Joyful Rebellion: How Jenna Transformed Life with a Disability Through Music and Advocacy

Now, what I want you to understand when you hear her story, that it's more about disability.

It's much more than that.

Because Jenna is here to share a story today that's about courage, about resiliency, about rising above the assumptions of others.

So if you've ever felt unseen, underestimated, maybe underappreciated.

And whether that's come from the outside world or from your own self-criticism, today, my friend, is made for you.

This is episode 410 of Great Grace and Inspiration.

And me, I'm your host, Kevin Lowe, a guy on a mission to use this podcast as a way to inspire the world.

And yes, that includes you to never give up on life, even when it may feel like life is giving up on you.

My friend, if it's tough, just realize it's temporary.

That there's so much more life to live.

So if you can take anything away from this podcast, it's that I want you to thrive in life.

And if you're not thriving right now, because trust me, I get it, life is messy.

Rarely ever does it go like we planned.

I just want you to realize that sometimes we just have to have the courage to keep going one more day.

This, my friend, is my interview with Jenna Utenberg.

I hope you enjoy.

And more than ever, I hope that it means something to you, does something for you.

And if at the end of the day you feel all kind of good because of it, well, be sure to share today's episode with somebody you love and who you know could benefit from hearing the message as well.

So with that, here it is, my interview with Jenna Utenberg.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I got Grit Grayson Inspiration on my mind.

SPEAKER_01: What's going on, and welcome back to Grit Grace and Inspiration.

I'm your host, Kevin Lowe, in the studio today with none other than Jenna Utenberg.

Jenna, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_05: Thanks for having me, Kevin.

SPEAKER_01: Oh, Jenna, I'm I'm excited for us to reconnect.

I'm excited for us to get to really dive into your story today.

And of course, I mean, it would be kind of silly to start a story like at the end, so we might as well start at the beginning.

And I would love to know before medical issues ever enter the picture into your life, what do you remember from those early childhood years?

SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I remember loving hanging out with my grandma and grandpa on my mom's side.

I remember like my first memory, it was losing her coveted ginger snap in the crack of her sidewalk when she was babysitting me and we were out playing with bouncy balls.

And this was like circa probably like 1984, 83.

I was three or four years old at that time.

I remember loving pink corduroy type pants, which I do not like pink or purple in this genre of life, but I did then, so go me.

I loved being out in the fishing boat with my dad and my brother and my grandpa and an older neighbor, not all at the same time, because we'd probably sink our little fishing boat, but multiple times by ourselves.

I loved playing with the minnows in the cooler.

I loved the fact that I always would tease my dad and any fishing partners that if they took a shower that day, we would not catch any fish.

And it was almost always true.

And I always would play with a line, and we were in Big Lake Superior, right?

So these are like big northerns, big fish, you know, not just like little panfish, sunfish kind of things.

And I would wrap my little tiny finger and I'd pull it in and out and go, here, fishy, fishy, fishy, fishy.

And my dad and brother are like, if a northern gets that line, you're gonna lose your finger.

And I'd be like, I don't, I don't know what that means here.

Fishy, fishy, fishy.

So yeah, and I remember driving uh snowmobiles when we were out ice fishing on inland lakes, and uh I thought that was fun, but you always had to watch out for all the different fishing holes because yeah, that'd be really bad.

SPEAKER_04: Yes.

SPEAKER_05: I remember once shooting a rifle with my dad and brother there, of course.

So we were always, you know, safety, but and this was probably after diagnosis because I was much older, but still it was like, Oh, never doing that again.

That really hurt the shoulder.

And riding on three wheelers, and I thought my cousin Pat was the coolest cousin ever because he was the closest in age to me, and he let me play with sparklers on one fourth of July at their cabin.

So he is cool, cousin Pat.

Yes, so yeah, so I I come from a very large family, so I remember family gatherings of like 20 to 40 people for holidays.

I'm the baby of 20 grandkids on one side and 25 on the other.

I'm late in life for my parents.

So I have a brother that's 16 years older, and a sister that's 15 years older, and another sister that's 12 years older.

So I'm like the baby and the only child all at once.

So wow.

Wow.

That's kind of me in a nutshell.

SPEAKER_01: Wow.

Okay, so we we got a really good snapshot from from the things that matter, like losing the ginger snap in the sidewalk crack.

SPEAKER_05: It's all about the food, Kevin.

SPEAKER_01: Yes, to the to the fact that you are the baby of a ginormous family.

That that is crazy.

That is insane.

Yes, very big family.

Yeah, yes.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah, my uh my biological grandfather on my dad's side had 13 siblings.

So if anybody says Udenberg, yes, I'm related to all of them, but I have absolutely no idea how.

SPEAKER_01: So there's that.

Okay, I love it.

I love it.

Oh my gosh.

Well, you said something in that story when you talked about uh shooting a gun, and you talked about it hurting your shoulder so bad.

Was that leading up to you guys beginning to find out that something was wrong?

SPEAKER_05: No, that would have probably been about six, seven years after diagnosis.

SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_05: But you know, still trying to be that Tom girl.

I can hop on a three-wheeler, all the things, right?

SPEAKER_00: So yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: And then I went, nope, I'm definitely not a Tom girl anymore.

So yeah.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

So talk to me then about what happened as far as leading up to the diagnosis.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so I was just a typical little seven-year-old girl.

The story goes that the family went ice skating at a local flooded park in our little rural town.

And the night before I had somehow fallen.

And I don't remember any of this.

This is just a story that I've heard many, many times.

So the next morning, I was a little first grader and getting ready for first grade and taking a bubble bath and our golden rod from the late 70s tub.

And my right knee floated to the top and popped out of the bubbles, and it was it was big.

It was like bigger than the size of an American softball.

And then I like, of course, made my left knee float up to the top, and that was like a little girl knee, you know, smaller than a tennis ball.

And so, like any good little girl, what did I do?

I yelled for my mommy.

And so my dad had served on our volunteer ambulance squad for many years, and he's like, Yep, we need to get her to the doctor.

And so they took me to my pediatrician, and he was like, Yeah, she probably has water on the knee.

And my dad's like, uh, after all my years on the ambulance, I know my daughter is not an all-star athlete because she's only seven.

So I don't think this is water on the knee.

So they brought me to another local family doctor, and he's like, Yep, you she probably has juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, but we need to send you to Duluth, which is the next biggest city on Lake Superior.

And I met a rheumatologist there, and at that time it was 1988, so that's when Lyme's disease, a tick-borne disease, was coming new to the scene.

