He put this picture on his Snapchat story and said, “My Abuela spoils my dog!” But let me just set the record straight and say that it was ME who bought Leia the raincoat! I bought it last year when she first came to us after a Facebook friend and former colleague posted this picture of her Mazzie:
As soon as I saw that picture, I got on Chewy and HAD TO order one for Leia! I don’t have a daughter and I will never be able to buy pink clothes and have them in my house and I hope that grandkids are far off still so as my grand dog, she deserves the best! (and she fills the void). I can buy her pink things!
Leia wasn’t having anything to do with the raincoat last summer and I told Lynn how disappointed I was because she wouldn’t wear it. She told me that it took a while to get Mazzie used to it as well.
So this year, Leia has decided that she dislikes the raincoat LESS then she dislikes the rain! She didn’t go out for walks in the rain last year but now that she’s older, and she will put the raincoat on, and take a walk in the rain. My Mom tells me that she hops over the puddles like a “Little pony.” That is some thing I really would like to see but I can’t believe it because I have seen her hop around the backyard like a pony.
Sean said that it looked like Leia was not having any part of the raincoat! My Mom sent the photo to her sister and my aunt said that we should teach her how to smile. I spent yesterday calling her and saying, “Cheese!,” and smiling. It didn’t work. She didn’t want any part of that either. It’s a work in progress and she’s still young!
I think I need to start off this blog post by saying that my internal clock is completely messed up and I don’t get to bed until about three in the morning so I wake up about noon. Upon waking up, it takes some getting used to to be up and in my chair. As I’m trying to get used to that and get used to how much pain I am going to be in, the level of pain changes from day today and pretty much from hour to hour and if I am being honest, it’s from minute to minute. To wrap my head around all of this, I absentmindedly scroll through my phone, usually on Facebook or Twitter. I saw my nephew post this today and it really made me laugh! I probably would have laughed out loud if I had not just awakened! He posted this meme and tagged my brother (his dad), his brother, and my son. My son‘s comment made me laugh even more.
I remember going to the emergency room on Halloween night while I was seven months pregnant. I didn’t feel well and I didn’t understand what was going on. I had a fever and I spent most of the day on November 1 in and out of coherency. At night, they performed another ultrasound and did some more tests on me.
While I was there, they took a second ultrasound and I was happy to get that picture because my previous ultrasound pictures were ruined. The picture, which was just a profile picture of his head is in a book in my house. In other words, I do not know where it is now. But when the doctor gave me the picture, she told me that his head was in the 95th percentile.
That news shocked me because I was the one who is going to have to give birth to him! I was only seven months pregnant and he had two months to just get bigger. I remember that during my pregnancy, I asked his dad how big he was when he was born. I was 6 lbs. 6 oz. He said that he was about 9 pounds. I saw his birth certificate and he was 9 lbs. 15 oz.. That’s almost a 10 pound baby!!!
I ended up having an emergency C-section on November 2, 2001 at 9:38 a.m. he was only 4 lbs. 11 oz.When his dad‘s brother met him in the hospital, he said that his head looked like it was the size of an orange. He was little and stayed in the hospital for 31 days.
As he grew, my brothers would comment and his head. It was getting kind of large. I told them that his head was in the 95th percentile while I was pregnant with him and he needed somewhere to put all the brains that he had! They would constantly quote So I Married an Axe Muderer:
I had begun to notice that I could not put cute little baby hoodies on him. They did not fit over his head. He wore Zippys and stand. Also, when I would buy his winter coat every year from Target, I would have to look through the hats and gloves section and hide behind and display rack and try the hat on myself. If it fit my head, it would fit his!
For his third Halloween when he was just going to be four, he went trick-or-treating as an, “An Army guy.” We went to Harry’s Army Surplus to get him fatigues. I got him pants and a jacket and I asked the salesman where are the hats. He told me where the kids hats were. I told him that I needed an adult hat, size 7. He looked at me kind of funny and went and got a size 7 hat and opened it up and put it on Sean‘s head just to humor me. He was surprised to find that it fit him! I told him that I used to work in an athletic apparel store and I could gauge the size of peoples heads when they asked for hats.
