(no subject)

Insomniac due to migraine

Turn on radio with usual ABC local radio station - usually mostly talking.

It's Saturday night, so ABC Local is playing country music ... But not just any country music - I turned on the radio and got honest to god yodeling!

It did unfortunately not cure my insomnia or my migraine!!!

Have concluded universe hates me. Yodeling?!?! Seriously!!??! That's just mean, dear universe!!

It is a lot easier to talk about incidental stuff than important stuff at the moment ... Too much serious stuff happening too. Will try to write about that too soon.

Love you all
R

(no subject)

Migraines suck.

Usually the 'hemiplegic' part of my hemiplegic migraines is just that half my body hurts a lot. Only really bad ones like today actually mess up my movement - my left side is all clumsy and tense with spasticity and its slow when I try to move it. It has happened before and I know it'll pass so its not scary, just annoying and boring because I can't do much.

Thank the universe for audio books!! Also thank this iPhone for autocorrect - it's amazing how bad my typing can be and still correct properly!

I have been thinking of making 'spoonie' dolls out of actual spoons like the way people make peg dolls out of old fashioned pegs - good idea or crazy migraine nuttiness??

Or possibly both.

Did I tell you I am being paid actual money to crochet a burnt orange string bikini in 1970s style? I can not believe those ever came back into fashion!! I was born in 1975, so i think i am too old to see them as anything but deeply deeply uncool!! Avocado and burnt orange and macramé and crochet bikinis were still around in my early memories ... I do still like ponchos though, thus proving I was scarred for life by it all ;)

Also I am rambling. Stopping now!

R

Helping the able-bodied feel comfortable?

Just listened to the most recent Science Show discussing a Wellcome Trust exhibition called Superhuman Discusses various things humans use to enhance themselves and their performance in various areas from Viagra to prosthetics etc.

Two things they mentioned struck me - a prosthetic nose worn by a woman until she married and her husband liked her fine without it so she stopped using it. Secondly, many large ungainly prosthetics given to kids affected by maternal use of Thalidomide, these prosthetics had little function aside from 'normalising' appearance and often stopped the kids using their own limbs.

I'd love to put together an exhibition of disability/illness related stuff whose main purpose is not to help the user, but to make them more acceptable to society. Not just equipment, but drugs, techniques (Deaf oral-only education comes to mind here, and some therapies for Autism), anything that's related. I'm sure it could be worked into an exhibition if we can think it up!!

Looking for more ideas, stories, examples ... Both modern and historical would be great. I can't promise to actually get an exhibition up, of course, but I figure with the help of friends and friends of friends etc. that we probably have all the skills we'd need so it's not totally pie in the sky!

What are your experiences of disability stuff that wasn't to help the user?


[Edited to add: Please excuse my slightly migraine-addled posting!! Just to clarify - I didn't mean just any cosmetic-type thing, but specifically those which were:
- Detrimental to the person's functioning, like cosmetic prosthetics which stop you from using residual limbs, or
- Not actually wanted by the person but were suggested/imposed by able-bodied professionals, as splodgenoodles described below, or
- Not actually wanted by the person but where they felt they had to accept it to "manage" people's reactions.

There's definitely a grey area between "cosmetic thing that somebody wants" and "cosmetic thing that the person doesn't want but feels forced to use" because society can be a strong influence on our desires/wants. But my basic idea was things which are neutral-to-negative for the user, the main/only benefit was to other people.]

r