Sean texted me this morning at about 9:30 with a song suggestion. I set my phone to do not disturb when I go to sleep so did not wake up until about 1 o’clock but when I did, I listened to it! That sentence made me sound super lazy but that’s not the case because my sleep schedule is so messed up was having had a mess for 20 years!
I had a conversation with Sean some years ago, he was driving and I told him that music these days is not good! I told him that I am old now because I prefer listening to music that I listen to when I was growing up and when I was a young adult. He sent me this song using our Apple Music account. This is the song he sent me:
I listen to the song and told him that I liked it. He said that it sounded like the stuff I used to listen to and he thinks that I might like it. I really did like it but my Mom did NOT! I don’t know if you are familiar with this song but I have a listen:
I think it’s pretty cool that Sean and I can share music! He’s known me all of his life so he knows what I like and I really like that he made this suggestion.but I think I just LOVE him!
My Mom took Leia to the vet this morning while I still slept. I awoke to my mom walking into my bedroom telling me the good news: Leia had a blood test this morning and she is cleared from having heartworm any longer!!! I always thought that a heartworm diagnosis was a, “Game Over” for a dogs but I’m so happy to say that Leia, “Grabbed her guts” and pulled through!!!
This whole ordeal was pretty heart wrenching to witness! I texted Sean the good news:
I’m really excited for my Mom though. She will fall right back into taking Leia for a walk easily! She grabs the leash, puts a mask on (for my protection) and goes for at least two, sometimes three walks a day! They told my Mom to start small and gradually increase the length and duration of the walk so she walked all the way down the block today.
I think this year is hitting me a little harder because of Covid. I just miss my Dad! So lately, my Mim and I have been watching, Chef, on Netflix and you know we have watched it multiple times so far! That’s how we work!
There are many things that I like about this movie and I am going to write about 4 things. The first thing I noticed about this movie was this song and I’ve texted it to Sean:
Sean likes this song just like I liked the song he sent to me. It’s kind of like we’re connected or some thing! Like we have been living together for almost 20 years and for all of his life!
So, I really didn’t pay attention to this part of the movie during the song until about May 3 of fourth time watching it. My mind went completely blank and I looked at my Mom and asked for the guy”s name. I knew that it wasn’t Marvin Gaye or Otis Redding but I just didn’t know who it was. I was having a brain fart!
My Mom got up to get the laundry out of the washer from my room. I had renovations done to my house where they knocked a wall down and moved the washer and dryer from where they were to the other side of the house. As she did this, I google searched the song.
I found out that it was Al Green who sang the song. I told that to my Mom but she was in my bedroom pulling clothes out of the washer. I called to her and said that, “Al Green sings it.” I took a little offense to the next thing she asked. She asked me, “Did you say Alvin Green?” (I don’t know if his full name is Alvin but I have only Heard him referred to as, “Al.”
She was on the other side of my house and I waited until she came back to the front room and told her that I was offended said it was Al Green. I told her that I knew his name was Al and then I ended with having her and my Dad as my parents, how can I not know that?!
they both were born and bred in southwest Detroit and they were completely entrenched in Motown growing up!
Saturday is coming closer and I am completely missing my Dad! I don’t know how much of the song the clip from the movie plays so I will add the entire song in this post as well:
Tomorrow’s the day. At 4:17 pm my life change to forever and my world cracked.
I didn’t notice this part of the movie until about the sixth time that I watched it. When I noticed it, I audibly gasped. I can’t NOT notice it now! I will explain after I post the picture. I tried to screenshot the scene from my phone on Netflix but it didn’t allow me to so I had to do it while I watched the movie on my living room TV.
Jon Favereau has a similar build to my Dad in this movie. My Dad didn’t have any tattoos and only wore long sleeve shirts that he would roll the cuffs up to mid-forearm. Sean came home from school one day with his sleeves cuffed like my Dad used to do and I asked him why he did that. Sean told me that it’s more comfortable because his arms are not that long. I started to cry because that is EXACTLY why my Dad cuffed them! I told Sean that the reason he has to do that is because of his, “Ríos genes.” My Dad also only wore polyester blend light blue dress shirts.
Seeing his little hand go around his dad reminded me of doing that when I was that age. My senses were immediately and completely awakened and I instantly knew exactly how soft that shirt felt on his cheek! I thought about it for a little bit longer and I almost could smell my Dad.
