MS Walk: 2012

If you’ve been following me any, then you know that my family and I did a MS walk last Saturday.  We did one last year just after Cheri was diagnosed but it was in Highland, IN.  We had already missed our local one.  This year we got in the local one, it was much bigger than last years.  A lot more walkers.  It started on the IUSB (Indiana University – South Bend) campus and we walked along a sidewalk along the river.  Or the “River Walk” as South Bend has named it.  Probably spent thousands of dollars coming up with the name.  We got there early and got registered and got our free t-shirts (being modeled by my awesome grandmother below).  We turned in our donations and waited for the walk to start.

While we waited, we took a couple of team shots.  One with my grandma.

 

And one with my mom.

Guess none of us thought of grabbing one of the thousands of other people there to take a picture of the whole team.  It was still early, we were half asleep.

And of course the happy couple sporting the team shirts that my lovely wife designed.  The orange ribbon for MS with Team Laws across it.  And she was especially proud of how she made the footsteps start dark and big and got lighter and smaller the more they walked.  She did a great job on these.

                    

front                                                         back

Cheri was feeling pretty good on this morning and we opted to go for the 2.5 mile walk.  Last year we did the mile and it took everything it could for Cheri to finish it.  But she’s been doing a little better the last month or so with the help of a chiropractor.  We started off and Cheri was raring to go.  She has a much faster pace than the rest of us do.  She claims her body can’t walk that slow.  She hits that fast pace and can’t slow down till she stops because if she does, she won’t make it.

    

But in the end, we all made it to the finish line.

That’s my bald head under the F in finish and my grandmother to my left (your right).  And Trevor is leading the pack with Samantha just behind him.

I like this picture of Samantha and Trevor.  They both look so grown up.

While Cheri did make it the whole 2.5 miles, she was hurting when she was done.  Her feet were hurting (which used to be a real problem, not so much anymore) and her hand had a spasm and was froze into kind of a fist and she couldn’t move it.  After taking some meds and relaxing some she finally got her hand moving again.  But the worst part for her, is her hand has been a little swollen since the walk, so she still can’t put her wedding rings back on and that upsets her.  She needs to get those on so I quit fighting off the men trying to get them some of that.

It was a good day for the walk, the weather was great.  But the real reason we were there, was to raise money for the MS Society.  With the help of some of my blogger friends and real life friends, family and coworkers, we raised a decent amount for our team.  After everything was totaled, Team Laws ended up in 11th place for amount of money raised.  That’s pretty awesome.  And we raised close to 3 times the amount we did last year.  I believe the goal for the weekend was $72,000 but I don’t know if we reached it or not.

         

My wife is pretty amazing.  She put her heart and her feet into raising money for this.  She got our team together, designed the shirts, setup Facebook pages and Tweeted for donations.  She doesn’t get to hear it very often, but she is pretty incredible.  I’m especially proud of her for taking on the walk and beating it.

And mad props to my mom, who always supports everything we do.  Whether it be this MS walk to supporting her grandchildren at scouts and baseball/softball.  And she’s a survivor, she survived raising my brother and I, that’s amazing in itself.

And a big thanks to all of you who donated and supported this cause.  It means nothing without all your financial support.  If you’ve been meaning to donate and you forgot, don’t worry, you still can.  Click the link below for up to 30 days from last Saturday.

And lastly, as I was proofreading this before posting it, there is one thing I would like to also tell my mother.  The date on your camera is off, by a day.  You ruined my whole post, I’m so disappointed.

Wore out

We are wore out this evening.  Friday night, Samantha had a ball game so we spent a couple hours out there.  Saturday morning was the MS walk, which went great.  Cheri decided she was going to try to do the 2.5 mile walk so we headed out and did it.  She took off, she’s a much faster paced walker than I am.  I annoy her because I just take my time and stroll while she’s off to the races.  I guess I’m just never in a hurry.  She made it, the whole 2.5 miles, but with consequences.  Her feet hurt, but worse her left hand went into a spasm and froze in a fist.  She took some meds after the race and eventually got her hand back.  I’ll make another post about the walk itself when I get around to downloading the few pictures that were taken.  But we all survived.  Our walkers included Cheri and I, Samantha and Trevor, my mom and my grandmother.  That was team Laws.

