Phil came out to get me from my car yesterday. It was REALLY warm! It was SO warm that it had officially graduated from just being warm to being HOT. My Mom has told me that it is not ladylike to say “hot” but rather, I should say “warm.” But yesterday, it was just ridiculous so it was HOT. I get to the chairs where Phil was sitting and I emphatically say, “It’s HOT!!!” Phil looks at me and says, “Thank you Weather Rock Rios.” He stretched me at the chairs and told me that they just got a new stander and that I was going to try it out. Periodically, I would make the statement that it was hot to which Phil would respond by calling me a weather rock.
Then we moved over to the plyo boxes for more stretching. I remained sitting in my chair and kept making the statement of it being hot. Phil sat on the box and kept calling me a weather rock. He looked at me and told me that I looked like I was drunk. I told him that he doesn’t know what I look like when I’m drunk! I don’t drink anymore. My body can’t handle it. Retrospectively, I realize that that comment was the beginning of my demise due to the heat.
Phil pushed me over to the new stander. I asked him what it was called. It’s also called the Easy Stand Evolv but it has a glider option so it looks different. As he put me into the stander and strapped my feet in, my hands went numb. He cranked the stander up and almost immediately, I knew that I liked the other one better.
He he cranked it up all the way and told me to use the handles to glide. Yeah! That WASNT happening! I tried to push the handles and my feet moved the slightest bit. Yeah. No! I stood for three minutes and then rested. My speech started to slur a bit. I didn’t speak as much as I stood in the stander. Phil went to get me a towel because I was way past “glistening” and was sweating profusely. I stood 4 times for 3 minutes each time for a total of 12 minutes. Dan came over and talked to me for a little and it was VERY obvious to me that my speech had worsened. It sounded CRAZY in my head!!! Phil took me out of the stander and put me into my chair.
He wheeled me out to my car and put me in. I put my fist out after he stowed my chair. He just grabbed it, shook it, yelled, “Joystick!,” told me to watch some good football this weekend, and shut my door. I had trouble turning the key in my ignition as he stowed my chair. I blasted my air even higher when he shut my door. I sat there and willed my hands to NOT be numb. It didn’t work. I was just going to have to wait this one out. I drive with my hands so them being numb is NOT an option for me and driving.
After a bit, I was able to call my Mom and ask about my son. I told her that I would be awhile because I needed to cool down before I drove. She asked me how my time at Barwis was and I just replied, “It was hard” and began to cry. I cried because I was frustrated, not because it was too difficult. The temperature gauge on my dashboard read 93 degrees and had to sit in my car with my air blasting for 30 minutes before my hands felt normal enough to drive. MS is a REALLY, REALLY mean disease and it only gets MORE frustrating as time goes by.