As you might imagine, I’ve been pondering this one quite a bit lately.
The problem is, almost all of my backup hobbies used tiny fine finger motor skills in my right hand extensively. Moreso as tiny tiny surface mount electronics became the norm.
So... I honestly don’t know yet. Been hunting for things to fill the time while I wait on this silliness for a couple of years. May never get better.
Technically flying would be easier than some of the backup hobbies. Yokes and knobs in the cockpit are big. Grabbing big stuff isn’t nearly as annoying as tiny stuff with fingertips.
Soldering for example with alternatively shaky or numb fingertips on my right hand, not so good.
Shooting, will have to do a lot more off-hand shooting and work on “backward” reload drills and such. Ick. Doable but not as fun.
Right hand grip strength is also crap for the time being. Maybe PT for that. Dunno yet.
Driving? Ahhh it’s okay most days. Feet numbness makes pedal finesse difficult. Doable but again, not really fun. See right hand grip strength. Stick shifts non-fun.
Shop work / auto / mechanical - meh. Not great with my left hand at things. I do it if needed but meh.
In general — lots of things need either grip strength in both hands or fine index finger stuff with a numb fingertip on the right hand. And no shakes.
So I’m kinda annoyed by all of my hobbies at the moment. Nevertheless I did set up some electronics junk just last weekend and no soldering but small stuff to assemble and get working. Tiny SD cards and little plastic cases and crap too. It’s not awful, it’s just time consuming compared to the easy days.
If I HAD to solder something up, as long as it wasn’t tiny tiny SMD I could muddle through it. Same with mechanical stuff. Anybody can grit their teeth and be annoyed by an oversensitive finger or three for necessary stuff. This is how I deal with normal keyboard typing for work right now. Not fun but whatever. Time to work.
I busted a little battery tab off of a very small device that uses AAA batteries the other day. There’s a simple temporary fix for this on those devices (known flaw with them, it’s a window/door open/close Hall effect sensor and transmitter), just put the battery in and then jam the little busted off clip back in there.
Spring tension will hold everything and also make electrical contact until you can replace it.
Right hand was tremoring lightly that day. Whether it’s the condition or the drugs I don’t know but it comes and goes. So imagine trying to line up a little clip smaller than a AAA battery with a shaky hand. And it was installed in a location where reaching with the left hand was equally awkward.
Yeah, I got mad. Ha. But I also know how to adapt and went and got a tiny screwdriver and got the clip on the end of it, then steadied the tremor long enough to jam it in there properly, something I would have just stuck on the end of my right index finger and pushed in the past.
Time consuming. Annoying.
So anyway. I have no idea. Whatever hobbies require only grip strength in one hand (that’s open for jokes) and gross motor skills only in one hand hahaha.
Driving the ZTR is fun. LOL. That doesn’t bother me.
Maybe jet skis and a boat. Or avoid both and not spend the money. Ha.
You ever fall asleep on your arm and wake up and your hand is asleep? That’s how my right fingertips feel all the time to different degrees. Mornings better than evenings. Now imaging picking up little parts and placing them like that. Or trigger finger work. Etc.
That’s a good day. More of those than bad, but some days it just hurts to touch anything with those fingertips.
Add in neck pains and shoulder pains out of nowhere when bending or moving to awkward positions, and most mechanical work is just yuck. Contortionist under a car is definitely no bueno.
It’s like that little electronics project last weekend. I have to really want it done to mess with it these days. Much less “oh I’ll just go piddle around at the workbench” stuff.
Sooooo yeah. Trying to figure out how much I want to adapt and how much I just want to do something else.
)
