Lessons from a Fall

Some tech takeaways from my recent experience.

While recovering from my fall a few months ago — both my week in the hospital as well as my recovery at home — I naturally made heavy use of technology. It’s who I am, after all.

Interestingly, there were things that worked, things that didn’t live up to my expectations, and things that cropped up that were completely unexpected.

It’s a fairly random list, but it can help us all be better prepared for when (not if) something comes up.

Technology in a crisis

My fall taught me how much tech can matter in a crisis. My laptop became a lifeline for work, reading, music, and staying in touch. Some tools failed, and others surprised me. The big lesson: try and set up your tech before you need it.

My “go bag”

My concept of a “go bag”1 is my backpack and the technology I keep in it.

If I’m called away or stuck somewhere, my ability to connect and work is critical. I sometimes refer to my go bag as “Ask Leo! world headquarters”, since wherever it is… well,  there I am. “Ask Leo! world headquarters” has been used when visiting relatives less than 100 miles away to visiting other relatives halfway around the planet.

When my wife asked me what I needed her to bring to the hospital, that backpack was at the top of the list. I set my laptop up on the desk, and — courtesy of hospital Wi-Fi — it remained operational throughout my stay. “Ask Leo! world headquarters” had temporarily relocated to Overlake Medical Center in Bellevue.

It may seem that I’m overstating its importance, but I don’t feel I am. Beyond my business, which was placed on hold anyway, my laptop was my lifeline in many ways.

• It was how I stayed in contact with my wife, family, and friends.
• It was how I read (from my Kindle library, as well as a variety of online sources and newsletters).
• It held my music: two streaming services and access to my library at home.
• It was how I watched video. Hospital television options were limited, to say the least, but I had access to all the streaming services I’m signed up for.
• It was my typewriter as I wrote (and wrote), both for therapy (mental and physical) and for staying in touch with people who’d reached out.

There are probably more roles it played that I can’t think of.

Now, you may not need a full-blown laptop — I know I’m an edge case. But even if you’re using something as simple as a mobile phone, your device can truly be a lifeline. (While I had my phone with me, because my glasses were damaged in the fall, my backup glasses made viewing the small screen a challenge. Hence, I relied heavily on the laptop.)

Just don’t forget a charger.

Bumps in the road

That’s not to say there weren’t hiccups.

Given that I was connecting to open Wi-Fi, I fired up my VPN. And… nothing. I could never get the VPN to work properly while in the hospital. Even using the workaround technologies the VPN includes, it wouldn’t fly. I ended up relying on HTTPS and other encrypted connections alone.

Because my manual dexterity had been adversely affected by the fall, my first thought was to use voice-to-text to avoid typing as much as possible. Unfortunately, I could never get any of the technologies I had available to me (Windows native, Otter, Krisp, and probably a couple of others) to the level of accuracy I needed. I’d spend just as much time and as many keystrokes correcting the transcription as I would have just typing it in the first place. The solution I used with the most success was Google Recorder on my Pixel 9 phone, and even then, it was often easier in the long run to just type manually.

Fingerprints can apparently become unreliable in some situations. My experience was that for whatever reason — damage from the fall, being dehydrated, being cold, or something else being different — my fingerprint was an unreliable unlock mechanism for my laptop. Fortunately, I also had a PIN configured and could use that instead. Set up more than one way to unlock devices.

Permissions! This wasn’t on my technology, but it was an interesting lesson learned. A friend and I tried to video call with another friend who is technology-tolerant at best. My friend had used WhatsApp for text messages before, but not videos, and was immediately faced with a small flood of permissions requests related to the camera and microphone that they were in no position to think about. We fell back to plain old text to communicate. The lesson? Give those communication apps a whirl and set up those permissions before there’s a crisis. 

Other unexpected  tech assists

I started using Grammarly again. Not because I needed the grammar help (though I kinda do), but because with my typing being challenging due to the accident, using Grammarly reduced some corrective typing.

Being in an urban area, we learned to leverage delivery and other services. Several items relating to my recovery were delivered by Amazon the next day, but more pragmatically, my wife and friends used services like DoorDash and Lyft for the first time as well. If these services are available in your area, they’re worth remembering, as they can often solve problems in addition to just being convenient. Once again, giving them a try before a crisis hits can make your crisis response a little less intimidating.

Our medical insurance provider and the hospital both provide comprehensive online portals where I was able to examine my own records in near real time. I mention this specifically because I know some are reluctant to use the online portals provided by their health care provider. My strongest recommendation is that you learn to use it, learn its quirks (there will be quirks), and use it regularly. You may well find yourself in a situation where it can provide you with faster, more accurate information than you might otherwise have access to.

Communications

My laptop was my foremost communications device, going well beyond allowing me to communicate with various individuals.

Everything communicated was recorded in the message history of various apps. This provided a great record of when and how things transpired, and a reference for much of the information being shared.

While the Google Voice app on my phone wasn’t perfect, it was good enough to let me take random notes as I remembered things throughout the day, and even at night, without necessarily being able to see the phone’s screen in detail. Additionally, I often asked the health care providers checking up on me if I could let it record the conversation so I could refer to the information later. Interestingly, several of them did the same thing with their own phones.

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