Life After Losing an Arm

I lost an arm in 1991, but had it re-attached. I'm still not sure if that was a good idea or not. I wasn't awake when the decision was made. My Dad argued for, the doctors were initially against the idea, but no doctor now will remove it.

So now I a arm that is basically useless from below the elbow, the only real control I have is at the first knuckle, all fingers together. My forearm is more skin graft than skin.

I've tried a few alternate keyboards, but gave up trying to learn and now just use a regular keyboard and a track ball. I had to learn to write again as it was my dominant arm. Computer programming is probably the best available career, so I'm glad I already had an interest in it.

I really identified with the everything is slower part. There is very little I can't do, but everything is so slow that I just do a lot of things half way. I still don't have a good way to clip my finger nails.

I got nothing from the Workers' Compensation Board of British Columbia do to an improperly filled out form. At the time, if you worked for a family business, you needed to be registered differently, which I was unaware of. Still bitter to this day.

A friend of mine has been in a wheelchair since his 17th (moped accident, he drove into a little divider post and ended up paralyzed from the waist down because of it). He's never let it slow him down though, to the point where I tend to forget about his situation. This leads to me doing stupid things like proposing we go for a beach walk (he'll just sit there grinning at me until I figure it out).

He's an absolutely awesome character, runs his own electronics company and does whatever the rest of us do. The one thing that really bothers him about interacting with others is that for some reason people will automatically assume that because there is something wrong with his legs that there is also something wrong with his head.

Not really the same thing at all, but I got into a minor motorcycle accident a few years back and I had to leave my right arm in a sling for 6 weeks or so. I was shocked at the number of things that I ended up having to contort my body to do just because I had no way of doing it one-handed. My girlfriend tied my shoes for me in the mornings because otherwise it would have taken me half an hour just to get my shoes on.

I really hope that prosthetics technology continues to improve, because the idea of losing an arm (or even a finger!) is scares the crap out of me.

I hope I don't appear insensitive. I promise you it's not my intention. A joke in a movie (name is not important) had a character threatening to punish a person who was a developer by "cutting his hands."

I started thinking what is the best interface to type when ones hands or fingers are not operational. There are a few things current auto typing software can't do (as they are primarily focused on mass market for word processing in general).

I wonder if some of this software had commands (or can be configured for those commands), for example, for "Next function call" or "Go to end of line" or for example enter syntactical elements into the code (it can get tiring to say "curly bracket" for example). Or things like "Show class methods" -> "Scroll down" -> Select ".print" etc. and then "git" commands, or ... you get the idea.

Probably not a huge market, but a valuable thing for developers.

I had a friend in college who could not use his legs (he had polio) He never let it slow him down though. He travelled about 50 KM daily to college in a bus, sometimes standing on his support. Every one in our college knew him. From the canteen workers to the photocopier guy. Last time I talked to him he was working as a computer lab assistant. I can't even begin to think how difficult it is for people who have lost or can not use one of the organs but I never detected a feeling of self pity or despondence from my friend. Always cheerful and calm as if he had no trouble in the world.

I have made this observation that those who have suffered great misfortune in their life generally know best how to live in the moment. It's funny how we take some very important things in life for granted and worrying over silly small trivialities. I hope the Miles will emerge stronger after this tragedy and find strength in his life.

> I’d always heard amputees talk about the stares and the acute awareness of being viewed as different. During my first shoot for the NewsHour with one arm, I was wearing a blazer when I met a researcher I was to interview. She left the lab, and I took my jacket off. When she returned, it was a good thing she wasn’t sipping her coffee, because she would have offered up an amazing spit take. As we both looked at my stump, I shrugged and said, “It happens.”

I can relate with him on this. I lost the distal phalange of my left thumb when I was about 6. It is not very evident, but every once in a while colleagues discover that, and ask "what happened to your finger". My story has getting shorter and shorter as years pass... nowadays it just goes "I lost it in an accident". I stil feel uncomfortable phasing that question.

I mentioned this story to my partner, who's a doctor. He told me about the treatment for compartment syndrome, which is called 'fasciotimy'. Seems grisly and barbaric, but it's a shame this guy didn't get it done in time:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasciotomy

My uncle lost his arm in a car accident. He was very grateful when I showed him this video about phantom pain:

http://www.ted.com/talks/vilayanur_ramachandran_on_your_mind

Beautifully written article; matter of fact tone whilst managing to be incredibly touching. The last paragraph made me well up a little.

Can a mod fix this so it links to the first page in the article?

I thought it was an article about the arm CPU architecture... What have I become...