Stick Trouble that Gets Sticky

I have used a mouth stick to interact with the world for more than 40 years. It is what I learned to use when I was originally injured and increased my skills as the years progressed. 

I primarily just use a straight wand that is 18" long and meets most of my needs. However, I have an abundance of other sticks and various sizes and functions. Some are short, some are long, and others can extend and go in between. Further varieties have capabilities of picking up items, holding a writing utensil, or allowing me to interact with a touchscreen. In some ways, you can say I have sticks coming out of my ears!

No matter the variety, they all have one thing in common and that is bite sleeves on the end. They are simple rubber cushions that I use to clamp onto and not have to bite plastic. Unfortunately, this is now become a major source of problems.

For over a year, I have had a hard time finding more sleeves to order. The only thing I could find have square ends that are not comfortable on my tongue. Digging through my collection of sticks, my caregiver found that one of them had brand new ends that had never been opened. The old style cushions are much more durable than those available today and the three sets that she found lasted an entire year. Unfortunately, I used them as long as I could but, had to switch last weekend. The only thing that was available were square tipped ends.

Within the first two days of using them, my tongue and entire mouth were sore by the end of the day. I was hoping it would improve, but it did not changed as the week progressed. I found myself to be forced to use more voice control in order to save extra pain. In fact, this week's entry has been primarily made by using voice control and much editing.

The problem with this method, is that my mouth quickly dries out and I need to get more drinks. I don't always have some one available that can give me a drink, so it replaces one problem with another. I know that various technologies are available for computer control, but I do more that just computer work with my stick. Reading, playing card games, and basically anything else I want to do require stick use.

I will continue to search and possibly come up with a method of making my own. However, that last option is currently completely unknown how it would be possible. I'm aware that I've been living the quad life for many decades and maybe do things a bit differently. Even with that, I do know younger quadriplegics use sticks as well. 

It looks like that one way or another I will be learning something new; either more voice control or how to make my pads. I will wait to see which one it is.