And he's like, I can diagnose you, but because of Lyme's disease, we have to send you to the Mayo clinic to rule out Lyme's disease and like get the official diagnosis.

So I don't know, I'm assuming it was in a matter of weeks because once Mayo hears about rare err cases, they try to get you in right away.

And that was a pretty traumatic-filled experience because they had to go like pretty much from head to toe of every test you can imagine.

And the the one that stands out the most to me, and I kind of still remember this guy's face, is I had to have a barium treatment before having like x-rays or a CT, or I don't really know what the procedure was, but I just remember I had to drink the barium stuff, which was disgusting.

And I am a very texture-based person.

So if you try to hide something in my food, Kevin, my tongue will know and it will not like it.

So trying to drink barium as a seven-year-old was disgusting.

And this guy like got in my face, and he's like, You are making me behind, little girl.

You need to drink this and knock it off.

And needless to say, my dad stepped in, and that guy never bothered me again.

So, yeah.

And then I remember being at a very fancy restaurant, and this is all in my book as well.

But I remember watching my mom crush these aspirin that this other doctor had told my mom that, you know, you have to get these in your kid right now.

So she's sitting there with spoons crushing them, and I remember looking at her, and I was kind of a little, mm-mm.

And she was like, You will take these.

And I'm like, oh no, I won't.

And she's like, Yes, you will.

And I'm gonna put them in your potatoes.

And I'm like, no, my tongue's not gonna like that.

I will puke them up.

And she's like, if you know what's good for you, and then dad gave me the look of like, you need to do this.

I'm like, okay.

Sure enough, half hour later, all I remember is like this Matre D who is in a suit, which I had never been in that fancy of a restaurant before, is like walking over and I leaned over out of my chair, and yep, on the nice carpeting floor.

Yep.

I I I follow through on my promises or threats because my tongue, it wins.

So very, very interesting memories.

And then, of course, at Mayo, especially at that time, a lot of the doctors I saw at that time, you know, English was their second language, which is totally fine and cool.

But as a little kid, you're like trying to figure out like through accents, like, what are they saying?

And then they're using ginormous medical terms.

So it's just like you're speaking two different foreign languages at the same time, and I don't know what's happening, but I see my mom getting tyria, or I see dad getting all uncomfortable, but then they gave me lots of lollipops and stickers.

So I was like, is this a good thing?

Is this a bad thing?

I don't know what's going on.

Please stop messing with my food.

So yeah, that was Jenna getting diagnosed in 1988.

SPEAKER_01: Wow.

Now what would end up being the final diagnosis?

SPEAKER_05: At that time, it was juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.

But in recent years, probably in the last decade, they finally figured out that our disease cycle doesn't follow the rheumatoid cycle like older adults typically get.

So now they either just call it juvenile arthritis or they call it juvenile idiopathic arthritis, which was so relieving for me as an adult because I'm like, every time I went to rheumatology or orthopedic surgeons, they're like, hey, a plus b equals C.

And I'd be like, you put your little medical book away because this body is not A plus B equals C.

It's like Q times the square root of S cubed to, you know, whatever.

Like it, my body is just its own entity.

And it took decades for my medical team to finally realize that and then go, all right, Jenna, let's have a discussion with this body of yours.

And like let's incrementally try things, not let's throw a book at it because it's it's not gonna do what the book tells us.

SPEAKER_01: So yes, yes.

Now talk to me, I guess, a bit more about this medical condition as far as what exactly does it mean as far as implications?

Because obviously we think of just simple arthritis.

Like I always remember as a kid, you know, everybody telling you, don't crack your knuckles, you're gonna get arthritis, you know.

Yeah.

So talk to me, what exactly is this condition?

I mean, what does it do to your body?

SPEAKER_05: Yeah.

So as a kid, I always had to describe it to my peers because they're like, oh, you have a disease.

You're contagious.

And I'm like, no, I'm not like a dead bird.

You can still touch me.

You're not gonna get what I have, right?

And then eventually I started explaining it like, well, you know, your immune system keeps you healthy, right?

So like you can fight off a cold and you're good within a couple of days.

And my peers would be like, Yeah, that makes sense.

I'm like, well, my immune system's kind of screwed up.

So instead of it seeing the cold and fighting that, my immune system says, Ooh, look at this joint cartilage over here.

That's a foreign body.

I need to eat that.

That looks like it's gonna hurt me.

And so then that helped my peers understand, like, oh, that's why Jenna's not walking this year in elementary school, or this is why Jenna's using a chair more, or oh, that's why she's using crutches because her disease is better and not eating her.

Kind of a bad analogy for kids to understand.

But then it wasn't until, I don't know, probably about a decade ago, I had a rheumatology physician assistant.

And she's like, you know, I bet people have always told you that your immune system is like dormant, right?

And I'm like, well, yeah, because everybody says I'm always immunocompromised, so therefore, like when I get a cold, it lasts for like four to six weeks.

No joke.

So that was just tricky for people to understand, and even for myself, like, why is this taking forever?

And then she's like, Well, actually, your autoimmune system is like on overdrive, so it's so busy eating and doing all these other things that it kind of just misses all these big things that it should be fighting against because it's always fighting.

So that's why I've been on uh methotrexate most of my life and prenazone, because it's that fine balance of like we need her immune system to be healthy and do the things, but we've got to make it a little bit more dormant, which is more of like the cancer type medications like methaltrexate.

And so it's just been an interesting dance of like, how do I understand this myself?

How do I explain it to others?

And then, like, what medications am I okay with?

And uh, thankfully, my parents were really wise in giving me the responsibility of making life decisions for myself by age 15, because that's when I started my medical journey of having orthopedic surgeries.

And early, early on, probably when I was eight or nine, a year or two after diagnosis, I had a PT that said, fair warning, mom and dad, your daughter now has a target on her, and there are good intentioned people that are gonna be like, hey, we can help her and we'll do it for free, and we'll do it all through surgery.

And he said, once she starts surgery, her body will always need surgery.

And so I was so thankful that we didn't jump into all the surgeries, and I didn't start until I was age 15, because then I started having surgery every six, nine, and 12 months.

So my body could never fully heal before the next one would come.

And then sometimes a surgery would trigger a flare-up of the arthritis.

And I was dealing with asthma because you know, lots of the medications caused other things.

I have scoliosis because I wasn't weight-bearing during a lot of my formative years, and I have osteoporosis.