We got done, had some lunch and sat around most of the evening.  We were both feeling pretty good.  I figured it wouldn’t hit until this morning.  But all we did was walk and I walk all day long at work so I figured I’d be ok.  Well, this morning rolled around and we both actually didn’t hurt.  We were rather pumped.  Then at 2 today, Trevor had a game so Cheri and I were out at the diamonds again for a few hours of coaching.  Not sure what happened.  But between me standing on the field all game, and Cheri standing in the dugout all game.  It wore us out.  We went to grab some lunch and just some quick groceries and came home so we could relax.  We weren’t tired, but our bodies were extremely exhausted.  Just as I’m about to fall asleep on the couch, I get a phone call.  My step dad needed help moving a fridge.  So I went and did that and eventually made it back home.  Odd thing was, once I was up and helping with the fridge, my exhaustion went away.  So I’m not sure what happened there.  But I came home feeling pretty good.

We’ll see how I feel tomorrow.  Maybe I can get back to some regular posting this week.  I have a practice with my team on Tuesday, Samantha has a game Thursday, Trevor has a game Friday, and both play Saturday.  So maybe I won’t get back to regular posting.  I’ll try to get the MS walk post done tomorrow.

Catching Up

I’ve been getting a little sporadic as of late.  My boring life has become busy with baseball season rolling around.  As you know, I am now coaching my son’s team because they couldn’t find anyone else.  I’m also assisting Samantha’s coach at her games.  So now 4 nights a week, you can find me at the ballpark.

Saturday was Opening day.  I took a vacation day off of posted overtime at work so I could be there at 9am for ceremony’s, noon for Samantha’s game and 2 for Trevor’s game.  It was crappy weather, rained all morning.  First they delayed opening day ceremony’s until 10 hoping the rain would break.  It didn’t.  At 10 we went ahead and did it in the rain and got soaked.  They ended up cancelling both games.  So basically, I wasted 8 hours of time and a half to stand in the rain.

Sunday, I went to work for some double time, but had to request to leave early because they rescheduled both games for Sunday afternoon.  Luckily my boss is a coach, so he understands.  I had to take a point though because I hadn’t previously put in a vacation day for it.  Good thing I don’t ever call in so I have plenty of points to give.  Samantha lost her game, I missed the end of it because I had to leave to start coaching Trevor’s game.  Trevor lost his but at his age they don’t keep track of scores.  That game was my coaching debut.

Monday night, Trevor’s game ended up being cancelled as well as Samantha’s practice.  Just chilled at home, wasn’t really in the mood to do anything but relax.

Tuesday night, Samantha played a game in the drizzle.  She walked all 3 at bats, which was a definite improvement from last week.  Scored once, got left on base once, and got called out because the coach touched her rounding third which is a big no-no.  He was sending her home so she rounded and then changed his mind, yelled no, get back, and grabbed her to stop her.  So it definitely wasn’t her fault.  I’m enjoying watching her games more since they are actually playing closer to the real rules of baseball.

I haven’t done anything tonight but sat my butt on the couch and chilled.  Right now, I’m watching the Sox game, which you would know if you check out the widget over there to the right and probably down a bit.  Cheri went to bed already so I can watch it guilt free without feeling bad for making her watch it.  I try to tell myself she loves baseball when I watch games with her.  Even though I’m a pretty good liar, I apparently can’t lie to myself very well.  She hates watching baseball.  I feel bad that I suckered her in to help with Trevor’s team as well.  But she’s a big help so I can’t tell her not to.

One productive thing I did do tonight, was finish my blog roll.  I now have all the blogs I read (non-sports related) listed in the blog roll to the right, and down probably.  It went from 70 blogs to 174 blogs.  My sports and sports cards blogs (which I also update tonight) equals 263.  Add all those up, and a few other that aren’t related to those 3 lists and you get the grand total of 519.  That’s how many blog feeds I read in my Google Reader.  So now you understand why I tend to get behind on my blog reading.  Which is what I’m going to go do now.  Since I can now barely move my left arm.

Stupid cat!  Good thing I’m a nice guy and don’t like to disturb her.  Eventually I’ll have to when my arm falls asleep.  Just for the record, and because my wife will get upset if I didn’t explain, the trash bag in the background are clothes for Goodwill.  We don’t store our trash in the living room.  Cheri would freak!

Before I go, Saturday is our MS walk, if you want to still donate, click the banner below.  For those of you who have donated, thank you so much, it was greatly appreciated.

