Month: May 2022

I was talking to Sean not too long ago on the phone and he told me that he would live back at Fairlane East again. I told him that they have bad plumbing and I reminded him of the sewer back up in our second apartment.

He told me that he would just put a backwater valve in his unit and I laughed and told him that he can’t do that! He was asking me how much I paid for both of our apartments and then he told me that the price has not gone up that much!

He told me that he could get an apartment there for $1390 a month. We continued talking and then he said to me, ”Nevermind. That’s the price for a one bedroom and one bathroom apartment. I started to laugh and I told him for our first apartment, it was $780 a month.

He started to laugh really hard and said that was, “The most 2007 thing“ he has ever heard me say. I started to laugh with him and I clarified by saying, “ it was 2005!“ we both laughed hysterically!

For me, my Mom has always been the most optimistic person I have known! After all, her favorite movie is Pollyanna. Me and all of my brothers can quote that movie almost Word for Word!:

I really needed that this morning and let me explain why:

Not too long ago, my Mom and I were talking and I told her the last time I really woke up feeling rested from night sleep was probably back in high school. Back when I lived with my Parents. My brothers and I refer to that as, “6020.”

So, ever since I moved out on my own, my MS has been progressing so I do not sleep well at night. I don’t even dream anymore. I just wake up and I’m always tired but. That’s just the way it is and I have accepted it.

But now… I am awakened in the morning by pain in my feet! I really can’t get over the fact that I haven’t felt my feet for 20 years but now they wake me up out of my sleep! This morning, my Mom took my socks off to tend to my feet and she took a picture of my sores before she cleans them.

I’m not going to post these pictures here because that is not what kind of blog this is but when she showed them to me I thought that they looked awful! As she washed my feet, she told me that they are healing and it was just going to take time.

She looked up at me as she was washing my feet and with tears in my eyes, all I could do was say, “Your optimism-“ before I had to stop talking for fear that the tears would come out of my eyes and I shook my head. I have since told her that it is her optimism that is going to get me through this because it is seriously killing me!!!

I didn’t a cry yesterday and my Mom tells me that my feet are getting better so I felt a little better. That is until Sean came over today. She has been taking pictures of my feet for the past month and it takes FOREVER to heal anything! She showed him the pictures And he said, “ that’s disgusting! It looks like a hole?!”

Sean told me that it looked painful and it is but I guess they are not as better as I thought they were…

Last night, (well, really this morning) dealing with my feet has proven to be too much! My feet hurt so badly as my Mom tended to them and I think after 21 years with MS and just over a month dealing with the problems with my feet, This tears started streaming. A lot of them and really fast. I wiped them away as fast as I could because nobody likes tears in their ears when you’re aying down.

I have said before that this external pain is too much and this morning, it broke me. I am broken. My Mom tried to be encouraging this morning as she tended them some more and she said that they are healing but my body takes forever to heal and I’m not sure if I want to do this!

but I guess that I have to…

Before I explain what happened yesterday with my feet, I first need to explain what was going on. Probably about seven or eight months ago, I noticed the first brown line on my shin.. *FORGIVE THE FOOT PICTURE… but I HAVE TO ‘splain ya?!:

This deeply concerned me because I thought blood clots give you lines. But it did not hurt. I saw 2 Internal Medicine doctors a couple months apart and neither one of them knew what it was. Those doctors, they were women about my age. Then, probably a few weeks after that, I saw a podiatrist and asked specifically about this. He didn’t know what it was either! I think he was a little bit younger than me.

But, I went to see a dermatologist because I was having problems with my feet. Here is the deal with my feet!:

I kind of have to explain it in a long, drawn out way but I like telling stories. This particular story, the moral is that #MSsucks!!! I am just going to give you a rough explanation about what’s happening, I wrote about it specifically for each thing that happened but it all started when I could no longer sleep in my bed!

I just slept in my chair. I was told that it’s NOT designed for sleeping but people do it. my Mom let me know that she (and my Dad) were going to purchase an adjustable bed for me. I actually had to sleep in my chair with my shoes on because it was not comfortable and it hurt my ankles. That particular action ended up costing me a month so far and another month at least because it takes so long for my body to heal!

So, I went to see a dermatologist regarding what was happening because it was so painful! I have already written about my feet pronating so much and because of that, the sides of my shoes gave me incredible blisters!:

so, I asked about treating these blisters and one on my right foot ended up being bloody. The ‘under the skin’ bloody which is gross! But while we were discussing those sores, he told me that I had ringworm.

