Month: July 2024

Cinnamon Haze OR “Less”

I have taken a total of five doses of Ceylon cinnamon. I still have four to go, and I will be done tomorrow. I must say that ingesting 3 teaspoons of cinnamon is INTENSE!!! I spent yesterday a bit startled and kind of stupefied because I was stuck in a “Cinnamon Haze.”

Each time I gingerly blew my nose, I smelled cinnamon. I didn’t blow it really hard because I didn’t want a powder keg explosion in my nose again! As I drank my morning shake yesterday, it tasted different, because I had remnants of cinnamon dust in my mouth. Chewing gum afterward was also a COMPLETELY new experience!!! I liked how it tasted!

Because I was so inundated with the cinnamon smell I thought back to working at Fairlane mall at Superstars. Cinnabon was located the floor below us across from where we were situated in the mall. I could smell Cinnabon ALL DAY LONG! Subsequently, I gained 15 pounds while I worked there. But I only worked there from after basketball season to before softball season. Five or six months?

I really like that today was the second day of taking this Ceylon cinnamon, and it already is “less!” What I mean is that it is it’s less abrasive to take this cinnamon. Oh, it’s still HOT for sure, but it just feels a little bit “less.” And therefore a little bit more tolerable which is good, because I will have to do this for the rest of my life!

The Brown Mr. Sketch Marker

So, I think having MS for 23 years leads to some issues. I’m trying to figure it all out! But, I tried something today and I need to continue it for two more days.

I need to pay attention to my urinary tract health now that I am in a power chair all the time so therefore I do not move. My Mom called Zerbo’s (the local health food store/market) because my naturopath gave us another supplement to use. I am seeing him on Wednesday for ‘the go time.’

Joe at Zerbo’s told her that he knows about that remedy, but he is going to give her one better! He told my Mom that he has told hundreds of people and it will work as long as I take it as he tells us. Well, I took it this morning and it is IN-TENSE!!!

My Mom asked me this morning how I felt just after I took it and I told her it feels like I swallowed the brown Mr. Sketch marker! Because it really did!

Joe told my Mom that she needs to give me a rounded teaspoon of Ceylon cinnamon and mixed it with just enough water to let it go down my throat. My Mom used 2 tablespoons. She mixed it up, and I drank it down. Man, was it HOT?!!!!

He told her to have me take it three times a day for the next three days and then one maintenance dose every day. So, I only have to take it six more times. It will taste like this:

But, okay?

Well, at least it wasn’t raining yesterday?! Because it did today, all day long!!! It wasn’t as hot so I was able to actually eat food for my lunch and I did NOT cry. Yesterday, I drank my lunch by just having another nutrition shake. I actually added another pack to my Target list because it is only early July so this summer has a long way to go!

I do not have time for crying because next week is ‘go time.’ The following week, I have an appointment with my optometrist. I was planning on having July be my Eye Care month or something because I had scheduled both my optometrist and my neural ophthalmologist for July. I thought to have some kind of cute name. Like my BookTober Fest when I worked but yeah, no. In this heat, that is NOT happening!

But, my new neural ophthalmologist rescheduled twice so then I was able to make my appointment for October 1. My appointment schedule is starting to take shape for next year. That’s how far ahead I think! That’s how my brain works. I was thinking about it today and maybe it’s a good thing that my brain works like that so I really don’t think about the fact that I go to the doctor every month of the year!!!

I’m seeing my optometrist this month and I made that appointment in February. I started seeing him in July 2021. My prescription has NOT changed since I met him. My eyes have worsened, but my prescription hasn’t changed so I can still see up close without my contacts in. It was a strange rationale, but okay.

I Am NOT Okay.

I read when I woke up this afternoon (because it’s like that now) that Beryl made landfall in Texas. I am not sure if it’s because of that or this heat, but I am NOT okay.

I have cried three times (excluding all family deaths) as an adult, where I actually felt myself ugly cry. The first time I felt that, or maybe not the ugly cry face but my shoulders were shaking and I was silently sobbing was when Adam, my trainer at Barwis was leaving.

The second time I openly sobbed was the last day I went to work before my last knee surgery. It was raining and my Mom was driving me to work. It ended up being the last day that I reported to work because then my doctor had me not go to work anymore and then I had surgery. And then I never went back to work.

The third time I openly sobbed was sadly, this morning. I was seated in my living room, and I had already washed my hands and taken my morning vitamins and then I got an overwhelming feeling, and I began to sob just for a little while before I could get myself under control. I was completely shocked! I think it is the prolonged heat that is doing this to me but I am not okay.

Dragonfruit Lemon

So, today, I debuted my new summertime flavor, Dragonfruit Lemon. It took me a few applications to realize that I really dig it! Like, a lot!!! I know that I have written before about other summer flavors that remind me of the festival at my grade school the summer.
This flavor also reminds me of summer, but not great school summer. I am in college!

