Wednesday, September 10, 2025 – Day 393

Wednesday, September 10, 2025

Good morning, blog readers. Wedding, T-minus three days.

We’re off to Maine this morning with a 7:00 a.m. pickup to O’Hare.

It’s going to be a tiring day, mostly because the night didn’t go smoothly. At 2:15 a.m., I knocked the respirator hose off my mask. With the mask on, I’ve never been able to reconnect the hose—I tried. After giving up and shutting the machine off, I just wanted to fall back asleep. But then I had to pee. So I wheeled to the bathroom, which woke Cindy with the clatter of the rollator on the hardwood. She’d been sleeping downstairs on the couch. After the potty break, I went back to bed and tossed until 3:30 before deciding not to fight it anymore. I got up and went downstairs which sent Cindy back upstairs for another hour of rest—until only 4:15 when she gave up too. What a mess. There’s always time to sleep on the plane if it’s needed. I suspect it will be.

Yesterday I treated myself to a beard trim and a haircut 💇‍♂️—wanted to look sharp for Saturday. Honestly, the beard trim was the bigger need, but my hair was spilling over my ears, so I wanted that cleaned up too. It had only been two weeks since my last cut, so the barber seemed to feel he had to earn his fee and took the sides down more aggressively than usual. No hair on my ears anymore, that’s for sure.

I went to a new barber since my regular stylist is on vacation. I tried to tell him about the wedding this weekend and my wedding toast just to have some conversation, but of course that was when he had the clippers buzzing. With my weak voice, he didn’t catch my words exactly. He paused, gave me a puzzled look, and asked: “What about how you eat your toast?” I had to stifle a laugh. It made me think—this could be a long weekend of “what did you say?” I explained myself once, then decided to keep quiet.

I’m bringing along a voice amplifier that ALS United sent me. Haven’t tested it yet, but maybe it’ll help. I hate the idea of people avoiding conversation with me because it’s too much effort to understand me. That would make for a long weekend and steal some joy from what should be a very happy time.

On a brighter note, my toast is finished—and I’m finally happy with it. Fair warning: with a normal voice, it runs 7–8 minutes. With mine, it’ll be closer to 10–12. I want to deliver it myself, but I do have a backup ready just in case. I’m not planning to use them.

And yes, I trashed the modified, shortened version. It didn’t have any spark and could’ve been about anyone. If I’m giving a toast, it has to reflect Alex and Nicole, and I’m looking forward to sharing the long version. I’ll post the full version here afterwards.

Tomorrow’s blog entry will come to you from Maine.

Have a great Wednesday. Love you guys! ❤️

Photo of Alex and Nicole at the airport. They were flying in style yesterday at 9:30 in the morning.