Author: Jen Rios

Today, I tried my fourth fall flavor of Chapstick. I have to say, I am NOT a fan!:

I am still going to use it but it reminds me of a nasty Girl Scout cookie that came out when I was probably in fifth grade.

I remember this for a couple of reasons. My Girl Scout troop, (Troop 2348) had a cookie booth at our local grocery store. I’m pretty sure it was at Boji’s (which is no longer a store and I’m sure only people who lived in Dearborn 20 years ago remember it). I’m thinking it was the day Mr. Rubino (the math teacher at my school) came to the store. He bought a box of Girl Scout cookies from us!

But that year, a new cookie came out. It was gross! (didn’t my hold a candle to my thin mints!) I remember that it was time to close the booth down toward the evening and a man came up to the booth as we were closing and asked if we had a box of Samoas. We did not but, Mrs. Maher (my troop leader) had bought a box and was going to take it home. So when that man wanted a box that she was planning on taking home, she gave him the box and took the gross cookies home.

Each time I reapply this Chapstick, I think of that time of being a kid and seeing our teacher outside of school! I wish I could remember what cookie that was but it had bits of pecans in it and it was dipped in maple? But, I bought this flavor with Vanilla Maple so maybe I will just have to muddle through it because I like the taste of Vanilla Maple! Ah, The important questions that I seem to ponder these days as my face and hand are still numb?!

So, I re-posted this memory from four years ago on Facebook today when I woke up. It’s kind of crazy how now, it’s like I am a teenager who sleeps in all day. But sleep is hard to come by now and I have already tried to, “Schedule my MS“ to no avail so I just have to accept that after 20 years of having MS, I have to sleep the morning away. Don’t even get me started about GMFB! So, I reposted this:

I left it in the fact that Ms. Graybill liked my post. As my high school English teacher, she only knew me as, “Jenny.” I bring this up because I tried a new fall flavor of Chapstick today.

I chose:

As soon as I peeled off the seal, and popped the top open, I immediately smelt a smell from my high school days! It was lotion from Bath and Bodyworks, Warm Vanilla Sugar!

Even though the weather has calmed down a little bit, I’m really digging these fall flavors! But most especially, I appreciate you thinking about my high school. You know, back when I was able-bodied!

Lately, I’ve been sleeping a large part of the day away. I told my Mom yesterday, that I wanted to get up at 11:30. 11:30 came and went. She came back at 12 and I told her 12:15. I heard her say from my doorway that it was 12:11. I have responded with a closed eyes, “12:30.” When 12:30 arrived, I waved my Mom off. I ended up getting out of bed at about 1 o’clock. The one thing I DIDN’T want to do!

As I started my morning routine of taking my vitamins, drinking my water and protein shake, and brushing my teeth, my Mom told me that, “You can’t schedule your MS!” I took what she said to heart and realized that I pretty much have been doing that since the get-go!

I was diagnosed during my freshman year of college and I didn’t start teaching until five years after my diagnosis. I pushed myself in college and the entire time I taught. When we moved into our house, in 2009, I began waking up at 4:30 in the morning in order to give myself enough time to get ready for the day and to be at work by 7:15. My colleagues would joke with me because I don’t drink coffee and they couldn’t understand why I was so awake as they drank theirs. I would laugh and tell them that it was noon for me because I had been awake since 4:30 this morning.

As the years went by, I had already established that I needed a first hour prep period. So it got to the point where I needed to be to work by 8 o’clock before second hour started. Eventually, after I was injured, I had to throw in the towel!

I was happy that my Mom told me to NOT put my MS on a schedule because I did not wake up until about 2 o’clock this afternoon. With the coming rain for the next couple days, that makes sense to me. I feel terrible when it rains and it has already started!

So, yesterday was, “Leg Washing Day” for me. My Mom wears latex gloves when she changes my socks so she does not snag them because they are pretty expensive! She always starts with my left leg because that is my non-injured leg. When she pulled the sack off, she noticed a split between my big toe and my second toe. She looked at it, took a picture of it to show me up close, and said, “That looks like it hurts!” I looked at my foot and then I looked at the picture and then looked back at my foot and said to her, “It probably does!“

With my neuropathy, I do not feel anything but it looks like when Natalie Portman was Cutting her toenail in her dream in Black Swan and it pulled the skin. It was gross and I’m not going to show you the picture because it is gross too! It may very well hurt but I can’t feel it. Once that leg was washed and my sock was put back on, Then came my right leg’s turn.

When she pulled that sock off, we discovered that there was a bruise and a scrape probably about 6 inches long on the top of my foot. That occurred when my foot got caught up in the pedals when I transferred. But the more concerning discovery was that my pinky toe was bloody and raw. You see, I have written before about my feet tending to pronate nnow:

Because I sit in my wheelchair all day and have my legs outstretched because of my knee, it only seems the case that my pinky toe on my right foot is raw. I searched online for a picture and saw that I may have to get Orthopedic shoes now. I have written before that I have probably seen 20 different kinds of doctors so far in having my MS diagnosis. And it looks like doctor #21 is very close on the horizon now! My Mom tended to my scrapes and sores and even though I know that both of my feet must be in pain, it kind of stinks that I can’t feel a thing and at the same time, that’s a good thing?!