[Music] [Narelle] Good afternoon. Good morning. Good evening. Good day, Ciao. Buonasera. Whatever it is, wherever you're listening. Welcome to this episode of The Digital Access Show. Today, I've got a guest that I'm really excited to introduce you to. I've not met Patrick myself before. I've been introduced to Patrick through another lady I know, the wonderful Rebecca. And Patrick uses Assistive Technology Tools. Obviously, being vision impaired myself, I can't see Patrick, So I'm going to leave Patrick to tell you bit about Patrick's journey. How he's ended up where he is, and everyone I'd like to introduce you to Patrick Dillon. Welcome Patrick and thanks for coming and chatting to us. [Patrick] Thank you Narelle. My name's Patrick Dillon. I had an accident 2007, while I was working in the mines and I swung off a rope into a river on a sort of a day off. Hot day. Went to go cool off and down at the local water hole and yeah and never yeah. Not sure what happened. So I think I might have hit a log or a sandbar. But, I ended up breaking my neck. Broke my neck in three spots. C4, C5, and C 6. I was rushed to hospital. Luckily, there was a hospital nearby. I was then airlifted to, basically to Rockhampton Hospital. Not because I'd get, because I'd broken my neck but as I actually drowned at the scene. So I had a lot of of complications, water in the lungs. So, not only getting over the spinal chord injury, but also getting over the factor of drowning. But then basically stabilized in Rockhampton Hospital and sent to the PA Hospital. Which of course is pretty much Australia for the best spinal hospital in Australia. So I went there. I had a, I think a nearly 2 year, two years in hospital with the rehabilitation. Rehabilitated my life. I'm paralysed from neck down. So, I know, I can shrug my shoulders at the start of my, So, for the first few months, 6 months or something, I could just, couldn't talk. I could just wink my eyes so, when I wanted something, had friends come up and they would. First of all, they gave me the alphabet. I was a board where they would point to the letters and I would wink. And so start spelling it out. What they'd realize that they could, with a little adaption. So they said, oh well, a there was some things like scratch my head, scratch my nose, can I have a drink of water, so, [Narelle] The important things. [Patrick] Yeah, yeah so they then, they then became the the, they're like on the side was certain already to serve instructions, but then there was still the the alphabet, which at the start was quite frustrating. But Dad would sometimes help me out, and spell stuff when he come up and visit. He was there all the time for me, everyday. And he would come up and. Like he would get to the end of a the word or something, he'd go, and forget what he was spelling. [Both laughing] And back then he, he only had only had a few facial expressions. So I'm here. So that was my journey at the start. And then, so, after I sort of got out of ICU got my sort of, my, my lungs back and my speech back and my eating back, I went down to the spinal ward and then started basically beginning rehabilitation. Rehabilitations in the spinal ward is a definitely a journey, at different for different people. Some people are learning out these wheelchairs. Some people are learning how to use electric chairs. I was learning how to use my electric chair. Driving it with my chin, and also technology. Now, back then technology wasn't, wasn't as great. There was still good technology. Wasn't as great. So I think back then we started using for myself, Dragon Naturally Speaking for dictation. So that was something that I was looking into. And then yeah, so all the OT's were giving us that sort of knowledge base about the Dragon dictation, and I was sort of like adapting up, I'd say, yoiu know, if you could do Dragon, you could dictate, you could start doing a sign that you could probably study on that so. So I sort of creating a journey for me at this spinal ward. I, I don't know, I've never really been into technology, but I think when it's part of your life now, yeah, you just, you know, I don't know, it's becomes, like, you just get really involved in it. Always, looking into the future or looking at technology and seeing how it can work in my life or uou know, I used to ask people about their things. There's a few times in the hospital where I think when we first went to hospital and to, you know, they're getting equipment for home and they used to give me this, they want to give me this thing, which was a, they called it biological back progress back then. A progress and it bolts onto the end of the, onto your bed. And it has letters and numbers. And a letter, say A1, would be turning the television on, A2 miught be turning volume. A3, and it would have different letters and numbers and stuff. And that was, that was why, you know, I