Author: Jen Rios

“Out Went the Lights”

Last night, we had huge winds and I actually was a little bit concerned. It was really loud and since I have window air conditioners, the wind blew right into my house because it was so strong! It took me a moment to realize that the wind was just making the noise is it came through the flaps around the air conditioner.

The wind was blowing super strong for not even five minutes when the lights went out! My Mom started to count and before she got to 30, I think it was at 16, the lights flickered back on and the air conditioners restarted.

I told my Mom that the generator was the BEST thing that I have! When the lights went out and in that 16 seconds before they came back on and the air conditioners restarted, I osat in the dark and I could feel the air getting warm. But then, because of my generator, because of my Mom, I didn’t need to find a place to stay and I fell asleep in my own house and in my own bed with the air conditioner running and the neighborhood’s power was still out.

I didn’t need to find a place to stay and I fell asleep in my own house with the air conditioner running and the neighborhoods power was still out. I smiled as I fell asleep and comfort.

I smiled as I fell asleep in comfort. In the few years that I have had my generator, it hasn’t turned on often but the fact that I haven’t is wonderful when I need it!

I spoke with my Mom today as she washed my hair and for some reason, I remembered a rhyme I used to say when I was young. I just started saying it and somehow I remembered the words from 35 years ago. I remember Ms. Gusfa playing the piano as we recited it. But the fifth pumpkin send, “Isn’t Halloween fun!”

3-Peat

I’ve gotten into the habit of listening to an Apple Music playlist as I am brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed. This month, I have been listening to u2 on shuffle. The order of the songs that played last night we’re definitely on fire! So much so, that I posted them on Facebook and on the final post. I told my friends, “You’re welcome.” It all started with this song. I guess when I heard it because I have not heard it in a long time! What I would have given to hear these words:

And it continued with this one. I love this lyric:

And the 3-peat continued with this song. I am Catholic and I took Sean to the stations of the cross every week during Lent from one he was in second grade until his freshman year when I couldn’t drive anymore. I like this lyric:

Bono’s Voice speaks to my soul!!!

So Conflicted!

Last football season, I did not watch the regular season and barely watched the playoffs. I did, however, watch the Super Bowl. My Mom is NOT a fan AT ALL so I just checked the scores on my phone.

This year, however, I had seen a commercial that the Rams were playing the Bears for SNF and I knew that I HAD to watch with Matthew Stafford being traded to the Rams and all. I knew that I wanted to watch him play but I am from Michigan so I can’t be a Rams fan.

I received a Twitter alert yesterday while the Lions were playing. I clicked on it and the moment I saw their Honolulu blue uniforms, I felt a sharp pain in my chest! It hurt because I knew that Matthew Stafford was not under center and so many of my guys are gone now! Golden Tate (who I used to tell that I had a crush on during the game), Darius slay is gone and it hurt too because I don’t really recognize the team!


In addition, I am not a fan of Campbell as the head coach. Schwartz was the coach when I started watching the Lions and I was all about him and I was even behind Caldwell. I was hopeful for Patricia but being the third coach since 2009, I was a little concerned. And then the trade happened!

I started watching professional football when Sean started playing peewee football. It was just by chance that I fell in love with Matthew Stafford but I did! When I saw the final score for the Lions game, I texted my son and told him that I didn’t watch and I don’t think I can handle losing anymore.

But then, SNF started. Stafford came on the screen and involuntarily I just yelled out, “I love you, Matty!” I texted with my friend during and after the game:

but then I saw the 67 yard touchdown pass on their second possession I went nuts! He actually shed some light on a few things for me when the game was over:

I have been a hard-corne Lions fan since 2009 and this feels so strange to me! I don’t even live in LA!:

I absolutely enjoyed watching the Rams game last night, or, should I say Matthew Stafford playing. I am really not sold on being a Rams fan…yet. Like half of my Twitter followers are the Lions fans and I love that camaraderie but I miss seeing this too:

I am excited to see this but know that I am just an outsider:

I have been impressed by Sean McVay since he got into the league! To see these two together is a little overwhelming! I guess I will catch football when I can but I’ve already told my Mom that I will be watching playoff football as well as the Super Bowl!

