Episode Transcript:

Christina: I'm Christina Chartrand and...

David: This is David Chandler and welcome to our next episode of LIFE Conversations. Christina and I this morning that today are going to be sharing about, uh, some tips for, uh, helping to care for our loved ones. So you may find yourself in a time where, uh, where you're caring for a loved one. And it's, it's not easy. You're wondering how can I find some support or.

What are some things that we're gonna share some things today that you may not even be thinking about as you're going through this time. And so Christina, you have a little bit of a story about this, do you wanna share it?

Christina: Yeah, I do. I do. So if some of you've been listening along the way, you know that my mom is 84 and I'm her what I would call primary caregiver. So I'm the person who's really most responsible for making sure that she, you know, has help or, you know, I'm her go-to person. But I wanted to share the story that I have told a few people.

And people are like in your mind, when do you become a primary caregiver? Well, I feel like it's something that evolves. And when the time, my big story, what I say when that time happened is when my father passed away, which is about 14 years ago. And everything kind of changed after that. And why it changed is because my dad was there to do a lot of the things around the house. And then it...

He wasn't there anymore. So there were a lot of, you know, things that people think about, like household management and putting gas in the car, you know, lots of those little things. And I really became that go-to person. But my mom was always super independent. But, you know, it was more of me thinking about her often and contacting her more often and getting on her bank accounts and, you know, going through all the things just to get her comfortable to where she is. And along that way, along that story, during that time, the first year and the second year, people would come up to me and they'd say, well, how's your mom doing? And I'm like, oh, thanks so much for asking. She's doing well, we've downsized her, and she's volunteering at the hospital and so forth. Like, oh, that's great, just tell her I said hi. And I can't tell you how many people said, oh, how's your mom doing?

No one's ever asked me how was I doing? Because for me, my life still went on with my family and my job and everything that goes on. But more and more responsibility was being put on to me, which I love my mom, I want to help out. And that gets to be stressful. And I recently just had a stressful time. She's doing better now, but we needed to get some help in the home and there were more doctor's appointments.

And I was frazzled. I was frazzled between trying to manage work in my home life and helping her. And it was a lot, it was a lot of pressure. And so we say in the industry, David, we say burden of care. And I hate, hate saying it because I don't wanna say my mom is a burden, but the stress that was causing me and the anxiety that was, can be every day thinking about her and making sure that she was okay. It was a lot. It was a lot. So it's so interesting here, you know, we talk about it, senior helpers, the importance of knowing, you know, we care, we provide caregivers for our clients. But I tell you, who you're helping the most and that peace of mind is so much for that family. And I'll say it, I'll say it every day.

So one of the things that we developed at Senior Helpers was like a little survey, just to help people identify where their needs are. Like something I could have used probably 14 years ago, what do I need help with? Because you don't know what you need, you don't even know what you don't know. That's kind of what happened so many times. So I want to talk a little bit about that and why we developed it.

David: Yeah, so this is a wonderful tool and I love taking this in when I go to meet with new clients and their family members to talk about what are some of those areas that they probably aren't even considering that they may be able to get some help. I think about one time I went out to a client's home and there was a wife who was caring for her bed bound husband for over two years and had been doing this almost 24/7 for two years. And I just, my heart went out to her so much about, and I asked her, when was the last time you went and did something for yourself? And it had been almost two years since she had even just gone out to go to church or go out with some friends because her husband needed her there all the time. And so we were able to use this family caregiver survey that we developed to have some conversations about how could we come alongside of her?

What are some of those things that she may not be even considering that we could help her in those areas? And so one of the first categories, we broke this survey down into three different subsections. And the first one is about caregiver well-being. And we're going to focus on one of the questions out in that section, which is, are you able to take regular breaks away from your care responsibilities, to do personal errands, enjoy hobbies, visit with friends. So this gives us a big clue a lot of times. And when I was talking with that caregiver, the wife who was caring for her husband, I asked her, when was, what are some things that you enjoy doing? Did you enjoy?

Christina: Yeah.

