There’s one annoying aspect of my neurological symptoms that’s still lingering. When typing, I have difficulty timing how long I hold down the shift key to capitalize certain letters. Slowly, it’s getting better, but with as much as I type, it’s fairly annoying. The letter “T” seems to be the worst. I have to retype it several times to get it capitalized. I never really noticed just how often I begin sentences with a word that begins with this letter until I started having the issue. Now, I’m more aware of just how often it occurs from the sheer volume of retypes I have to make.
Another lingering issue is getting my fingers to land with precision. Before the illness, I was a fairly proficient, self-taught typist who could average about 60 wpm. Now, I often miss the key I want. I’ll think “E” but my finger strikes “F” for no apparent reason, and some letters I have a hard time pressing fully, mostly “A” and “O ” it seems. Again, it’s getting better, and typing today is much easier than just three months ago, but it’s still frustrating to be slowed by something I can’t really control. Hopefully, as I continue to heal, these issues will eventually fade away entirely, but there’s always the possibility that I’ll have to deal with this for the rest of my life.
In the grand scheme, it’s a minor nuisance, but for a writer, it’s pretty frustrating. I’ve always prided myself on my command of the language and efficiency with getting my thoughts down on the page, whether typing or handwriting. Now, I’m having to adjust and reread everything more closely to make sure I didn’t type the wrong letter or reorganize letters or completely miss one. One positive from this adjustment is that I am paying a lot more attention to what I write as I write it, so I guess I should focus on the positive and not just accept the inconvenience as my current reality.
So if you’re reading an entry one day and see something I’ve completely mangled, please don’t judge me too harshly. I really do know the language fairly well; it’s just that my fingers and brain aren’t completely back in sync yet. As I’ve been typing this entry right now, I’ve had to make at least a hundred typo corrections along the way, and this one is less than five hundred words long. That’s how frequently I’m still missing keys. However, compared to just three months ago, that’s a big improvement. Then, it seemed like I had to correct every single word as I typed. At my worst, I was down to about 20 wpm. Now, I’m back up close to 40, so I’ll accept that progress and hope that the healing continues.
Big Owl's Tree 