetic disorder impacts my lung health and bacon is high in either nitrates or nitrites and it aggravates my lung issues. I cut back on the bacon when my lungs are acting up.
Cheese is another source of healthy fats that I regularly consume. I also tolerate sunflower oil well. I regularly consume nuts and seeds. They are a good source of healthy fats, though I read labels because many contain oils I avoid if they are roasted. In the US, peanut oil is frequently used to roast nuts. I look for dry roasted if at all possible.
When I need cholesterol to support nerves healing, I eat bacon, eggs and butter. You also need extra b vitamins when nerves are healing.
When I was much, much sicker, I sometimes had agonizing pain in my teeth and jaw. Butter sandwiches or butter added to a potato dish fixed it. I used to sit and eat up to 3/4 of a stick of butter on a roll or two to stop the pain. I'm no longer terribly deficient. I couldn't possibly eat that much butter in one sitting now. But that used to be the only thing that stopped my bone pain.
Be advised that all coconut products, whether coconut oil or coconut water, promote diarrhea. Start with small amounts at a time or you will spend all your time in the bathroom.
For the past 3 years, I had been consuming balanced diet with oats or similar cereals for breakfast, wheat & occasional rice for lunch & only fruits with nuts for dinner. 3-4 cups of milk with tea/coffee every day. I assume my bones wasn't able to absorb necessary calcium.
I don't know anything about your genetic disorder. My genetic disorder promotes osteoporosis.
My personal opinion: The mechanism is two fold. My condition makes people too acid and the body strips calcium from the bones to buffer the blood against that. Our cells are also known to hoard calcium. I believe this is also a buffering mechanism.
Some people with my condition try to avoid calcium because high levels of calcium in the cell is associated with cell death. So they see the calcium as a problem. I see it as a symptom of serious problems. I see it as the body desperately trying to protect itself against other chemical derangement.
My condition also is associated with an excess of glutathione in the cells. I think this is also another buffering mechanism.
Glutathione smells very sour, like skunk. As I slowly resolved the chemical derangement of my body, I sometimes went through periods where my poop smelled like skunk. I think I was dumping the glutathione that was no longer needed as a buffer.
Do you know the specific mechanism behind your genetic disorder? The specific mechanism for mine is a defect in a cell channel. This cell channel is a gating mechanism for certain molecules. When it is defective, there is a bottleneck in the system.
With doing research, I have been able to work around that and get things working closer to normal.
If you know the mechanism behind your disorder, it may be possible to do something similar and make dietary changes and lifestyle changes that help compensate for whatever your body does different from the norm.
Which is a very long way of agreeing that your body may not be absorbing or using calcium normally and you may need to alter your diet permanently to account for your genetic disorder and whatever it does to how your body handles calcium. And that may not be straight forward and obvious. You would need to understand the process or processes causing the calcium deficiency.
It may not be as simple as the bones not absorbing calcium. It isn't with my condition.
Yes, truly terrifying situation but becoming quadriplegic does not mean an end to spending inordinate amounts of money on technology and owning more Raspberry Pi's and you're willing to admit to publicly.
Not my intent to minimise obviously, but I can move one finger in my head and I have a job and technology sector that I love.
I think I really just wanted to say that if you're going through this, Chin up! :-)