Tag: cyborg

  • It’s a Known Issue

    We just barely saw the sun through the clouds as it slipped into the horizon.
    We just barely saw the sun through the clouds as it slipped into the horizon.

    “I need some ocean air” I texted to him, as I was packing up to leave work.  So I drove towards Newport Beach, picked him up from the office and we pulled a parking spot just as the sun was hovering close on the horizon.  Then we hopped out of the car and headed across the street to the bench where we’ve sat so many times before to watch the setting sun.

    I noticed that when I stepped off of the curb my knee felt a bit stiff, but I ignored that feeling.  I was focused on the sunset and not on my gait.  But then when we were about a foot from our bench, I dropped to the pavement.  My knee had completely given way and had buckled underneath me.

    The jogging couple walking behind us stopped abruptly.

    “Is she okay?” they asked.

    Meanwhile, I was gauging how bad it was.  I’d fallen just as I should.  No obvious scrapes or sore places, although I suspected that I’d torn a hole in my skirt.  And I didn’t want to stand back up immediately, knowing that if I did I would probably fall right back down.

    As the couple from behind us hovered in concern I almost said to them, “It’s a known issue.” But checked myself and said cheerily “No problem, I’m fine!”  And they passed, confused as to why I was still on the ground.

    It happened yesterday, too, this falling–on the blistering hot asphalt of a cafe parking lot, which was really not a very fun place to try to troubleshoot the malfunction.  Because of that I almost headed into the repair shop first thing this morning, knowing that a failing knee wouldn’t be a plus as I navigated my workday.  But the knee acted normally as I tested around the house and in the garden before heading to work.  I figured that the fall yesterday was an odd blip and the quick reboot of the microprocessor that I’d done in the parking lot had resolved the problem.

    But now that it’s happened twice, I’d say that it’s gone from a one-time blip to being a “known issue” that’s got to be escalated to a professional.  Because falling can be risky (and painful) and particularly inopportune if I’m carrying food or my laptop.

    So I’ll get a loaner knee ASAP and send mine back to the factory for service.  And as I do so I will marvel at the fact that I can swap out my knee almost just as easily as I upgraded my iPhone last week, with all of the settings and customizations are preserved “as is” so I can get back to my everyday routine just as soon as possible.

  • my cyborg form

    This video shows a team of designers rebuilding clothing mannequins to resemble differently-abled bodies.  It’s a moving story, well-worth the few minutes it will take to watch it.

    For me, this video highlighted the oddness that I sometimes feel when techs are building the “cosmesis” of my prosthetic leg–the sculpted form that creates the structure to give my metal innards a symmetrical form.  They trace my organic leg and then shape firm foam into a matching shape, shaving it down a bit here and there to make it look proportional, and then we test it under clothing to ensure that the fabric flows smoothly and doesn’t bunch up around the knee or gather in odd ways at the hip or crotch.  In this process they build me a cosmetic leg with all of the requisite properties of leg-ness, despite it being a completely function-less addition to my body.

    Due to still being in a phase where my new prothesis is being adjusted often (like today, it’s just started making a clanking noise as I walk around corners–time to go back in and figure out what’s going wrong), I’m not wearing any cosmesis at all.  The asymmetry between my legs makes most clothing looks a bit strange, such as when the right pantleg of my wool trousers flaps back and forth in the wind as I walk across campus, or when I am sitting in a meeting and my right knee comes to an obvious narrow point instead of being neatly rounded like my organic leg.

    And while I think my bionic parts are uber-cool looking, at work I rarely wear short skirts or other clothing that shows my metal innards.  Because it’s so much easier to “pass” than to have my body be a spectacle to passersby (or colleagues or students).  I’m not at all embarrassed of being cyborg, but it adds a layer of inconvenience to my interactions that I prefer not to introduce in my professional setting.

    But on the weekends, it’s a different story.  Then I wear short skirts and sandals and enjoy letting my robot hang out there for anyone to see.

    shadow, at the beach
    shadow, at the beach

     

  • just one step at at time…

    When we went out shoe shopping recently, Catgirl and I took a rather odd detour from the parking structure to the shopping plaza.  We went up the stairs and then up and down the wheelchair ramps twice.

    You walk so fast now, she said.

    A few weeks into wearing my new Plie 2.0 robotic leg and I am, indeed, a faster walker than before.  Particularly downhill–the mechanics and control algorithm for this new leg making downhills so smooth (c-legs, on the other hand, are pretty choppy on the downhill).

    In addition to wearing the new knee, I’m also wearing a Fitbit device to mark my number of steps and activity level.  My graph over the past two weeks shows some pretty dramatic changes from where I was several months ago (my daily step average increasing from 3483 to 4819 since August):

    Screen shot 2013-10-25 at 3.06.28 PM

    I’ve noticed only one small glitch with the new knee and that’s that when I have a long stretch of evenly-paced steps, after a few hundred paces it will hiccup a bit and I’ll end up dragging my toe for one step.  I imagine that this is some kind of firmware bug that can be ironed out.  But it’s a small glitch, and certainly livable except that it tends to affect my full trust of the limb (for the few steps after each hiccup I find myself reticent to put my full weight into a step).

    Overall, the new knee technology is even better than I imagined. I still limp and I’m not (yet) running hurdles, but it’s a dramatic improvement over what I had before (yay, technology).