I don’t know how many years ago I added my Mom onto my Netflix account but she has access. In the beginning, she was watching random movies where she liked the actor and then she would stop watching it once she didn’t like it anymore. I told her that she can’t choose a movie just because of the actor! I have agreed to watch movies with her and up not being very good! So, now, she runs some reconnaissance for me. She will watch the movie first on her phone and let me know if it’s good or not.
She knows that I can’t control my emotions anymore and I don’t like sad movies. That’s why I watch Hallmark movies all the time! So I think it was a couple of weeks ago when she saw one and she told me that she really liked a movie was new to Netflix and wanted to watch it with me.
I have watched, zBlue Miracle six times now and I am 6 for 6 in terms of crying:
I’m not going to tell you anything about why I cried but it was good tears. Worth the watch! it took me a few times to get over the fact that Dennis Quaid is so old! That and Omar reminds me of my brother, Dave!
She just finished watching a different movie so may have to change the movie I watch this evening.
I saw this video in my YouTube feed because Big Brother KNEE that my soul soul needed this! I had never seen this version of the video before but I have since been trying three or four times to put the video here on my blog and it’s not allowing me. This is what it says;
So, I put the official music video here see you can hear the song that my soul needed to hear! A song that brings back vivid memories of living in my dorm room on the fifth floor of Harvey Hall and driving my car down E. Pine Dr. to get off campus. This song, for me, chronicles at a time when I was carefree and didn’t know I was taking things for granted. You know, things like walking and driving.
This song takes place long before the Reality and pain would rtt in! I left Western’s campus for the final time a few weeks pregnant and I didn’t even know it yet.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I’m reminded of a conversation I recently had with my fully vaccinated son. I don’t remember what we were talking about but he told me that he remembers me loading up my manual wheelchair into the trunk of my car and using the car to steady myself to get to the driver’s seat. I remember doing that as well! He kind of had a look on his face that I understood what it meant. It was a look that remembered abilities I used to have and a look that is somewhat sad because I no longer have them.
I told him that Dr. Elias’s job has got to be depressing! He told me that he doesn’t know that doctor and I said that he probably wouldn’t. Dr. Elias was my neurologist for 15 years. He has since retired and I am going to see my new neurologist who works in the same clinic. He recommended her to me on and I am seeing her this Friday.
I told him that Dr. Elias used to have me walk down the hall and he would watch my gait. He also would have me lay on the exam table and tell me to take my shoes off. He would have me take my left heel and scrape it down my right shin and the same for my right heel. I only remember doing this three or four appointments before he had me stop trying.
He had me stop trying because I was unable to keep my heel on the opposite shin and move it. That was just evidence of my lack of muscle control in my legs. I explained this process to Sean by using my arms as an example. I put them out in front of me and used the heel of one hand to scrape the opposite forearm.
I see that now, as a wheelchair user, I posted a couple pictures on Facebook that were touching for me:
throwing my manual wheelchair in my trunk after shopping was one thing but I will never have muscles like that guy! I do not have that strength at all or even close! I don’t have the possibility of having that kind of strength now either!
MS has ravaged through my body for the past 20 years and it still ravages through my body as I write this post. Even though I cannot partake in the accessibility for a beach, I still want accessibility for wheelchair users who can use it! It’s, just for me, it’s so much more…
I have recently been thinking about a conversation I had with my cousinT, Shannon, and some other people. We were talking about playing instruments and somehow she mentioned that bass players are really cool she kind of pantomimed playing the bass and said that they just are chill and she picked her make-believe bass saying that they are just like, “Bum, Bum, Bum!” I remember that that statement made me laugh but as I watch live U2 music now, that’s totally true! Adam Clayton is the coolest!!! Here are some pictures to prove it:
He is so cool but I can’t forget how much I LOVE BONO!!!:
i’ve got enough love for you too, Adam!!!
U2 – bass player Adam Clayton performing live on the Vertigo Tour at Twickenham Stadium Twickenham UK – 18 Jun 2005 – Photo by: George Chin
Man, these “MS-y” days her coming at me much more often! I don’t think I can handle it! But, the fact is, I have to! It’s a good thing that Big Brother it’s still on point! Adam Clayton is so cool!!!:
He put this picture on his Snapchat story and said, “My Abuela spoils my dog!” But let me just set the record straight and say that it was ME who bought Leia the raincoat! I bought it last year when she first came to us after a Facebook friend and former colleague posted this picture of her Mazzie:
As soon as I saw that picture, I got on Chewy and HAD TO order one for Leia! I don’t have a daughter and I will never be able to buy pink clothes and have them in my house and I hope that grandkids are far off still so as my grand dog, she deserves the best! (and she fills the void). I can buy her pink things!
Leia wasn’t having anything to do with the raincoat last summer and I told Lynn how disappointed I was because she wouldn’t wear it. She told me that it took a while to get Mazzie used to it as well.