So it's like I always say that I'm the osis and is girl with all my diagnoses, and then later on in life I got diabetes.

So I'm like, uh oh no, I've got EDs in there too.

But, you know, so it's it's just an interesting compounding circle of things.

So even when people ask, you know, like, well, so how is this part of your diagnosis going?

And it's like, well, all of them are swinging targets and all of them have different thresholds.

So the symptom I could be having could be from this, or it could be from that, or it could be from this, or it could be from that.

So yeah, it's all all complex and all connected.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, wow, wow.

Now, as a child, when this diagnosis came through, things start to progress.

How would it impact your life?

SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so I was in a wheelchair by age eight.

So within a year of diagnoses, I was already a wheelchair user.

Got to rent an army green old hospital chair that was a pediatric size.

Not fun, not cool in any way, shape, or form.

SPEAKER_04: No.

SPEAKER_05: My family lived in a split-level entry home.

So there's five steps to get up to the main level where my bedroom and bathroom and kitchen and all the things were, and then like a half flight of stairs downstairs to the playroom and laundry and my other siblings' bedrooms.

So my mom and my dad and my oldest sister, who moved home after college, had to lift me up all of those stairs, up and down every time to go to school, to go to medical.

I wanted to go and play with neighborhood friends.

Uh eventually, my dad and probably my uncle and some other friends helped him take out a window in our kitchen.

And so now we have a ramp and an entry uh out of the side of our house.

And that was probably, I don't know, five, six years after being in my chair, I would say.

But yeah, because you know at that time it was like, well, she could go into remission at any time.

And it's like, with how devastating that disease just took over the body because it went from my right knee to my left ankle to my right hip.

I mean, I felt like a game of Tetris.

It was like, we are just playing catch up and we don't know where the next thing is, and then it went to my right elbow, and then it went to, you know, it was just every other body part.

And then of course you'd compensate.

So then the other sides would get all pissy because it was doing too much work compared to the other sore stuff.

So lots of pain, lots of heat, lots of swelling, lots of tears, lots of tears hiding away because I wasn't a very demonstrative little kid.

I wanted to keep it to myself.

And I had friends throughout the whole thing.

I mean, I think that's the most resilient part of that story is like, you know, I always had good friends, I've always had a great support system.

And yet, you know, my parents really made our house kind of be my hub because I couldn't go to my friends' houses for sleepovers or parties or birthday parties.

And at that time, you know, it was just before the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed.

And even though it was passed in July of 1990, by the time it really had a ripple effect up to northern Minnesota and rural Minnesota, even today, there's a lot of spaces that aren't accessible.

So as a kid, it was like, ooh, come to the pool party because Jenna can come to the hotel.

And it's like, oh, well, you missed that ginormous step because there's no curb cut to get into the hotel.

Or does Jenna really want to do all the work to get to the pool party, but she can't get in the pool?

So how fun is that?

And yeah, so you know, just struggles.

But I again, when you're a kid and and you don't know anything different in life, you know, like I said earlier, I have memories of my childhood and walking and running and, you know, doing cartwheels and all the things kids do.

I have those memories, but when I was going through it, I don't remember that I was like, I can't do that, or I'm pissed about it, you know.

Like I'm sure there was moments of it, but I don't know that I ever had huge things as a young kid.

When I was 15, I went through a big depression because I was going through lots of medical stuff.

And so, you know, I had a plan for suicide, and that's a whole nother area, if you want to get into or not.

But, you know, that was the biggest time that I was definitely seeing what others could do and what I couldn't do, and the pain became too much.

SPEAKER_01: Wow.

Wow.

Yeah.

Well, we we will definitely circle back to that.

But before we get even that far along in your childhood, I know that I think it was maybe in sixth grade when the trumpet entered your life.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

Talk to me about how that began and and the love for it, none other than the trumpet.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so you know, like I said, I was a baby by a lot.

And so my brother was big in hunting and fishing, had nothing to do with band or choir.

My two other sisters, my oldest sister played the cornet, which is like, I don't want to say the baby version of the trumpet.

It's just built differently than the trumpet, but it's in the trumpet family.

And then my other sister played the flute, and I was like, mmm, the flute is too girly and too small.

So I will go with the trumpet because we have one here, and we'll we'll see how it goes.

But then my my good friends, they were more cool than me, and they were playing saxophone and drums and clarinet, and I was like, I have the coronet.

unknown: Okay.

SPEAKER_05: Well, in sixth grade, my right elbow was starting to fuse from the arthritis.

So my elbow eventually didn't fuse all the way straight, but it didn't fuse like at 90.

So it's somewhere in between 90 and 180.

And so during that time, I was like, hey, this friend plays a saxophone.

A saxophone uses a neck strap.

Maybe if I tie a shoelace around the big part of the coronet, that could help it keep some of the weight off my elbow that's fusing.

And instead of trying to play right-handed, how about I use my left fingers to move the valves?

Well, we had a pretty nationally and internationally known music educator as our beginning band teacher, and he was a trumpet player.

And I will always remember, I loved him, don't get me wrong.

But he came to me one day and he said, just so you know, there's no such thing as a left-handed trumpet player.

And you don't tell an Udenberg that they can't do anything.

So again, love them, love them, but you know, put this in your pipe and smoke it.

And yeah, I just went for it.

And so by eighth grade, he had retired, and uh a new younger female Spitfire little short band director came in.

And uh she yeah, complete pivot in my whole life and world.

So she figured out that, hey Jenna, you're just listening to others play this, and then you're playing it well, but you have no idea how to read rhythm.

And okay, Jenna, well, now you're kind of outgrowing this cornet.

You need to like invest in a real trumpet and like do all the things because you're actually really good at what you're doing.

And so then the high school director at that time kind of got involved, and he's like, Yeah, you have to have a real trumpet.

You're you're gonna you're gonna go far, you're gonna do things, and we're gonna invest in you.

So, like, you need to invest in yourself.

And then that's when my depression happened and all the things, but music and band was the whole thing for me to come out of that, and that was my even playing field.

Like as a eighth grader, I was, you know, a joint lead trumpet player in ninth grade.

I was the only freshman to be playing first trumpet.

I was being groomed to become the lead trumpet of not only our high school band, but also the jazz band.

I was being groomed into becoming the bugler for our city.

So anytime there's a veteran military funeral, I was called upon and and a few others to go and play a taps, which is an ultimate honor to give to our veterans and their families.

And so just, you know, crazy open doors opened.

