[Rubyforchange-talk] My project

[Evan David Light]

	Perhaps it bears mentioning my situation and the project that I'm  
working on to help my wife and I as well as others.  I hesitated to  
mention this project earlier as it is and has been very personal to  
me for reasons that I will explain.

	My wife has Huntington's Disease (HD)?

	What is Huntington's Disease, you ask?  In a few words: her brain is  
unstoppably and systematically destroying itself.  Unable to function  
well enough to continue toward her Masters in Education and work as a  
special needs teaching assistant, she went on long term disability  
two years ago.  At this point, she is effectively home bound with  
some ability to walk and a modest amount of independence.  Were it  
not for my parents, living next door, we would be up shit creek.   
While she has lost some cognitive capability, for now, she still  
retains much of who she was.

	When I explain this to people, at this point, some become very  
awkward -- uncertain of what to say.  Don't worry about that.  We've  
been dealing with it for a few years now.  It doesn't hurt to discuss  
-- and increasing awareness of HD can only be a Good Thing (TM).

	Getting back to my wife: she can use a computer well enough to  
execute simple operations -- like navigating simple web applications.

	See where I'm going yet?

	While there is no cure for her condition and only palliative  
treatment options, I can at least track the progression of her  
disease.  I thought that this may help her physicians, but at least  
me (!!!) to take better care of her.  I began to do so by semi- 
consistently asking simple questions such as "how did you sleep last  
night on a scale of 1 to 10?" and "what mood are you in?".  I would  
also rate her symptoms.  All of this, I stored in a simple text file.

	But why do it by hand?  Or even in person?  I realized that this  
process that I was accumulating, of interviewing my wife and scoring  
her, could be automated.  And that this information could be charted  
and plotted in numerous ways -- or even mined.  Additionally, the  
quality of the "interview" could be improved by making this  
application a platform where other caregivers could set up similar  
processes and share them in part or total.  Even further, the  
platform could automate simple tasks such as tracking my wife's  
prescription inventory, faxing the pharmacy for refills when she runs  
low, faxing her doctor requesting a new script when her refills run  
out, and possibly even assist in placing phone calls to doctors and  
pharmacists (for those with difficulty using phones -- such as my  
wife) using Asterisk and Adhearsion to implement a simple Jaja-like  
scheme.

	I've implemented an interview as a DSL and recently began using  
Gruff to volumetrically plot results.  However, the UI is terrible (I  
wrote it ;-) ).  I only have so much spare time and so much energy.   
I've had some intent of attempting to market the app to  
pharmaceutical companies to generate some income via advertisement --  
but, at this point, I'd rather see the rest of the application  
feature complete than to attempt to make any money off of it.   
Besides, my first priority is to put a tool out there to help myself,  
my wife, and anyone in a position similar to ours whether it be  
because of HD or some other condition.

	There are certainly enough independent functions that could allow  
for a team to develop the application.  I have the beginnings of a  
specification written out but it certainly would require more meat on  
its bones in order to be shareable.  But, before going there, is  
there any interest?

Sincerely,
Evan