Category: A Bit Of Randomness

I am sitting in my chair, listening to Gavin DeGraw, and trying to find balance. I can’t really find it today. I think I’m really bummed out because I have the MOST vivid memories hearing these songs! They remind me of living in my apartments! I was more, “able” back then. I guess I’m just really bummed that I am NOT that way anymore! I guess it’s like those Memes you see where they say that you wish you were as, “fat” as you were 20 years ago because you really weren’t, “fat” at all back then.

I am just wishing today that I was as, “disabled” as I was back then, 12 or 13 years ago. I was still walking on crutches and driving back then. Progression was slow and my knee didn’t hurt like it does all day, every day now! I think about that school has to be starting now. This is my third school year of NOT teaching. I think that I am thinking about that and it is pretty much unbearable, at least it is today.

Memories of these songs go from my apartments to working out at Barwis with Jesse and/or Adam. I hope to get back there one day but I can’t really see it. My knee hurts so much! It’s been almost 3 years since my injury and subsequent surgery and my body just doesn’t seem to want to bounce back from it.

This evening, I attended my first senior parent meeting. I’m not going to lie, it was kind of surreal! I was telling Sean as he drove us to get some ice cream afterward that I can still remember him and his Divine Child Preschool Sunday School bag. He accompanied me because I had to go in my manual chair and my speech and my vision were wonky.

One of the presenters talked about the Senior Lock In that will take place right after graduation until 5 AM the next morning. She told us it will be the last time the kids will be together as Divine Child High School students and the first time they are together as alumni. I begin to tear up at that and Sean began to laugh at me.

It was really nice to be back in the Divine Child auditorium. I appreciated all the hugs I received from people because I haven’t seen anyone there in so long. So many of them have been DC parents with me for so long! Because I was in my manual chair, toward the end, my knee began to throb. The baby blizzard I had helped with the pain though. That campus is so familiar to me and it has been for so long that it’s kind of crazy how Sean will not be a student there next year.

Yesterday morning, I received a knock on my door and two guys were on my porch. They were here from K&B Energy Solutions:

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to install a new generator!

With lots of scrimping and saving, I was able to get one! One that works! For me, it is a medical necessity! I’ve had three power outages in the past three years and the last outage lasted six days with four different hotels stays which NONE were properly handicapped accessible! Well, it looks like I won’t need to worry about that anymore! At least, in the next few days, I won’t have to worry about it anymore!

The guys who came in were named Nick and Scott and then a third young man came and he was also named Nick. I told Scott that it was, “A Scott sandwich with Nick bread” and he laughed and agreed!

I thought it was cool that he laughed and it reminded me of telling Mike Rhoades that it was a, “Jen sandwich with Mike bread” when he and an intern named Mike helped me stand at Barwis. That was before I called Michael Rhoades, “Michael” instead of “Mike.”

As they were in my basement, installing, my Mom and I left my house to get some lunch. We, “Walked” to subway a couple blocks away because they needed to cut my power off to install it. I learned a couple things on my, “Maiden Voyage!” The first thing is that it is NOT comfortable! It WAS possible for my motorized chair to make it to Subway but it was impossible to , “Walk” next to my Mom in the process. I sped to the end of the block and waited there for my Mom to walk there. There was a breeze so I wore my winter coat and a zippy. It was cold! What can I say?! I can’t control my body temperature anymore!

While we sat in Subway to eat our food, I had Sun Chips. I think the last time I ate them, I was in high school. Country music played in the background and it reminded me of high school because I could barely hear the words.

They were finishing up as we got home and they ran a test of the generator so I could see what would happen when my power went out. The power would go out for 30 seconds before it came back on and it sounded like a lawnmower was running in my backyard. I told Scott that I was surprised it was so loud but he told me that it, “Sounds like heaven when the power goes out!”

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Two different inspectors came to my house from the city this morning to inspect it. It passed the mechanical inspection but failed the electrical inspection. Scott told me they were pretty picky. The younger Nick came to change something on the generator and he knew what they were talking about to make me NOT pass. Once that is all figured out, he will inspect my generator again in six months and then a year from yesterday.

It’s kind of crazy that I will NOT be affected by the power outages in my neighborhood any longer. It’s actually really cool!

