My uncle just drove my Mom to pick up the van for tomorrow’s ‘go time.’ It will only be a one day rental this month.
I have been grappling with this fact for a couple months now, but I think that I have finally accepted it.
My life is just small now. 22+ years in, my life is reduced to scheduling my doctors appointments and renting vans. I except that now. At least I am good at it. I can make schedules for everything and I have for this year. I had that completely scheduled back in April.
Last night, I asked my mom in disbelief, “ is this really all my life is made up of now?!” And the answer is just a simple, yes.
I am having memories of hearing this song in the backseat of our station wagon! I’m not sure if my cousinT is with me or school friends but I remember hearing this song when my Mom would listen to 104.3.
The reason I thought of this song is because yesterday, I changed out my therapy putty. I first learned about therapy putty from one of my MS groups. I posed the question because I was quite concerned about my progressive hand strength loss..
I got the wonderful suggestion for therapy putty, and I bought some last year:
I quickly figured out that if I squeezed the putty for 17 minutes a day during an audio rosary, my hands feel a little bit better. So I had worked my way all the way up to extra firm. It’s red. But I started to notice that it was getting too soft and I needed new putty. I searched for and was able to get these:
I got this 2 pack in January. It was January 18 when I started using it so I knew I would have to change it out on June 18 which is what I did. This is what my therapy putty looked like after 17 minutes of squeezing it:
I think that it will take a couple months for it to soften with my daily,squeezing it for 17 minutes. To close it, I just smash my palm down on the top so I can close the container. That’s why I thought of that song because it looks like a red rubber ball!
My Mom sent me this picture earlier today when she took Leia for a walk:
I looked at this picture and I asked my Mom, “Really?! You just gave her a shot yesterday!!!”
My Mom just gave her her next dose for her allergy shots. I reminded by Mom that we are paying for those shots. She’s allergic to grass, but my Mom says that she loves it so much and we love HER so much! but isn’t administering these shots counterproductive if she’s laying in the grass on her walks?!
I don’t think she needs another shot until next week…
I had this random memory yesterday and I have been trying to flesh it out since then! But my memories are where I live now and this is kind of a vague memory and at least 20 years since I taught this!
I think that it may have been my third year teaching English, and I needed to come up with an elective for one class of students. I think it had something to do with the schedule or something but I only taught this elective for one semester!
I think that my principal had all this information for me to run a Greek Mythology class. I remember he had books already and I went to Barnes and Noble.(because that was still there then) and I bought the same book that he had. I took it to Kinko’s and had them cut off the binding so I could make copies more easily for my students.
The memory I had yesterday was seeing Ana’s name in Greek on the back wall of my classroom. That was the first lesson that I gave them. I gave them all copies of the Greek alphabet and had them make an 11 x 14 poster of their name in Greek. I remember that I had printed larger fonts of the words that said, “It’s all Greek to us.” Ana’s name looked exactly the same! That was the first poster on the left.
I am going to be thinking about this for a long time, but I remember showing them The first Clash of the Titans. I remember having to have them get a permission slip signed because they were only in seventh grade! There is some nudity! I remember making a big deal about it when there was nudity. My kids laughed and I told them (the boys) to close their eyes!
I know that book without the binding has to be in one of my bins of my teaching things. I haven’t thought about that for a while! But I remember laughing with the movie because my kids thought it was so old because it was from the 1970s.
My Mom took this picture last week I think. My Mom was taking a picture of my sweatshirt to send to my brother, and she noticed my eye. I told her that’s my buggy eye.
Let me ‘splain ya:
I was diagnosed with optic neuritis in right eye when I was about six months pregnant. That really didn’t matter because I had another eye. My left eye decided to join the optic neuritis party when Sean was about 10 I think.
I’ve had optic neuritis in both of my eyes for about a decade. I still wear my contacts, but I have to wear glasses to have a prism in front of my right eye. I call it my buggy eye:
Even with my contacts in and the prism in front of my eye, my right eye gets a little wonky and you can see that in the picture and it doesn’t feel good all the time!