My eighth-grade band teacher, I mean, was just instrumental in all of that because she privately used her car to get me to and from honor bands and honor jazz bands and to state contests in high school and played piano for me and just all the things.

I mean, like unheard of things, right?

Like in schools today, I hope in the United States of America, there are not teachers breaking liability rules in our current world, you know, to bring people in their private vehicles to spaces because school districts don't have enough accessible transportation to get all of their students to all of the things that they need to be a part of.

And at that time, too, we had to move different locations because the bandrum was not accessible in our high school.

So I actually ended up putting hairline fractures in my femurs, so in my leg bone just above my knee, because the track chair that they used to get me down the flight of stairs and back up would always miss a step every third step.

So as my body would get that jolt, my body's way of compensating was slowly making a fracture above my knee.

And the doctors didn't know that my knees were fully fused until they got me out on the table, thinking they were just gonna do an orthoscopy one day.

And they woke me up and I was like, hey, this is great.

I'm awake, this is awesome.

And the surgeon was like, uh, Jenna, we just put you out and did some scans.

There was no surgery involved, and you need to stay in the hospital for three days because your bone structure is so small, we don't have joint replacements your size to then go in and you know actually give you a knee replacement.

And so, with that, the school district ended up putting our band over at our elementary school at that time, and that caused a big riff for some of the teachers of like, why are we uprooting our whole school schedule because of this one kid?

Why are we uprooting where band is because of this one kid?

And so I heard some of these stories later in life when I came back as a music teacher in our district, not necessarily always when I was a kid, because my teachers that really were great advocates for me were protecting me, but interesting to hear the stories nonetheless, because you just think, oh, that's other places.

Nobody would say that about me and my family.

And that is also the fuel that keeps me going today in the work that I do because I don't want a child or a family to go through any of the things that me and my family have gone through.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

Wow.

You know what?

It's it always takes stories like this that that bring out both the best and the worst in people, you know, and focusing on the people like that eighth grade music teacher, like applause to her and applause to all of those who who saw you, who saw this this child, this little girl who is limited in so many other ways, but there's one way that she can stand out, and it's something that she's great at.

And they bent over backwards to be sure that you got that opportunity.

SPEAKER_00: Right.

SPEAKER_01: I think that's that's absolutely amazing.

Now, one question I want to have is when they said that there could not be a left-handed trumpet player, I assume that's because the just the way a trumpet is designed, it's meant to be played right-handed.

Is that correct?

SPEAKER_05: Yeah, there's some mechanics of it, and like you have a third valve slide that you need to throw out to do some tuning.

And so I did have to work with a local instrument repair person, but he was just phenomenal.

We're like, yeah, we just take this thing and we add another extra little metal part, and then we put a divot in it so the screw will like go into the divot, and then you can use your right hand, which I call my hook because it's the long hand, and you can do a hook shot with it in a wheelchair basketball.

So that's why it's called the hook.

Not that I'm acting like, you know, Peter Pan and Captain Hook.

Nope, nope, nope.

It's the hook shot basketball.

And uh, so anyway, so then my hook could trigger that while my left hand played.

And then also as a left-handed trumpet player, you have the bell going through your hand, so it's like uh the tube gets bigger in your left hand as you're playing instead of being more nimble with this really small lead pipe in your right hand if you're a right-handed trumpet player.

So they're just things I had to get through and accommodate.

And then when my wrists and shoulders became impacted, then I worked with people to make a wooden trumpet stand, and eventually I had a metal one that could telescope in and out for different heights depending on my day and my posture and that kind of stuff.

So you know, where there's a will, there's a way, and where you have people that just see you as a human being and they they want to come alongside you and they're amazing allies and use their skills to make your life easier, you know, it's a win-win.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.

That's that's absolutely awesome.

Well, you spoke to it earlier about going through a period of of bad depression.

Would you mind talking to us a little bit about that section of of this time in your life?

SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I was 15, I believe.

Yeah, I was 15.

And I don't remember a lot.

I remember that I was stuck in my bed for days on end, just battling the pain.

I think I was in a severe flare-up.

Again, that would have been when my knees were fusing.

I just bought my trumpet.

That was the one trigger I remember, you know, because when you're in those head spaces, anybody that's trying to make you think positively or feel better about yourself, you know.

Sorry, mom, but you know, she got the brunt of it.

And I remember very vividly one day she's like, but you just got your new trumpet and you can get back to band and like go and flip and sell it.

I want nothing to do with that.

And like, I think that was her trigger of like, oh, this is this is real.

There's something else going on with my kid.

It's not just a bad day or a sore day.

Like, there's there's stuff.

And again, this would have been like in 1995.

So talking about mental health wasn't really a thing.

I mean, like, my rheumatologist would check on me from time to time, but that was such a taboo stigma world or word, I should say.

You know, you just kind of lied about it.

Like, nope, I'm good.

Nope, I'm I'm your good little soldier.

Nope, I'm I'm fine.

But yeah, wasn't.

And so, yeah, I had a plan to collect all my medications and I was gonna try to overdose, which in hindsight is like, I really wasn't on that great of meds that would have even done anything.

But when you're in that mental state, I didn't really know that, right?

And then I had a backup plan of I was gonna somehow get myself thrown down the path flight of stairs in the split entry to then throw myself down the main set of stairs down to the basement.

And then I was somehow gonna log roll over to my dad's gun cabinet and somehow, you know, climb the gun cabinet to get the key and and all those things.

Like that was my backup plan, which again, it just shows how much pain and not logical thinking, you know, was going on there.

But it was just like I just needed relief.

I just wanted a way out.

And during that part, you know, my dog was suffering from cancer and arthritis and all of that.

And so my family member came to put him out of his misery.

And I remember laying in bed hearing that all happened and wishing that he would come and put me out of my misery.

But then I remembered my faith, and I remembered growing up in the church, and I remember all those things, and I remember crying out and just saying, nope, there's more to life than what I'm currently experiencing, and I can't do this on my own.

And so I remember that that day of coming to faith because then the next day was the Oklahoma City bombing.

And it was also a time when a big event had happened in a dear friend's life, and another friend, a peer of mine, had called and said, Hey, this person's house was lost to fire.

And we don't know how she's doing.

We know that she's fine, but yeah, we knew that you needed to know.

And so, yeah, like those big things helped, I don't want to say snap me out of it because it that's not how depression works.

But it was a great deep heart and spiritual thing for me to be like, nope, I have to get myself out of this bed, I have to get to this physical space where I can check on this person who means the world to me.

