Lately, as my disease progresses, I will ask my Mom if this is the ‘bad,’ my Dad warned us about six years before he died. I say that because my Mom has told me that my Dad read all of the books that I got from the doctor when I was first diagnosed.
I remember that pile of books that I was given at the hospital. It was like five or six full-sized books and not just little pamphlets. I. threw them in the backseat of my car, completely disinterested. I think I finally brought them into my house somewhere around January 5 or sixth of 2001. I forgot about those books once I brought them into the house. I’m pretty sure that I left them on the kitchen table.
I think it was on the kitchen table because I remember flipping one of them open once and reading a single sentence of something disturbing. I don’t even remember what I read but after I did, I said, “Oh, that’s not going to happen to me!” and to this day, I do not like reading any research on MS. It’s depressing!
Yesterday, once I was seated in my wheelchair in my living room, and had taken my morning vitamins and was in the process of drinking my morning nutrition shake, I grabbed my comb out of the box that holds my remote controls, my floss packs, my chapstick, my gum, and my tweezers. I guess this is my utility box of sorts:
This box is from the soap I get on Amazon. And here is the comb:
I did not get this comb until I cut my hair when I was 26. You see, this was the comb my Dad used all of the time and he would get them free from the hospital when he stayed there. I remember when we were kids that I would ask him about that and he would say, “I didn’t have to pay for money for it and it works” was the answer I got.
I remember when my Mom brought it to me (actually two of them) and I treated it with such reverence because I clearlyremember my Dad combing his hair with this exact comb! My hair is short enough to where I just have to run this comb eight times and it’s done. I really have a hard time with this, because I never thought my hair would be THIS short but it is no longer healthy so short hair is better. I cannot even imagine having hair that I had in high school now!:
But this is me now:
I believe this picture was taken last summer.
I thought about this, so yesterday, I was running the comb through my hair, and it was just a little bit knotty. I sleep entirely on my back at night in my Tempur-pedic bed (that my Parents bought me an a couple years ago) and sometimes I turn my head to the left or to the right. Mostly to the left because I am left-handed.
So my hair gets knotty and I put my right hand on my head, as well as I am trying to pull the comb through my hair with my left hand. I make a face when it kind of hurts. I asked my Mom yesterday if I look like Daddy when I make that face as I am combing my hair. She was kind of disinterested walking back-and-forth from the kitchen to the laundry room in my bedroom and I just answered it myself. “ I probably do.” I look like my Dad.