Imagine a world with limited technology is available with just a house and you.  You had to manufacture your own timber to build your home yourself.  Heat your home with wood because it gets very cold and damp during those night or day hours, cook with your wood stove, no plumbing or electricity, no siding, gutters, insulation for those cool evenings or days, drafty windows and you get around in a two horse powered carriage.  Don’t want to imagine it?  It’s ok for a week-end get away or a hunting cabin besides, we live in the 20^th century where advancements in technology are steady.

Let’s imagine this same house but use today’s technology to build your home for you and refurnish it.  Let’s put in a natural gas heating system also put an indoor bathroom with plumbing with a flushing toilet and a shower with a hot water and electricity to run an exhaust fan.  Use that same electricity to power a cooking stove, microwave, refrigerator, washer and dryer.   Put some siding on it, gutters, a shingled roof, insulation for those cold damp evenings or days and double pane windows.  Let’s add something extra because you work so hard to keep your home running. You bought a 42 inch HD TV with a stereo sound and a Bose surround sound system. Enhanced the sound with a 110 watt receiver, buy a HD/DVD player and a 300 CD disc changer. Because of the summers sizzling heat, you also purchase an air conditioner. Drive to work in bran new Hybrid Ford SUV fully loaded.

Outside the home, is just jam packed with today’s technology making our lives much easier!  Driving you gas guzzling SUV to use an ATM machine and stop to a screeching halt because the traffic light changes to red.  In a way, we let technology that run our life’s literally but without it, we be in that world of limited technologies.

Let’s paint a picture of how your technology is taken away from you in just a heart beat.  Wow! You survived whatever destroyed everything you worked for to gain.  What happen?  You’re asking yourself.

I want to use my disability as an example to tell you on ways today’s technology can be adapted so you can accommodate your very own handicap.  First-,,  I need to make it known I did not get shot, stabbed, get in car accident, fight, attack by terrorists, fall victim to a drive by shooting, born disabled do drugs but the #1 of serious, long-term adult disability in the United States and the #3 killer, stroke paralyzed me. There are countless types of stroke and mine left me with quadriplegia unable to verbalize.

If your a survivor of some kind of disability, its human nature to fight to survive but don't quit surviving life’s journey to the unknown.  Remember even though disabilities requires a good chunk of life’s time to heal and then discover with all your hard recovery work; your not 100% cured.  It’s just a bump in the road

Today’s technology can be used to improve your capabilities.  Those new capabilities are only available through your ability to learn by challenging the free market products to help assist your disabilities.  All my products came from The Home Depot, Internet, or Value home centers and not pricey medical suppliers.  All my ideas are considered to be one of a kind because I know and have had pre-stroke experiences handling these products.  It helped to be the jack of all trades master of none.

In the diagram above, demonstrates how I rely on technology to help me make my life run easier like utilizing today’s house.  Even though there one of a kind items, I like to show you how I adapted my new capacities by using today’s technologies.

1. Sitting Back Support Cushion by Klass Vaki Back Support Cushion.  I bought this cushion off the Interne.  This is one of many types of Lumbar back support cushions available to anyone.  This is type of cushion I have is for my comfort and lateral  support.  I do most of my shopping on-line because it’s extremely convenient for my disability and always have a handicap parking spot.  http://www.comfortchannel.com/  This is among many stores on-line you can shop.  I chose this place because it gave me the best price available for cushion.  
   

2. I ordered a keyboard cover for my laptop.  This protects any liquid spillages or dirt particles destroying laptop.
   

3. This is my computer laptop. It reads, talks and has wireless technology.  I do all my banking on-line and bill pay because of the fact my laptop doesn’t argue it just shows mistakes.  My laptop is also my TTY machine. and rely operators are available. 
   
   This a free service you can download off Internet!
   http://www.nextalk.net/nextalk62/nextalk.pl 

4. Coming home from the hospital with no speech was extremely complicated.  The communication method I had to learn took several minutes to ask for a drink or snack.  A friend of mine who had a stroke and unable to talk; introduced me to what is known as a letterboard.  I took this letterboard and modified it to make bigger letters for my poor visibility.  Because it was always hard to find I had it laminated to laptop and it's ten times quicker way to ask for a drink. This letterboard can be access at http://www.dave13.com/letterboard/instruc.htm and printable in 3 sized.
   

5. My automatic door opener is operated by a remote control I keep mounted on the tray by using Velcro.  This allows me to come and go as I please. I have a 42 inch 9 light door for a front door.  The automatic door opener I have are at the hospitals or stores that open automatically for wheelchairs by pressing on an activation button located at their entrances. 
   

6. This red rubbery color paint pointed out in the picture above is used for applying to your tools to make a better grip for your hands.  I had the problem of a cup and other item laid on my tray sliding off to the ground during transit.  Coating this to my tray solved the sliding problem and the best part I always wanted a red tray.

These products that were mention can be bought and sold in the free market because it’s an item used often in our technology world making it easier to use.  Hope this helps you invent your ideas other than those pricey medical stores.  My wheelchair laptray for an example can be purchase at a medical store for $250.00; this wheelchair laptray was cut from a piece of Maple ply-wood (8 by 10) bought for $30.00.  Making a laptray requires using a hard wood such as Oak, Birch or Maple, these woods feature a better ware and tare in addition it’s very hard to dent the surface

My ideas couldn’t be created without the availability in technology.  Without technology, I be in the home surviving like the house imagined described in the beginning of this chapter.  We can live without technology but in my case, it is completely necessary to survive as long as I have.

Battery life is at a limit for your talking device but if you use an electric wheelchair, you can use the power from the wheelchair batteries.  The talking device I use is a laptop and I use my wheelchair to supply the power.  I can watch DVD movies to pass the time on a long road trips, rome around my yard and not have to worrying about power, also having wireless Internet makes having phone wires a thing of the past.

This is my set-up I use to power my laptop.  To draw the proper power from your electric wheelchair 24 volt system without injuring your performance, you use a converter that converts 24 volts down to a 12 volt source. 12 volts power is same as a car battery.  Diagram #2 in the picture on left is that 24v-12v converter. My laptop requires 19 volts of continuous power. Diagram #3 in the picture on left is is the converter that supplies those 19 volts for my laptop.  The converter uses those 12volts to convert my necessary 19 volts. ***All my converter boxes are direct current (DC) Because there are not an on/off switch feature on my 24 volt -12 volt DC/DC converter box, I added this to turn the power off going  to that unit during while charging my electric wheelchair. (Illustrated on the picture above as diagram #1) This is a must so my unit to cool down and last longer than the warranty.  Interested in this set-up details can be found at http://www.powerstream.com/dc1-isolated.htm   HOME   [E-mail me]   [Dave Daul's Front Porch]