David: Going to church and oh yeah, I love, I miss going to church every Sunday. I used to go every Sunday. And so I asked her, you know, what, what if we had somebody come in and help you sub give you be here with your husband so you can have peace of mind while you go to church. And she just was so excited about that. It was really at that point, it was more about her than about her, her husband.

And then I also asked her, "Well, did you go to lunch afterwards with your friends after you left church?"  "Oh my gosh, I missed meeting with my friends. Yes."  And so we ended up setting her up with a day a week to help come in just so that she could have quality of life and go out and have something to look forward to each week. So, uh, she started going back to church each week. She'd go out to lunch with her friends afterwards. And it was just amazing how much energy that gave her to be able to get through the rest of the week coming home and saying, all right, I feel refreshed. I can get through this. I can, I have some time to focus on myself. And then as the week is going on, she's like, all right, I've got somebody coming to help me a little bit. I'm gonna go and do something that I enjoy. I have something to look forward to. So it was just so important to think about for her, what are those times that I can enjoy my hobbies and focus on myself?

Christina: Something to look forward to. Yeah.

David: Christina, you were talking a little bit about doing some like personal errands. I think, didn't you have a story about someone that, what was going on with them that when they asked what, what a.

Christina: Yeah.

David: What is something that you miss doing? And they were like, oh, I just want to go to the grocery store.

Christina: Yeah, yeah, I was talking to a friend of a friend who is caring for their husband and he she just was like, is there someone who could come just sit with my husband while I can go to the grocery store? And I'm thinking, oh my gosh, you know, if you just imagine what that feels like, you know, and so we were talking about some different types of resources that are out there, so that she can go to the grocery store and not worry that her husband's gonna end up on the floor when she gets back. You know, it's interesting because our next category talks about information and services, you know, and we, the importance of that. And one of the little things that I found in what I was doing and supporting my mom is that I was the person going out and I was running all the errands.

So I was not spending quality time with her. I was out and about at the pharmacy and running to the doctors, going to the grocery store, picking up things and maintaining things in her house. And I wasn't a daughter anymore, you know? And I think part of it is that when we're in this spot in our life, it's like, I want to have time. I want my mom to be my mom and I want to be the daughter.

And if we have the resources to be able to have somebody help out and even like a having like Instacart come in and get all the groceries in the house versus me going out there, that's, I'd rather be unpacking things with her and talking with her versus running around, running around in the car. And so I, I let's, I think there are so many services out there. People don't even know about.

David: Yeah. And this is something interesting, even in my personal life. And I'm going to digress for a second, even from not, I'm going to go to, uh, right now I haven't had that experience yet of caring for my parents, but I was kind of resistant to doing like a grocery delivery. So at first I always loved going to the grocery store, but as life has gotten busier, I started doing like a grocery pickup and then over the, the winter break recently.

David: I was like, you know, I'm not even I want to spend that time with my kids. I don't want to spend time going out to the grocery store. And so for the first time in my life in the last two weeks, I got two grocery deliveries, like full grocery deliveries to my house. And I've got to say it made such a huge difference to have those groceries delivered. I felt like I had more time with my family. I didn't feel as rushed. And I can just think about that from and it was like it was like 10 bucks, I think for the delivery. But it was so worth it to, so that's a big one is just having the grocery delivery or go ahead, pharmacy pickup, yep, yep.

Christina: Yeah, or pharmacy pick up or pharmacy drop off. I mean, just those types of things. Or if you have a patent, having a mobile company come to, to give your pet a shampoo and a dry. I think there are so many different types of community resources that can really bring in and be helpful and help, going back to my word of the year.

David: Hmm, yeah.

Christina: Balance, you know, find that balance so that when you are, you know, full on, and there are going to be times where I know I'm going to need to be full on there, you know, with my mom and Karen, it might be because she's going through an illness or some type of episode, I get like that. But there are there times where you can find that balance and be able to bring additional resources in to be able to help her and then the two of us still get our quality time together.

David: I think another big one too can be doing like tele-visit appointments with a doctor. So instead of needing to go to the doctor, there's a lot of technology that's available today that we can...