I started working with my, “Fuddy Putty” (it’s really called Therapy Putty) when it arrived to my house on August 2nd. Another member in one of my MS groups suggested it. She told me to work with one color until it gets easy. I started off with extra, extra soft which was extremely difficult!

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It burned in my wrists every time I squeezed it because my hand strength wasn’t very good at the time. I continued absentmindedly squeezing it from hand to hand as I watched TV. Ashley told me it would get easier and I didn’t believe her, that is until it actually DID get easier!

It took 10 days of working with it but on August 12, it actually got easier and I leveled up to the extra soft.

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It didn’t burn my wrists like a hot poker but I felt my forearm muscles working. I’ve worked with that one until August 24th. The next level was just soft.

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Well, yesterday, I texted Sean in the morning. I texted him this:

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In a little over a month, I have moved up to medium. It is SO difficult! It’s going to be a while before it gets soft but I continue to work with it knowing that it will get easier eventually.

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I can certainly squeeze it multiple times all day long and shift it from hand to hand. Sean says that I will be, “Tearing phonebooks in half in no time!“ The whole reason I started doing this was because it was getting increasingly difficult to brush my teeth and I was wearing my toothbrush out way too fast! Now, after all this constant work, it’s WAY easier to brush my teeth!

It’s all about simple pleasures because I can’t seem to stay awake during the day but when I am awake, I squeeze my, ”Fuddy Putty” and train for my phonebook tearing. It’s going to be a while before I finish with all six levels of Therapy Putty but, “Little by little, a little becomes A LOT.” I constantly told myself that Tanzanian proverb as encouragement while I was working out on “Walking Wednesdays” at Barwis. MAN, I miss that place so much and all of the WONDERFUL people I met there!

Sean wrote the mailing addresses on my package for my nephew and I got to put on the stickers! I felt like a little girl with a brand new sticker book! My niece texted me and wrote in part that, “the lady at the front desk asked if you knew i didn’t go to u of m😂❤️.” I sent her three laughing faces in response. I HAVE to rep my school! Her package looked like this:

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I just got my nephew’s address and his package looks like this:

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Consistency is key except my nephew lives on campus where my niece lives in off-campus housing so I think it might be a little bit different! I told them both that they were dead to me when they told me they were going to Michigan State but I said I would still send them packages but I would put tons of Michigan stickers on their packages.

I really enjoy sending care packages to colleges. It reminds me of the care packages I received from my Mom when I was at WMU. I made sure to enclose the specific things they asked for but I wonder how my nephew will receive his package given that he is a freshman and he lives on campus. Well, consistency IS key and I had a lot of fun packing the care package and putting the stickers on!

I want to first be clear that I have NEVER been a morning person! I don’t drink coffee except for a few days two times when I was eight years old. That was the school year when both my Abuela (My Mom’s mom) and my aunt Rita (My Mom‘s sister) died. It was a really tough time for me and my extended family. We spent days at the funeral home and the only place we could go was downstairs to the lounge.

All of the adults were extremely grief stricken and the only thing we could do was drink coffee. When I say that I drank coffee at that time, really, it was about 1/3 cup of sugar, about 1/3 cup of powdered creamer and just a little more than a splash of coffee. When mixed together it was a very light beige color, almost white. So, I really wasn’t a coffee drinker! I drank it because I was young and bored and there was nothing else to do.

Growing up, I never liked the smell of coffee! It reminded me of the teacher’s lounge in my elementary school and I remember getting papers back with dried, brown, coffee stains on them accidentally spilled by my teachers. The disgust continued when I worked at 7-Eleven the summer after my senior year and before college. I worked the morning shift a few days a week and I had to brew no less than 40 pots of coffee every morning. It was GROSS!

I worked for 12 years and my colleagues were amazed that I didn’t drink coffee but I was so pleasant and chipper in the morning. I would explain to them that I was NOT a morning person and that I would have to get up between 4:00 and 430 every morning so when I saw them at 8 o’clock in the teachers lounge; it felt like it was afternoon for me.

Now that I no longer work, Sean or my Mom will get me out of my bed before he goes to school and this is me every single morning:

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I figured out that it takes about three hours for my body to “Warm up“ in order to begin to get ready for the day. In the winter, I say that my body has to, “Thaw out.” During the week, it is perfect because Good Morning Football is three hours long.

I would say that it takes close to an hour before I can put my contacts in but I have my Kiefer and Atkins shake drank before the end of the show. If I was too, “Out of it” in the beginning of the show, I learned that a replay of the show plays directly after the first viewing so I get what was going on in the beginning if I was not awake enough.

I bought a Keurig last year for my house because both Sean and my Mom are coffee drinkers. I will NOT have a coffee pot brewing coffee in my kitchen! The smell would be too GROSS for me! I stay out of my kitchen until their coffee has brewed and the kitchen has aired out for at least a half hour. However, I want to say there was a few times when the coffee that was brewing in the teachers lounge at work smelled good. But, I knew it wasn’t going to taste good!

I really felt like this meme this morning! Because I no longer work, I can let my morning feelings show now. I’m pretty much by myself when I feel this way but Sean has seen the face a few times and it kind of startled him. I do NOT ever see myself being a morning person because having MS is really, really difficult!!!

A few months ago, when I was watching The Thing Called Love, I noticed and pointed out to Sean that the twin towers were still visible. He didn’t really have a reaction then. A few days ago, I thought about this and I half told and half asked him about his recollection of 9/11.

He told me that he did not have one. Of course he did not! I was about four months pregnant with him! I’ve been thinking about that fact. I can remember exactly where I was! When the first tower was hit, I was in a dark auditorium, cut off from the world, and looking at slides in my Art History class. I remember my class ending and walking to my next class. I got seated in my desk when a male student came in and announced to all of us sitting there that the second tower fell.

The woman sitting to my left immediately became hysterical Just as the professor came into the class. In that moment, I learned that the woman to my left used to work in the second tower. My professor canceled class and told us to find a television.

I remember walking toward the library and the first person I called was my Mom. I didn’t know what exactly was going on then but I knew that I was afraid and if I talked to my Mom; I would feel better.

Today marked 18 years since the attack happened. As is my ritual, I turned on GMFB and I learned that their studio is right across the street from the fire house. They started the show discussing 9/11 and it was in the moments of silence in the morning that they changed over to CNN and the site of the 9/11 Memorial. Teaching, we always observed moments of silence but being alone is different then being in the classroom with kids who were too young to know about that day.

I’m not sure what made me be so much more emotional but I just sat in my chair and let the tears stream down my face. Just after GMFB was over, I switched over to CNN. And I ended up crying so much more. I fell asleep for a long time in the afternoon and woke up still not feeling OK. Those moments of silence in the morning have really undone me and I remembered how sad my Mom was when it first happened.

I have been sad all day and I remember seeing a documentary with my Mom on the first anniversary of 9/11. It was about all of the babies who were born after 911 because their mothers (whether they knew it or not) we’re pregnant just after and their fathers perished there. I remember it being so sad and I ended up writing about it in my writing class the next day.

I thought about when my professor handed the papers back, (it was just a 20 minute free write) and she was taken with my writing skills. I was passionate about it and it was easy for me to write. Today was a sad day for me but I know that it is so much more sad for so many other Americans!

So, this started happening to me and my toothbrush a few months ago and a little over a month ago it looked like this:

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I was losing a lot of hand strength so my toothbrush was wearing out prematurely. I feared that I was doing damage to my gums. I posted the above picture with the question asking one of my MS support groups what to do with my loss of hand strength. I was thinking of getting an electric toothbrush.

Another member of the group suggested that I get therapy putty. I ordered some that day on Amazon and it arrived two days later:

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I immediately began working with the extra, extra soft putty. I refer to it as, “Fuddy putty” (because that Sean used to call silly putty when he was very young).

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After working with it for some time, I leveled up to extra soft:

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After some more time, I was able to move to soft:

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I still have been using my worn out toothbrush because I haven’t gotten to my dentist to get another one. I recently leveled up to medium:

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It’s definitely tougher to squeeze with either one of my hands but it is beginning to get easier. Today, my mom brought me an unexpected gift. She was able to find it at the grocery store today:

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It’s exactly like the toothbrush I get from my dentist! I can get rid of my worn out toothbrush because my hands strength has gotten better because I am constantly squeezing the therapy putty all day long so I am excited to see how it works out with my toothbrush tonight. Wish me luck! If it still doesn’t work, I will go back to the dentist to get my teeth cleaned at the end of October or the beginning of November so I can get a new toothbrush then.