Month: September 2019

When I was younger, I always remember my brother, Dave, telling me that “It’s on like donkey Kong!” When something big was going to happen. I think we were both in high school or in our early 20s and he was still telling me this. This morning, after I sat in my wheelchair for a while and finished watching GMFB, My kefir and my Atkins shake were drank and my teeth were brushed and flossed, I grabbed my blue therapy putty and squeezed it. Ashley told me that eventually it will get easy to squeeze and then I should move to the next color. The next color was purple. It is firm. I Texted Sean this picture while he was in school.

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I added that, “It’s on like donkey Kong!“ so I started working with the purple which is my favorite color.

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I shared that picture with one of my MS support group and I just want to let you all know that I am squeezing that, “Fuddy putty” as hard as I can and it’s really NOT giving way at all. And I thought the medium was difficult?! The purple will take some time to become easier but I have been constantly squeezing it all day long! I am continuing to squeeze it as I watch Monday night football.

This morning, after GMFB, I thought my body had, “Warmed up” enough to begin our morning routine. I had already watched the entire show and had already drank my Kiefer, drank my Atkins shake, and brushed my teeth. I was ready to get ready for the day., or so I thought. My Mom helped me to transfer out of my wheelchair to begin our routine.

I’m grateful that my Mom is the main person to help me transfer. Over the years, my transfer has ended up with me hugging her and her pulling me out of my wheelchair to sit. We normally count as I ready myself for the transfer.

I guess my body wasn’t efficiently, “Warmed up” enough because after our count and my Mom brought me to my feet to transfer, it was accompanied by my involuntary grunting and groaning. My head is right next to hers and we both have our arms basically wrapped around each other. As my Mom had me seated to begin our morning routine, she let me know that it sounded, “Dainty. Dainty like a butterfly.”

I hadn’t really noticed that I grunt and groan so much. I probably have been doing that for a while. My body always hurts and I guess my grunts came on so gradually with my transfers that I really didn’t notice it.

I asked my Mom if I grunt when she gets me out of bed in the morning and she told me that she couldn’t remember. With the weather starting to get cooler, I probably do but I haven’t noticed it. Maybe that’s because it’s so, “Dainty. Dainty like a butterfly.“

*I really KNOW that it is NOT dainty but that is how it is now.

My Sunday football watching routine starts with Rich Eisen and the NFL network guys. I really appreciated seeing Kay Adams I don’t location in Baltimore today too! At 12 o’clock, I change over to the fox NFL Sunday guys. Michael Strahan was wearing a dark purple suit today! I loved it! I Tweeted him! I also was grateful that the Lions game was on CBS so I get to see Nate Burleson at half time.

I only saw this commercial once but I have seen it many times during the previous week. It makes me laugh every single time I see it!

I’ve seen the other Progressive commercial was Baker Mayfield and them at the football stadium but I did not even put the two together until today. I didn’t even know that was baker Mayfield in the circuit breaker commercial which I really love! I’m not really a baker Mayfield fan.

So then it was the second half of the game and we were still losing! I started to get stressed out in the fourth quarter, so much so that I had to put my eyepatch on because the television was shaking. I have NEVER worn an eyepatch when I watch football, only basketball because basketball is so much quicker!

But I was stressed out! I think my stress started after Prater missed the extra point AND The field goal. He NEVER misses! So, I was watching the final minutes with my patch on and then Darius Slay made a big play! They don’t call him Big Play Slay for nothing! An interception in the end zone is, for sure, a big play!

After that, I could begin to relax. Especially when we took the victory formation at the end! So we are 1-0-1 now! Phew!

So, this started happening to me and my toothbrush a few months ago and a little over a month ago it looked like this:

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I was losing a lot of hand strength so my toothbrush was wearing out prematurely. I feared that I was doing damage to my gums. I posted the above picture with the question asking one of my MS support groups what to do with my loss of hand strength. I was thinking of getting an electric toothbrush.

Another member of the group suggested that I get therapy putty. I ordered some that day on Amazon and it arrived two days later:

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I immediately began working with the extra, extra soft putty. I refer to it as, “Fuddy putty” (because that Sean used to call silly putty when he was very young).

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After working with it for some time, I leveled up to extra soft:

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After some more time, I was able to move to soft:

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I still have been using my worn out toothbrush because I haven’t gotten to my dentist to get another one. I recently leveled up to medium:

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It’s definitely tougher to squeeze with either one of my hands but it is beginning to get easier. Today, my mom brought me an unexpected gift. She was able to find it at the grocery store today:

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It’s exactly like the toothbrush I get from my dentist! I can get rid of my worn out toothbrush because my hands strength has gotten better because I am constantly squeezing the therapy putty all day long so I am excited to see how it works out with my toothbrush tonight. Wish me luck! If it still doesn’t work, I will go back to the dentist to get my teeth cleaned at the end of October or the beginning of November so I can get a new toothbrush then.