was thinking, that was quite big. And I'm like, yeah but, that's just one thing. What about if I wanted to have Foxtel or, you know, anything like their music and stuff. And they're like, oh, you know, people just, have to, people just happy to tell them that having the technology to tell the television on. And I'm like, Oh, I would like to say. So I wrote a letter to the government. They'll only give you so much funding back in the spinal ward for equipment. So I wrote a letter to the government and kept on harassing them. You know, they gave me a grant and I would like to get this new technology that came out, which was a grid pattern. Like an iPad basically. It was a grid pattern progress. You could have pictures on it. You could create your own pictures. And then it would go, you would have a picture of a television, say a picture of radio, or picture of a fan or a picture of a light or something like that. And what it would do is you would blow into a straw and it would scroll through it. And once it got to the picture that you wanted, you would put that blow or puff, sip or puff. Again, onto this icon. So let's say, it was television. And then it would open up another menu. That would have, you know, turn the television on, channels, changing. So that was, that was exciting for me. Yes, I'll be able to do that in a bed. [Narelle] It's a big journey though Patrick isn't it. From, so you're a tradie in the mines or a truckie or. [Patrick] Yeah, yeah, and all of the above. Yes. [Narelle] Yeah, yeah, going from that to having to re-learn and really get into technology. I have to admit, I actually grew up in that area. So when you said the mines, I go, oh, you said Rocky. I thought, oh, yeah, yep. Know exactly where you're talking about. And yeah, I mean out there, just to set the scene as well for the audience. Back in the 2000s, I remember mum and dad were still living at a small place called Baralaba, where I grew up. And yeah, I had a mobile phone, but there were only two or three spots where mobile phone would work at Baralaba. Outside the cattle yard, outside where the old morgue used to be. And from memory, I think it used to be at the rubbish dump. So Patrick, you wouldn't have had access to the technology at Baralaba out in the mines because the mobile phones weren't there that you could use. But the networks weren't there. So it would have been a big change for you going from there to what you're, you know, having to re-learn everything. [Patrick] Yeah, definitely, definitely. I mean, like back out in the mines. I think I'd, like you said, when I was in the camps out there. I think we had to down to walk like, oh, 200, 200 meters or 300 meters or 1K down the road just to call dad. There were certain areas, they said, like, black spots and stuff. But um yeah, just the actual technology's all changed like, like, I'll be honest. I knew how to use a computer. Um yeah, but not like how I know how to use one now. Really computers, now. But just the technology, I mean, I've seen how much it's evolved. You know aah, over just the period of the, of my injury has been, you know, unbelievable. Just, just in the technology on the chairs. And, but, yeah, I, I know. I just, I'm, I'm sort of keen. I'll warm it in and out, but I'm pretty keen to always learn about different technology and how people use it. And also I suppose to give me just people my, what my technology is and the automation I have at home. [Narelle] Yeah, so going, Patrick going from having to re-learn all that technology, learning to use it in a completely different way to the way you were using it, to being, you know, as independent as you are. You, you work full-time again. You're, you're on a various committees around the joint, advocating and different things for people with disability. What type of technologies do you use every day to keep yourself independent? And I believe you've got a child. So, you know, you've got homework to do there as well. [Patrick] Yeah, it's, yes. I'm with the chikd side of things I'm just basically, I'm got on my chair. So I'm basically just a, a wheeling playground for her. [Both laughs] [Patrick] A wheeling climbing frame. So, it's just, you know, it's just, you know, on the technology. We've adapt my wheelchair for her. Like, you know, we've got seats that sit on the front of it so she can sit there. You know, you're towing points and stuff like that. With the work side of things like, I find, I've got like a three-screen computer thing at home. And I just don't only use the three screens. I'll use them a lot. And it's not just because, of, I mean, I probably would use it before. And if I wouldn't have had this disability, but with the disability as well, I'm doing my mouse. I do my mouse with my chin. So, how that works basically is my wheelchair is a, my wheelchair is a chin controlled wheelchair. So, I'd move my wheelchair with