I told my Mom that I am driving around my college campus (back when I could drive. That is such a crazy sentence! but it is fitting) in the summer. I loved summer classes! I was talking to my Mom today about the crazy schedule I had for myself in order to teach the following fall.

I had a goal! My goal was to be teaching by the time Sean was in kindergarten. I surpassed that goal because we moved out of my parents house when he started summer preschool at the Dearborn Early Learning Center. I haven’t really thought about my summer classes in a long time.

Think that that is a story for another time because I’m thinking about that time but it has been 19 years since I graduated the first time in 14 years since I graduated the second time.

I pillaged today. I think it is this heat that is making me feel terrible and causing me to take longer to pillage. I think I am going to reapply my chapstick now! I really dig it!

Tears

Today, when I opened my eyes, and I decided to sit up in my bed, it was SO brutal!!! This heat is insane!!! This definitely is NOT sustainable!!! But it has to be sustained! I have to get through it! It’s only early July?!

I called out the big guns today and I said God three times before my eyes started well.

I saw a post on Facebook from a Facebook friend who I met on Twitter in our MS chats and we mutually followed each other there and also on Facebook when I got on once I stopped working. It was exactly how I feel:

Screenshot

I like seeing her say this and another MS warrior commented. Looks like we are all going through this as well!!! The tears are so close to the surface every single day that I am this miserable! Somehow, I think they are more acceptable that they are silent. My mom never says much and I wonder how badly that affects her…?

Rando Tune #47

So now that we are firmly into July, I am listening to my Gavin DeGraw playlist and I heard this gem!!! Man, how times have changed?! This song has my favorite line that I used to rewind in the car just a little bit to hear it two or three times each time I heard this song in the car. The line that I would rewind is, “Now that I love you I wish we never met.”

Forgive me, that’s just melodramatic Jen who thought that I would have a happy story instead of the difficult one I am currently living. But here’s this song I still dig it!:

And I Can Do This

So, I went to the doctor on June 25 and just now I can talk about it. I was extremely startled when we got to the doctor’s office in the intake nurse was taking my blood pressure. We were just exchanging pleasantries when she saw that my blood pressure was coming on the monitor at 146/70.

She saw that I was not in distress and told me that we will take another reading and told me to take a few breaths and to relax. I did just that and what she does now is she puts the pediatric blood pressure cuff around my forearm because otherwise I get hickeys on my upper arm and that kind of hurts!

She came back in just as the doctor came in and told me the new reading was 122/67. My Mom just looked at me quizzically. I had my appointment and I had referrals for two different specialties. I still am collecting doctors!

My Mom and I started talking after my appointment. My blood pressure at 122/67 is NOT that good! I have been doing blood pressure readings so many times and for so many years. My normal range is 90/50 or 100/60. I just told my Mom that this heat is intense!!!

I am so happy that I called one of the specialties the doctor referred me for and I’m waiting until January to do the second referral because I have other appointments for the rest of the year!

But that’s just how my brain thinks! I already have the first third of next year planned in my head but schedules don’t open until December so I won’t make next year’s appointments until then. I never thought that my life would be like this in 1 million years but it is! And I can do this!

A First for Me

So, it’s July so I am listening to my Gavin DeGraw playlist because I cannot watch TV right now because my body feels so crazy. So I am sitting here thinking about our firs apartment! Gavin DeGraw reminds me of our first apartment. because we moved there August 1, 2005. I was listening to Gavin DeGraw’s Chariot album at the time.

So, I had a memory, it was a it was a first for me and it made me laugh so much in my mind! And here is the memory: (Don’t judge!)

I’m not sure if I’ve written about this before, but I’ve told people before, when I was a child when my Dad would give out jobs for us to do outside, like lawn work and stuff. I would ask, “What can I do Daddy?” And my Dad would give the SAME answer each time, “Honey, you just sit there and look pretty!”

My brothers didn’t like hearing that answer, but they took care of most of things around the house. I never took the garbage out the whole time I lived there! So here it is, I live in an apartment now and we have to take the garbage out Sean was too young to do it! He was three when we moved out. When the garbage was filled, I closed up the bag and put it by the door. My Mom came by often and she would grab it when she would leave.

I had to report for work for the first time at the end of August. My Mom didn’t come by for a little while so I had a bag by the door and I decided to grab it on the way out before I reported for work. I thought about this today and I laughed. I remember walking in to the office to sign in and I was beaming!!! The women at the front desk commented on my huge grin and I told them, “I took the garbage out!”

My brother, Steve, who was the assistant school leader at the time was in the office at the time as well, and he started to laugh. They all started to laugh, but they laughed more when my brother told them that I had never done it before!

*And now that I am this disabled, I don’t take the garbage out anymore either.