A few months ago, when I was watching The Thing Called Love, I noticed and pointed out to Sean that the twin towers were still visible. He didn’t really have a reaction then. A few days ago, I thought about this and I half told and half asked him about his recollection of 9/11.

He told me that he did not have one. Of course he did not! I was about four months pregnant with him! I’ve been thinking about that fact. I can remember exactly where I was! When the first tower was hit, I was in a dark auditorium, cut off from the world, and looking at slides in my Art History class. I remember my class ending and walking to my next class. I got seated in my desk when a male student came in and announced to all of us sitting there that the second tower fell.

The woman sitting to my left immediately became hysterical Just as the professor came into the class. In that moment, I learned that the woman to my left used to work in the second tower. My professor canceled class and told us to find a television.

I remember walking toward the library and the first person I called was my Mom. I didn’t know what exactly was going on then but I knew that I was afraid and if I talked to my Mom; I would feel better.

Today marked 18 years since the attack happened. As is my ritual, I turned on GMFB and I learned that their studio is right across the street from the fire house. They started the show discussing 9/11 and it was in the moments of silence in the morning that they changed over to CNN and the site of the 9/11 Memorial. Teaching, we always observed moments of silence but being alone is different then being in the classroom with kids who were too young to know about that day.

I’m not sure what made me be so much more emotional but I just sat in my chair and let the tears stream down my face. Just after GMFB was over, I switched over to CNN. And I ended up crying so much more. I fell asleep for a long time in the afternoon and woke up still not feeling OK. Those moments of silence in the morning have really undone me and I remembered how sad my Mom was when it first happened.

I have been sad all day and I remember seeing a documentary with my Mom on the first anniversary of 9/11. It was about all of the babies who were born after 911 because their mothers (whether they knew it or not) we’re pregnant just after and their fathers perished there. I remember it being so sad and I ended up writing about it in my writing class the next day.

I thought about when my professor handed the papers back, (it was just a 20 minute free write) and she was taken with my writing skills. I was passionate about it and it was easy for me to write. Today was a sad day for me but I know that it is so much more sad for so many other Americans!

I want to first be clear that I have NEVER been a morning person! I don’t drink coffee except for a few days two times when I was eight years old. That was the school year when both my Abuela (My Mom’s mom) and my aunt Rita (My Mom‘s sister) died. It was a really tough time for me and my extended family. We spent days at the funeral home and the only place we could go was downstairs to the lounge.

All of the adults were extremely grief stricken and the only thing we could do was drink coffee. When I say that I drank coffee at that time, really, it was about 1/3 cup of sugar, about 1/3 cup of powdered creamer and just a little more than a splash of coffee. When mixed together it was a very light beige color, almost white. So, I really wasn’t a coffee drinker! I drank it because I was young and bored and there was nothing else to do.

Growing up, I never liked the smell of coffee! It reminded me of the teacher’s lounge in my elementary school and I remember getting papers back with dried, brown, coffee stains on them accidentally spilled by my teachers. The disgust continued when I worked at 7-Eleven the summer after my senior year and before college. I worked the morning shift a few days a week and I had to brew no less than 40 pots of coffee every morning. It was GROSS!

I worked for 12 years and my colleagues were amazed that I didn’t drink coffee but I was so pleasant and chipper in the morning. I would explain to them that I was NOT a morning person and that I would have to get up between 4:00 and 430 every morning so when I saw them at 8 o’clock in the teachers lounge; it felt like it was afternoon for me.

Now that I no longer work, Sean or my Mom will get me out of my bed before he goes to school and this is me every single morning:

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I figured out that it takes about three hours for my body to “Warm up“ in order to begin to get ready for the day. In the winter, I say that my body has to, “Thaw out.” During the week, it is perfect because Good Morning Football is three hours long.

I would say that it takes close to an hour before I can put my contacts in but I have my Kiefer and Atkins shake drank before the end of the show. If I was too, “Out of it” in the beginning of the show, I learned that a replay of the show plays directly after the first viewing so I get what was going on in the beginning if I was not awake enough.

I bought a Keurig last year for my house because both Sean and my Mom are coffee drinkers. I will NOT have a coffee pot brewing coffee in my kitchen! The smell would be too GROSS for me! I stay out of my kitchen until their coffee has brewed and the kitchen has aired out for at least a half hour. However, I want to say there was a few times when the coffee that was brewing in the teachers lounge at work smelled good. But, I knew it wasn’t going to taste good!

I really felt like this meme this morning! Because I no longer work, I can let my morning feelings show now. I’m pretty much by myself when I feel this way but Sean has seen the face a few times and it kind of startled him. I do NOT ever see myself being a morning person because having MS is really, really difficult!!!