And also, like, there's these huge national atrocities that happened, right?

And like the human spirit is stronger than those evil things that are trying to take different parts of us down.

So yeah.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: How long would it be before you would ever tell anyone about those plans that you had?

SPEAKER_05: That's a great question.

I remember writing that person whose house burned down a letter probably a year or two later.

I I was, like I said earlier, you know, I was always that like hidden kid.

So if you got a letter from Jenna, you knew like, uh-oh, we're getting something.

Because, you know, here's here's her word.

She doesn't talk a lot unless you get me going, like today, right?

I I can talk a lot, but at that time, before introvertedness was like a talked-about thing, like I was totally living it.

Like, I will sit and I will ruminate and I will wordsmith, and because words are important, right?

But having those deep conversations that wasn't something in our family culture or even in our city region culture, you know, Scandinavian folks, we're we're pretty stoic.

You keep you keep your cards close to your heart.

But yeah, something started breaking in me, and I knew I needed to share that story.

And you know, it's kind of like those things where it's like you just tiptoe out, and like if it's okay and they accept you, then you tiptoeed out a little more, and then ooh, maybe the ball of my foot gets to touch the water, you know, like just very incremental in that trusting space and in those safe worlds.

So I don't think I really shared all of this until writing my book two years ago.

So that was definitely hard, and I know it was really hard for my family members to read and a lot of stuff that they had no idea about, but it makes sense in hindsight why they really didn't know a lot of what was going on because I hid it so well.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

Wow.

Would you ever pick the trumpet back up?

SPEAKER_05: It is a humbling piece of metal, let me tell you.

Throughout the last year, I have been picking it up.

So I I played all the way through.

I was in our city band, I went to college, I got my double degree, you know, taught music for 19 years.

The pandemic made it hard.

I miss playing in ensembles, I miss having those abilities.

I did brush it off last Memorial Day and played taps for a local ceremony, but that's what I miss the most.

I miss using those gifts and talents to bless others.

I miss being on worship teams, playing my trumpets.

I miss just, you know, making those relationships through music.

But yeah, so I have been picking up my trumpets.

I live in an apartment, so that makes it a little harder too when you're an arrogant lead trumpet player mentality who wants to play quietly, right?

So I have a good friend who lets me come and play in her garage, and I call it the garage mahal because it's a heated garage, so I can go play there in the winter and in the summer and all the things.

So that's been a blessing, but yeah, I also need to do it for my health, and this was the fun part sharing in the book was my rheumatologist that I had since childhood would always be like, so what are you playing?

Or when's your next concert?

And then it took like decades for him to tell me that he's actually a jazz pianist.

So I had always hoped to go and see him at a gig, but that didn't happen, and he's since retired.

But I didn't know that he was asking about my trumpet playing because that was a way of him making sure not only about my mental health, but about my lung capacity, about how much all of the mechanics around my spine, how that was impacting my scoliosis and my strength, and you know, all the things.

And now that I've crossed over the age of 45 and the lovely natural decay is happening, you know, woo-hoo, here we go, more thresholds to cross.

I am seeing uh a PT that does the Schroff method for spoliosis.

And so now she's like, oh, trumpet player.

Yep, you're an arrogant one.

Yeah, you need to, yeah.

Have you been playing your trumpet?

I'm like, no, it's so humbling to sit and play hot cross buns when it used to be like a semi-pro like level player.

Like, you know, you know what?

Yes.

So yeah, I am I am playing hot cross buns again, Kevin, and I'm doing all the the things that I taught my beginners for years, but it's fun.

Yeah, that's what matters.

SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.

Well, that I I love to hear that so much.

Well, before we kind of can proceed like with your story, I wanted to ask you a couple of things that when preparing for our interview, and that is that you say that you feel like disability is not a bad word that I feel like in society today people maybe hesitate to use the term disability.

Would you speak to that?

SPEAKER_05: Uh I would say it's taken me a long time to get to this point, right?

Because even though I've been disabled more years than I wasn't, I really grew up in the very abled culture.

I grew up rural.

There were other kiddos that were in wheelchairs or used crutches or walkers, but I was kind of that trailblazer of being fully mainstreamed, I can think of the word there for a second, fully mainstreamed academically.

So that was some of the struggles that I faced with teachers, because they were just like, oh, you're IEP kid.

You belong in this space.

Why are you out here?

You shouldn't be out here, you should be over here.

And so, as if my wheelchair and my hook and you know, my physical being already didn't other me in people's perspective, then it was all those other stigmas and all the things that we've done by trying to label to understand the disability community.

You know, and I and I get it, right?

I'm an educator, so you know, a kindergartner shows up and you say, This is a blue crayon, Johnny.

This is a red crayon, Johnny.

There's the label, that's blue, that's red, right?

So there's Kevin.

Kevin is blind.

There's Jenna.

Jenna uses a wheelchair, there's Sally, Sally, you know, whatever the label is, right?

So I get that we need labels to understand the world around us, but our labels don't define us.

So for me, I am a proud, disabled female.

And I when I say proud, I don't mean it in the slimy things that some people say when they say proud or pride.

I mean I'm no longer allowing other people's negative connotations to define who I am.

So I know that I deserve to have a space at the table.

I know that I and other people like me deserve to be stakeholders.

I know that my story and other people's stories, similar or different than mine, all belong in this huge, amazing tapestry of life to be shared, to be valued, to be listened to, and to be appreciated and to be acted upon.

And so when I say disability is not a bad word, for me, I'm tired after being in a chair for 38 years.

I am tired of infantizing or making people feel like they're younger or less than because other people feel uncomfortable saying that Jenna is disabled.

Jenna has arthritis, Jenna can't walk for long periods of time or space.

You know, like I just say I'm disabled.

Jenna doesn't like the word handicap.

I have never played real golf a day in my life, and I do not know what my handicap is when it comes to golf.

I also don't usually use like my favorite at one of the schools I used to teach at is it said disabled toilet on the door.

And I'm like, huh, I wonder what disability the toilet has.

SPEAKER_01: Yes.

SPEAKER_05: Is it not able to flush today?

Is it not like what what?

I don't understand, right?

And my other sister worked with me at the time.

And so then she was like quickly went in her office and like made a like accessible bathroom sign to put over the sign that said disabled toilet.

But, anyways, right?

And so also for listeners, like, you know, I am in culture and I'm out of culture as well.

So, like, yes, politically correct, I am a person with a disability.

Put the person first.

