In the very early stages of Scleroderma, my hands were one of the first things to be affected. In fact it was my hands which, when viewed by a rheumatologist on my first visit, determined my diagnosis within 30 seconds of my arrival. And within six months or so they had reached the stage in which they remain to this day. I would estimate that I have lost about 90 % of the movement in my finger joints and my hands are locked in a half fist position. This is all fairly typical of the disease so I'll say no more.
One result of all this was that very early on I got rid of my two guitars and the one amplifier I owned because I was convinced that I would never play again. I was never really very good at it anyway but did find it a good way to relax.
Last May (2008) I started thinking about how much I missed playing the guitar and wondered if there wasn't some way that I could take it up again with the result that I started doing some research on the internet. Without going into the entire proecess let me just say that by mid June I took delivery of a 1960 something
Japanese made lap steel I'd bought on ebay. My son-in-law brought
over a small practice amp, restrung the guitar for me, plugged it in and I haven't looked back since. The beauty of this setup is that by using an open tuning, placing a slide on my left thumb and a pick on my right I can make this thing wail and it doesn't sound half bad. In fact I can now play by ear and improvise, something which I could never do before.
In July I bought my own amp, a Fender G-DEC Jr and last month I bought a second guitar, this one a 1950's something National lap steel, the ones with the killer pickups. This one needs a minor repair before it is playable but I hope to get that taken care of in the new year, as soon as we get a reasonably warm day with clear sidewalks so I can make the three block trip to the guitar shop. And why, you may ask, do I need two guitars? Well, the plan is to leave one in my son-in-law's music room so I can jam with my daughter on her mandolin and also my son-in-law and his musician friends. The other guitar will remain in my apartment for practicing. Now if I just had one of those old vintage tube amps I could really get that killer blues tone going. Been watching them on ebay but no deals to date.
And what's to be learned from all this? Well, simply that one doesn't necessarily have to give up the things they love if they keep an open mind and are willing to adapt to new ways of doing things. And this is true of so much of my life now. It's all about maintaining a positive attitude and finding new ways of doing things.
Update
I now have a third guitar, a post war Rickenbacher T-Logo, and a 1948 Oahu amp. The only problem is my neighbours complained about the noise to the building superintendent so now I have to turn down the volume. Not near as much fun but hey I'm still having a blast. Oh yeah, I'm also looking for an acoustic lap steel so I won't be limited to playing where there's an electrical outlet.
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