Thanks, Bono!

I had a tearful moment last night. I was kind of feeling at a loss when I put on my U2 playlist in my Apple Music as a brushed and flossed my teeth and reapplied Chapstick. I put the song that came on on repeat and listened to it five times because my soul was comforted at hearing Bono telling me that my tears are going nowhere fast. Thanks, Bono! I needed this:

Facial Hair

I haven’t gotten my eyebrows waxed since June because the unforgiving heat has kept me inside. I think of it like, I want over a year without cutting my hair or waxing my eyebrows so a couple months isn’t so bad.

My brother waxed my face just before he left for Mexico because he comes to my house and we are both vaccinated. When I get my haircut, I just have her wax my eyebrows now because it is safer for me to keep my mascon at the salon. So my hair is a little bit overgrown and so are my eyebrows but I’m okay with that.

As for my arm and face: My arm still feels normal but I wonder if the, “Normal” that I feel is really even, “Normal”? It probably isn’t but for me, at this point, it is. I remember when I first started teaching that my friend and colleague, Suzie, told me that she is allergic to fruit.

She would leave an apple slicer in her mailbox in the teachers lounge. I thought that was so weird because if she’s allergic to fruit, why is she going to eat an apple? She told me that she likes the taste and she would just eat until her lips starting to tingle and then she would stop eating it for the day. My Mom and I talked with my brother, Dave, and he said he has the same thing going on but just with the green apples.

That is how my lips feel today. I imagine it is how her lips would feel when she ate apple. They are just the slightest bit tingly. I said yesterday that my face felt like I had a mustache like my grandpa:

It doesn’t feel like that today, it’s gradually starting to feel like a Charlie Chaplin mustache:

NOT THIS ONE!!!:

I wonder how my face will feel tomorrow. I wonder what kind of facial hair I will have even though I prefer to wax!

A Thin Line

I laid in my bed last night and thought about my tingly arm and face. I tried to think about why exactly this is happening, aside from me having MS For 20 years, and I figured that I think I need to make a chiropractor appointment.

I sleep on my left shoulder and my weight rests on my left hip and my left shoulder because my right leg is perched on top of my left leg because after two surgeries, the knee is sensitive! It’s probably sensitive because I had my second surgery after I had had MS for 16 years and I am finding out that recovery from that is so difficult!

I am no expert about the skeletal system or whatever but all I know is that my hand was numb and yesterday my arm felt tingly all day! I was hoping I would feel better in the morning! Well, this morning, my arm feels fine! Or as fine as it can feel in having MS for 20 years! That made me extremely happy and then comes the feeling in/on my face…

Let me first, give a little background to how I am going to explain this to you. I spent my ENTIRE childhood staring at this picture in my grandparents living room:

That was from my grandparents wedding. They are my Dad‘s parents. My grandpa had an extremely groomed mustache that was just a thin line above his mouth:

It eventually was a little bit thicker the older he got, but it was still groomed! That is how my face feels today! I feel like I have a mustache like my grandpa that’s a little bit tingly along with my lips.

I can handle this new sensation if this is how it’s going to be, I think! I hope!

New Sensation


So, I woke up this morning to a new sensation. My nose is no longer numb and just my lips are a little bit. My hand and arm feel like it feels like your legs have fallen asleep and they’re just starting to wake up.

I am extremely frustrated with this new sensation! My arm feels very fluid in terms of tingling and it’s driving me nuts! I told my Mom that I want to rip my arm off! She really doesn’t appreciate that visual but I really want to do it!

