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Aug. 11th, 2019 11:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckThis is mostly a 'yes, I'm still alive post.' I've not been checking in here recently or interacting much anywhere else due to high levels of anxiety intersecting with hand issues. Part of the mess is me needing to appeal my LTD review. Part of it is the usual suspects.
I sent a patient portal message to the woman I saw in orthopedics to ask what further options there are for my hands. I think surgery is what's left, and they may be reluctant to do that, especially given my sister's EDS-hypermobility diagnosis.
I've finally admitted that I can't really read paper books or use an ereader. 15 minutes of holding either leaves the backs of my hands and forearms feeling both semi-numb and burning/tingling which seems like a thing to avoid. I still want to read paper books, but I'm going to have to be realistic about which ones are worth expending time on.
I have experimented with reading long fic on my phone, and it's kind of horrible. The print is uncomfortably small, and I don't like the short lines. I tried reading some novels on my laptop via the library (Overdrive). That solves the tiny text and short line problems but leaves me without pagination or any other indication of how much I've read or how much I still have to go. Also, my hands don't like needing to click to go forward, and because of the type size I need, I have to click at least twice a minute. It tires my hands out a lot more than scrolling does. (I have tried iBooks for reading Project Gutenberg stuff. As with the browser reading, it's better than trying to hold a book, but it needs clicking, too. It's got a scrollbar at the bottom of the screen and pagination, but I'm not finding navigation particularly intuitive.)
Audiobooks run into a major problem on two fronts. The first is that I really need to be at home alone (no, earbuds/earphones aren't an option) for anything written for people older than twelve. The second is that I work on other things while I listen which leads to me losing focus and missing 5-30 minutes at a time. I end up bailing because I don't like the reader or because I can't finish listening before the due date. Audiobooks take so much longer than me reading text would.
Sadly, neither the library catalogue nor the Overdrive catalogue will let me sort books by length, so if I've got 10 pages of 'wish list' items, I have to open each record individually to find out the time investment. The longer the book is, the more likely I am to listen to half an hour to an hour and then bail.
I very much prefer getting audiobooks on CD from the library and then putting them into iTunes. I delete the tracks after I listen to them, but I often end up listening to a few chapters at a time over the course of many months. Overdrive books have a two week window, and since many have waitlists, it takes months to get access to a specific title again. Audiobooks on CD have tracks; if I hit a bit that I can't deal with, I can skip around and find out what happened so that I can decide whether or not I really need the stressful bit.
Not being able to skip forward and back easily is very near to being a dealbreaker for reading of any sort. I hate it with TV and movies, and the anxiety is worse when I don't know how long something is or how far into it I've gotten. The length of a narrative impacts the story flow considerably; I don't expect particular resolutions to subplots, but I do expect a certain mix of complications, mistakes, epiphanies, etc. that changes focus as the narrative progresses.
The difficulties with holding things apply also to things like plates and bowls. I need to change my habits around eating and actually put the plate/bowl on the dining room table. Doing that will increase my risk of spilling food on myself because the fork or spoon has to travel farther, but it may mean I eat more because I don't have to keep setting the dish down.
Since I've started and not posted a lot of entries in the last month, I'm going to stop this one here. There may be more today or tomorrow. I don't know what I'll be able to manage.
I sent a patient portal message to the woman I saw in orthopedics to ask what further options there are for my hands. I think surgery is what's left, and they may be reluctant to do that, especially given my sister's EDS-hypermobility diagnosis.
I've finally admitted that I can't really read paper books or use an ereader. 15 minutes of holding either leaves the backs of my hands and forearms feeling both semi-numb and burning/tingling which seems like a thing to avoid. I still want to read paper books, but I'm going to have to be realistic about which ones are worth expending time on.
I have experimented with reading long fic on my phone, and it's kind of horrible. The print is uncomfortably small, and I don't like the short lines. I tried reading some novels on my laptop via the library (Overdrive). That solves the tiny text and short line problems but leaves me without pagination or any other indication of how much I've read or how much I still have to go. Also, my hands don't like needing to click to go forward, and because of the type size I need, I have to click at least twice a minute. It tires my hands out a lot more than scrolling does. (I have tried iBooks for reading Project Gutenberg stuff. As with the browser reading, it's better than trying to hold a book, but it needs clicking, too. It's got a scrollbar at the bottom of the screen and pagination, but I'm not finding navigation particularly intuitive.)
Audiobooks run into a major problem on two fronts. The first is that I really need to be at home alone (no, earbuds/earphones aren't an option) for anything written for people older than twelve. The second is that I work on other things while I listen which leads to me losing focus and missing 5-30 minutes at a time. I end up bailing because I don't like the reader or because I can't finish listening before the due date. Audiobooks take so much longer than me reading text would.
Sadly, neither the library catalogue nor the Overdrive catalogue will let me sort books by length, so if I've got 10 pages of 'wish list' items, I have to open each record individually to find out the time investment. The longer the book is, the more likely I am to listen to half an hour to an hour and then bail.
I very much prefer getting audiobooks on CD from the library and then putting them into iTunes. I delete the tracks after I listen to them, but I often end up listening to a few chapters at a time over the course of many months. Overdrive books have a two week window, and since many have waitlists, it takes months to get access to a specific title again. Audiobooks on CD have tracks; if I hit a bit that I can't deal with, I can skip around and find out what happened so that I can decide whether or not I really need the stressful bit.
Not being able to skip forward and back easily is very near to being a dealbreaker for reading of any sort. I hate it with TV and movies, and the anxiety is worse when I don't know how long something is or how far into it I've gotten. The length of a narrative impacts the story flow considerably; I don't expect particular resolutions to subplots, but I do expect a certain mix of complications, mistakes, epiphanies, etc. that changes focus as the narrative progresses.
The difficulties with holding things apply also to things like plates and bowls. I need to change my habits around eating and actually put the plate/bowl on the dining room table. Doing that will increase my risk of spilling food on myself because the fork or spoon has to travel farther, but it may mean I eat more because I don't have to keep setting the dish down.
Since I've started and not posted a lot of entries in the last month, I'm going to stop this one here. There may be more today or tomorrow. I don't know what I'll be able to manage.
no subject
Date: 2019-08-11 03:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-11 05:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-13 12:25 am (UTC)sorry your hands are hurting so much. that sucks. and yeah, surgery and EDS is tricky.
no subject
Date: 2019-08-13 01:03 am (UTC)To pick one tiny detail: I've found that I like listening to podcasts at speeded-up speeds. That helps with the "spoken words are much slower than reading" problem. I started at 1.3 times normal speed, then went to 1.7, then 2.0, then 2.3. Nowadays I vary between 2.0 speed and 2.3 speed -- which seemed incoherently fast before I started increasing the speed, but now I'm used to it and 1.0 speed feels wildly slow. The exception is that if a person has an accent that I'm not good at understanding, or if I'm sleepy and distracted, then I might go to a slower speed than 2.0.
Anyway, I don't know if your gadget will play what you are listening to at faster speeds, and I don't know if you would be comfortable with listening that way, so I have no idea if this is helpful, but I figured I would mention it, just in case.