The ICI Experience:

We're having a Live Earth Concert Viewing Party on the 7th and you should too! Back on topic, this post is a continuation of my pre-purchase research of voice recognition software posts from 6/14/07 and 6/25/07. Jenni, The ChronicBabe herself, has just started using DNS Preferred 9. I was asking her about the headset microphone. I said: Hi Jenni, Thanks for responding to my email and blog on VR software. I posted another on this subject today. Obviously, I'm at the very beginning of educating myself on the subject. Baby steps. While I'm not able to work and I'm waiting for my disability application to be approved I can't afford to waste a single penny so I've got to get this down before I purchase. Not that I ever could or will be able to afford to waste a single penny. ;-) I'm just starting to research the headset microphone part of it. So the one that comes with the software, that they say is Nuance-approved and noise canceling, is not as good...

The box with the lady on it is the standard version. The site from Nuance is way better than the one I used in the 6/14/post, for viewing info about the software. Ahhh... Nuance is the official OFFICIAL site of DNS 9. No, this stuff's not confusing, it's me. Not. NY Times review of the software that comes bundled with Windows Vista: As far as I'm concerned,the Windows Vista software is for people who are getting new computers. I still have a knot in my stomach from that time I tried to upgrade from Windows 95 to 98 on the computer I purchased with Win95 from the factory. MicroSoft is going to have to do something I can't even imagine to convince me that it's possible to upgrade the operating system on the same computer. Back to the point, I just got a new computer and it's not even paid for yet so I'm sure not getting another one any time soon. So the VR software that comes bundled with Windows Vista is not an option for me. And check out the video o...

Do you live with an invisible illness? You aren't alone. National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week, September 10-16, 2007 gives you a chance to feel "normal." The statistics about illness are staggering: + Nearly 1 in 2 Americans has a chronic condition + 96% of illness is invisible. 60% of the ill are ages 18-60 + The divorce rate is over 75% for the chronically ill + 70% of suicides have uncontrollable physical pain as a factor Sponsored by HopeKeepers Magazine, This week's theme is "Living with invisible illness is a roller coaster. Help a friend hold on!" It's a designated time in which people who live with chronic illness, those that love them, and organizations are encouraged to educate the general public, churches, healthcare professionals and government officials about the impact of living with a chronic illness that is not visually apparent. Join us for this grassroots campaign to help spread the word that those with illness may look gre...

Let's face it... chronic illness can have its humorous moments if we look for them. You know you have a chronic illness when... * You understand all the medical terminology discussed on the T.V. show Grey's Anatomy. * When you hear the term "Club Med" you automatically think of the hospital. * You ask your child to open the "child-proof" bottles of medicine because your hands are too sore. * Your medical records have to be transported on a cart. * To entertain people at parties you recite the side effects of medications as if you are the voice over on a commercial. * Your favorite Oprah program is when Dr. Oz is on. * To get rid of boredom on road trips, your whole family can go through the alphabet and name a drug that starts with each letter of the alphabet. * When you're unable to sleep because of pain, you watch "The Jerry Springer Show" and feel like you actually have a life. * Your spelling has improved...

So. I've been kind of dancing around the point of this blog, which is the invisible chronic illness experience. I think the main reason for this is the difficulty I'm having typing. The neck/shoulder arthritis pain I'm having just won't let up, and I'm trying to avoid doing things to aggravate it while I'm waiting to find out exactly what the problem is (MRI scheduled for next week) so I can start doing what needs to be done to alleviate it. I'm going to get some voice recognition software. That should help. Dragon seems to be the preferred choice. I have some links below to ratings and reviews kind of stuff. I think the microphone is very important. It needs to be a good one with noise reduction. This is probably what I'll go with: OOOOOOUUUUU! They have a link at amazon to a rebate from Dragon for $50.00. Those people at amazon are really helpful! At the bottom of this amazon.com page, 85 real people have reviewed the V. 8 product, and it ...

Alexander Technique - F.M's inscription. , originally uploaded by Anroo .

FM Alexander , originally uploaded by Anroo . Thanks to Andrew for allowing me to post this from www.flickr.com. One of the few remaining copies of 'Conscious Control in Relation to Human Evolution in Civilization', by F.M Alexander. It was one of a small number of draft copies published around 1912. The copies include some detailed 'before and after' photographs. This particular copy was signed by F.M Alexander himself. Per the photographer, the book is "in the hands of Richard Brennan, the Director of the Alexander Technique teacher training course in Ireland."

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Please be patient with me, everyone. I'm still tinkering with this blog and making everything work and the external sites easy to get to, etc. Thank you for looking!

My niece Kayla found this. Makes me lol. I think you have to subscribe to hi5 to get it. Hi5 seems like a MySpace knock off, although I don't know which was created first...

Frederick Matthias Alexander as a young man Just started to read about AT and FM on the BeatFibroAndFatigue blog and it sounds interesting. Very interesting. I want to learn more. One of the many things that I want to learn more about and don't have time for right now. It's so easy to stick it in my blog here, where I know I'll stumble over it again (and again) and will follow up on studying it. So although I know some about yoga and some about meditation and some about therapeutic dance, I know nothing whatsoever about the Alexander Technique. But Dr. Mark Shaw, the author of the aforementioned blog, apparently does know quite a bit about it. The link to his site is Part 1. There at least 3 other parts to his article on FM and the AT. So if you want to go ahead and get started studying up on it, be my guest. Maybe you can teach me. I just goggled AT on ask.com (yeah, we don't all always use google) and it's looking even more interesting for me as the Com...

September 10-16, 2007

silverconfetti.com butterfly charm: from Silver Confetti Jewelry to Celebrate! http://www.silverconfetti.com/shop/shopexd.asp?id=578 Butterflies are symbols of metamorphosis and the mascot of those of us with chronic illness. Because we are just living every day striving to be able to morph into something at least as good as what we would have been save for the blankety blank chronic condition we got stuck with in the luck of the celestial draw.

Chronic Pain Visual Arts Project: http://painexhibit.com/ I need/want to do some of that art as pain stuff!

I named this blog The Invisible Chronic Illness Experience at first. Then I looked up invisible in the thesaurus and I didn't like what I saw. One of the three major adjectives is "imaginary". As in nonexistent, impalpable, intangible, shadowy, and insubstantial. Definitely not the image we want to project. So then the best words I could come up with were unseen or concealed. "Concealed" is already being used (See www.writefaceforward.com or the book "Just Fine".) Unseen is simple and simple is beautiful. But I've already set up a website on "theiciexperience", In addition to this blog, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I guess for now I'm going to do nothing. The name of the website can't be changed. And I definitely feel they must match. So I'll wait and see what happens.