So this year, Leia has decided that she dislikes the raincoat LESS then she dislikes the rain! She didn’t go out for walks in the rain last year but now that she’s older, and she will put the raincoat on, and take a walk in the rain. My Mom tells me that she hops over the puddles like a “Little pony.” That is some thing I really would like to see but I can’t believe it because I have seen her hop around the backyard like a pony.
Sean said that it looked like Leia was not having any part of the raincoat! My Mom sent the photo to her sister and my aunt said that we should teach her how to smile. I spent yesterday calling her and saying, “Cheese!,” and smiling. It didn’t work. She didn’t want any part of that either. It’s a work in progress and she’s still young!
I think I need to start off this blog post by saying that my internal clock is completely messed up and I don’t get to bed until about three in the morning so I wake up about noon. Upon waking up, it takes some getting used to to be up and in my chair. As I’m trying to get used to that and get used to how much pain I am going to be in, the level of pain changes from day today and pretty much from hour to hour and if I am being honest, it’s from minute to minute. To wrap my head around all of this, I absentmindedly scroll through my phone, usually on Facebook or Twitter. I saw my nephew post this today and it really made me laugh! I probably would have laughed out loud if I had not just awakened! He posted this meme and tagged my brother (his dad), his brother, and my son. My son‘s comment made me laugh even more.
I remember going to the emergency room on Halloween night while I was seven months pregnant. I didn’t feel well and I didn’t understand what was going on. I had a fever and I spent most of the day on November 1 in and out of coherency. At night, they performed another ultrasound and did some more tests on me.
While I was there, they took a second ultrasound and I was happy to get that picture because my previous ultrasound pictures were ruined. The picture, which was just a profile picture of his head is in a book in my house. In other words, I do not know where it is now. But when the doctor gave me the picture, she told me that his head was in the 95th percentile.
That news shocked me because I was the one who is going to have to give birth to him! I was only seven months pregnant and he had two months to just get bigger. I remember that during my pregnancy, I asked his dad how big he was when he was born. I was 6 lbs. 6 oz. He said that he was about 9 pounds. I saw his birth certificate and he was 9 lbs. 15 oz.. That’s almost a 10 pound baby!!!
I ended up having an emergency C-section on November 2, 2001 at 9:38 a.m. he was only 4 lbs. 11 oz.When his dad‘s brother met him in the hospital, he said that his head looked like it was the size of an orange. He was little and stayed in the hospital for 31 days.
As he grew, my brothers would comment and his head. It was getting kind of large. I told them that his head was in the 95th percentile while I was pregnant with him and he needed somewhere to put all the brains that he had! They would constantly quote So I Married an Axe Muderer:
I had begun to notice that I could not put cute little baby hoodies on him. They did not fit over his head. He wore Zippys and stand. Also, when I would buy his winter coat every year from Target, I would have to look through the hats and gloves section and hide behind and display rack and try the hat on myself. If it fit my head, it would fit his!
For his third Halloween when he was just going to be four, he went trick-or-treating as an, “An Army guy.” We went to Harry’s Army Surplus to get him fatigues. I got him pants and a jacket and I asked the salesman where are the hats. He told me where the kids hats were. I told him that I needed an adult hat, size 7. He looked at me kind of funny and went and got a size 7 hat and opened it up and put it on Sean‘s head just to humor me. He was surprised to find that it fit him! I told him that I used to work in an athletic apparel store and I could gauge the size of peoples heads when they asked for hats.
I never thought that Sean‘s head was overly large, he was just my beautiful baby! It wasn’t until he was running around in my parents’ house with my niece and nephew when I realized that it might be a bit big. The kids were running around and ran behind my Dad’s chair between the back of the chair close to the wall and Sean was running and bringing up the rear. I think that all of the other kids knew enough to crouch down do you fit between the largest Space between the chair and the wall. Well, Sean, being the youngest just ran through the space between the wall and my dad‘s chair. His head got stuck and my brothers still have not let me hear the end of that!
His head size gave him an advantage the first year of wrestling. Because he could use that as leverage to overtake other small wrestlers. My brothers do not let me forget the things they would say about Sean when he was small and his head size but I think he has grown into it nicely! It doesn’t look super big anymore! But his comment on my nephews post made me laugh the most, He wrote, “Feels good to be recognized! My babe! He wears a size 7 1/2 for fitted hats and working in retail, I have seen larger heads.
I am really not sure how to begin this blog post. I guess that I should start with my limitations:
I first need to say that I no longer can regulate my body temperature. I spend my days switching from wearing a hoodie to taking a hoodie off all day long!
Another limitation I have is chewing my food. It has become extremely difficult! So much so that the foods I eat are very limited and I drink my breakfast and lunch every day and I have been doing that for months now. If anyone wants to buy me Atkins shakes, (I would NOT be adverse to it! I drink the Dark Chocolate Royale. Because those bad boys are expensive!) 😜😜😜
Now, with that being said, today was the day that I could answer my Mom’s question in the affirmative. Yes. The answer is yes! Now, let me tell you the question.