Click the following banner to donate to the National MS Society and support our cause. To view our personal involvement, click MS Sucks!

Parents are stupid

As you know, they asked me to run one of the baseball teams at little league.  Well, the whole story is that they had 5 teams of 13-14 kids per team.  So they created a 6th team and begged me to coach.  This way, each team has 10-11 kids and every kid gets more playing time.  My team is even sponsored by the little league park, so they are paying for it just to give the kids more playing time.

I talked to the lady that helps run the park with her husband.  She said that more than a few of the parents have been bitching because their kids got moved after practicing with another team.  OK, this is an instructional league.  Which means no score is kept, you play against other teams but the rules are pretty laid back.  You can even stop the game to talk to a player and explain what he did wrong or what a better way to do it would be.  INSTRUCTIONAL.  Which means it doesn’t matter what team your on, we are all there to teach the kids.  You’ll find coaches helping the players on the other teams.  INSTRUCTIONAL.  We are here to help your kids learn the game and to get better.  Not coddle the damn parents because all your other favorite moms are on the other teams.  It’s freaking ridiculous.  It doesn’t matter if your kid had to switch teams, we don’t even keep score.  It’s INSTRUCTIONAL.  And do you know what the big problem is, the lady mentioned above called the parents, father usually answers, says yeah, no problem.  I understand, more playing time for my son, great.  Then she’ll receive a call a little bit later from the mother, bitching up a storm how her kid doesn’t want to switch.  These kids are 7-8 years old.  They don’t care what team they are on, YOU’RE the one that doesn’t want to switch.  Because you like to hang out with the other mothers on the other team.

I had one mother who I was having a conversation with, she was pleasant and curious.  She asked me if I’ve ever taught baseball.  I told her I hadn’t, because I haven’t.  Other than my kids.  I’ve been an assistant coach on my daughters team every year she’s played, which she is going on her 5th year.  I know and love this game.  I played through school and played softball for 10+ years.  I can probably teach every position, throwing and hitting.  But technically, I’ve never “taught” baseball.  She apparently called the lady and told her that I said I know nothing about the game and wanted to switch teams.

I’m really hoping a parent says something to me.  I will not hold back.  And neither will my wife, who will be sitting up there beside them while I’m coaching.  Or my mom, as far as that goes.  Parents are stupid and need to remember why their kids are playing.  And it’s not for the parents.  IT’S FOR YOUR FUCKING KIDS!!!!!

WTF Did They Just Say?

This is a special edition of WTF Did They Just Say? because I’m plugging a TV show.  If you get a chance, watch “Impractical Jokers” on TruTV.  It is hilarious.  These 4 guys who have been friends for years have to do challenges and complete them.  Each guy goes through the challenge but here’s the catch.  He’s wearing an earbud and can hear the other 3 and the challenge is, you have to do whatever they tell you, or you lose.  Here’s a clip.

Here’s another clip, if you can find this whole episode, it is hilarious.  The guy that wins steals from a lady’s plate, then she tells her husband and he comes over to him at the buffet.  Takes food from the buffet then when the guy goes to take off his plate, he smacks his hand.  The husband goes and sits down and the guy stalks him to his table and goes after his plate.  Here’s the beginning of that prank.

They do multiple challenges in a half an hour episode, then whoever loses the most challenges, has to do a dare that the other 3 decide.  Such as this.

My wife and I laugh so hard watching these.  My eyes usually hurt from wiping the tears off from laughing.  If you have a chance, you have to catch an episode of this.  I have Comcast cable and they have it On Demand, I don’t know about anybody else but if you have On Demand, look for it.  Otherwise, I believe it’s on Thursday nights on TruTV.

I stuck this on WTF Did They Just Say? because the reactions from the everyday people on here is hilarious.  Usually they are just stunned and have a look on their face that says “WTF Did They Just Say?”

Insane in the Membrane

I had a song stuck in my head this morning.  A nice, slow song.  I whistled and sang it for hours.  But the bad part was, I sang it to Adam.  He looked at me and said “I’m glad I don’t know that song”.

Damn kids these days, don’t know good music.  I offered to load it up on my Spotify but he didn’t want to hear it.

Click the following banner to donate to the National MS Society and support our cause. To view our personal involvement, click MS Sucks!

