Five winning stories will be selected by a panel of judges, and the winning entrants will each receive an Amazon Kindle 2 as well as Dragon NaturallySpeaking upgrades for three years.
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I was first diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis about 20 years ago, when I was only 25 years old. For several years I was a regular in chat rooms and news groups dedicated to living with chronic pain. The friends I made online helped me find information about my disease, available treatments, and research that was going on all over the world.
As my disease progressed, it became increasingly difficult to use the mouse and the only way I could type was by stabbing a single key at a time.
Eventually I reached a point where chatting was impossible and answering a few e-mails was a very painful and difficult process. I tried several of the voice recognition applications that were available at that time and found that they either just didn't work or made so many errors that they were impossible to work with.
A couple of years ago my wife saw a commercial for Dragon NaturallySpeaking and ordered it as a Christmas present hoping that it would allow me to start using the computer again as I had in the past. Because of my previous experiences I was skeptical, so I smiled, thanked her, installed it on my computer... and forgot about it.
A year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I was told that my time was short and I would lose my ability to communicate. There were many things that went through my mind, the foremost being everything I wanted to say to my 12-year-old daughter. I tried making videos for her to watch on those special days that I was going to miss: her 16th birthday, high school graduation, her first date, her wedding day, etc. but between all of the pauses, mistakes, and times that I got too choked up to talk... it just wasn't working.
Then I remembered Dragon NaturallySpeaking. One night I sat at my computer, put on the headphones, and -staring at a picture of her and I together-began to talk. At first the program made a few mistakes, but the errors quickly became few and far between and I was able to make corrections, pause when words failed me or I became too choked up to speak.
For the last six months, I've crept out into the livingroom late at night and spent hours dictating letters to my wife, parents, family and friends... but mostly my daughter, Andrea. I've given her advice; I've told her stories and anecdotes; I’ve discussed books, movies, poetry and songs that were important in my life. I've imported artwork from the Internet and talked about the artists. In short, all of the things I can think of that I want to be around to tell her. Just in case.
I am grateful that I can "Speak Dragon" today because it allows me to say the things I may not be around to say tomorrow.