Episode 4: Meet Our Caregivers!

[00:00:00] Speaker A: There was you. And wonderful uses, they tell me, in great little wonders. Just like it was you. And there were burrows all around. [00:00:33] Speaker B: Okay, so we are recording. [00:00:36] Speaker C: Recording. You can see at the top, the, I think, is showing you that we're recording. And that's very exciting. Unique. [00:00:46] Speaker B: What is that little thing where it's showing percentages of up and down with different percentages? What does that mean? [00:00:51] Speaker C: Great question. I don't know what that means. [00:00:54] Speaker B: I mean, does it mean how well we're doing? Because right now we. We. [00:00:58] Speaker C: We're at 99%. I think what that means is it's going as well as it could possibly go. [00:01:04] Speaker B: So I don't think so. We just had a 72. Oh, now we're at 94%. [00:01:09] Speaker C: Well, yeah, I don't like the top choice. I think we're. Our aggregate is 97, so I think it's pretty good. Whatever that means. We're going to figure that out later, folks. And we're trying out a new platform because we've just catapulted into. I mean, now we're like. I think we're one of the top podcasts in the universe for sure. Just Earth. But like other places, all of the. [00:01:32] Speaker B: Stratosphere, everyone who has an ear, and maybe even if they don't, are listening. [00:01:38] Speaker C: They are, they are. And we're very honored that they are. [00:01:42] Speaker B: I wonder if it's because even in the stratosphere, people are still taking care of aging loved ones and having to be concerned about their Joanna and how they're going to care for their Joanna. [00:01:53] Speaker C: Everybody has their own Joanna that they have to worry about, and it's no surface that it's happening all over the place. [00:01:59] Speaker B: Do you think Joanna will become a verb with I'm Joanna ing, meaning I'm caring for an aging loved one? [00:02:07] Speaker C: Doesn't really ring off the tongue there. So we can take it for a test run, but I'm dubious that that's going to actually have legs and go somewhere, but you never know. [00:02:17] Speaker B: All right, I have a story. [00:02:19] Speaker C: Let's hear it. [00:02:20] Speaker B: Okay, so last Sunday, I think I was covering the 2 to 5 shift with mom, and you had left me ingredients to make lentil soup for her, which she loves. And so whenever I'm with her and I'm doing something, I try to involve her, even if it's just minimal of she's hanging out with me in the kitchen. So she's at the kitchen counter with me. I'm gathering ingredients. I said, what else do we need besides salt and pepper and she said, music. So I said, I completely agree with you. What would you like to hear? And she said, the Sound of Music. So we turned on the Sound of Music, the album, you know, so she could listen and sing along while we made our lentil soup. And then because it was pouring rain, I couldn't take her for a walk or I didn't really want to take her out to do something. It's hard to navigate her in the rain. So when we were done and the lentil soup was marinating, for lack of better word, simmering, I guess, we sat down in the family room and I said, why don't we watch the Sound of Music movie? And so we turn on the movie and I put on the Sing along edition, which she just was thoroughly enjoying, filled with glee, singing along her own versions of the lyrics, which were great. But I was thinking about how this is everything I could have wanted regarding mom's care. The idea that I cooked with her, sort of. I mean, I cooked. She hung out with me, and then we sat down to watch a movie together, a long movie, by the way. You know, took up the bulk of the time and just reveled in the joy of my time with her because I wasn't doing laundry or giving her a shower or worrying about what's gonna happen next or how am I gonna navigate this situation or that situation. It was just purely the joy of being taskless with my mom, which really was an experience that we haven't had. I haven't had with her outside of our experience of having brought her home and having this lovely team of caregivers who are taking care of her every need. [00:04:44] Speaker C: Yeah, I remember within the first couple days of having our home caregivers set up working and you walking in to everything completely in order, the bed clean and made, laundry done and folded, mom clean and clothed and comfortable reading or watching tv. And I remember you sending this message to the caregivers, just communicating how overjoyed you were that that was what you walked into, because it was very often when we had her at the assisted living home and even just when we were trying to care for her ourselves in different times that would walk out into the rooms and see carnage and whatnot, and they have to clean it up and spend all that time dealing with it. And because that caregiving role and for it to be done properly and with compassion and skill is such an important part of this whole situation for caring with your loved ones. We thought for this podcast we're gonna focus on caregivers and caregiving what these professionals do and not just talking about us, but the support we have in the home and how