Author: Jen Rios

#MyGirlL: A 4th Round

So, Leia has been a sickie for a while now! We are going to change her food for a third time! She was on prescription food for almost a year and we changed it to salmon but but my Mom talked to the vet and we are going to change her over to a different prescription food.

It’s a little bit cheaper than her first prescription food and I am going to say that three is a charm and my girl will get better! But, she needs a fourth round of steroids to let her body calm down because she is absolutely inflamed and it’s awful! Sean is going to pick up the ‘roids tomorrow.

I have been thinking now that she is three, maybe I can put my ornaments back on the tree because she will be on steroids the whole time the tree is up so she’s going to be a little bit listless and won’t bother them. My Mom sent me this picture the other day and it made me miss our beautiful tree:

I think Sean was a senior in this picture and I don’t know why my star is not on the tree but I miss this even though I still can’t find my tree skirt!!!


Phase 2 = Completed.

When I awoke today, which was I think about 1:30 in the afternoon, my Mom had placed the ladder in the way for me to get into my normal spot so I waited by the bathroom and she moved the ladder and then she hit the light switch and my tree lit up!!!

I gasped even though I did not have my contacts in! I could see the lights and it made me excited! I tried to get a good picture today of the lights but I have already taken my contacts out tonight and I’m really not feeling it right now but I snap this one for you all. Phase 2 is now completed!:

The lights are up but I fear that it’s a bad MS-y day… again…

December 2022 Faves

So, I’ve been listening to my Christmas playlist since December 1! But there is something going on as well. I did not realize this until last night because I was eating a lot of chocolate! I can have the dove dark and mint chocolate and I bite it into four pieces. I usually just have one or three at most but I was eating them a lot and I couldn’t figure out why!

But then, it hit me. It’s December. December 28 is coming. This year, it will be 22 years since I was diagnosed with MS. I have had that for years more than half of my life and that just kind of hurts. So, I can’t get rid of the melancholy feel around this time as well so I’ll post the two songs that help me get through it:

#MyGirlL: Bad Girl!!!

So, today, my Mom was going to watch me put my contacts in when we both heard a crash of breaking glass! It was coming from the kitchen where Leia was so my Mom instead of watching me put my contacts in, want to see what it was.

When my Mom saw it, the litany of, ”Bad girl!” And this is how Leia reacted:


My Mom is still cleaning it up and she will randomly reiterate that Leia is a bad girl! I don’t have my contacts in, I have not brush my teeth or even eaten my lunch. All I’m thinking about now is that I have a movie to watch! Leia still is not moving!:

#MyGirlL: Yakked

I think I need to tell you a little bit of a backstory before I tell you what happened last night. My house was built in 1951. In 1951, disabled people didn’t own houses, especially disabled people using a Power chair! As the homeowner of this house that was built in 1951, it poses a bit of a problem seeing that as the homeowner, I am disabled and I use a power chair!

Basically everything now has a process. The process that we utilize is to make a non-handicapped accessible area, accessible to me.

So, long story short, my power chair is just outside the bathroom as I am inside using the bathroom. Last night, Leia got out of her bed and walked over to the bathroom and just yakked on the floor and turned around.

I thanked her and told her that I appreciated that she did that on the tile but then I had to call my mom to clean it up because having had MS for 21+ years, my sense of smell is so acute!!!

It’s December 1 so I have a Christmas movie to watch now…

That’s Why?!

I think I did this a couple Christmases ago. I made a playlist of all my favorite Christmas songs! The day after Thanksgiving, I am free to play that playlist constantly which is what I have been doing. I put my favorite song four times in a row on it to begin the playlist. Everyone knows by now what my favorite song is but if you have some sort of lapse in judgment, I will remind you:

I couldn’t understand why I had saved this song in my playlist. I grew up hearing it so I was familiar with it but I didn’t know why it was in my playlist until my Mom told me that she likes that song! That’s why?!

I have told everyone my favorite song and just this year, my Mom and I were watching The Santa Clause and my Mom mentioned that she likes the Carol of the Bells. So YOU KNOW that I had to add another song to my Christmas playlist!:

I added these two songs because my Mom likes them, that’s why!

“Run!”

I pretty much start my blog posts out by saying that I did not sleep well because sleep is difficult for me but it eventually happens.

Well, last night was no exception! I peruse my phone to distract myself and possibly get tired for a while and then I put on an audio rosary when I think I am close to falling asleep. That’s what I did last night (or this morning), and just as I was almost asleep I had a memory of probably when Sean was 14 and instead of falling asleep, I kept laughing!!

I think it is such a random memory but I remember that it made me laugh, Sean laugh, and the spectators in their car laugh as well! When Sean was 14, I was still driving and he was not driving yet so we went to eat at Famous Hamburger on Michigan Avenue.

So, this is a seven year old memory but I could not forget laughing! It was 3 o’clock in the morning and I had to text Sean because I could not stop laughing! And I actually got a response:

I had texted him Adam Sandler‘s acceptance speech at the Gotham awards so that is what he was talking about and I loved that he actually remembered it!

I was still driving and still in a manual chair back then. We had just left the restaurant and he was pushing me to the car. We got stopped by a crosswalk and then it started to rain just a little bit. Once the crosswalk changed to walk it was only like that for a moment before the blinking ‘don’t walk’ started. I told Sean to, “Run!” And I started pumping my arms in my chair. I started to laugh and I heard Sean laugh as I turned my head and saw the couple in the car right at the stoplight laughing too!

I have no idea what made me think about that memory from so many years ago but I can still clearly see those people laughing as it started to rain. I used to do silly stuff like that! But now, I think my disease is getting a little too advanced for my enjoyment. At least my complete enjoyment! I don’t mind living in my memories though especially ones that make me laugh so hard!!!

O, Holy Night

This Christmas song will forever remind me of my cousins,Sal and Melinda, and their friend serenaded us one evening when we celebrated Christmas in Texas. The biggest thing that absolutely blew my mind was that we barbecued on Christmas day with my aunt and uncle!

I think it was a couple years ago when someone asked on Twitter our favorite version of the Christmas Carol, O, holy night. I interact with this guy a lot on Twitter because he tweets funny things! He tweeted a survey that gave us four options of a singer but then there was a fifth option, it was, “other,”

So I checked the other box and tweeted this video! He responded with just a, “Wow!” And I agreed in my response because I love this song! I have already listened to it a number of times since Friday!:

The whole reason I am saying this is because I am wearing a shirt I got a few years ago and it says, “Oh Holy Night” So I am going to post this blog post in hopes that you can still get the Jon Secada version of this song by clicking on the link.