my chin. But when I pull up to any device like a computer, I can then turn my chair into a Bluetooth. And my chin control will becomes a mouse. [Narelle] Okay. [Patrick] So, yeah. So, if I want like, if I'm out out and about, I can just press a button on my wheelchair. It goes to Bluetooth. I can pick what the device is. If it's my phone, I can press that. And then I can use my chin controller on my phone as a little mouse pointer. And then do a click and drag. And the same as a computer. [Narelle] Isn't innovation unbelievably brilliant. I mean, what? [Patrick] Yeah, yeah. [Narelle] What it allows us to do. So, again, you use the, you know, your computers and your phones to control a lot of things in the house. The light, air conditioning, TV. [Patrick] Yes. [Narelle] Watch The Wiggles? You know, what the important thing? [Patrick] Yes, so, on my bed, I have like, an iPad. And I have a technology called Oh, god. Shivers. I've forgotten what it's called. Housemate. It is basically a scrolling, same as a progressive. Put our pictures of houses and pictures of props. Pictures of the house and then pictures of television or lights or aircon, soforth. And, and the same thing again. It's a sip'n puff. I have a straw with the sip'n puff. You can have as many straws as you want. One control box can either be second, one can be off. So, on my, I have like a what do you call it on my bed. I have a system of straws. And they do certain things like one would control the environmental control unit. So, I can control stuff around the house. One, some of them control the doors, the front doors, the back doors. Front gate, if I let someone in. And then, yeah, some control the lights. And I have a couple of the lights as well because some of my stuff is controlled by Google. So it's automation. It's all voice as well. So, I have the voice side of things, but then I'd always have. And, so, you'ld always just wheeling around yell out to Google around the house and it can do all those things. But if the internet ever goes down, I've still got my chair. And it has the same technology and my bed has the same technology. And that's, like, that's opening blinds up. That's sitting up in bed. That's turn television's on. So, you know, it's, it's, it's not everything. But it's definitely way enough to keep yourself occupied through the day. [Narelle] Yeah. What other challenges. do you find then, Patrick, to, you know, on the net, to accessing information? Is, is there particular things that you look at and think, I wish they'd just fix that? [Patrick] But, I'm actually pretty cool with technology. I mean, there's so much more that's happening and adapting. And I think one of the things that people don't understand, I think back in the day, when I first had my, the accident, that people didn't understand that there was Assistive Technology to help people with wheelchairs and people with disabilities. And then there was the actual technology where you just have people that want life easier. They don't even have to be a disability. You know, it could be just hey, able bodied people, they just want to go, home automation. They want to hold an iPad and they don't want to go turn the lights off upstairs and stuff like that And I think back in the day, they, they were so separate. I think now they're slowly entwining and getting coming together. So that people understand that, okay, like from these companies. They've done a lot of home automation. And they've realized, okay, well, home automation doesn't deal with some rich people that live in nice big houses and wanna do that. And it takes people with disabilities can use home automation. So it's actually starting to all come together and the technologies are coming together now. It's just, I think there's a lot of technology out there. there's heaps and heaps of technology out there. And I think what the problem we have at these days is we don't have the people with the sort, that, all the facilities where people, everyone's happy to sell a product, but not have, they don't have the, you know when, when you got product goes down or fails. There's not the support out there and I'm talking about the software support or product support. That's probably where things fail. And I think also, you know, some people, there's not enough people that use these products or know about these products. [Narelle] So, you know, it's an interesting one there because I agree. I mean, for me, obviously, I'm very dependent on screen readers and when they do an update, that changes one thing slightly. A, a classic is Microsoft Outlook. The new version of Microsoft Outlook is going to be a web version. And I'm so used to using the short cut keys that using the web version is so frustrating because I can't anymore. I've got a tab more. I've got to you know, use a lot more key stroke to do the same thing. And that's frustrating because