Category: A Bit Of Randomness

Okay, here is the deal. My niece had her first communion yesterday at 12 o’clock. My job was to get my Mom there. I knew that. I told myself that I was just going to, “Push it!!!”

Things have gotten more difficult in these past 25 years but I still figured I could do it. I set my alarms and I woke up at 6 o’clock. I got out of bed at 6:30. I had put my contacts in by 8 o’clock in the morning.

My aunt came to pick my Mom up and it worked out. I just settled in to watch Hallmark movies. I saw the second half of one movie that I’ve already seen before just in time for another movie that I’ve already seen before to come on. I was totally okay with it!

A third movie started and it was one that I had seen advertised, but I had not watched it. I was interested. It was an okay Hallmark movie but I didn’t really dig the prince. I had seen the heroine in a Christmas movie before.

My Mom had already come home and she was laying down. I’m sitting there watching the movie when my right eye began to resist my contact. It completely moved and it kind of hurt. My Mom awakened to help me.

I remember when my contacts moved with my cousinT Shannon and I’m pretty sure I wrote about it before. Well, it was a little worse than that time. My Mom decided to use a Q-tip to pull the contact down that was on the top. That didn’t feel really good, but I was able to get the contact out of my eye. I thought to just put it back in my eye. But trying to do that my eyeball consciously resisted and it scared me.

I was just about to throw my right contact out when my left contact did the same exact thing! We did the same things for my left eye as well. After I had taken both of my contacts out, it was about 7 o’clock? I told my Mom that I put my contacts in super early this morning and I guess I only have about 10 hours of contact wearing time.

The fact that my eyes were consciously resisting my contacts made me afraid and I said to my Mom, “I don’t want to go back to glasses.”

I was 8 when I got glasses and I got contacts in sixth grade when I was 12. When Sean was probably in fourth or fifth grade, my eye doctor was the same as my nephew’s eye doctor. I did not have glasses then. I broke with them when Sean was probably about six. That eye doctor told me that it was better that I were contacts because my prescription was so high. (I think I was at -5.75 at that time.)

I kind of like the idea that I wear $9.99 glasses that I got from Amazon and Dr. Skarf put the prism in. It’s just a sticker on the lens in front of my eye.

So my mind is heavy with thoughts right now regarding my eyes. I will see my optometrist in August after I see my neural ophthalmologist in May. My current optometrist wants me to wear bifocals.. And not Invisalign bifocals. I will look so in-firmed like that! I have so much to think about! I had a really difficult time ‘pushing it’ this time and I don’t think that’s a thing anymore. I told myself as of this stuff played out. I tell myself, “Stop it, Jen!”

I really can’t do things like that anymore. It’s too difficult, sadly.

As for the pock in my Chapstick:

I’m surprised to say that it wasn’t bumpy at all! It kind of compressed itself and I barely felt any difference. I am almost finished with it and I can’t take a picture because at this point, I cannot control my hands enough to do that.

I actually have been thinking of it as Joaquin Phoenix’s lip. I didn’t even realize anything was wrong or different about his mouth until I was teaching! I didn’t notice anything when he was a kid in Parenthood or even in Gladiator.

So, my chapstick is no big deal. I will change over to a new Pomegranate when it’s finished.

This weather is absolutely terrible for me and I’m having difficulty dealing with it. My internal temperature does not know what to do right now and that confusion is painful I think.

But, on a happier note, my Mom ordered toe-less compression socks for me on Monday. I’m excited that my legs will stop throbbing but I am a little bit concerned about my exposed toes?!!!

My Mom spoke to Befitting You today. They do not have an email to send the script to. We just have to wait for the fax to come through. Sean thought that was crazy, but I told him compression socks are for older people so they can deal with that delay.

I remember my first year teaching, I asked where the fax machine was, and my colleague, Mrs. Cochran told me that that was nothing anymore.

Well, it looks like I will not get my socks before Monday. They will ship out on Monday… maybe… in the meantime, I will just have to suffer with my throbbing legs!!!

I texted my Mom last night telling her the two phone calls that needed to be made. I overheard her making those calls the two calls were for my compression socks and for the leads for my tens unit. There’s a problem there!