Today was, “Hair washing” day and was a little bit weird! I am left-handed and even though my hand feels generally normal, my arm feels super weird! Using my hairdryer to dry my hair felt strange! I had to break up my hair drying into three sections like I did when the pandemic started and my hair was growing because I couldn’t get a haircut. I had to rest my arm because it was extra tingly!

As I was doing this, my cheeks would feel a sporadic moving, tingly sensation as I dried my hair. So this new sensation, these new sensations, are frustrating and annoying! What is comforting is that this new sensation is already changing! Who knows what it will be like tomorrow?! In the meantime, I have this song in my head:

Numb OR, Smack it!”

Okay, I think I need to preface this post before I write it that I have had MS for over 20 years. It will be 21 in December. With that being said, for just about all of that time, my body has NOT felt normal! That’s just how it is!

I need to say that because my son stopped by this afternoon and when I told him about what I am going to write about today, he looked extremely concerned! I am not putting a lot of importance on this sensation I am feeling right now and know that it will go away. Sean, however, was very concerned and started asking me questions. Sometimes I forget that he does NOT know me NOT having MS! I got pregnant with him just four months after I was diagnosed!

So, jhere is what I was going to write about. I just want to tell you that I am NOT concerned too much!:

So, yesterday morning I woke up to my left hand being numb and my nose and mouth feeling numb as well. My left hand has felt numb before when I was working and I would have to type with one finger using my right hand to send in my attendance to the office. Back then, it was a little difficult to maneuver my manual wheelchair with a left hand that was completely numb. The sensation eventually would come back. That’s why I’m not concerned about this new sensation!

I told my son this because I wanted him to laugh at what my Mom told me to do. Yesterday morning, I told her that my nose and my mouth, namely my lips, were numb. The space next to my nostrils before my cheekbones and my upper lip was numb. My left hand was also numb. My mom‘s response was priceless! We both laughed!

Her response was simple. She said, “Smack it!” How could I NOT laugh?! We both laughed because we know how absurd that statement was but it was kind of funny! She spent yesterday reminding me of what I needed to do or what she would do! It was variations of, “Do you want me to smack it?“, or, “I will smack it if you want me to!“

But, this has pretty much been the way we have handled my gradual decline over the last 20 years. We laugh! I was concerned at my son‘s reaction and I told him that I thought he would laugh at my Mom offering to smack me! He did say that that was really funny but he was still concerned. As for me and my Mom, we aren’t so much. Over the years, it’s kind of like, “Oh, this is how it is now.” She will walk by me and see me clenching and unclenching my left fist, scrunching my nose, pursing my lips between my teeth or pressing my lips with my fingers and she will offer again to smack me which will make both of us laugh!

I also think that another distraction I use is that this song has been playing in my head since yesterday morning when I awoke with numbness in my face:

Nothing Even Matters

At about 1230 last night, (or this morning), I checked the Target website to see if they had updated their Chapstick availability. It had not updated so I tried again when I woke up this morning at about 11:30 (don’t judge me) but it still hadn’t been updated. Maybe after this weekend it will and I’m cool with that because I don’t get paid until next week anyway!

So, in essence, it really doesn’t matter! I have been singing this song in my head since this morning because nothing even matters!

Slippin’

So, I have noticed that Target’s online item list is different than it is in the store. I kept on checking their website because it’s getting soon for my fall and winter flavors of Chapstick. So I was looking for this item:

My Mom actually checked at the store the last time she went to Target. They did NOT have it! I was thinking that they are slippin’ and I was disappointed. That is, until I realize that TODAY is Labor Day! Of course they would not have my fall and winter flavors yet!!!

Days all seem to run together now that I no longer work. I can only keep Mondays and Thursdays in my head because those are, “Cheese Days.” I like to be prepared and do things early! But, I still have some summer flavors of Chapstick left and it’s still super hot outside so I can wait until tomorrow to get my fall and winter tips next. I don’t even get paid for a few more days so I won’t get it immediately anyway.

Regardless of me finding out that Target is NOT slippin,’ this song has been in my head for a while now!: