25 in Summer 2017

Recycling, again, to see what’s changed since November 2010.

Here’s what I wrote then:

Day 29 – Relearning - 11/29/2010

Have you ever had to re-learn something that used to be second nature?

Yes, I added this as a suggestion. I’ve had to re-learn many things, and still haven’t gotten the knack of all of them. What I had in mind when I left this was running. Since my latest MS flare, I cannot run at all. When I was in bad shape last spring, I could barely walk, really. Since then, my gait is almost normal, but I can’t run at all, really. My feet get tangled up.

It’s kind of incredible when you actually think about everything your body does to run....the signals being sent to your brain to make it happen. For me, that includes signals your feet send every time they hit the ground.

Imagine trying to run when your feet are asleep. My feet feel like that all the time.

Still, there’s been other things that have been affected.

clutch

Early on there, driving was difficult.

clutch

Oops, caught the brake with my toe....

Some more even basic life functions were and are still out-of-whack.

Some days if I give myself my shot in the wrong place, my diaphragm doesn’t work.

breathe

I’m penciled-in for physical therapy in a few months to learn how to jog again. While all this has let me lose a lot of weight, I do want to be able to effectively exercise. Right now, I can’t.e stuff below the waist. I mean, I was potty trained by like three. Urgency, make it to the bathroom on time, then can’t let go.....

What’s your personal fashion statement when it comes to dressing? Which look describes you and what are your signature clothing accessories?

The others weren’t working, so I’ll take a stab at this one....

I guess the most notable one would be button-down shirts. I really don’t like wearing anything else. But not everybody can pull off wearing a white shirt without a suit. I can, so I do. And I do manage to keep them clean most days. :-)

I also rotate my glasses. I have about four pairs I vary, depeding on what I’m wearing, and what I’m doing. My big black and brown acetate ones are probably most comfortable. I think I paid about twenty bucks a pair for them....

When I need to look nice, I have more stylish stuff. My nerd glasses haven’t gone with a suit and tie.....yet.

I still haven’t bought that brown suit I’ve been wanting. Thing is, I don’t need to wear a suit very often, and I’ve been hesitant to buy something until my size stabilizes a bit more.

Have you ever had to re-learn something that used to be second nature?

Back in the 2010 entry, I was writing about driving.  My vision has gotten so bad that when I moved, I didn’t renew my license.  I haven’t even tried to drive since about the end of 2012.

Quick primer on what MS does to vision.  While I don’t have really bad double vision, my acuity is very bad.  It must have been sometime in 2012, I visited a neurological ophthalmologist, and she wasn’t able to even come close to correcting me to 20/20.  Combined, I was at about 20/50.  In my right eye, I was correctable to 20/60.  She couldn’t even correct me to 20/200 in my left eye.  I am left eye dominant, so this is a big part of the problem.

You really can’t re-learn seeing, but there’s other physical things I’ve had to try to remaster.

Stairs aren’t my friend.  I quipped about something yesterday about dipping my perpetually-numb toes into something (the NYC market, maybe?).  Going up is a lot easier than going down, because I can’t feel my feet hit.  I don’t know that I have a good foothold.

My weird crosshandedness has made things even tougher as my nerve damage increases.

I find myself doing a lot more things with my left hand.  Sinister.

That does include things that I learned how to do right-handed.  I wonder if I was to do some sort of physical activity if now I’d try to do it lefty.

Holding a racket, even throwing.  I’ve batted left-handed since I was about fifteen years old.  I know that I’d still do that if I was able to see well enough to actually make contact....

I hold my cane in my right hand, so my left will be free to do things.  shrug

What’s your personal fashion statement when it comes to dressing? Which look describes you and what are your signature clothing accessories?

I really don’t have one.  When I’m home, it’s jeans and a T-shirt.  When I got to work, it’s slacks and a button-down shirt.

This prompt from years ago does start to walk on something that’s bothered me a lot lately; who gives a fuck about my style?

Maybe that’s the sort of thing that’s from a generation prior to mine.  One of the local shady car dealership groups has a flowery jingle telling buyers that YOU can have it all!  headdesk

Get over yourself.  You have a car.  You take care of it.  You drive it.  That’s not remarkable, and nothing you do will make it so.

I could launch into a long tirade about this, but I understand that probably nobody is reading this.  Someone from the Me Generation wouldn’t be okay with that.

I am.