Chiropractor

Before our disability hearing yesterday, Cheri and I went to her evaluation with her new chiropractor.  She really liked the place.  Very organized with everything.  I liked it because everything was very modern.  Everything is brought up on flatscreens, they email you info and give you links to youtube video’s about info on things you need to know.  Like I said, very modern.  Anyways, we left impressed with everything.  She went back this morning for a consult on what they found with the x-rays and evaluation the day before.  All that went normal as well.  Still very impressed with the organization of the whole office and staff.  Then they gave us a quick tour of the office and left us in the room where they actually do the chiropractic care.  Cheri was pumped because it had been so long since she had her back worked on.  He came in and worked on her, here’s a brief description in her words.  When she got up she started to twist and turn her body like she was amazed at how well she could move.  She started to cry and gave him a big hug.  I teared up a bit (told her I yawned, but I think she figured it out).  I was so happy that she was so happy.  Cheri’s not a crier or a hugger so that should tell you how happy she was, now it’s a waiting game to see how long it lasts.  She still has pain, but that was one of the areas that hasn’t had relief in years.

I hope this works out because seeing Cheri so happy, even if it was brief, was a great thing.  She has quite a few more appointments so hopefully he can do more.  I certainly don’t think she will ever be pain free, but at this point, any pain relief is cause for excitement.  He says that he can help relieve some of the pain because he believes her spine is pinching some of her nerves which makes it hard for her body to send signals to her brain, which is essentially what her lesions in her brain do.  So if he can prevent the other blockage of the nerves, it can only help.  It certainly isn’t a cure, but the fight with MS is all about management and not cure.  There is no cure.  You try to manage the pain.  You try to manage the disease from progressing.  You try to manage your life around the disease.  You try to manage the ongoing education about the disease.  It’s all about management of the disease.

So it seems to be a step in the right direction.

Click the following banner to donate to the National MS Society and support our cause. To view our personal involvement, click MS Sucks!

Therapy, Dumbassary & Twitter

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.  I’m behind on my blog reading again.  I did really well last weekend and got caught up.  I even went to work on Monday, read what you all posted on Sunday and Monday morning, and spent the rest of the day reading, yes, actually reading a book (e-book, same thing).  Which was my goal, get caught up so I could read books on my Kindle Fire again.  It worked for a day, I suck.  It’s just been to freaking busy around here.
As I mentioned previously, they talked me into coaching Trevor’s team.  So on top of assistant coaching Samantha’s team, girl scouts and boy scouts.  My week and weekends are suddenly filled up.  I miss my fun online time.  I feel like when I get online now, I have too much stuff to do and can’t just screw around.  After working, then taking care of kids activities, I’m not in the mood to blog by the time I get home.  Which would be the lack of blog posts as of late.  I’m not quitting or going away.  I’m just giving you a heads up if I go a few days without posting.

On the other side, my wife has been blogging a little bit more.  I think it would be good for her, theraputic of sorts.  She has had the blog “Sometimes I Remember, Sometimes I Don’t” which she usually talks about dealing with her Multiple Sclerosis and other medical issues.  But I’ve been telling her to start a blog to bitch about people.  She already does it all the time, why not put it in a blog.  And let’s face it, there’s a few bloggers who are famous in our blogging circles for doing just that.  That one is named “Dumbassary”.  Since I know you all miss me, feel free to go check hers out.  Show her a little love so she sticks with the blogging.  We all know we check our stats and get excited when you get a few hits.  Show her some love to make up for the day she had today.

We went to our disability meeting.  Basically, we sat there and discussed all the things wrong with my wife and all the things she can’t do anymore.  I felt bad for her, she said it didn’t bother her.  But I still felt like we were picking on her.  And I had to just sit there and couldn’t stand up for her.  But if it helped then I guess it doesn’t matter.  Now we wait up to 30 days to hear whether she was approved, or turned down for the 3rd time.  This is our first time with a lawyer and he complimented her on how organized she was so that’s a plus.  We think it went well.  If she gets turned down I’ll be sure to let you know, pretty sure I’ll be posting how pissed I am at the people who take advantage of the system so that those who truly need it, can’t get it.  But hopefully you’ll never have to read it.

