Improving my view of the world
It's been a while since my last blog and there have been quite a few things happening in my life.
I've been going to a nearby gym for about a year now. I felt I needed to do some more challenging exercise than Tai Chi or walking lots. The small gym is part of a medical centre adjacent to an aged care home. The gym is supervised by Exercise Physiologists and they are used to dealing with people in a somewhat fragile condition. As well as aged care residents, they offer exercise programs for cancer patients, stroke patients and other medical conditions. I get regular assessments to see how I am progressing and the exercise difficulty gets slowly increased as I make progress. My strength and stamina have improved a lot, but my balance on 1 leg is still poor (I've found out that many homonymous hemianopia patients experience issues with balance and vertigo). Since starting at the gym, I've twice walked the hard bushwalk I did in Oct 2022 and completed it faster and easier. My wife and I now plan to walk every marked track in the Brisbane Ranges National Park, once in every season. It will take us a few years to do that, but we have a map to mark off the tracks as we go.
I recently received the report on the Etanercept trial I had taken part in (Is there a light at the end of the tunnel? And A bit of science and medicine, simplified. Unfortunately, the trial reported no evidence of any benefit. 126 patients were randomised between placebo and treatment injections, with a second treatment also undertaken. The trial measured quality of life using a standardised survey, and assessed safety outcomes, functional outcomes, fatigue, anxiety and depression. By day 28 post treatment, 53% of patients in the treatment group experienced an improvement, versus 58% in the placebo group. I received a placebo for the first injection, then etanercept in a second injection 28 days later. I never noticed any changes in my vision. I’m a bit peeved that it didn’t work, but it does show that recovery from stroke can just happen over time. My recovery journey continues regardless.
While the study team was toiling away with the trial results, I was doing a few things of my own.
I recently signed up as a participant in another PhD study. Monash University has an Inclusive Technology group. One of their projects is investigating the use of ‘AI smart glasses” as an aid for visually impaired people. The aim is to investigate “how smart glasses and other devices using artificial intelligence technologies could potentially be used to aid the vision impaired community, specifically people with cortical vision impairment.” There are a few models out there, but they all have built in cameras, microphones, speakers and AI processing. They can produce a visual display on the inside of the glasses and provide feedback via the speakers. I sat in on an online session, getting to know the glasses, other participants in the study and the PhD student. The overview we saw showed some interesting things that can be done with these glasses. Facial recognition, finding an object in a clutter, warning you of close or approaching objects or people, navigation aid with a built in GPS and things we haven’t thought of yet. We’ll work out a lot of these when we get together and actually get some glasses to try out. They’re not likely to correct my homonymous hemianopia or monocular diplopia (that would be nice), but they should make finding my way around my environment a lot easier. Maybe even make it safer for me to cross the road on my own.
Due to my vision loss, I had to return my licence to VicRoads a couple of years ago. I held onto it just as a form of photo ID until it came time for renewal. At age 62, I now have a VicRoads proof of age card as photo ID! (advice for anyone else in the same situation: the Australia Post Keypass card is not widely accepted by banks, Centrelink or elsewhere as it is not issued by a government agency, even though the level of identification you have to produce to get either one is the same).
I hadn't driven since I went into hospital over 4 years ago as I couldn’t trust myself to see any approaching hazards. As I live on a rural property I could drive a vehicle on the farm, but still didn’t trust myself. I didn’t feel like having to replace fence posts that I hadn’t seen. Sitting in the cabin of a Ute, my vision is even more restricted than in the open. I have been using a ride on mower with no problems, since I could see all around me with no obstructions. We’ve never had a tractor on our property, preferring to do most stuff using one of my Utes, or getting in a contractor when we needed something more. Our property is too rugged for quad bikes. I’d considered getting a 2 seater all-terrain vehicle, but they are very expensive and I wanted to carry fencing materials, tools etc.
One day my son was around at the local auto electrician getting some work done on his vehicle (my old Hilux Ute he resurrected and got roadworthy again). He was admiring an off-road buggy in the workshop and was asked by the auto electrician if he wanted to buy it. No, but he knew someone who might! After a few inspections and a test drive around his yard, payment was sorted out and it became mine.
It’s a home-built buggy frame based around the mechanicals from an early 80s Subaru Brumby Ute. All wheel drive with low range as well. A few add-ons from the planned buggy use, like an electric winch on the front and a blinding array of spotlights on the top. The back tray can be used for carting all sorts of stuff and it has a tow ball for hooking up a trailer (or my recently acquired tow behind slasher). Most people I’ve shown pictures too says it looks like something out of a Mad Max movie. The newly named “Brumbysaurus” will suit me just fine. It is a little breezy on cold days, but at least I can drive it around myself and don’t have to organise a Ute trip with one of my children (who have taken over both of my old Hilux Utes)
I’ve added some decent seat covers and installed a glove box for storing small stuff. My son is putting his welding skills to good use for me, making some alterations to the back tray to make it more farm-use friendly. I’m going to have a lot of fun with this beast, plus get some long-delayed work done around the farm. I even managed to find an appropriate car sticker to match its personality.
Any jokes from my kids about a "dinosaur being driven by a dinosaur" will not be tolerated!