it takes me longer. I mean, my other one at the moment is I keep getting bills lately that are not tagged correctly so I can read them. [Patrick] Oh okay, yep, yep. [Narelle] And that's frustrating because if I can't read my full electricity bill and know my usage, I've got a problem. [Patrick] Yeah, for sure. [Narelle] You know, you can't budget anything else. Do you, What type of issues do you have in that area or are you all pretty lucky? [Patrick] I'm pretty good. I mean, I think, I think technology always is going to have their bugs and they're always going to have, you know, updates and things aren't working out. I think if I had. I use Dragon a lot. [Narelle] Yep. [Patrick] And Dragon sometimes fails and last week I did an software update instead. And it actually changed the whole screen format without words. So, and I was like, it took me a whole day to find out how to get it back to normal. And I think sometimes, yeah, I think updates are definitely a killer. Especially on phones and stuff like that. But then I don't think that yeah, I don't know, you know there's like, you know, people that do it. They're trying, they're trying to, you know, make the project. So make the programs and the applications and hey, you know, get better. But they're not, they're not realizing what the damage can be done. Yeah, especially like, I don't know I always find, I don't know about everyone, but I always found that, you know, a lot of spinal guys and girls. or like, old people, We just like routine. Like, the product that works. We don't like new products. We want to stick to that product. And it's sort of, it kind of, you know, there's always someone out there, Oh yeah, try this new product when it's very hard to. I find it very difficult. I'll still probably spend thousands dollars on new products. And I've put them back in a box. Said oh no, they don't won't work well for me. And there's probably a big shed full of them. [Both laughing] [Narelle] I've got to admit the same for me and it's even like, obviously I use canes a lot. And I'm really excited because I've got this new cane called the No Jab cane. We're going to Italy this year and the cobble stones, the last time I went to Italy my cane, it wrecked my cane. Cobble stones completely wrecked them. And yeah, and I was just, and I thought ok, we'll get a different type. And I'm really excited to go now. I just want to try the cane. It's all good. That's be a bit fun. Let's see if it works the way it should. But, yeah. But one of my other pet hates for me is, at the moment, it's audio description. I'm loving ABC because for me, like I'm a fan of "Muster Dogs". Which is an ABC TV show and talking about training dogs. and cattle dogs and this type. This year was border collie. Which is right up my alley. And I loved it. And, Muster Dog is audio described. So I could sit there and I can listen and I can hear what's going on. But if I go to the football and listen because I'm a mad NRL fan And like, this coming week with the NRL, I don't want to hear about the commentators back in 94. I want to know where everyone's on the play, where they're playing, what position they're in. You know, like, is the full, where the fullback's actually standing in position so that, because if you can see it visually, it's fine. But I can't see whether the full back dropped right back or, you know. [Patrick] Yeah, yeah. [Narelle] Things and I find those of great big barriers for me. From the sounds of it, you have different barriers or challenges. I can prefer word, challenges. It's more [Patrick] Yeah, challenges, you know, I mean, challenges is always very challenges. I think, I think with me, I think it's just the biggest challenges are internet. [Narelle] Yep. [Patrick] Which is everyone's challenge. I mean, I mean, I mean, when the internet goes out at my house, it's not just me. The kids come down, "What the hell? The internet's gone out." Like, you know it's, yeah. But it's actually, like a big thing for me. It's you know, it's, that's, that's, that's um, for me, that's Google. That's That's a lot of the voice activation stuff. I'm lucky to have that, but I'm also, power. Power, I mean, Cause, I mean, everything in my house runs on power. I mean apart from the obvious but beds. Equipment, chairs. All that sort of stuff is all definitely, it's all definitely power. So yeah, so I tend to think that the actual technology side of things, I mean, I don't really have much issues. So I stick with what I know and then resource if there's like you know, a new odd chair coming out or something, I've always, you know, I always on top of it. The basic, you know, like, if it's to need a head set, or something for Jabra to do some computer technology or something like that. I'm always looking for a new one, or trying to, yeah, trying to make sure I stay on top of the lot I've got now. But I think that the biggest