I never thought that Sean‘s head was overly large, he was just my beautiful baby! It wasn’t until he was running around in my parents’ house with my niece and nephew when I realized that it might be a bit big. The kids were running around and ran behind my Dad’s chair between the back of the chair close to the wall and Sean was running and bringing up the rear. I think that all of the other kids knew enough to crouch down do you fit between the largest Space between the chair and the wall. Well, Sean, being the youngest just ran through the space between the wall and my dad‘s chair. His head got stuck and my brothers still have not let me hear the end of that!
His head size gave him an advantage the first year of wrestling. Because he could use that as leverage to overtake other small wrestlers. My brothers do not let me forget the things they would say about Sean when he was small and his head size but I think he has grown into it nicely! It doesn’t look super big anymore! But his comment on my nephews post made me laugh the most, He wrote, “Feels good to be recognized! My babe! He wears a size 7 1/2 for fitted hats and working in retail, I have seen larger heads.
I am really not sure how to begin this blog post. I guess that I should start with my limitations:
I first need to say that I no longer can regulate my body temperature. I spend my days switching from wearing a hoodie to taking a hoodie off all day long!
Another limitation I have is chewing my food. It has become extremely difficult! So much so that the foods I eat are very limited and I drink my breakfast and lunch every day and I have been doing that for months now. If anyone wants to buy me Atkins shakes, (I would NOT be adverse to it! I drink the Dark Chocolate Royale. Because those bad boys are expensive!) 😜😜😜
Now, with that being said, today was the day that I could answer my Mom’s question in the affirmative. Yes. The answer is yes! Now, let me tell you the question.
A little while ago, I ordered some T-shirts in a size medium. I used to wear size medium when I was 28. I gradually moved up to a large and after I stopped working, I was an extra large for a short time, (NOT that I am proud to admit that!)
As my T-shirts and my sweatshirts we’re getting too baggy for me, my Mom told me to order new T-shirts and a sweatshirt. Over the years, I have found that the nflshop.com and Fanatics.com make excellent sweatshirts and T-shirts. They are comfortable! So, I went on Fanatics.com and looked for some T-shirts because the weather was getting warmer.
Being on disability, I need to make my money stretch! I agreed with my Mom that I needed new T-shirts because they were getting too big for me. So, I looked through this site in the middle of the night a couple months ago.
I graduated from U of M Dearborn and can clearly remember the speaker at my masters degree graduation ending her speech with, “Go Blue Forever!” To tons of cheers from the gym in response. So, saying that I purchased shirts and sweatshirts from either the nflshop.com or fanatics.com, I tend to look at the U of M apparel most. I do, however, buy a shirt from them every year during March Madness to whatever school knocks Michigan State out of the tournament.
For the last two years, they have also knocked Michigan out but I still rock the shirts because they also knocked Michigan State out! Sean tells me that I am petty but I don’t care! We talked about the fact that I have an alma mater and that most of the clothes have a Jordan logo on them.
So, remembering that I am on a fixed income, the fact that vintage Michigan T-shirt with just the word Michigan in maize written across a navy blue shirt was on sale, I bought four of them. I think it was a month later that I bought one sized medium sweatshirt with the same maize lettering and a navy blue sweatshirt.
The question my mom asked me thinking it was absurd was that, ”Are you always going to wear Michigan T-shirts? (Because I have four of the same shirts now and a sweatshirt that looks the same). I was unbothered by the question and I looked at her and matter-of-factly said, “Yes. The answer is, ‘Yes!’” I changed out of a large Michigan sweatshirt and a medium Michigan T-shirt to a clean, medium Michigan sweatshirt and a medium Michigan T-shirt.
I thought about this a lot today regarding this post. I’ve been thinking about it for a while but I remember my colleague and friend telling me that,” you know that you’re old when you keep listening to the same music from your youth.“. Well, I have felt old for a while but then this happened and I’m totally OK with sharing my jams from my youth:
My Mom has told me that I’m not allowed to go gray in her lifetime and I will wait for this hair to get some friends before I will let my hairdresser caokor my hair. She has been dying to put highlights in my hair for years! So now that I am officially, “Old,” I don’t mind sharing these songs because I seriously had forgotten how much good music was on, somgs about Jane:
Continuing with the focus on things that people don’t realize I can no longer do.
I miss, being able to blow my nose.