they work, what their experience has been, some suggestions they have for others that are working with caregivers. And we're going to have Latrice and Alice, who are part of our dream team, come on with us and chat about mom, chat about what they've been doing. And we were fortunate enough to meet them when she was at the assisted home that she was in, Joanna. And luckily, for timing, I promise we didn't poach them, although we would have loved to. They happened to be leaving that place at the exact time that we were bringing mom home and looking for our dream team to be drafted and put together. And so we were very lucky that it all found that we got these amazing women. [00:06:45] Speaker A: Right? [00:06:45] Speaker B: And I think that, you know, we really should preface this by saying that when we talked about the idea of bringing mom home from assisted living, we knew we had to have care in place, especially with the idea that, you know, you would be coming home to live with her full time. While you're coming home, you're not changing briefs and showering her and doing all, taking her to the bathroom, all those nitty gritty things, which I was doing because I'm her female daughter. But I will say also, there's no joy in that. Not to mention the fact that I wasn't going to be on call, available to come and do that every couple hours. So the idea that we had to really think through, one, your ability and interest in coming to stay with her, which I know I say it over and over, but I'm going to say again that without you being willing to do this, this would have been a moot point. I don't know if I was ready to leave my own home and move into Mom's home to do this. I'm not saying it was out of the question, but it certainly wasn't something I was dying to do in my first summer of or first year of retirement or really ever if I don't have to. But so thank you again for that. I'm going to bring that up as many times as possible because, one, you're great at it and you do an amazing job. But of course, we knew we needed support, and so the conversation had to be, once you were on board, well, who's our team? Can we find people who are willing to work the hours that we need, who are willing to do the kind of work that we need to have done? Because without that, this move wouldn't have been possible, and I wouldn't have been sitting on a Sunday afternoon in a thunderstorm watching and singing Sound of Music with my mom, which is really joyful. [00:08:29] Speaker C: It is joyful. And so I thought we would start with giving us a little background, giving our audience a little background about what are the details of care that she needs. I know we've touched on it in the initial couple episodes, but I think it's important. Trigger warning. We're getting into very, really details about pooping and those type of things. Not much worse than you would have dealt with if you're caring for a baby. So it's nothing too salacious. But we are going to get into some of these details because we think it's important to really talk about the actual work and what goes on and what has to be done. I think everybody kind of gets it, what that is, but I think it's important to talk about specifically what we had to deal with, what our caregivers have to deal with, and. And also just want to take a step back and say we did think about if mom didn't have dementia, and we asked her, hey, do you mind if we tell the world about you pooping yourself? Would you be okay with that? Well, she would be like, no, I'm not okay with that. We have talked through it and realized that we just think it's very important. And certainly she is in a place now where she's not going to be able to understand what's going on with this podcast and feel embarrassment. And we just think it's so important for everyone to know what's going on. So we've decided to move forward with those details, and we just thought it was important to let you know what our thinking was on. [00:10:01] Speaker B: Yeah, we really. We respect the idea that we. Our mother is someone who really cared about dignity, and physical appearance was a really huge thing to her, and I'm sure she would be horrified. On the other hand, maybe she would find some gratification in knowing that we are creating this with an effort to help others. And if we don't touch on uncomfortable topics, then what's the purpose here? All of this is so uncomfortable, it almost has become second nature to us. But, yes, this is a good point that for some people, they may think, oh, I can't believe you're talking about your mom's poop. But, I mean, I can't tell you how much I've talked about poop in the last several years. I never really would have thought this would have been such A key part of the conversation, but it is, and it's a vital part of her care. So with that, let's dig in. [00:10:45] Speaker C: Yeah. And so you had a story. I've got a story. So we, while I was living in la, we had a Thanksgiving that we were going to in LA because we have a lot of family there. It's always been our second home as brother Richard and her parents, our grandparents moved there, I don't know, 60s or 70s or something. [00:11:04] Speaker B: 1971. [00:11:05] Speaker C: 71. So