Waves and Vibrations

Way back in July I pondered wireless broadband, but it took some time, and money, and also necessitated the steep learning curve I described.

I thought I had it sussed. Got the hardware; the wireless card, slipped in the extra RAM which enabled the included security software, finally got to grips with it all. Even managed to follow what the BTBB help man was explaining.

Then I got scared, because the more I sat amongst the radio waves bouncing around the cottage, the more my hands and arms tingled. I know that the Lupus gives me active inflammation in the soft tissues and I have seen the pictures when they filled me with radioactive stuff to see where the disease was active; finger tips to upper arms was very busy. So I took the additional tingling very seriously.

I retraced the steps of arriving at wireless broadband, dismantled the soft and hard bits on the laptop and was left with subtle vibrations under my wrists and finger tips. Now, until that is solved, any time spent on the laptop results in hours of tingling, and more dropped cups, plates, books, files and phones.

I could only stop what felt like the harm that had been done to my fingers, palms, wrists and forearms when I stopped all laptop use for a week. Returning to the laptop resulted in a major return of the tingling then pain and weakness, making the daily practicalities of life very tricky.

What I think will be The Solution has emptied my piggy bank. Until it is installed and fixed I can only do this laptop blogging tonight, at the beginning of two days of weekly drug induced inaction, when the additional weakness and tingling uselessness will not be so problematic.

This all by way of explanation. I miss this. I feel as though I have been transported back into a dark age of being disabled and housebound. I am not by any means housebound - I have enjoyed a few muddy 'walks' in the wheelchair and Mozart's Requiem at Poole Lighthouse was wonderful - but I am cut off from this vitally important virtual life, and virtual friends.

I am cutting it a bit fine; trying to get the laptop sorted before the 20 November - when I submit to having my scalp peeled back (no, actually, peeled forwards - don't think about it too long !) and the skull osteoma shaved off. My GP tells me I will be fine, which I believe, but I have been warned to expect a "set back", a reaction to the shock to the body systems, a response to the intrusive surgery, which might trigger a Lupus flare. The jokes about not needing a face lift are wearing thin, and I am having to seriously engaged with what I will look like until my hair grows back ...

All these are minor problems. I feel empowered that I have found a path through this particular maze. I have been thinking each day of all the other bloggers whose paths are difficult and whose problems are not so easily solved.