Author: Jen Rios

I have talked about my time working at 7-Eleven in the summer between high school and college. 7-Eleven is a disgusting job!!! I just wanted it because it’s fun to go to 7-Eleven and get Slurpee’s. But it’s definitely NOT fun cleaning up after people getting Slurpee’s because they make a mess!!! I didn’t know that BEGORE I started working there and I didn’t know how ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING it would be making 40 parts of coffee at 6 o’clock in the morning when you are hung over after a friend’s graduation party!

Something I haven’t written about but I have been thinking about it and I have to talk about is this:

I remember when I was working there and a sales rep came in for a meeting with the woman who owned the store. She had a franchise. He put a box of cow tails on the register’s counter:

Cow Tales had just come out or something, it was the summer of 2000 right when matchbox 20s Bent CD came out!

A little girl came in, probably about seven or eight years old and she got her own small Slurpee. She was so proud of herself and she put a fistful of change on the counter. It was one of those moments when 7-Rleven gets really busy. So there was a long line behind her.

She glanced at the line and began to whimper. I calmed her down by saying “It’s all right, honey.” and I counted it out the change and slid the money for the Slurpee toward the register and the leftover money I slid to her and told her to put it in her pocket. She took the change and put it in your pocket and smiled at me and I told her to have a good day and to enjoy her Slurpee!

My Mom just had her birthday and she was given Cow Tales she wasn’t a fan. I told her that I will take them! They are sitting on the desk under my TV and today I had two of them.

My Mom told me they were disgusting and I corrected her by saying that they are nostalgic because I thought of that little girl the whole time I ate them! I recounted that story to Sean today and he said, “That’s a great story, Mom, but they are disgusting!”

I told my Mom and Sean that they are STILL nostalgic for me! I only have a few more left to eat but I’m not sure that I will buy them again.

I had forgotten what it feels like to have snow on the ground. Waking up today was horrible! I was kind of awake at about 6 o’clock and I didn’t feel good, when my Mom changed the wedge, she told me that it was snowing.

I struggled for a while longer. I tried putting prayers on to get back to sleep, but I couldn’t. My whole body felt horrible, and I have never felt this way in my entire life!!!

As I continued to struggle to wake up, I was so grateful that I got my Thanksgiving cards out yesterday because it’s winter weather now! When my Mom finally came into my room, I sat up fully in my bed and started to put my feet down as tears were freely streaming out of both eyes hand down both of my cheeks.

I looked at my Mom in desperation, and just said through tears, “Endurance is key!” that’s why I reposted that old post that I had written in 2014. I remember writing that one. And it was the first time that I began to cry as I wrote it. Ms. Harden had just come into my room and she was completely alarmed at my tears, but I quickly wiped them away and shook my head because I assured her that it’s nothing like that.

I have been thinking about that post for a while and I remember writing it and I remember being in my classroom as I wrote it. I have been thinking that endurance is the key for a while! I feel that my disease is spiraling, but I’m catching it at everyturn! It’s tiring and it hurts.

Next week, Liz is calling about my contacts and I need to order another supplement from Dr. Clark’s office tomorrow. Endurance is key even in this weather.

For some reason, this year, I am completely taken with the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. That is never mattered to me! I things are different for me now staring so close to my 25th anniversary.

I saw this reel on Facebook and I have cried each and every time I have seen it! I don’t understand that!

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1AEg23ZAzJ/?mibextid=wwXIfr

I thought about it as a pillaged today and I think that it is starting to get serious now and it’s kind of scaring me a little bit…

I saw my first homework Christmas movie this past week so I saw my first Christmas commercial!!! My best friend Ami loves to Lego so I figured that it was fitting:

I thought that it was a little bit cheesy, but it was my first Christmas commercial of 2025!

I was watching this movie:

We have seen this movie before, but my Mom laid down and I wanted to see what it was called so I used the guide to see what it was called. But then I didn’t know how to get it back to the movie because I no longer can see anything on my remote control and we are having difficulty fully activating my Accessibility remote control. It’s a little bit frustrating! I just turned it off and I’m sure I will see it again sometime this season.

I spoke to Liz today who talked to Dr. Harris and he wanted her to order Total1 contacts:

we will see what this feels like! She told me that she ordered them today, but they will not be in until next week.

She wished me luck with that with kind of a chuckle and I returned it back to her. It’s at phrase again, “It is what it is.” I wonder how much more those daily contacts will be?

I asked her if I needed to consult my neural ophthalmologist, and she thought for a moment and said no. Then she said, I will say ‘no’. but I will ask Dr. Harris and I will call you if he wants you to talk with her. I asked her about the new contacts and she told me that they are a completely different material. Sounds expensive to me!

I had to call the billing office at Henry Ford yesterday because the charges frommy last procedure posted. I had to readjust my payment plan.

I really like that as I did that, I spoke with ease. I recently heard a recording. I sent myself after the Rams won the Super Bowl. It sounded terrible! It was so difficult for me to speak then! I’m grateful that speaking is easier now. Meira, my Speech Pathologist fixed up for me. I saw 22 times in 2022 and three times in 2023 after my swallow test in October 2021. She is still a contact in my phone.

I like that I am handling that aspect of my MS thus far. I spoke with my optometrist’s office today. He had left for the day and I will talk to them tomorrow as well. I think my eyes are becoming a thing now…

Depending on what he says to me tomorrow, I may need to message my neural ophthalmologist… This is all so a little bit terrifying but I’m handling it… #MSsucks!!! 😒😒😒…

I think that I attribute this to disease progression because I got my ducts cleaned in my house last May. Every morning when I wake up, I adjust my bed to be in a seated position and I sneeze three or four times.

I think I need to speak about my morning sneezes. I wake up in the morning, pretty groggy, and it takes me a moment to get my head together. Once I adjust my bed to be in a seated position, I sneeze and sneezing when I am barely is a little bit tricky!

Or at least, it’s gotten kind of tricky and I need to adjust how I react to them now. I am really having a hard time controlling my hands right now. That fact. kind of scares me! For example, a few days ago, I was about to sneeze and I grabbed a bit of a toilet paper from the table by my bed. But when I went to ‘catch’ my sneeze, instead, my finger went up my nose to the second knuckle, which obviously hurt a whole bunch! I am not even awake, and I made a strange sound of pain!

After doing that, I had to change my game plan. Now, I just let myself sneeze and when I sneeze and entails all the snot and spittle that ends up on my face each time! I think that that’s kind of gross, but it takes me a moment until I can blow my nose and clean off the spittle on my face.

My daytime sneezes are a game-time decision based on how I am feeling regarding the urgency of my sneezes. Most times, it’s just snot and spittle, but sometimes I can catch them and that is MOST comfortable for me!

Blowing my nose is very difficult for me now, so I like to ‘catch’ my sneezes meaning that I’d like to have the tissue in front of my nose as I sneeze so then I don’t have to push to get air out of my nose. That is very difficult for me to do now!

Sometimes, when I’m blowing my nose, because I have to push so hard to get air out of my nostrils, my nose makes a weird farting noise! The first time Sean heard that he didn’t know what it was and I told him that it’s just residual air leaving my nose.

My body is not normal anymore and does not function as it should. This is a hard reality for me to accept. I can’t blow my nose anymore?!