So, I have been completely immersed in Sara Bareillis this month. I just keep my Apple Music playlist on shuffle. I Had a lyric stuck in my head and I did not know what song it was from so I searched for it deliberately and I found it! This is the lyric that was stuck in my head;
I actually was reading the lyrics to songs and when I heard this song, it sounded familiar so I read the lyrics and sure enough this is what I kept hearing! It’s from this song;
Listening to Sara all month has been kind of bumming me out because I no longer can sing but then this song also pops into my head and it is true!:
I recently read an article about Montel Williams. I don’t even remember why I started reading it because I don’t like reading information about MS on the Internet Because it is so depressing!
It was a short article and the one thing I remember reading is that Montel Williams drinks 90% of his food. It talked about protein shakes, vitamins and supplements. The article actually made me feel a little bit better. You see, I drink 67% of my food. I have a protein shake for breakfast and 14 shake for lunch. Dinner has begun to get a little more tricky. I’m having difficulty chewing and swallowing food.
I have a swallow study appointment with the speech pathologist. I don’t know what this test really entails but I’ve asked my MS groups and it’s Swallowing things with different Consistencies and I understand that there is barium in whatever I am swallowing. Barium is visible and an x-ray.
This test is taking place on Thursday which I think is going to be a good thing because Thursday is my FAVORITE day of the week! I don’t know if that will have any bearing but I do know that chewing and swallowing has become quite difficult for me now. So, I’m nervous. But, Montel was diagnosed just before me and he is at 90%. I still have some ways to go but this is looking like this will be the the place I am headed.
A friend of mine once explained to me that his dad used to take him opening weekend to see a movie after his parents’ divorce. I thought that was an excellent idea to make good memories with Sean as my physical abilities were diminishing.
Sean and I would seeA LOT of movies and its opening weekend! We would see previews for upcoming movies and instead of having him choose between two, we would have a, “Movie Marathon.”
A, “Movie Marathon” is when we would see two movies at the theater in one day. We would see the first movie earlier in the day at about 9 o’clock a.m.when tickets were discounted! We then would eat movie theater food, refill our popcorn, and then watch a second movie. I would buy the tickets to both movies in the morning when we got there so we could just eat our lunch and go to our second movie. We would get to the movie theater when the sun was just rising and the sun was setting when we left.
I think we may have only had three or four marathons before my abilities diminished too much for me to drive and to go see movies.
We still talk about it today! I have told Sean that it was fun growing up with him! Just today, we were talking on the phone and he mentioned some kid show he used to watch that WE would watch together. He was five and we just got into our second apartment when I could afford to get cable TV. He wanted to watch Nickelodeon and Teen Nick but he was still just six years old so I decided that I would watch the shows with him to just kind of make sure it was okay content for him to watch. We would watch TV together at night.
I became completely involved with all of the shows we were watching and like I was a child. We were just laughing about one of the TV shows today because I remembered the episode he was talking about!
I definitely have TONS of memories with Sean because I have never had a lot of money as a teacher and single mom but we made it work. I will say though, there was one Christmas that was a really cool! I got Sean the Tri Bot!!! That was pretty cool to have that memory on top of all of our other memories!
This is my favorite picture of me and Sean because I can’t find a picture of Tri Bot right now but I updated my post and I have since found it but I still love this picture of us, my Mom took it and we were at Barwis! 💜
I had my swallow test today. It went pretty well but there are a few caveats that I will expound upon tomorrow because I am WORN OUT from the heat and having to be outside!
I’m not sure if it’s the rain or me recovering from my day out of the house yesterday but I realized as I listened to music and scrolled through Twitter that so much of my life is passing me by…
I saw the Tweet which made me so sad!
Did I really miss Nate‘s sendoff?! The show that I IMMEDIATELY came to LOVE and it got me through time off work because of my knee injury and subsequent recovery from surgery.
But I think the REAL downside of being diagnosed so young (I was 18 and 7 months after my high school graduation and not even complete with my first semester of college) is that 20+ years in, it hurts so much and SO MUCH of my life has passed me by!
I had a conversation with someone once about the need to have, “A person” (Grey’s Anatomy reference) and the fact that I don’t want to involve anyone or expose them to my misery and hardships.
And I’ve really been hearing this song often during my Sara Bareilles immersion:
There is NO, “You” because MS has made sure of it and that’s a very sad realization end it emotes tears on my part!