But when I'm in disability culture and disability community, I am a disabled female.

I'm a disabled human.

Like, it is a part of me.

And so even when my nearest and dearest friends are like, Jenna, I picked this place and I'm so sorry, I don't see your wheelchair anymore.

We've had many conversations because it's like, well, honey, thank you, in one aspect, because you're, you know, like you're thinking that's a compliment, but here's the other side of what you just said.

And especially when I'm an accessibility educator and a disability activist and advocate, like, how do you not see my chair?

Right.

Yes.

But but I get it, right?

Like, I hear Kevin's voice.

I'm like, Kevin is like whatever I'm imagining from the images I've seen of you.

Like, you know what I mean?

Like, I haven't seen you in community because we know each other from the phone and from this video call, right?

Yes.

So it's like, I I understand because I've done that to others as well.

Of like, oh, that's right, you're disabled.

Okay, I forget about, you know, like, oh, accommodations and like all the things.

But yeah, just the other flip side is like, please don't stop seeing my disability, because that is a part of me.

It doesn't define me, but it is a part of me and it's made me who I am.

And so when non-disabled people are like, oh my gosh, wouldn't you like to go back to like that that day on the ice rink?

And who knows if that even caused it, right?

It could have just been a whatever, not a mistake.

That's not the right word, but I can't think of the word.

Coincidence.

There we go.

And it's like, no, because I I don't know who I'd be without it.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: You know, like this is me, this is life, and uh it's important to share our story because nobody gets to live everybody else's life.

So we need to share our stories so people can grow and becoming a better human by embracing other stories.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: Wow, wow, wow, wow.

Jenna, your your mindset, your your viewpoint on your situation, on your disability, it's truly uh only there because you're somebody who's lived it.

You've locked it.

This isn't something new, it's not something out of the ordinary.

It's like me.

I've been black.

For over 20 years.

It's just part of life and you get used to it.

And what I would love to know is when you went into college.

So getting out of high school, we're going into college, did things get easier, better, both like your mental health as well as even just the accessibility of college or the ease of just being a student.

Was there any difference?

SPEAKER_05: Oh, I wish I could tell you that I went and you know there was unicorns and rainbows and not a rain cloud in the sky, but yeah, no.

unknown: No.

SPEAKER_05: I wish, Kevin.

Let's be honest.

Yes.

You know, you just kind of traded things.

So I lived on my own in a dorm for the first two years.

Within the first quarter, my roommate pretty much got relocated out of my room because their style of keeping things clean didn't fit with a wheelchair.

So yeah.

Can't have piles of clothes on the floor because Jenna can't get around to the places she needs to get to.

Can't, you know, leave this year because that just doesn't work.

And we're still friends till this day, so life was good, but you know, just interesting things you learn.

SPEAKER_02: Yes.

SPEAKER_05: You know, being a music major was it's a it's a ruthless schedule.

Every day you were supposed to be up by 6 a.m.

You were supposed to be practicing for an hour or two before your 8 a.m.

class.

And then we had anywhere from 13 to 15 classes a day because most of our classes were either like zero credits, half credits, one credit, and then all those like half and one credits were like your ensembles.

So it was like, oh, well, not only do you have to show up at ensembles anywhere from two to five days a week for two to three hours each, you also had to go then and practice outside of all those things.

So when you're hanging out with your you know science friends, they're like, oh my gosh, this semester, I have five classes, I don't know what to do.

It's like, yeah, the music majors had no love for their counterparts.

So, you know, just the schedule was ruthless.

The early mornings did not do well with an arthritic body, the inaccessibility, like I went to the university that I went to because everything was connected by tunnels.

So being somebody that lived in the dorms, I never once had to go outside in the winter if I ever wanted to.

And yet, then to stay accessible for me, that also meant I put on many extra miles every day.

Because instead of just being able to like cross a courtyard, I would have to go through three separate buildings and two different elevators.

To get down to the rehearsal spot, I always had to go through the black box theater or through the scene shop, and then had to deal with people yelling at me like, you can't be in here without a hard hat, or oh, I popped more tires in the scene shop and in the black box.

And then the professors downstairs waiting for me to come to class or ensemble would be like, Where's Jenna?

We can't go on without her.

Why is she late?

And it's like, well, I'm sitting upstairs with a flat tire and I can't move because I can't damage my chair because I have a flat tire.

And I still had systemic issues with professors.

I think at one point I had four different issues with professors logged in through the or as a complaint through the chancellor's office.

I was a part of the getting a new music uh hall on the campus in the middle of my time at the university because none of their rehearsal spaces were actually Jenna friendly or wheelchair accessible.

So that was one time I got to go down to the state and be a part of the lobbying group and and do all that kind of stuff.

So I mean I learned a lot both about myself, about others, about broken systems, about financial systems, you know.

And then I was dealing with all my surgeries, right?

Because I was still doing surgeries every nine to 12 months, even through college.

So trying to navigate all of that, plus having a cast on your foot or having your legs sticking straight out because you had to have your knee redone or your hip redone.

Like it was a hot mess.

And then I got to student teaching and it was like, what school are we gonna put Jenna in that she can be successful physically in, let alone attitudinally with whatever supervising teacher.

And I had great, you know, people in practicums and in student teaching that worked with me.

And then I got to the end of my instrumental thing because I was a double major instrumental and vocal.

So I finished up my instrumental on time and then I stuck around for another year and a quarter, I think it was.

And I finished my vocal.

But at the end of my instrumental, both my cooperating student teacher, placement person and my university professor who I looked up to, kind of like a musical dad, both on the same day, on my final day, said, Well, Jenna, I really hope you come back and see us like next year or in a year or so, and that you become a special ed teacher.

Because you just think that you you haven't found your passion yet.

So it'd be great for you to find your passion and and work with people like yourself.

SPEAKER_04: Hmm.

SPEAKER_05: And I was like, are you kidding me right now?

SPEAKER_00: Wow.

SPEAKER_05: So yeah, that was that was hard.

And then I went into the vocal world, and the the lead vocal person at that time was like, well, we don't really want Jenna to be a teacher from our institution because we know that she's not gonna be able to play the piano.

We know that she's not gonna be able to do XYZ in the vocal world.

And I pretty much had to just like promise this professor, like, don't worry, I am never gonna accept a job that I cannot be the best tool that I can be in these kids' lives.

So I'll figure it out.

