I had a tearful moment last night. I was kind of feeling at a loss when I put on my U2 playlist in my Apple Music as a brushed and flossed my teeth and reapplied Chapstick. I put the song that came on on repeat and listened to it five times because my soul was comforted at hearing Bono telling me that my tears are going nowhere fast. Thanks, Bono! I needed this:
Month: September 2021
Facial Hair
I haven’t gotten my eyebrows waxed since June because the unforgiving heat has kept me inside. I think of it like, I want over a year without cutting my hair or waxing my eyebrows so a couple months isn’t so bad.
My brother waxed my face just before he left for Mexico because he comes to my house and we are both vaccinated. When I get my haircut, I just have her wax my eyebrows now because it is safer for me to keep my mascon at the salon. So my hair is a little bit overgrown and so are my eyebrows but I’m okay with that.
As for my arm and face: My arm still feels normal but I wonder if the, “Normal” that I feel is really even, “Normal”? It probably isn’t but for me, at this point, it is. I remember when I first started teaching that my friend and colleague, Suzie, told me that she is allergic to fruit.
She would leave an apple slicer in her mailbox in the teachers lounge. I thought that was so weird because if she’s allergic to fruit, why is she going to eat an apple? She told me that she likes the taste and she would just eat until her lips starting to tingle and then she would stop eating it for the day. My Mom and I talked with my brother, Dave, and he said he has the same thing going on but just with the green apples.
That is how my lips feel today. I imagine it is how her lips would feel when she ate apple. They are just the slightest bit tingly. I said yesterday that my face felt like I had a mustache like my grandpa:
It doesn’t feel like that today, it’s gradually starting to feel like a Charlie Chaplin mustache:
NOT THIS ONE!!!:
I wonder how my face will feel tomorrow. I wonder what kind of facial hair I will have even though I prefer to wax!
A Thin Line
I laid in my bed last night and thought about my tingly arm and face. I tried to think about why exactly this is happening, aside from me having MS For 20 years, and I figured that I think I need to make a chiropractor appointment.
I sleep on my left shoulder and my weight rests on my left hip and my left shoulder because my right leg is perched on top of my left leg because after two surgeries, the knee is sensitive! It’s probably sensitive because I had my second surgery after I had had MS for 16 years and I am finding out that recovery from that is so difficult!
I am no expert about the skeletal system or whatever but all I know is that my hand was numb and yesterday my arm felt tingly all day! I was hoping I would feel better in the morning! Well, this morning, my arm feels fine! Or as fine as it can feel in having MS for 20 years! That made me extremely happy and then comes the feeling in/on my face…
Let me first, give a little background to how I am going to explain this to you. I spent my ENTIRE childhood staring at this picture in my grandparents living room:
That was from my grandparents wedding. They are my Dad‘s parents. My grandpa had an extremely groomed mustache that was just a thin line above his mouth:
It eventually was a little bit thicker the older he got, but it was still groomed! That is how my face feels today! I feel like I have a mustache like my grandpa that’s a little bit tingly along with my lips.
I can handle this new sensation if this is how it’s going to be, I think! I hope!
New Sensation
So, I woke up this morning to a new sensation. My nose is no longer numb and just my lips are a little bit. My hand and arm feel like it feels like your legs have fallen asleep and they’re just starting to wake up.
I am extremely frustrated with this new sensation! My arm feels very fluid in terms of tingling and it’s driving me nuts! I told my Mom that I want to rip my arm off! She really doesn’t appreciate that visual but I really want to do it!
Today was, “Hair washing” day and was a little bit weird! I am left-handed and even though my hand feels generally normal, my arm feels super weird! Using my hairdryer to dry my hair felt strange! I had to break up my hair drying into three sections like I did when the pandemic started and my hair was growing because I couldn’t get a haircut. I had to rest my arm because it was extra tingly!
As I was doing this, my cheeks would feel a sporadic moving, tingly sensation as I dried my hair. So this new sensation, these new sensations, are frustrating and annoying! What is comforting is that this new sensation is already changing! Who knows what it will be like tomorrow?! In the meantime, I have this song in my head:
Numb OR, Smack it!”
Okay, I think I need to preface this post before I write it that I have had MS for over 20 years. It will be 21 in December. With that being said, for just about all of that time, my body has NOT felt normal! That’s just how it is!
I need to say that because my son stopped by this afternoon and when I told him about what I am going to write about today, he looked extremely concerned! I am not putting a lot of importance on this sensation I am feeling right now and know that it will go away. Sean, however, was very concerned and started asking me questions. Sometimes I forget that he does NOT know me NOT having MS! I got pregnant with him just four months after I was diagnosed!
So, jhere is what I was going to write about. I just want to tell you that I am NOT concerned too much!:
So, yesterday morning I woke up to my left hand being numb and my nose and mouth feeling numb as well. My left hand has felt numb before when I was working and I would have to type with one finger using my right hand to send in my attendance to the office. Back then, it was a little difficult to maneuver my manual wheelchair with a left hand that was completely numb. The sensation eventually would come back. That’s why I’m not concerned about this new sensation!
I told my son this because I wanted him to laugh at what my Mom told me to do. Yesterday morning, I told her that my nose and my mouth, namely my lips, were numb. The space next to my nostrils before my cheekbones and my upper lip was numb. My left hand was also numb. My mom‘s response was priceless! We both laughed!
