Today was my third time watching this movie this October and I have decided I have two favorite parts:
Fvorite part #1
And then there’s Favorite part #2/
Sean asked me last year why I watch that movie so much. I told him that I watch it because when I see it, I am 11 years Old again! These two scenes DEFINITELY take me back to that time!
I remember this song came out just before we moved into our first apartment. Early on, I remember that my maintenance guy was working on my furnace in the laundry room next to my kitchen and I think I was grading papers at my table or something. He sang this song loud because it was getting a lot of radio play like then. His voice sounded like a nice tenor and he had a somewhat southern twang to it. We became friends and during my first year living in our apartment, his dad died.
He left the company and was no longer the building manager When we were living in our second apartment but we still talked. The last time I saw him in our second apartment, my Dad had just died. I looked at them with pleading eyes and asked, “Does it ever get any better?”
I remember he returned my gaze and looked directly into my eyes it’s soberly and matter-of-factly said, “No.” I remember groaning when he said that but he’s NOT wrong!
And, this one I FINALLY caught on the first day of October!:
I listened to my Apple Music playlist again as I brushed my teeth last night. I heard this song and was immediately taken back to my freshman year at Western! As I listened to the words last night, 20 years later, this song is different for me now. Back when the song first came out these were the lyrics I really dug!:
Of course these words made sense to a bright eyed college freshman!:
but then my diagnosis had started catching up to me as I was facing my life as a single mother:
And these words got me through it! To be called “Darling” and “Baby,” but I heard something different last night:
So this song was written for me specifically but this is what I heard yesterday that made me cry because I was not jumping either but here we are. Looking at 21 years of having this disease and it is difficult!
And I hear Bono saying this to me now:
So, I have been having a difficult time as of late but Bono’s voice has been keeping me sane
I just finished watching the Buccaneers playing the Rams. I have no words. I need to ponder this for a while! Can I just say that I knew that my man had it in him!!! I’ve always known that! Since 2009!!! 💯😍💯
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?!
Recently, I’ve been reposting on both Facebook and Twitter blog posts from years ago. I started my blog in November 2013 I think and randomly I’ll scroll through and see the long list of archived blog post and I will just re-post them. It’s cool to see how consistent I am and how things have stayed the same because my whole blog is my thoughts. I like seeing the consistency for one thing that saddens me is how much my disease has progressed. I am so grateful to have written down so much of my Barwis training. I was so hopeful back then!
Lat night, or rather, early this morning before I finally fell asleep m, I posted a blog post from 2017. It was Sean‘s first homecoming at DC. It was and extremely warm day and I was not able to be outside as the kids were getting situated for pictures but my Mom did that for me, (for all of the parents)
The other moms texted me the pictures the next day and I was able to get a picture of my, “2 Sacreds”:
I fell asleep remembering that day and then, this morning, I asked my Mom to send me a picture she took with my son at my nephews graduation party a couple months ago. For me, this particular picture embodies how much my Mom cares for me! Everyone at the party was vaccinated but younger kids ended up coming who were not old enough to be vaccinated so my Mom did what she had to do to protect me and Sean is wearing a Matthew Stafford jersey that I got him because even though Matthew Stafford is no longer a Lion, I Love him too!:
Last football season, I did not watch the regular season and barely watched the playoffs. I did, however, watch the Super Bowl. My Mom is NOT a fan AT ALL so I just checked the scores on my phone.
This year, however, I had seen a commercial that the Rams were playing the Bears for SNF and I knew that I HAD to watch with Matthew Stafford being traded to the Rams and all. I knew that I wanted to watch him play but I am from Michigan so I can’t be a Rams fan.
I received a Twitter alert yesterday while the Lions were playing. I clicked on it and the moment I saw their Honolulu blue uniforms, I felt a sharp pain in my chest! It hurt because I knew that Matthew Stafford was not under center and so many of my guys are gone now! Golden Tate (who I used to tell that I had a crush on during the game), Darius slay is gone and it hurt too because I don’t really recognize the team!
In addition, I am not a fan of Campbell as the head coach. Schwartz was the coach when I started watching the Lions and I was all about him and I was even behind Caldwell. I was hopeful for Patricia but being the third coach since 2009, I was a little concerned. And then the trade happened!
I started watching professional football when Sean started playing peewee football. It was just by chance that I fell in love with Matthew Stafford but I did! When I saw the final score for the Lions game, I texted my son and told him that I didn’t watch and I don’t think I can handle losing anymore.
But then, SNF started. Stafford came on the screen and involuntarily I just yelled out, “I love you, Matty!” I texted with my friend during and after the game:
but then I saw the 67 yard touchdown pass on their second possession I went nuts! He actually shed some light on a few things for me when the game was over:
I have been a hard-corne Lions fan since 2009 and this feels so strange to me! I don’t even live in LA!:
I absolutely enjoyed watching the Rams game last night, or, should I say Matthew Stafford playing. I am really not sold on being a Rams fan…yet. Like half of my Twitter followers are the Lions fans and I love that camaraderie but I miss seeing this too:
I am excited to see this but know that I am just an outsider:
I have been impressed by Sean McVay since he got into the league! To see these two together is a little overwhelming! I guess I will catch football when I can but I’ve already told my Mom that I will be watching playoff football as well as the Super Bowl!