I just want this degree because I know that my body at some point is gonna crap the bed and I might not be able to be an amazing band director anymore, and that's gonna kill when that time comes, but I can still use my voice and I can find the power in my voice, and I can bring the love of music to kids outside of what the physicality of what this body can do.

And so I finished my vocal, I, you know, did all the things, and I worked at a parochial school for several years, and then I moved back to my hometown.

First time working in a public school, and I was here for probably trying to do quick math, probably 17 years, 16, 17 years.

But then the pandemic hit, and the district came back and said, I believe it was on the third year of pandemic teaching, that they were no longer interested in accommodating my work from home orders.

And so that led to a big identity crisis for a while when I was cleaning up my office space here with all my slide whistles and puppets and, you know, all the things music teachers use for teaching elementary music.

I remember bending over, picking something up, an accessibility educator popped in my head.

And I was very thankful for that new terminology because that's what makes me and my nonprofits stand out, because we're all education-based, we're all story-based, we're all can see opportunities and barriers from multiple viewpoints because that's what we've done for decades as educators.

SPEAKER_01: So yeah.

Well, Jenna, I mean, I just have to say, I mean, we we we kind of glossed over it in that kind of time lapse.

But I mean, you had an extensive time, I mean, almost 20 years as a teacher.

That's remarkable.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.

And very interesting, only once in my state were we ever the national hub for music education for our conference.

And only once have I seen another person in a wheelchair at a music education conference.

SPEAKER_00: Wow.

SPEAKER_05: Doesn't mean that there's not other disabled people out there.

It just means that that, you know, in my experience, that's that's what I saw.

And also when I was in high school, we had a student teacher, and he was blind, and he inspired me in more ways than I think I ever knew.

And then he became a composer when uh being a music educator was no longer a safe space for him to be in, and just having that connection to his to his family and his wife very limitedly, but you know, still being connected to them, you know, decades later is always super impactful.

So, you know, there's a lot of disabled folks out in those professions and in those careers, but you don't always feel safe in expressing those needs and realities.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, understandable.

Yeah.

Real quick before we move on, to be a teacher for for that long, what was it that you you obviously loved about being a teacher to have you in it for so long?

SPEAKER_05: Well, many people say that I'm the weird one because of I love the middle level kid, right?

So, and rightfully so, right?

I was triggered by my eighth-grade band director to become a music educator because she saw me as a human.

She saw me as something that was valuable and worthy of her time, and that spoke volumes.

So, you know, and part of it is adolescents have way more energy, even though they sleep, you know, more hours than they're awake.

But that energy of sarcasm and just that their body is different every single day.

I think I just really resonate that, right?

And I was able to steal some of their energy when I was going through brain fog or when I was going through down or hard times.

There was just a spark for all of it.

And eventually I was able to figure out my spark when it came to my elementary kids and kind of my high schoolers for a few years that I taught high school, but you know, high schoolers know it all and you can't teach them much.

So that's a whole different breed of how you educate.

But yeah, you know, and then I still coach our Lego robotics team and lead a nonprofit there and that kind of stuff.

And so, you know, working with that middle level, seeing those aha moments, you know, helping them dig deep and realize like, dude, life is gonna be hard.

So let's suck it up together, let's learn together, and let's not give up because you can't give up in life.

You know, you have to develop those grit skills, and you'll go far just being a good human being.

So let's figure out how to be a better human being every day that we're together.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.

So Jenna, you're so amazing.

You you're truly, truly amazing.

When you left teaching, did you go through any of that kind of like identity crisis?

I mean, the fact of I mean that you were a teacher for so long, you spent all that time in school becoming a teacher, and then to have that go away, do you go through any type of identity crisis?

And if you did, what got you kind of through it and on the other side?

SPEAKER_05: Yeah, for sure.

It was hard, you know.

And originally it's like, well, what did I go through all that for?

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: If this was gonna be the end, what was the point?

Yes, right, and it wasn't like I knew in advance.

So I thought I was coming back to teach, and the district didn't come back until like late August, like three days before I was supposed to be in the classroom to be like, nope, you have no classroom.

You know, so it's like I didn't have a last concert or a last program.

My kids didn't know what was going on.

I even had a colleague and a good friend of mine being like, um, every day there's music.

I have to tell my kids that you're still alive because they think that you died of COVID.

But I was in the middle of the struggle with the district and the union and lawyers and all the things to just, you know, figure out what was going on.

And I'm like, I can't make a video to be like, hi kids, I'm still alive.

I just can't teach you music.

But go and be good to humans and sing and play and do all the things and keep learning, and you'll see me out on the street when COVID's gone.

Question mark.

Like, you know, like, how how do you how do you cover that?

So yeah, so I'm very thankful that I still get to, you know, coach the Lego robotics and and live life out that way.

I think had that gone away, that would have been, yeah, the last nail in the coffin for sure.

But we were able to figure out ways of me being online and I was a Bush fellow at that time, so I was able to use some of the funds to buy a robot.

So we called it Miss You on a stick.

So my co-coach would lift me around different schools when they were at competitions and all the things.

And, you know, there was just a lot of resiliency and a lot of like, this is our new normal.

Jenna's at home, but Jenna can still come into these spaces, she can still use her education, she can still use her leadership, she can still do all the things.

It just looks different.

It was hard, like I said earlier.

I was very glad that I got the label of accessibility educator.

I, you know, hindsight's 2020.

I'm glad to see my uniqueness as a leader in the disability community and culture and making hopefully amazing, resilient, continual change in the thought processes, not only in my region, but beyond.

But it was hard.

And you know, but the world has greatly changed.

So, as people have asked me throughout the last three years, you know, do you miss teaching?

Do you miss teaching?

It's like, I miss the kids.

I don't miss the bureaucracy, but also our society has very much changed.

So I miss the kids that I taught once, I miss the families that I interacted with once.

But the but like I said, the world is is just different.

Education is very different, music is very different, and a lot of the arts aren't as supported as they used to be.

And so that's very concerning.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, without a doubt.

Well, talk to me a bit about you deciding to write your own memoir.

I would love to know how that idea came about.

This idea of being vulnerable enough to put this story of yours on the paper to have it published.

Walk me through that experience.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I've been told from a young age, especially from medical team folks, like, Jenna, you need to write a book.

Like, there's just been so much life that you've lived through, but yet, you know, you always have this positive attitude, or you can make us cry one second and then you make us laugh the next.

Like, you just need to write a book.

And so I'm like, when does Jenna have time to write a book?

Because I'm fighting all these systems just to get my degree, just to get my job or keep my job.