WHAT?!!!!

When I told Sean about it, he asked me, “What are you, a seven-year-old wrestler?!” I laughed when he said that because when he was wrestling when he was seven, there was a big infestation with his wrestling team! He told me that he thinks that the cream is still in the closet. I assure you that it would not keep medicine for 13 years and that linen closet isn’t even there anymore after my renovations.

The resident explained to me that dark moist areas give you ringworm and because my compression socks and my shoes were not allowing my feet to breathe that’s what happened.

So, that’s the deal with my feet. The sores on the side of my toes are healing nicely but this whole ringworm thing is awful!!!

I haven’t felt my feet in over 20 years but this really hurts! Ringworm really is a ring. They look like quarters and have scabbed over but because my Mom washes my feet morning and night and takes my compression socks off, which are quite difficult to get off! The scabs have come off. They bleed now! That hurts even more!

The four doctors and resident I asked about that brown line on my foot had no idea what it was but Dr. Koger knew exactly what it was the moment he walked into the door! He has been a doctor since I was three years old. He told me it was rare and then said he wanted to do a little bit more research and then he will be back.

My Mom and I completed a Google search while we waited:

When he came back, he said that his research that he just conducted reaffirmed what it is and I asked him if I could put my new compression socks on with the ringworm going on in my body. He said that was okay because I have been on medication for it for so long and that because this lesion has to do with capillaries that he thought that my smaller compression socks (that I am wearing right now!) would help!.

I don’t even care if those lines disappear (I recently got a line on my left foot as well) but these smaller compression socks feel wonderful! My Mom does NOT like putting them on because they are tighter and more difficult to put on but I love them! I talked with my Mom today and she says that it will probably be another month before my feet are normal again. That’s the deal with my feet.

I posted the link to The Chipmunk Adventure not too long ago both on Facebook and Twitter for one reason! To show the moment when Simon and Alvin are taken captive after trying to find Theodore who was stolen in the night to be the, “ Prince of Plenty.” They tried to bargain with them with their clothes and their, “Nice Shoesees”:!

That is the scene where Alvin is trying to bribe them to give Theodore back and he offers them clothes and, “Nice Shoesees.”

I will put the link here as well just because I think I will have to watch this movie again but there is a reason as to why the whole, “Nice Shoesees’” thing came up!:

So, I posted not too long ago that I got new shoes:

I remember that I crabbed about how expensive they were compared to how much they used to be and I thought that was that. The outsides of both feet began to ache a little bit and I couldn’t understand it because I’ve been wearing the same size shoes since middle school! I hadn’t had a new pair of shoes for a while, since before the shut down!

Well, my Mom washed my feet on holy Saturday and made an appointment for me early Monday morning so I went to see the dermatologist on Tuesday. My feet have been pronating for a while:

I hadn’t realized how much more pronounced it had become with me by not working out at Barwis because they stretched my feet out to prevent that but the other day, as my Mom was tending to my feet, I saw this and it startled me:

She is just holding my foot up and it is bending that way naturally and trying to find a pair of shoes to combat then is extremely difficult! We went to Total Runner in Southgate because their shoes support feet better. I remember buying running shoes for Sean and the coach telling us that the colors are not important, it’s the fit! I knew that going in and they told us to bring in my old shoes and we will see what’s going on.

I showed up there with no shoes on and just my feet elevated on a pillow because they were hurting so badly! I thought of The Chipmunk Adventure because seeing the salesman holding my shoes looked exactly like Alvin holding up his shoes! I had to laugh about that! That’s a movie I saw over 1 million times in my childhood!

So, he assessed my shelltoes and he said that the toebox was too small and fit me with some different shoes. He had three options. Knowing that color was not going to be important I just brace myself for all of the color options. The first one was a light blue which I didn’t like. The second one was black and navy which I didn’t like that much either. But the third option was MY option! I just took this picture of these shoes a few days ago and well after a month of having them and they are not worn at all meaning they don’t get worn outside on the sidewalk:

I have to leave my house tomorrow for bloodwork and another doctor appointment and I wonder if I am going to need to recover from that as well! I’m not even done recovering from the last outing yet!!!

As for the shoes, because of the problems I have been having with my feet, I only wear them upon transfer to my bed and to the bathroom. Otherwise, I am barefoot which is striking because that doctor who asked me so many months ago, “Why do you wear shoes?!” Now, the answer is, ‘just barely’ but at least they are purple!!!