In July 2021, I (Steve) started experiencing issues with fine motor skills in my hands. As of September 2022, I was given a clinical diagnosis of ALS. It was about mid-September of 2021 when I first experienced difficulty typing, which was the first time I felt like my livelihood could be negatively affected. If you are interested in more information around my condition including my current status, feel free to check out my CaringBridge Site.
Why do I bring this up?
Throughout my career I have presented multiple times, authored books, actively blogged, and delivered a lot of code. I have been less active due to this condition. That being said, let’s talk about the good things that are going on. 3Cloud has been phenomenal in their support for me during this time. I have been able to take on a new role where I can still contribute while not putting projects at risk. My role now involves expanding the technology skill set of the data and analytics team through training, patterns and practices, thought leadership, and internal communities.
As I continue to adapt to these new circumstances, I’m becoming better at using speech to text tools and finding alternative approaches to doing the work that I do. I even found a really cool mouse that’s actually a bar! As I move forward, I will mix my writing on LinkedIn and on this blog with some technology topics and some reviews of the tools that I am using to maintain my work.
I look forward to continuing to engage the business community and technical community through these forums. I hope I’m able to help others who have similar conditions, whether it be arthritis or carpel tunnel syndrome or something like that. This is a hard business to be in when typing is very difficult or nearly impossible some days. Hopefully this will encourage others to persevere and continue in this line of work regardless of the circumstances.
Related Posts
You can find all the posts in the work enablement category. In these blogs, I’ll discuss a variety of technologies used to allow me to continue working.
First Time Speaking with a Mask at an Event
Over the past couple of months, I have started losing my ability to talk without a mask. One of the effects of a disease, ALS, is that I am losing the ability to breathe without support which also impacts my ability to talk without my ventilator. This past weekend I did my first speaking engagement…
Working with ALS – Insights from the Ability Summit
The 14th annual Ability Summit is a global event that I attended a few weeks ago. It is hosted by Microsoft, and it presents the latest technology innovations and best practices for accessibility and inclusion. The event has three main session tracks: Imagine, Build, and Include. Each track examines different aspects of how technology can…
2023 in Review – Steve’s Perspective
2023 was another transition year as I continue to navigate my ALS with work. It has become harder to write or at least more work is required. I use Voice Access day to day which allows me to operate my system and dictate everything from messaging in Teams to documents and blog posts such as…
October Is National Disability Employment Awareness Month
As many of you know, I was diagnosed with ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease a couple of years ago. Since then, I have 9 made it a personal mission to write about my continued journey to continue working while the disease progresses. (You can follow my personal story on our Caring Bridge site.) For example,…
Demonstrating How I Use Voice Access
As part of my effort to inform people on how to use tools with their disabilities and continue working, I created a series of videos that demonstrate how I use Voice Access to perform a number of activities that support my work. As we mentioned in the previous post, we have launched a Data on…
Working with ALS – ALS Awareness Month 2023
I have been living with ALS for the past two years. I was diagnosed in September 2022 but had my first symptoms and started researching what was going on in July 2021. As I begin to understand my diagnosis more, I realize that this is a progressive disease, and my needs and situation will change…
Typing with Your Tongue Part 2: Voice Access
A few months ago, I wrote a post on how I use voice technology to continue working with my ALS condition. Since that post was written, Microsoft released a new voice technology called Voice Access as a part of the Windows 11H2 update. I’m going to talk a little bit about my experience using it.…
The Microsoft Ability Summit in Review
As many of you are aware, I have been dealing with a progressive version of ALS which is affecting my hands and arms and thus my ability to type. Throughout this process I have been writing about the technology that has allowed me to keep working. I really started to dig in and embrace the…
My experience working with notebooks in Azure Data Studio
I’ve seen notebooks used in Azure Data Studio on multiple occasions. I really like the concept of notebooks, having done some work within Azure Databricks notebooks, but not extensively. As I go into the process that I went through, it’s important to understand that I am not a data scientist and have not done extensive…
Fast Fingers-Function Keypads
This is the third in the series of tools and technologies that I use to deal with the loss of functionality in my hands and arms. Check out this article for the lead up to this series. Setting the stage The issue I’m dealing with involves muscle atrophy in my hands and my arms. As a result,…
Typing with Your Tongue – Voice to Text Technologies
This is the second in the series of tools and technologies that I use to deal with the loss of functionality in my hands and arms. Check out this article for the lead up to this series. Setting the stage The issue I’m dealing with involves muscle atrophy in my hands and my arms. As a result,…
When is a mouse not a mouse?
This is the first in the series of tools and technologies that I use to deal with the loss of functionality in my hands and arms. Check out this article for the lead up to this series. Setting the stage The issue I’m dealing with involves muscle atrophy in my hands and my arms. As…
The Impact of Change
I started this summary on LinkedIn. Check out that article here. I only used LinkedIn to introduce what is happening, if you’re interested in learning more keep reading. First, I have to say thank you to my daughter Kristyna, who has been contributing regularly to our Data on Wheels blog in my absence. I’m amazed…
Data on Wheels - Kristyna Ferris & Steve Hughes 