AAAGH!!! Unfortunate illness ending my game-playing days!

[Turnarcades]

Hi folks
 I'm just celebrating my return as a contributer to the BYOAC community and to let you know a sad tale.

I am a huge classic game fan, 27 years old, living in England and have been building arcade cabinets for about 12 months. 8 weeks ago to the day I was taking my dog for a walk before hitting the sack the night before my 27th birthday. I suddenly felt overcome with nausea and collapsed in a pile of broken glass, unable to move. Luckily a neighbour alerted my wife and soon I was being whisked away to hospital. I was completely unable to move my left-hand side, sit up or even lift my head. After much analysing from the doctors, I was diagnosed as having had a severe ischaemic stroke, something usually common in old or seriously unhealthy people.

The reason I am sharing this with you is because I have been an avid gamer since I was 3 years old, and of all the things to happen to me, one of my biggest concerns is that I may never be able to play, for the most part, my favourite video games ever again. After much physiotherapy I am now walking again, with difficulty, but my left arm remains mostly unmoveable and pretty much useless, confined to a sling for most of the day.

There are many concerns I have had since this happened to me, and although it may seem ridiculous to some, I find the prospect of life without videogames will take away a big piece of me. I have spent time in hospital on my laptop, devising control layouts that would enable a one-handed player like myself to play some of the classic games we all enjoy, even identifying games to help with cognitive rehabilitation as part of my own recovery, but I may never be able to recover use enough to knock seven bells out of my mates at Street Fighter 2 or be stomping goombas in Mario Bros.

I just wanted to share this experience with you all and let you know I have not lost my spirit or my interest, and will work towards getting back in front of my arcade and consoles. The next 12 months are crucial, and I may get much better, but the effects of stroke are so varied, no one can tell me how much better I will get.

The point I am making to you all is to make the most of your game-playing days, as well as your current or revisited youth, as it can be stolen away from you in an instant, as it was with me. Turns out it was a genetic condition that causes internal blood clotting, and not something I could have avoided, even as healthy as I was. Though unlikely to recur, the damage has been done and I now have to live with that.

Maybe one day I will be a gamesmaster again and pick up my custom cabinet building business, but until that day I will keep fighting and have vowed to give something of a gift to the medical unit that helped me in the form of a customised arcade machine with a hand-picked selection of games aimed at developing brain and hand/eye co-ordination.

Big thanks to everyone in the community who has answered my questions in the past right here at BYOAC and shared in that cult passion of classic video gaming.

Craig (samshaw946)

[Cakemeister]

Good luck to you, man.

There are still plenty of games you can play one-handed, such as Pac-man. If you can use a top-fire joystick you can enjoy many of the classics which only require a joystick and one button. Galaga comes to mind.

[TheDriver]

Respect samshaw946, you are working hard and are determined, that is half the battle as they say. Good to see your spirit's are lifted and you have not given up like some would.

Regards

[Turnarcades]

Thanks for your comments guys, I've also posted this in the main thread, where people have given plenty of good suggestions on how to modify a cab.

[Sprucemoose]

Stay positive Craig and never give up.  I just ran across this and thought that it might help:




Link

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&ndmConfigId=1000001&newsId=20071004005444&newsLang=en

[jasonbar]

So sorry to hear about your illness.  Good words of wisdom on your part--I've also dealt w/ loss in my life & found out the hard way to enjoy & appreciate everybody & everything you can, because it might not be there tomorrow...

Best of luck,
-Jason

[JimmyU]

This might be of some use as well:

http://benheck.com/10-24-2007/benhecks-new-single-handed-access-controller-revealed