My Mom told me last night as we were getting ready for bed that I looked like I was feeling better. And today I actually feel better myself, but better is the suggestive term! I have been feeling bad since last Thursday when I had to go and get fitted for a new wheelchair.
The appointment was so early that that’s difficult to come back from and this crazy weather is not making me feel well at all, and I am just a mess!
But I am feeling better today and I actually wore my contacts. Putting my contacts in my eyes has gone through a lot of changes since I was 12. That’s when I started wearing them. But for the last 22 years, I have been dealing with disease progression and loss of control of my hands.
Sean remembers me popping my contacts out of my eyes with my long nails when he was young, but now my nails are cut down to the nubs so I don’t scratch my eyeball! Now, my Mom has to watch me put my contacts into my eye, and because I can’t control my hands that much.
It’s very deliberate where just hold the top of my eyelid open with my right hand use my left hand to pull my lower lid down, and I use my index finger to just move the contact close my eyeball and then it suctions onto it!
I would say in the past few months, I have figured it out. My contacts just pop into my eyes the first try! And when that happens, I just smile and close my eyes while my Mom gets my glasses for me to put on, and I tell her 29 years like I am singing a Kanye West song!:
I have never been good at math at all! But I let my Mom know that I’m pretty sure that:
an early appointment + horrible weather = DISASTER!!!
Because it is!!! This has been going on for more than a month, but my body cannot figure out what season it is and therefore is feeling insane!
When I was up and seated in my living room, my Mom was walking toward me coming out of my room, and I just said, “My body has never felt like this before!” and I felt myself tear up. But all my Mom had to do was put her arms out and hug me and then it changed to full-blown shoulder shaking, and tears streaming down my cheeks!
I really wish that I would just bounce back already, but I did not even put my contacts in today either so it looks like it will be more than a recovery weekend…
So, I am not sure why this is showing up in my feed, but it is, and then I will explain the chain of events that took place:
Thanking about it, I think I know how it happened! My Mom and I were talking about The Little Mermaid with Melissa McCarthy and now these videos are showing up on my phone. I think she’s hilarious and I have to watch them!
Wait. What?! There is a documentary produced by them on Bob Ross on Netflix?! I knew that I had to watch that! I have to explain to you first that I have not worn contacts since Thursday:
It took me all weekend to watch this documentary, and I watched it on my phone. I was reminded of watching PBS when I was home sick from school.
It was kind of a depressing story when it was all done… I hoped it would have ended better than it did…
Today I woke up even later than I woke up yesterday. I felt nauseous today and actually cried a little bit. Looks like it’s going to be a recovery weekend. I think that it was the 1 o’clock appointment that was a little bit too much for me…
I think that I wasn’t even out of bed until about 2 o’clock this afternoon. I did not put my contacts in today. My eyes need to rest! I am a little bit startled at how exhausted I was yesterday, but I think that is because my appointment time was for 1:00 in the afternoon!
I NEVER am awake that early and ready to be out in the world! But, I will not have to have another appointment with Dave and Diane at RIM for five years. So there’s always that. I really appreciated seeing that I am in the correct place and seeing how well Dave and Diane do their jobs!
Because they are really great! We were discussing my seat cushion. That is a big thing now! It’s perilous if it is not comfortable!!! I sit all day long! I think that it was about a year ago when I first started having problems with the seat cushion and I started talking with her about that then.
Dave stopped by with a new seat cushion for me to try out a couple months ago because that’s the new seat cushion I would have in my new chair. Diane watched my Mom transfer me to the table from my chair and she told us based on how my Mom moves me uses the ‘give’ in my current cushion to slide me off of the chair.
She told us, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” And we decided to stay with my current seat cushion. Things are really starting to get serious with this whole MS thing… I don’t think that I am fully prepared for it yet really…