like half the family was. And along with. And she. Her grandpa was the oldest of 11 kids and half of them. [00:11:13] Speaker B: Our grandpa, her dad. [00:11:14] Speaker C: Right, sorry. Our grandpa, her dad. And so half of them had settled in California generally. So we had a whole tree of family all over the place there. We're constantly going there. Every Christmas growing up, we would go and spend time and stay with Richard, her brother, and three weeks in the. [00:11:29] Speaker B: Summer and, you know, any extra time that we had, we. We spent all of our time in la. [00:11:35] Speaker C: And so it was always one of her favorite things to. And she's always been a big swimmer and love. He always lived right by the ocean. So we would spend time by the ocean and she would brave the freezing cold waters to go and swim. And it was always just a big part of her life. And so as long as we could, we wanted. And I was living there now. [00:11:54] Speaker B: Can I do a quick aside? This might be cut, but I should have to think about this. I thought about this when I was with. I was doing the night shift a couple weeks ago with her and I was watching the documentary of the 50 anniversary of Jaws and I have this memory of mom taking me and my lifelong bestie, Gina Sofia Catalina to see jaws. We were 11 and she took us to see that movie. And then the next day our family boarded our flight to la. And of course, day one, she's swimming in the Pacific Ocean and I was not. And I just would like it noted that mom took us to see Jaws before taking us to the ocean. [00:12:32] Speaker C: Well, shark attacks are actually very rare in Los Angeles and Southern California, so I think it was. It was. It was fairly safe, though. I've swam in the ocean a bunch myself, having lived there, and I. You do think about it. No question about it. You do thinking about it in Southern California. So they don't eat people. It's a different type of situation. But that's a separate podcast that I'm sorry, you can look into. Anyway, so she's already getting pretty deep into the D, as we call it the dementia. And she has all, you know, come to visit me and spent weeks at a time out in la. And so we arranged this Thanksgiving in Los Angeles with our family. It's all wonderful and it's a great, great place to do it. And she comes downstays with me and so everybody's around and so she's staying with me. And then you and Julie are staying in an Airbnb a few blocks away and a lot of families in town. I think Julie's kids were in town or a couple of them were in town. And so we're getting ready for the big few days of Thanksgiving. A lot of events planned around it. And we touched on this earlier about having to be there when mom gets up before her feet hit the ground. We weren't yet at this point religious about making sure that that happened because she was a little bit self sufficient. Like she could go to the bathroom and be in there by herself. She could change her diaper by herself. She was already incontinent, but she was able to do those things in the bathroom by herself, which is why she could stay with me because obviously I wasn't going to help her with that, as you've mentioned. And so I'm checking in the morning to just make sure she's out of bed and getting her to the bathroom. But I'm just not as religious as I need to be about checking that. And sure enough, one morning I wake up and she's already been up really early and the room in where she's staying has a bunch of poop stains on the carpet and there's also like some other stain on the carpet. And it turns out, because what happens is she gets up and she'll sit on the side of the bed, which is extremely well protected. It's like a military fortress in there. Like you can't get to the mattress. There's so many pads and waterproof stuff going on. There is like a whole formula I figured out. You can't get there. You could, you can't get there. But if she's sitting on the side of the bed and then she doesn't remember, she has to go right to the bathroom, she'll try to take off her brief. And again, this is all conjecture on what probably happened, but we don't know for sure. But likely she then tries to change her brief there in the bed. And then what happens is the brief will then go to the floor or some poop, if she had a very healthy evening, might spill out and then walk it and then she'll walk in the poop, and then the footprints will be over. So you see how carnage can easily be employed there. And so I walk in there, and luckily, at the place I was living, we have this lovely guy, Luis, who took care of all the hallways, have carpets, and he's constantly. It was a beautiful place. And he's cleaning the carpets. He's got this turbo machine that he had already used a couple times, but it's completely effective. He comes up, and he cleans up the poop. It's like nothing ever happened. No big deal. The problem here is that she tried to clean it up herself. Once she realized what was going. She had some lucid moment where she realized what was going on, and she took Clorox bleach and poured it on the carpet to try to rub it out, which stains carpet that cannot be fixed. And so. And I remember it was one of those moments where I