A frustrating hour last night

Last night, just as my nurse was giving me my bedtime meds, my laptop went into a manufacturer restart countdown. So, I waited to see what would happen. It restarted. But, when it came back on, my headset was dead. It was not being recognized.

I went into the sound features and tried and found nothing about my headset. I restarted and it did not improve. I tried checking the sound settings again and still could not find my headset. Then, I switched to the internal microphone and speakers. I restarted again just to see if that would improve things. It didn't.

While I was working on it, my call light was on. My aide knocked and I asked her to get my backup headset (still in shipping packaging). She said she was not allowed to open packages and that activities was supposed to. Without asking whether I needed anything else, she left.

I put the call light on and started working to try to get sound in my headset. I thought about checking the USB ports. But, I did not want to shut them down because then maybe nothing would work, and I could not even restart my laptop.

A few minutes later Gary, my nurse came in. I asked if he'd get my headset and plug it in to see if it'd work. He said sure. When I told him where the headset was, I looked up and the package was no longer on top of my clothes closet. I told him it was missing. I also said that my aide would not open the package. He said he'd better go see why the aides wouldn't open it. He said it would probably be fixed in the morning. He left quickly like the fiends of hell were chasing him.

I was very disappointed by their lack of compassion. But, other things were going on,  like snacktime. It's a time when the aides are really busy. They probably had no time to help me. But their shortness came off as cold and uncaring. I guess I should have apologized for bothering them.

In the meantime, I used the "on-screen keyboard" and touchpad to type an email to my sister. It was short and sweet. I told her that my backup headset might be missing.

I was feeling very frustrated because there was not much I could do. Thank goodness I did not have a lot of time to fill. I thought about listening to YouTube but the sound was very tinny coming through the internal speakers. Since the speakers worked, I knew the soundcard was all right.

I realized how vulnerable I am when I cannot use that headset to dictate. I'm sure most drivers who have comfy cars with computers and warming seats, are the same. But they probably do not mentally bash themselves about it like I did last night.

It's just really hard to take that at 8:30 p.m. in a nursing home, if I have a technological problem, there is really no one here who has time to help me.