Drastically reducing my productivity

As I sit here typing with my eye gaze mouse predominately, my arm hurts after a normal busy week doing art. It aches seemingly down to the bone at the top of my shoulder and it's very disconcerting especially thinking ahead. When will my hand held mouse days be over either through equipment failure or this insidious disease? Hopefully it's far enough away to not worry me although you never know, but I must prepare myself for it now.

I'm thinking of possible solutions and the drawbacks of just using my eyes. I would like to try to use a single press button to supplement the eye gaze mouse. All these things will mean that I will have to drastically reduce my productivity. Emailing and social media would take considerably longer and my art would have to change to something more basic and potentially not as fulfilling. The potential of changing art techniques is extremely stressful mentally because I love doing what I do now.

That being said I already get frustrated that my tired arm and DMD prevent me from doing the art I'd be freely able to make were I healthy. I ache to do regular not digital art because of the tangible artwork that could be produced at the end of the process. The frustration levels would be high just using eye gaze technology and even temporary depression may set in. It's going to be tough but I will persevere through the heartache and pain because of my faith and hope.

Finally I'm grateful for the eye gaze because I will still be able to use my computer to stop me going insane and to keep me in touch with you all. It'll be different and stressful but worth it in the end not least for the character it'll develop. So if I'm taking ages typing to you by instant message or aren't on social media much then possibly I'm dead, my computer broke or I'm using my eye gaze! 

More on a range of subjects can be found out in my book;

 

EBOOK available here; https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/69702

Available on Amazon USA here; http://www.amazon.com/DMD-Life-Art-Ian-Griffiths/dp/1907652337/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1288120811&sr=8-1

Available on Amazon UK here; http://www.amazon.co.uk/DMD-LIFE-ART-AND-ME/dp/1907652337/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1288105302&sr=8-1

My new Ebook Poetic Diversions available to buy here; https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/206857

All links available in my website here; http://duchennemen.net16.net/buymybook.html

My art can be viewed here; http://www.redbubble.com/people/thebigg2005


Foreword

I’m Ian Griffiths from South Wales. This book is a story of my life so far up to the age of twenty five years. I live with and suffer from the ill effects of DMD which stands for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. It is a severe muscle wasting disease and a life limiting terminal illness. It won’t kill you in six months in the traditional sense of ‘terminal’, but it’s far crueller than that, it steals every muscle in your body first and then kills you, anywhere up to the age of thirty. There have been cases of men living past that into their forties and fifties but only with drastic interventions such as ventilators and tracheotomies, more on this can be found by reading on.
I hope to cover a few things in this book, from a history of my childhood years to a more detailed history from sixteen years onwards and finally onto my current problems and triumphs. At times things I write may make you smile or may make you pause and think about the seriousness of life with this devastating disease. I really hope there will be a cure but currently for us supposedly ‘older’ guys with DMD (over twenty one), there seems very little hope. If I don’t see a cure in my lifetime, I hope my campaigning helps in some way bring it about for future generations, so another child won’t have to see their body wither and die before their time