Christina: Mm-hmm. Yep. It's awesome. And we did a couple of those too. I'm glad you brought that up, David. We did a couple of those too. And first time she'd ever done anything like that. And it went so well. And I didn't need to pack her up and get her out of the house when she's not feeling well. And it was great. And you're right, technology is a game changer.

David: Yeah. And I think the biggest part of this hearing you talk about it, Christina, and also hearing from so many other family members is, is just wanting to go back really quickly to the part about not feeling like the, the spouse anymore, not feeling like the son or the daughter. And just, that's one of our big focuses. One of the, one of the reasons when we talk about why we develop this survey and we're just covering a couple of the questions we have— 11 questions on here that, that you can go through and get ideas and ways that you can help improve your own quality of life and how are you caring for yourself? We're just reviewing a few of them, but really looking at that, wanting to get those that are caring for loved ones back to that place of being the son or daughter, being the spouse, being that loved one and not feeling as much of that burden of, oh, I'm a caregiver, I'm caring for mom or dad. So that's one of the things that I feel like is most rewarding about having these conversations.

Christina: I agree. So our last category, because as David said, we're not going through every question, but we thought the categories would be important to talk about is actually supporting them, helping them with daily activities. This could be help with mobility, it could be help with dressing, helping take a shower, help with eating. Those can be very taxing and physically taxing on another person. I have a very good friend of mine whose mother was helping her husband, her dad, and he was falling a lot. And so she was helping him off the floor and ended up hurting herself, and she's probably gonna need surgery now, back surgery because of it. So David, let's talk about some of the different resources that are out there that can really help families with this because this is a tough one.

David: Yeah. And I think back as well to our, even our last episode, we were talking about, uh, walkers and the difference between, uh, standard walkers and rollator walkers and how do you properly size them and fit them? And, uh, so having that. Assistance when it comes to, uh, hands on training, teaching people, what are some of the ways that you can better care for your loved ones, making sure that you have the right adaptive equipment in place. So looking for those resources that will be able to help you to feel confident in those areas. And that's one of the great area where senior helpers, we can come out and do a life profile assessment with you. There's no charge for that.

Christina: Yeah.

David: I'm very happy to come out and just have that conversation with you, point you to some resources that we like what we've talked about today.

Christina: Yeah, and the other thing I think is important is training. Not everybody's been trained on how to help somebody get out of a chair. And so, one of the things that senior helpers we do is we do provide family training, but there's other family training out there as well. So there are, you'd be very surprised, a lot of your rehabs will have family training.

David: Right.

Christina: And it's not long, it's probably like an hour long, but it'll take you through some of the basics. And the goal is to prevent you getting hurt, right? Because that's what this is about. And then, you know, having, as David said, those other devices such as a tub bench and a walker can really make a difference. And just making some changes in the home can help make a difference in helping caring for some of those daily tasks. Yeah.

David: Absolutely.

Christina: So I think we're gonna attach this with our, hopefully our light. Yeah, so people, you will have access to this. This will be yours and you can pass it along.

David: We are, we are, we're gonna, yeah.

Yeah. So we're going to include this with our, with our posting of our podcast today. It's our family caregiver survey. So make that available to everyone. And we have some really exciting episodes coming up after this. So we have some, some guest speakers that are playing that I'm really excited about Christina and it's going to be a

Christina: Yeah, yes. And some additional topics by the two of us, but yes, we do have some guest speakers, so it'll be fun. So please tell your friends about our podcast and share it out. We've been really excited about this. We hope you find this helpful too.

David: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. All right, we'll talk to everybody next time.

As we conclude Episode 11 of LIFE Conversations with Senior Helpers, we're reminded of the strength, resilience, and compassion inherent in every caregiver's journey. Christina Chartrand and David Chandler have provided us with a roadmap to navigate the challenges of caregiving, emphasizing the importance of self-care, community engagement, and technological innovation. Let's carry forward their insights and advice, empowering ourselves and others in the caregiving community to find balance and joy in our vital roles.