killer is basically power and internet. My biggest killer. [Narelle] Yeah, I it's something I don't think about because for me, well, for me, it's losing power. I just have my phone. I've got a couple of battery chargers and that's all I need. I can keep going.Wwith you it's a very different thing again, isn't it? [Patrick] Yeah, yeah, [Narelle] It is everything for you. [Patrick] Yeah, for sure. I mean, losing power yeah. I mean, you can't use there's nothing you can. I mean, I'm not easily bored. So I can amuse myself. But, you know, my bed be, right like my bed relies on electricity. The mattress was rely on it. Pressure mattress that rely on electricity. As I said, Google. So all the home automation or all the all the, oh, oh, actually, the the whole home automation is running on internet. And power. I have a power backup thing. But the internet is a big thing. So, [Narelle] Yeah, I know. [Patrick] Yeah so. [Narelle] What about like web pages and trying to access information? Do you find design and structure of web pages can be problematic for you? [Patrick] No, I don't seem to have much difficult with all that sort of stuff. As I said, I've got the chin controller. It gets me to where I need to be. I, you know, I am lucky I do have my vision and yeah, and I do yeah, and, and the Dragon, you know, the Natural Speaking Dragon. You know, you talk, you type. You want something. If you want something open, it just, that's a command, and opens it. So, so that's, it's pret, I'm it's pretty, I mean, that's, that's happened over period of time, but yeah, But um. yeah, I'm pretty lucky with that sort of thing I think. [Narelle] Patrick it's fascinating talk to you of all thing that you can't you, you know, my home town, because not many people do. [Patrick] No, no, it's amazing. [Narelle] Yeah, it is. It's crazy alright? You probably did see my dad at the pub. [Patrick] Yeah, most probably, yes. [Narelle] My dad and his old Jackie Howe, and his khaki shorts that that's what he liked to wear. Or his old, button up shirt, and he was a happy old bushy, and it's amazing where life takes us Patrick. I know, it's a completely different journey, and I'm loving it. and I do like that you're even with everything that's happened, that you are finding joy in your life. Because we can't change the past. We can only change the future. [Patrick] We are, most definitely. most definitely. You know like, And as I said, like you know, I see, I can understand that it's probably what you'd be having. So it's like, web pages and stuff. I think, I think, the mosst struggles that I have I think, you know, like the lights don't turn off or back because something's gone down or the, very the, the, the frequency, or the the radio waves, and you know hitting, hitting the internet and files and something like that. You know, they're not major, they're not major things. I mean, I have my, other difficulties, my chair, and technology on my chair and stuff. But, it's actually, like, I, I don't know. I'd always think that where have come from to where I am now. I think it's, it's sort of, you sort of don't, I don't know, if I have like a half an hour, when I want to add a technology I'm sort of like, okay, I'll go do something else. Or or, yeah, I mean, I don't know, just, luckily, I think when you come from no technology, from the start, to the, I mean, just a lot of technology. It's, yeah, that generally is actually quite good. I like that. [Narelle] Yeah, I do too. [Patrick] Appreciate, appreciate sort of, you can appreciate what you've got now, and sort of, I'm sort of like, okay, I don't need to worry too much about this isn't working now. Or that isn't working now. [Narelle] Yeah. Look, Patrick, I can't thank you enough for today, because, you know, I really enjoyed talking to you. We are going to keep catching up, because, [Patrick] Yeah, no worries. [Narelle] And, I think, I've had my [Patrick] Technology, I can talk about, like a lot, my house, is just a world of technology. [Narelle] Yeah. [Patrick] But, yeah, I'm happy to share any other ideas, or anything else. [Narelle] And Patrick, how can people contact you, if they want to contact you, and have a chat about, anything. Well, I have my my own website. [Narelle] Yep. [Patrick] Which aah is, patrick-dillon.com [Narelle] Yep. [Patrick] But apart from that, I mean, I'm happy for you to give out my number, or email address. If anyone wants to get in contact with me. [Narelle] Yeah, I'll stick it on the end of the, podcast for everyone. And, thanks again Patrick. It's been fantastic talking to you. So [Patrick] Yeah, thank you very much. [Narelle] See everyone next time on, The Digital Access Show. See ya. [Narelle] So please like, subscribe and share to everyone. Let everyone know about The Digital Access Show. And if you really love what we're doing, please give us a google review. See you next time. [Music]