So when that career was ended and I was in the middle of my Bush fellowship, it was like, all right, well, I guess now's the time.

And so I used some of that those funds to help me get education on what it meant to be an author and how to, you know, self-publish your book and had coaching, you know, calls and worked with an editor that was local and and all the things.

It was really hard to write it at some points.

I mean, as you've heard today, some of the hard stuff, but I also wasn't not going to be my authentic self in my memoir because we all go through mental health needs, we all go through being connected to disability in some way, shape, or form.

We all go through hard times and we all go through mountain top times too.

So it's all about life.

But the greatest coaching advice I had in that process was Jenna, the type A, you don't need to write your story in chronological order.

You write your story with the energy.

And what I learned later in disability culture, the term spoons, when you have the spoons to write those harder parts.

So know your energy level, know where your spirit and heart and mind are at.

And if that's not the day to write that part of your story, then don't do it.

And so during that process, it took me about a year to go from beginning to end up process with my book and lots of ups and downs along the way.

But I did take about three months off at one point after I wrote it all because I just couldn't handle it anymore.

I was tired of my own voice, I was tired of the hard stories, imposter syndrome totally kicked in, right?

Like, who am I to write this book?

Who am I to spend this money to publish it?

Who am I to want to start this nonprofit?

Because I like throw out at the end of the book, you know, a lot of my dreams and you know, will this ever to come to fruition?

And that's that's scary because once you tell somebody, let alone the whole world, like, hey, this is what I want to do, this is why I'm here, let's do it.

Yes, then then you gotta do it, Kevin, right?

SPEAKER_01: Exactly.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah.

The word that I was given before writing was the word tapestry.

And I didn't know how it would fit in.

I didn't know what this word was about, but I'm like, well, I was given accessibility educator.

Now I'm given tapestry.

And so the book title is Within My Spokes.

Again, a nod to why disability is not a bad word, because so often people see our wheelchairs and they think we're bound to them.

And that is not true.

Our wheels give us freedom.

So within my spokes, and that was also a nod to like the real mobility firefly that I got as part of my Bush Fellowship as well.

So it's an electric third-wheel attachment to my chair where I've been out on like 450 plus miles of pave trail, of gravel trail, of limestone trail, of crush granite trail, you know, in our state parks where I'd never been in our state parks before.

And, you know, Minnesota land of 10,000 lakes.

Hello, like let's go see some more lakes.

And so, you know, as like a nod into the biking community, because as soon as I like put the firefly on, it is amazing being on the trail because every rider, almost every, right?

Like 99.5%.

There are still some curmudgeons on the trail.

But 99.5% of people actually look at me and see me.

Like they smile and genuinely wave.

They smile and they actually say something kind like, love the wheels, or that's awesome.

And it's nothing that's negative or infantizing or like them feeling uncomfortable or insecure.

It's like authentic conversations.

And even though I'm still lower than them, because you know, manual chairs are lower than somebody up on a big e-bike, they never give the feeling that they're looking down upon you, which can happen in other communities and other parts of culture.

So, anyways, like I just wanted all those stories shared as a part of that.

And so, you know, getting back to tapestry, it was like so you look at a tapestry, and on the front you see all these vibrant colors, and you see some shiny colors, and you see some sparkling threads, and you see long threads and wide threads and short threads and narrow threads.

And, you know, every relationship that's come into my life has made me who I am: good, bad, ugly, amazing, you know, long, short, all the things.

And then when you flip the tapestry over, it's a hot mess, right?

You've got strings all over the place, you got knots all over the place, one is leading to the other, you know, some are abrupt-ended, some are there the whole time.

So, uh, within my spokes, and then the subtitle is a tapestry of pain, growth, and freedom.

And I just felt like those three words were so true in every aspect of life.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, absolutely amazing.

Where is the uh the best places that people can find your book?

SPEAKER_05: Yeah, anywhere you buy your books.

I am definitely on Amazon, and there's a link on our website to also get it, aboveandbeyondwithyou.org.

So um, above and beyond with you is our nonprofit, and all the proceeds of the book go to the furthering of the nonprofit's mission and vision.

And so it's above and beyond with you, capital U, because of Udenberg, because my kids, you know, picture little five-year-old kindergartners.

There's no way they can say Miss Udenberg by the time I've already flown past them.

SPEAKER_04: Yes.

SPEAKER_05: So they shortened it to Miss U.

So with you is a nod to my music career, but it's also a nod to my belief and value in the work that I do, is that it's not a drop in the pan, hey, let's do this accessibility audit and yep, I'm wheeling away and you're walking away, and we never the two never meet, right?

I don't believe in the checklist of ADA.

I believe in going above and beyond, and we're being committed to accessibility, inclusion, and we're making relationships that are long term.

It's not, again, we're not a checklist, we are human beings.

SPEAKER_02: Yes.

SPEAKER_05: So, yeah, so you can find them all there.

You can find above and beyond with you on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn.

And if, you know, there's a connect with us on our website as well.

So we love hearing from people.

We want to lift up other people's voices, we want to be connected to other aspects of disability culture.

We typically just focus on the wheelhouse, but boom boom ching.

Mobility disabilities because of me being a manual wheelchair user.

And we don't believe in speaking for other parts of disability culture when it's not our lived experience.

But one of our core foundation values is that we are trying to be a conduit so that all of different disability culture and community is embraced and celebrated, and we work together with other nonprofits and other organizations and entities to amplify the whole voice of disability culture and community.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, amazing, amazing.

Well, I will be positive that all the links, all the things are all in the show notes for easy access.

Awesome.

Jenna, I've I've said it once, I'm gonna say it again.

I think you're incredible.

I absolutely just I love I love the insight that you have on life.

I think you're such a spectacular person doing such amazing things with your life.

It has meant the world to me to get to spend this time with you today here on the podcast.

So just uh from the bottom of my heart, thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_05: Thank you so much, Kevin.

You are an awesome host with great questions, and thank you for sharing your life story and doing the hard work of podcasting because all of our stories are important and it's great to lift each other up in the work that we're doing.

SPEAKER_01: Yes, absolutely.

Well, my friend listening today, I hope that you have enjoyed today's interview as much as I have.

Please be sure to check out today's show notes for all the links that you can get plugged in with today's amazing guest, none other than Jenna Utenberg.

She is absolutely incredible, has me so enlightened, so inspired, and I can only hope the same is true for you.

So, my friend, this of course is Grit Grayson Inspiration.

Get out there and enjoy this beautiful day.