Something that I realized kind of recently and it makes me sad is that I do not have the strength in my body/lungs to blow my nose anymore. I mean, REALLY blow my nose. It is something that I never realized and now, it makes sense.
I have been told that, “All Rioses sound the same when they blow their nose. I think it was a friend who told me that when I was younger. They were speaking of my immediate family. I remember commenting that, “That’s ’s NOT good because I am the only girl!!” But sadly, it IS true. I sound just like my brothers when I blow my nose! It has been a huge HONK for a long time!
I remember the math teacher from across the hall when I was The Reading Specialist. My classroom/office was located on the second floor and she would laugh every single time I blew my nose and she heard it in her classroom! I also remember telling my students on the first day of class as I gave them the lowdown of being a student in my classroom. I used to tell them that I am going to have to blow my nose a lot and it is loud! I’m not embarrassed! I’m just telling you that because I have to, “Take care a binness!” It would get a laugh on the first day of class but I eventually showed him that it was true!
But now, I do not have enough strength to muster up a good nose flow. I only can blow my nose when I sneeze. Then, the air is forced out of my nose. I have figured out that I sneeze twice and if I don’t catch it one of those two times, very rarely do I get a third shot. I have and keep a folded piece of toilet paper in my possession. Usually in my hoodie pocket in the front.
I can’t have a box of Kleenex around me because as Kleenex get used, I can NOT pull it out of the box easily because I can’t control my hands that much anymore. But, I have always been just a little bit, “Ghetto.” I used to hold a Kleenex box raffle in the beginning of the year to get my students to bring in boxes of Kleenex. And for each box, they would get a ticket. Then, I would ask the class what they wanted for a prize. Usually, it was a large bag of hot Cheetos. I would keep a roll of the one ply toilet paper they had when we ran out of Kleenex and I would tell them that, “If you are not proud, you can use this!“ as I put it on my table. We usually ran out of Kleenex boxes in February.
I was thinking about this with some fondness. I actually sleep with three rolls of toilet paper on my nightstand to use during the night. At least one roll ends up on the floor by my bed every night but sometimes all three end up on the floor! I think it’s crazy that I can no longer do the simplest things. Maybe the word should not be crazy but, “sad” instead. But it makes sense. I can no longer fill my lungs up to sing so why would I have enough strength to fill my lungs up to blow my nose?!
Today would have been my Dad’s 70th birthday. In August, it will be 15 years since he has been gone. I was recently speaking with a friend whose dad recently died. She couldn’t believe that it was going on 15 years this August for me. She marveled at my strength because we worked together when my Dad died. I kind of chuckled and told her that sometimes, it feels like it just happened! And today, it looks like it’s one of THOSE days!
I listened to my Maroon 5 playlist on my Apple Music last night and it got me thinking about grad school. It was the summer of 2007 when I started my second year of grad school (I only went to school in the summer while I taught in the fall and winter). I was asking my Mom a question about seeing my Abuela’s car being driven by a woman wearing a hat who looked like my Abuela and my Mom was compelled to follow her.
She told me that she KNEW it was NOT my Abuela but she HAD TO follow it and then she added, “Just like you.” To which I nodded and started to cry. I also saw a man in my Dad’s car on my way to school. I KNEW that that was not my Dad (he stopped driving years before he died) but I HAD to follow it. I was still on my way to school and he was going the same place just a little bit ahead of me. But then, the car turned into the same driveway that would lead to my Dad’s dialysis center. The school of education had just procured a new building so I didn’t have to go onto Main campus to take my classes. The entrance to that building was just across the street from the entrance to my Dad’s dialysis center.
When I saw that, I busted out into tears! Like really hard sobs Coming out and tears streaming down my face. I had just been listening to the CD so I changed the song to make it fit:
I have always arrived early for class so I just allowed myself time to have a good cry out! And I still had time to compose myself and make sure that my eyes were not red and then I didn’t look like I was just bawling my eyes out even though that’s what I was doing!
I recently saw this meme and I thought specifically of this moment I’m seeing my Dad‘s car pulling into the dialysis center.
