Doing things one-handed

So there are a lot of things you can’t easily do with one hand out of commission. Washing yourself is tricky, especially since I have to keep my left hand dry. My wife helped me put a plastic bag over my left hand and tape it so I could have a shower, but then I realised I couldn’t wash my right arm. And squeezing shampoo out of a bottle into your one good hand is really difficult.

The good news is that when I woke up in the morning, all of the numbness from the anaesthetic had worn off overnight and I had full sensation in all fingers and thumb again. The thumb and forefinger had still been a bit numb when I went to sleep. And there’s not much pain. But I can’t really use my left hand for anything that requires any strength at all – I can’t hold anything in it or put any pressure on it.

I worked a bit on Darths & Droids today, managing to make a strip, although using Photoshop one-handed is a challenge as so many of the commands involve multi-key combos or holding down keys while clicking and dragging.

My wife had to do the grocery shopping, while I minded Scully, after she finished her work shift at lunch time. (I’ve been doing all the shopping recently.) And we went out for dinner tonight for the first time since COVID restrictions shut restaurants back in March. We had Indian food, and it was delicious. The waiter, seeing my hand bandaged up and in a sling, offered to bring me a spoon to help eating, but I said I’d be fine with a knife and fork, and sort of managed okay, using one utensil at a time.

And relaxed tonight watching The Last Jedi with my wife, to prepare for a home viewing of Rise of Skywalker on the weekend, which she missed seeing at the cinema last year.

New content today:

4 thoughts on “Doing things one-handed”

  1. DMM, have you considered seeing if some of the keyboard settings in Windows’ Ease of Access Center (under Control Panel) might help you do your Photoshop work? In particular, Sticky Keys. If you’re using MacOS instead, I have no idea if there’s an equivalent, but I would suspect there is.

    1. I’m on MacOS – I think there is a setting for that. But I’m coping okay and would rather not have to learn a whole new set of combos.

  2. Have you looked at the Windows accessibility options? For one, triple-press a key (I use Shift) rapidly and you can turn on sticky keys, which makes multi-key combinations much easier one-handed.

    Get better soon!

    1. I’m on MacOS – I think there is a setting for that. But I’m coping okay and would rather not have to learn a whole new set of combos.

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