My House is a Happy House

June 20, 2001 - Earl Aman describes his home as "Happy Home." Earl is paralyzed with Lou Gehrig’s disease and as a result, he lives in a hospital room. But there’s the old saying, and Earl is definitely among those who are "Down, but not out." Earl’s home is happy because he’s found independence despite his ailment.

"I communicate and control my environment using a computer with various software and hardware including X10 ActiveHome products," Earl says. "I control my computer with my thumb and ActiveHome controls almost everything else." Earl admits that his house would not be so pleasant without ActiveHome, as he would not have the freedom that he is able to enjoy thanks to home automation. With this combination of his computer, voice recognition software, and ActiveHome modules, Earl is still in control.

"I control all the ’normal’ environmental factors such as lamps, overhead lights, radio on/off, TV off, fan, nurse ’call,’ and an emergency alarm." Slightly more uncommon or unique though, is that Earl also controls his hospital bed using four X10 Universal modules. He controls the head up/head down function, and the feet up/feet down features. "Thanks to X10, I don’t have to ask my caregiver or nurse for assistance or interrupt my frequent visitors" Earl continued. "Control of environmental factors adds to my independence and comfort and to my dignity."

Earl also takes advantage of the more technical capabilities of ActiveHome. He occasionally experiences a computer "lockup" which under normal circumstances would leave him literally helpless. He would be unable to call for help or do anything for himself. Earl said that he has been incommunicado for as long as four hours because of these computer glitches. So to overcome this, Earl programmed his X10 Computer Interface to automatically accomplish several things every thirty minutes during his normal waking hours. Unless Earl disarms the macro, "the Computer Interface automatically alerts my nurse, turns on my urinal drainage, lowers my feet and reboots my computer, all independent of my malfunctioning computer." And a timed Universal Module audible alarm is set to "Momentary" to provide a five-minute warning signal to disarm the macro as long as the computer is working as it should.

But all this is because of the love and support of family and friends. "I have a dear friend, Charlie, who helps with many of my projects" Earl says. "He is working on a new project, which will use a timed Universal Module’s contacts, on "Momentary", to recover certain computer software malfunctions short of a complete reboot. He and my sons are also working on a X10 controllable "excess secretion" extraction system using a pair of Appliance Modules."

Thanks to his friends, to his children, and to X10, Earl is anything but paralyzed. He’s found a way to function in the midst of his infirmity, and he has found a way to stay independent. And that’s what Earl considers his most prized possession at this point in his life, the ability to function autonomously.

A Note from the editor:

This story is from a contest that X10.com ran in 1998. At that time I, the current X10 Copy Editor, was not here. Recently, this story resurfaced, and I mistook it for being a recent submission. I would like to apologize for that. But with that in mind, I would also like to do a follow up on this story because it was such a powerful story.

The original contest was to enter your best use of ActiveHome, and the person that got the most votes would win the contest. The prize was a thousand dollars. Earl entered this story, and it touched off a groundswell of support. Earl was a veteran in Viet Nam, and a hero. And once his fellow veterans discovered this story, they sent word to all their friends to vote for Earl. Earl won the contest hands down, but with it, he also won something else. He won the knowledge that there were literally thousands of people out there who supported him, and truly cared about his plight. He won the respect of everyone that read about him.

Earl died only a few months after entering the contest, succumbing to the disease that tried so hard to take away his dignity and independence. But while he was alive, he refused to give in to that disease.

Rather than take the story down, we wanted to run it again, this time with the acknowledgement that it was an older story. We wanted to remind our readers about this man, and his fearless fight for independence; first for his country, and then for his life.

So when you read this story, let him inspire you all over again, as he has inspired me, and the rest of us here at X10.

Please visit the Earl Aman Courage Foundation to learn more about this courageous man http://members.js-net.com/phantom/earlaman.htm.

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