A little while ago, I ordered some T-shirts in a size medium. I used to wear size medium when I was 28. I gradually moved up to a large and after I stopped working, I was an extra large for a short time, (NOT that I am proud to admit that!)
As my T-shirts and my sweatshirts we’re getting too baggy for me, my Mom told me to order new T-shirts and a sweatshirt. Over the years, I have found that the nflshop.com and Fanatics.com make excellent sweatshirts and T-shirts. They are comfortable! So, I went on Fanatics.com and looked for some T-shirts because the weather was getting warmer.
Being on disability, I need to make my money stretch! I agreed with my Mom that I needed new T-shirts because they were getting too big for me. So, I looked through this site in the middle of the night a couple months ago.
I graduated from U of M Dearborn and can clearly remember the speaker at my masters degree graduation ending her speech with, “Go Blue Forever!” To tons of cheers from the gym in response. So, saying that I purchased shirts and sweatshirts from either the nflshop.com or fanatics.com, I tend to look at the U of M apparel most. I do, however, buy a shirt from them every year during March Madness to whatever school knocks Michigan State out of the tournament.
For the last two years, they have also knocked Michigan out but I still rock the shirts because they also knocked Michigan State out! Sean tells me that I am petty but I don’t care! We talked about the fact that I have an alma mater and that most of the clothes have a Jordan logo on them.
So, remembering that I am on a fixed income, the fact that vintage Michigan T-shirt with just the word Michigan in maize written across a navy blue shirt was on sale, I bought four of them. I think it was a month later that I bought one sized medium sweatshirt with the same maize lettering and a navy blue sweatshirt.
The question my mom asked me thinking it was absurd was that, ”Are you always going to wear Michigan T-shirts? (Because I have four of the same shirts now and a sweatshirt that looks the same). I was unbothered by the question and I looked at her and matter-of-factly said, “Yes. The answer is, ‘Yes!’” I changed out of a large Michigan sweatshirt and a medium Michigan T-shirt to a clean, medium Michigan sweatshirt and a medium Michigan T-shirt.
I thought about this a lot today regarding this post. I’ve been thinking about it for a while but I remember my colleague and friend telling me that,” you know that you’re old when you keep listening to the same music from your youth.“. Well, I have felt old for a while but then this happened and I’m totally OK with sharing my jams from my youth:
My Mom has told me that I’m not allowed to go gray in her lifetime and I will wait for this hair to get some friends before I will let my hairdresser caokor my hair. She has been dying to put highlights in my hair for years! So now that I am officially, “Old,” I don’t mind sharing these songs because I seriously had forgotten how much good music was on, somgs about Jane:
Continuing with the focus on things that people don’t realize I can no longer do.
I miss, being able to blow my nose.
Something that I realized kind of recently and it makes me sad is that I do not have the strength in my body/lungs to blow my nose anymore. I mean, REALLY blow my nose. It is something that I never realized and now, it makes sense.
I have been told that, “All Rioses sound the same when they blow their nose. I think it was a friend who told me that when I was younger. They were speaking of my immediate family. I remember commenting that, “That’s ’s NOT good because I am the only girl!!” But sadly, it IS true. I sound just like my brothers when I blow my nose! It has been a huge HONK for a long time!
I remember the math teacher from across the hall when I was The Reading Specialist. My classroom/office was located on the second floor and she would laugh every single time I blew my nose and she heard it in her classroom! I also remember telling my students on the first day of class as I gave them the lowdown of being a student in my classroom. I used to tell them that I am going to have to blow my nose a lot and it is loud! I’m not embarrassed! I’m just telling you that because I have to, “Take care a binness!” It would get a laugh on the first day of class but I eventually showed him that it was true!
But now, I do not have enough strength to muster up a good nose flow. I only can blow my nose when I sneeze. Then, the air is forced out of my nose. I have figured out that I sneeze twice and if I don’t catch it one of those two times, very rarely do I get a third shot. I have and keep a folded piece of toilet paper in my possession. Usually in my hoodie pocket in the front.
I can’t have a box of Kleenex around me because as Kleenex get used, I can NOT pull it out of the box easily because I can’t control my hands that much anymore. But, I have always been just a little bit, “Ghetto.” I used to hold a Kleenex box raffle in the beginning of the year to get my students to bring in boxes of Kleenex. And for each box, they would get a ticket. Then, I would ask the class what they wanted for a prize. Usually, it was a large bag of hot Cheetos. I would keep a roll of the one ply toilet paper they had when we ran out of Kleenex and I would tell them that, “If you are not proud, you can use this!“ as I put it on my table. We usually ran out of Kleenex boxes in February.
I was thinking about this with some fondness. I actually sleep with three rolls of toilet paper on my nightstand to use during the night. At least one roll ends up on the floor by my bed every night but sometimes all three end up on the floor! I think it’s crazy that I can no longer do the simplest things. Maybe the word should not be crazy but, “sad” instead. But it makes sense. I can no longer fill my lungs up to sing so why would I have enough strength to fill my lungs up to blow my nose?!