I’ve been debating on getting on Twitter (or maybe a fan page on Facebook) more to communicate with my peeps, but to be honest, I only have 1 person who comments regularly (A soon to be fellow sucker, I mean Hoosier).  so I don’t even know how many people out there read on a regular basis.  Right now, I use twitter to advertise my blog posts and that’s pretty much it.  I’ll send a personal tweet once in a great while, if I’m in the mood to, but it’s rare.  Let me know in the comments, or send me a tweet if you’d be interested in that form of communication
Have to go back to work tomorrow, blah!  I’ll talk at you when I talk at you again.

Click the following banner to donate to the National MS Society and support our cause. To view our personal involvement, click MS Sucks!

Leaning Flag Poll of Perkins

Took the day off, not to relax, but to stress a little bit more.  We dropped the kids off at school and went to Steak and Shake for breakfast.  Now I don’t know how wide spread this wind issue is, but it has been very breezy here.  So breezy that this happened just down the road from the restaurant.

I assume sometime last night this happened.  It was already roped off underneath where it will fall and a cop was parked there for most of breakfast.  I know we’ve been under a wind advisory since last night that’s supposed to go till tonight.

We are heading out today for the real reason for the vacation day today.  We have to drive and hour and a half to go to court trying to get my wife on disability.  With all her issues, there is no way she can work.  So essentially, if we get denied, we get to live in government housing for the rest of our lives.  We barely get by now so there is no way we could ever afford a house without her having some kind of income.  I’ll more about it later.

I just wanted to touch bases and let you all know that I’m still around.  Just been very busy and haven’t had much time to blog.

My wife posted a new blog post about some of what I mentioned above and her MS.  Check it out here.

 

Click the following banner to donate to the National MS Society and support our cause.  To view our story, click MS Sucks!

MS Sucks

I haven’t talked much about the wife and her medical issues.  But I feel that I need to.  For those that don’t know, she was diagnosed with MS (Multiple Sclerosis) a little under a year ago.  While it was nice to finally have a diagnosis for all her issues, it hasn’t been fun learning about MS.  The fact that lesions are covering my wife’s brain scares me.  The facts that what this disease could do to her, scares me.  The fact that we are going to have to start daily injections of meds scares me.  The fact that in the future, she might have to rely on me, scares me.  In other words, there are a lot of things about this disease that scare me.

But what doesn’t scare me, is the fact that my wife will keep fighting.  Even though she is in extreme pain, she takes care of things around here.  She gets my kids up and to school every morning and picks them up every day.  Even though it may put her down for the rest of the day.  She keeps fighting every day when she takes showers and it absolutely drains her body of all energy.  Just a shower does that to her.  She cooks for us almost every day.  But in order to do all this, it takes a toll on her.  She has to lie on the floor multiple times a day just to stretch her back.  She needs a back rub almost every night.  When she stands in the kitchen too long, she’ll all of the sudden need to sit down because of a sharp pain in her neck.  She has to use a wheelchair when we go to functions because she can’t handle sitting in the chairs provided.  Or she has to use a wheelchair if we need to go shopping because she can’t be on her feet too long.  And I haven’t even touched on the mental issues like memory loss, or the brain fog she suffers through, or the migraine’s.  Yes, she does a lot for us.  And yes, she suffers a lot for us. 

I have to pause typing this so she can lay on the floor.  Why does she need me, I have to curl my fingers so she can put my finger tips at a certain spot on her skull which helps relieve the pressure in her spine.

I also had to massage the base of her skull because it hurts.  She always hurts.  We need a cure for this beast.  And that’s where you all come in.  There’s a group of us “Team Laws” that are walking in the annual MS Walk here in town.  Cheri will walk.  It may cost her the rest of the day but she is bound and determined to make it.  What I need from you, donations.  I don’t care if you donate $1 or $500, we need it all.  So if you could find it in your hearts to donate to our team to help find a cure for MS, we would be eternally grateful.  All the donations are taken directly from the National MS Society website so you can be sure who gets your money.  It’s the only time of the year that I ask all of you for help.  Please help find a cure for this horrible disease.  Click Below.

I want to help.

We can also turn in donations if you would prefer to just give us a cash or check.  Checks can be made out to the National MS Society.  Thank you for taking the time to read all of this and thank you for your continued support.

If you can’t spare a few bucks, pass this post on.  Via Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Wherever.  The more that see it, the better the chances are that we can fund the search for a cure.  There are a few buttons below this post to share, please use them.