That’s one thing I love about music, it can mean 1 million different things to 1 million different people! This song, meant something to me having just had my Dad die even though that’s not why it was written. That’s why I chose to hear it:
I always heard that as, “I can’T be close.” And then the refrain continues but the song ends with this line:
Happy
So, if you read how I personally interpret these lyrics thus far, you should take the time to listen to the song:
Today, Sean stopped by because my Mom had to go to an appointment. He came and hugged me and sat on Leia’s bed. She absolutely loves him and when he sat down, I started to laugh!
I remembered back to 2005 when Sean and I first moved into our apartment and my first year teaching. I’m trying to remember why he drove me to my apartment and I think that we went out to eat and I had totaled my car. He came in and I told him to “Sit on my couch, it’s are so comfortable!
I had to put my leftovers into my refrigerator and as I walked back to my living room to find him sitting on Sean’s little kid “Spiderman couch.”
When I told Sean that he’ sat in Leia’s bed. He told me that he could picture Mr. Wright doing and saying that! I think that we only kept that Spiderman couch in our apartments.
Today is the third day that my body is going through a whole lot! This change in the weather is KILLING me! On the first day, it was, “Tiring” and yesterday I tried to deflect but I couldn’t get ahead of the pain. I checked the weather last night and knew it wasn’t going to be good before I fell asleep but to wake up and FEEL it not being good it’s EXTREMELY difficult!
Sean would always marvel at the fact that I grew up during The Pistons three peat. I was young and I didn’t really think about it back then. But now, as an adult, and seeing how badly destroyed sports are struggling, I should’ve appreciated it. But this, these last three days, are my three peat and it stinks! I was supposed to wash my hair today but that is NOT happening! I don’t feel embarrassed by saying that and it just goes to show that sometimes people with MS just can’t!
Usually, on days when I feel this badly, I will post a song because it doesn’t take a lot of effort. A couple days ago, my MS Music Lovers Group posted this song and I had never seen the video but I remember it coming out and I remember that I liked in a whole lot:
I will hope for better weather tomorrow. I hope it’s “like cinnamon.”
Yesterday, I saw this Tweet and I had to think for a moment how to answer it. I didn’t want to answer it with the obvious answer for me. U2! I know the words to pretty much everyone of their songs! And I also wanted to answer it with an obvious answer. I thought back to when I was a junior in high school. I remember listening to this CD on loop for months! My senior quote was a lyric from, “No Woman, No Cry.” So this was my answer:
But, additionally, I have been seeing a commercial about going to Jamaica. This song plays in the background:
Hearing this song in the commercial reminds me of when I first injured my knee. It was before surgery and before I got my motorized chair. I had a routine back then, Sean would get me out of bed before his ride came to take him to school. By the time he came home from school, I would be sitting in my wheelchair, “Puzzlin’” (I used to sit under the dining room light and work on a puzzle on a card table I’d put up in the living room. I was on leave from work but my surgery was not scheduled as yet. I appreciated the escapism of doing a puzzle. So, I put playlists on my Apple Music Account and I would sit there and l would, “puzzle” for hours.
I had just added a Bob Marley playlist to my phone because that is a GREAT album! I will never forget that I was straight jammin to that album when Sean came home from school. I was singing along and just doing my puzzle. Sean would come in to the house and go into his bedroom to change out of his school clothes.
He would come out of his room changed and would go to the kitchen to get something to eat out of the refrigerator. I still continued to jam to the album and when he sat down on the couch, he got my attention by telling me that it was weird to come home to hear his mom sing to Bob Marley! I started to laugh and I told him about this album being on loop for months in my car when I was in high school. I told him about my friend who really liked Bob Marley and he was the one who turned me onto it.
We started talking about this specific album and I told him my favorite songs and about my senior quote. I told him that Bob Marley was before my time but he was super cool then! GREAT music lasts!
Today, as I sat with my hands balled into fists on either side of on my waist and my leg outstretched for my Mom to put the patches on my knee for my tens unit, I mumbled something just barely audible. I was staring off into space and trying to get the strength I needed to continue the day. My Mom asked me to say it again and I did.
I told her that, “It is tiring to live in this body.” I continued staring off into space as she told me, “I know. I am sorry.” I think it was the rain throughout the night that is making me feel awful, but I DO feel awful! I just sigh and hope that tomorrow is better but I already know that is NOT likely.