Her response was simple. She said, “Smack it!” How could I NOT laugh?! We both laughed because we know how absurd that statement was but it was kind of funny! She spent yesterday reminding me of what I needed to do or what she would do! It was variations of, “Do you want me to smack it?“, or, “I will smack it if you want me to!“
But, this has pretty much been the way we have handled my gradual decline over the last 20 years. We laugh! I was concerned at my son‘s reaction and I told him that I thought he would laugh at my Mom offering to smack me! He did say that that was really funny but he was still concerned. As for me and my Mom, we aren’t so much. Over the years, it’s kind of like, “Oh, this is how it is now.” She will walk by me and see me clenching and unclenching my left fist, scrunching my nose, pursing my lips between my teeth or pressing my lips with my fingers and she will offer again to smack me which will make both of us laugh!
I also think that another distraction I use is that this song has been playing in my head since yesterday morning when I awoke with numbness in my face:
Nothing Even Matters
At about 1230 last night, (or this morning), I checked the Target website to see if they had updated their Chapstick availability. It had not updated so I tried again when I woke up this morning at about 11:30 (don’t judge me) but it still hadn’t been updated. Maybe after this weekend it will and I’m cool with that because I don’t get paid until next week anyway!
So, in essence, it really doesn’t matter! I have been singing this song in my head since this morning because nothing even matters!
Slippin’
So, I have noticed that Target’s online item list is different than it is in the store. I kept on checking their website because it’s getting soon for my fall and winter flavors of Chapstick. So I was looking for this item:
My Mom actually checked at the store the last time she went to Target. They did NOT have it! I was thinking that they are slippin’ and I was disappointed. That is, until I realize that TODAY is Labor Day! Of course they would not have my fall and winter flavors yet!!!
Days all seem to run together now that I no longer work. I can only keep Mondays and Thursdays in my head because those are, “Cheese Days.” I like to be prepared and do things early! But, I still have some summer flavors of Chapstick left and it’s still super hot outside so I can wait until tomorrow to get my fall and winter tips next. I don’t even get paid for a few more days so I won’t get it immediately anyway.
Regardless of me finding out that Target is NOT slippin,’ this song has been in my head for a while now!:
Executive Decision
Okay, Let me first start out this post by saying that as a rule, I do not drink alcohol while attending a live concert. I do this because I want to experience the band in full force and of sound mind! I don’t want to forget anything! But, when handed a large cup of beer, I just have to drink it. It’s the polite thing to do! That is what I did the one time I saw U2 live at the Vertigo tour in 2006.
Another reason that I do not drink at concerts is the long lines To go to the bathroom! Well, there is only so much alcohol that my bladder can’t hold So I had to make the executive decision to choose which song I would leave my seat to go to the bathroom and I wasn’t even sure how many songs that I would miss! I decided to leave when this song started and I have since been chastised for not watching them perform this song in order to go to the bathroom:
There was no line to the bathroom so I was able to get right in! That made me happy because I would only miss one song. As I was washing my hands at the sink, two very drunk woman came in. I was leaning against the sink with my crutches on either side of me because I was still able to walk back then. One of the women could not believe that I was there! She gave me tons of accolades for coming to the concert and being disabled.
I told her that I would walk through fire for them because this is my favorite band to which she responded with a haphazard and drunken hug that I was grateful that it didn’t knock me too much out of balance. Such a random encounter with two strangers but I still remember it 15 years later! My, “Concert going” days are over now but I appreciate you having gotten to see u2 at least once!
“For Til College!”
I saw this on Facebook a while ago and I don’t believe my son is grown up as of yet. However, we were thrust into a strange world once Covid hit. He had to move out of our house to continue working and my Mom moved in with me.
Sean came to visit me last Saturday since we are all vaccinated. It was really cool to hang out with him! And, before he left, probably in the middle of our visit, I asked him to get my extra supplement bottles off of the desk under my TV because I was refilling my pillbox and it was in that moment where the quote I saw on Facebook made sense!:
One of the supplements I take is called, ”For-Til B-12:
I asked him to get me that bottle and as he grabbed it, he said, “For till college!“ and I immediately started to laugh! He started to laugh as well and I reminded him that, “Carly kisses like a princess!”
So, I think that I am just nervous about my son being grown-up but we had a great laugh talking about all of the TV shows we watch together when he was growing up:
Vertigo
Sunday evening, my Mom was getting really dizzy! I was extremely concerned and she called the doctor on Monday. They could see her on Tuesday. Tuesday, she was told what she had:
She was told that it is not life-threatening but more of an annoyance. But maybe the real annoyance is that whatever she tells someone about having vertigo, I immediately sing the opening bars of “Vertigo” by U2.
She is slowly getting better and I ask her every morning how the dizziness is. Tuesday, my brother Dave stopped by to transfer me because that makes my Mom MORE dizzy. Sean came by to do the transfers on Wednesday and my Mom was walking into his bedroom where she sleeps now and as she was walking into the room she told him that she has vertigo. He thought for a moment and looked toward me,who, right on cue, raised my left hand and started counting out on my fingers as I said, “Un, dos, tres, catorce!” Sean started to laugh and said that he was waiting for [my mom] to say something about u2.
What can I say?! He IS my son! AND they ARE MY band! But counting out the beginning of that song lays bare how grammatically incorrect it is. My little cousin, Al, told me that. She pointed out that Bono is saying: ”One, two, three, fourteen in Spanish.” I told her that he has “Artistic freedom” because it is a song and he’s Bono! He can do WHATEVER he wants to!!!
My Mom let me listen to “Vertigo” as she washed my legs today and I was reminded of my freshman year in college as we listened: