Archive: November 2003
One neurologist for every 116,000 people
MS patient care embarrassing, say Scottish doctors
Scotland has 5 million people, the highest incidence of MS in the world, and 44 neurologists.
Restyling
When you re-do your Movable Type site, how do you do it? Create a duplicate blog to play with until it’s pretty?
So far, I’ve only ever worked on the live site, which can be dangerous (been lucky so far!).
I also got my main website (brokenclay) synched up with the blog, style-wise.
Pies
We’re going to my sister’s for Thanksgiving. We’re responsible for the pies. Baking Son came through - by the time I got home from work today there was one apple pie all done, filling for two cherry pies and a pumpkin pie, and a lot of pie crust ready to roll out.
Yea for Baking Son!
Ohmigod…
Did you know that there were ATMs running Windows? And getting viruses? (Via Simon Willison’s Weblog, which has much more detail.)
I knew there was a reason I don’t have one of those cards.
Clean Slate
I spent the day re-installing WinXP on the kids’ computer, which had managed to get itself incredibly gunked up. The most irritating feature was the loss of the ability to log off, thanks to some maddening piece of software I actually paid for.
It took a couple of hours to interview each kid and figure out [...]
The Disability Gulag
The Disability Gulag
Moving On
Upgraded from Opera 6.06 to 7.2 - interesting to see how many CSS based sites look different.
Two useful things for creating links that last:
TinyURL - makes a short, permanent link to replace long, ugly links. An added advantage is that TinyURLs validate correctly, unlike a lot of URLs full of ‘?’ and ‘&’ characters.
New York [...]
Bugged
I can’t get this St Andrew thing out of my head. If I could hook up a battery to righteous indignation, I could power Manhattan.
I am, of course, reacting on an extremely emotional level. Out of the Frying Pan is trying to get a more logical handle on the motivation and rationale behind the church’s [...]
And now for something completely different…
I rolled out (pun intended) a new website last week: Rocky Mountain Vintage Racing. It’s been a lot of fun putting together this site because the organization has people who are really motivated to make it good, and they’ve been providing me with excellent content, information, feedback and enthusiasm.
The Communion of Saints, Part V
Our story so far:
The Communion of Saints
The Communion of Saints, Part II
The Communion of Saints, Part III
The Communion of Saints, Part IV
A lot of email has flown around on this issue the last few days.
The church has decided to defer restroom renovations. They are launching (again!) a Capital Campaign for renovations.
I asked them to re-configure [...]
Same song, next verse
Delta agrees to $1.35M for wheelchair violations
And in the other corner…
In sharp contrast to Saint Andrew, we have my employer.
About four months ago, I had two days of meetings in another building on campus. No one I asked could remember seeing an accessible restroom, so I wound up searching just about every floor before finding something barely usable.
Afterwards, I sent an email to our facilities [...]
The Communion of Saints, Part IV
Lord, give me patience, and give it to me now!
Our story so far:
The Communion of Saints
The Communion of Saints, Part II
The Communion of Saints, Part III
With its $50,000, the church has managed to cut back two pews and put in one curbcut. No sign of any bathroom construction, and I’m trying to find out why.
In [...]
Headlines
Maine’s Old Orchard Beach to become wheelchair accessible
Disability has become his mission
Disability lawsuits target 100 Kaua’i businesses
There’s a What in the Handicapped Space?
Gimp Eye for the Clueless Guy. Check it out.
Antibiotics and Automatic Transmissions
NPR ran a piece this morning on the founding in 1947 of the Paralyzed Veterans of America. This organization was in the forefront of civil rights for the disabled - the young spinal cord injured veterans would not be content with being warehoused like their predecessors.
Two developments combined to open up vast possibilities for paraplegics:
Antibiotics: [...]
Weekend
My choir went on retreat this weekend. My husband did not come, and given my recent relapse, it was pretty certain that at some point I was going to need help of the Lifting Kind.
I was only moderately apprehensive; I’ve been singing with these wonderful people for seven years and have many close friends. I [...]
I Can’t Believe I Said That!
During the most visible portion of the World’s Fastest MS Relapse (that would be the 3 hours during which I went from walking fairly well with crutches to barely being able to walk at all, combined with practically no fine motor control in the hands, all in an extremely public place), an acquaintance told me [...]
Followup
A setback in the Mervyn’s case: Judge backs Mervyn’s in disability suit
Use of wheelchair in track races debated, following up on Wheelchair racer’s win raises issue of fairness
Stupid and Stubborn
So I’m having the World’s Fastest MS Relapse, and this weekend my choir is going on a retreat, including a pot luck dinner. I signed up to bring dessert. I’m the alto section leader, so when one of the other altos couldn’t make it, I signed up to bring her dessert, too.
Dessert for twenty. I [...]
This sucks
I have a Very Bad Attitude today.
Which has something to do with the fact that I can’t walk, I can’t see straight, and I can barely type.
I wanted a longer remission.
Language
Don’t reporters learn not to write this way?
Confined to a wheelchair, Cowansville youth finds time to earn Eagle Scout rank
The American Press Institute’s Journalist’s Toolbox has an excellent link to these Guidelines for Reporting and Writing about People with Disabilities.
Upon waking
Have I mentioned that I’m exhausted, too?
Oh, noooo………….
And I was doing so well.
Yesterday and today I’ve got the MS hug, vertigo (the bathroom is how far away?), increased leg and trunk weakness (I’d forgotten about having to use my arms to turn over in bed), and my brain has a herd (swarm? flock?) of bumblebees in it.
I came to work, but [...]
Slowing Down
The last couple days’ freeze is good - it finally kicked us into fall/winter, it killed off our nearby wildfire, it coated everything with a crystalline shimmer of ice.
Now I start thinking about maneuverability. If I am using crutches or a cane, will I slip on ice? Will I exhaust myself trying not to slip [...]
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