That sounds like more of a bunch of red tape!!! My Mom called Befitting You first and she has spoken to a number of people in the past almost 4 weeks. I still do not have my socks! My legs are throbbing something fierce?!!!!

Her next call was to Zynex. They are the medical supply company that is providing my tens unit equipment. That was written into my settlement that I will be getting leads and batteries to my tens unit that I have had since my meniscus was torn in October 2016.

They have stopped the shipment when it just was put into place two years ago?! I currently have leads and batteries, but they are not shipping more which is a problem because I’m in pain every day!!!

Definitely MORE of a BUNCH OF RED TAPE!!!

I saw this article today and I was surprised that my bed was listed NOT as the first item!!! That bed is the BEST PRESENT that my PARENT’S have ever gotten me!!!

https://www.mymsteam.com/resources/finding-the-best-mattress-for-multiple-sclerosis

I remember that this all had to happened in 2022 because that was the fateful year that I got my pressure sores from April to November. I will never forget that as long as I live. !!! That was so brutal!!!

I was trying to look through my archives, but I couldn’t find it. The post that I wrote about my Mom telling me that the bed she was going to buy for me was ‘a present from my Parents!’

I thought that I had already written about this, but I’ll just talk about it again. My Mom and I were talking about what kind of bed I needed because the bed I had was no longer working for me. My lawsuit had yet to be settled and I thought I would be able to get one for myself. My Mom recognized the urgency of my need for this bed. And she knew it was the kicker to say it how she did! I had no choice, but to accept it!!!

I don’t think my Mom told me this until 12 years after my Dad died and we were better about talking about him:

The day I was diagnosed, or told about my diagnosis, was December 28, 2000. My Mom and I drove to the hospital together. And then I got to a diagnosed by that horrible doctor. My neurologist gave me five or six hardcover books that told me about MS. All I did with them was throw them in the backseat when we were at the hospital. We had driven my car to the hospital, I think. I thought nothing of those books and I didn’t even read them, I just went to see my boyfriend.

I think it might’ve been four or five days later that my mom told me to not leave those books in the car. I put them on the dining room table. I absentmindedly flipped open one book and read the first line. I don’t even remember what it was but I remember thinking that that wasn’t going to happen to me so I didn’t see the need for me to read them. I still had a few steroids to take so I was going to be better when my pills were gone anyway.

Well, in these past 25 years I must emphatically tell you that whatever I read ABSOLUTELY happened to me and when I was 18, I did not think it would get as bad as it is now.

What my Mom told me about 12 years after my Dad‘s death was that he read ALL OF THEM!

I ask her to tell me the story all the time because I absolutely love it! It shows the fact that my dad was completely a man of few words! This is a conversation between my Mom and my Dad. My M is Mom and my Dad is D:

D: Mary, this is bad!

D: Want me to tell you about it?

M: No.

M: Ray, I’m going to live it.

M: It’s going to be expensive.

D: Yeah.

M: We have to help her.

D: Yeah.

That is such an important conversation and it is just eight statements. That’s why she knew to say that this bed was a present from my Parents. I had to take it. My Dad had already agreed to it while he was living, and I was NOT going to disrespect him in his death?!!!

My Mom told me that she is starting to forget this story so that’s why I wrote it here because I never want to forget it and I don’t think I ever will!!!

Well, I guess when it rains, it pours.

Last night when I was getting ready to go to go to bed, my Mom brought my chair over to me so I could transfer to it to go to sleep. But here’s the thing, she calls it ‘jutty’ but I call it ‘shaky.’ my wheelchair shakes when I move in it. It’s a dull vibration and it kind of scares me!

My Mom spoke to Ray at NSM today and she is going to take my chair into them on 20 May. I have a van rental that day and my Mom and I are hoping that it is just a quick fix. Ray says that he won’t know anything. until he sees it.

My chair just shakes a little bit and it scares me because what if it stops working?! I have three appointments to leave the house this month. I hope it stops being shaky on the 20th and then I can get my haircut?

We are hoping that it is a quick fix because it just had the batteries replaced not too long ago. Currently, my chair is staying fully powered and it’s moving back-and-forth and the hydraulics work and it. That’s why I hope it’s nothing that can’t be fixed really quickly!