was, like, immediately wanting to get angry at her because I'm renting this place, and we're having to spend all this money making it brand new again. But also, it's just like, how could she do that? And actually, the Clorox is a real big problem because the poop can be cleaned up and made to look as new. So I checked myself, and I wasn't as mad as I was feeling in my. [00:16:18] Speaker B: I will say that you texted us. We woke up to your texts of, like, carnage, grenades, and shrapnel. And we felt terrible and rushed over there. [00:16:30] Speaker C: But, yeah, and thank you for coming over and helping with the whole situation. And then I. After we had kind of, like, dealt with it, and Luis came and he cleaned it, and I approached mom, and I was like, what happened here? And she was like, oh, nothing happened. You know, she's, like, very deflective and just acting like there was nothing that went on. She doesn't know what I'm talking about. It wasn't her. Those are the types of reactions she has, which. That's part of the disease. Disease. That's understandable. And then I had this moment, like, after everything was settled, and. And this is really one of the saddest moments I've felt for Mom. I like to think I've generally taken some things in stride over the whole situation, but, like, this one was really very sad to me because I realized that there was a moment there where after she had pooped on the floor or spread poop on the floor and stepped all over it and spread it a little bit, she realized, oh, no, there's poop on the floor. And it came from me, like I did that. And then she actively went to try to clean it up, knowing that's something bad that occurred. And to think that that's a moment that she experienced where at least for a moment she was like lucid and like, it's almost like she woke up from not being there. And then she was there for a second, like, oh no, what just happened? And then to have to try to find a way to clean it. And being on the floor trying to clean it, it made me sad that she had to go through that. And that was really tough to take. And boy did we learn the lesson, you've got to be there when she hits the ground. So after that, the next few days I was getting up at 5:30 and checking her bed every 10 minutes to see if she was ready to get up yet to make sure that we handled that situation that never happened again. But then that was a rule. That was a hard and fast rule that we learned the hard way. And then when she went into the assisted living place, that's a rule that was not always followed religiously. And so that was a problem. And segueing to our current caregivers, it is absolutely being followed to the letter. And of course I'm watching the cameras and checking her before they even get there at 7:30 in the morning if she starts to get up and move around. It's not the hugest deal if that were to happen at her own home, but it doesn't because we're on top of it. And that's just one of the details that have to be followed to make sure that when you come over to bake a pie or watch Sound of Music with her, you can't, because all this stuff is being handled. And it's, it's such a great comfort to us and gives us so much relief and actual physical time saved and anxiety saved to have these great, great women working for us. So we can't wait to introduce them to you and talk more about what they do. [00:19:09] Speaker B: Beautiful. Yeah, I think that we talked a lot about, you know, that that situation was really one of the reasons that we ended up. One reasons we moved her into assisted living. We thought that that was going to be taken care of. And then a reason why we moved her out is because it wasn't. And you know, we don't know why that was the case. But you know, we talk a lot about the lack of care available or just the inability to have the facility keep up with her. Care plan. But, you know, most days when I would come to see her, which was often, she was often sitting in a dirty brief or shrapnel was all over the room, or maybe either she had changed her own clothes or someone had helped her to change clothes, but soiled clothing or linens would be sitting in a basket in the closet. And so here we're paying for assisted living and I am physically washing her, bringing her into the shower, scrubbing her clean, doing all the laundry, switching over from load to load. Sometimes there was so much laundry that I would actually bring all of her soiled stuff to my house, wash it, dry it, fold it, bring it back the next day because they just couldn't keep up with that. What we consider to be pretty simple, which is three times a day, you're checking her, you're making sure that she's not changing herself or spreading things around. And sadly, for whatever reason, that wasn't happening. And it was. It was a real issue. So, yeah, there is a lot of joy to not having that level of responsibility anymore, to the point where I almost forgot, until we had this conversation how really traumatic it was and how deeply in it I was. It's. It's so delightful to not be worried about it. And also, listen, I'm sure it's no picnic for her to have to be sitting in a poopy diaper. [00:21:11] Speaker C: And I think that's a great place to leave it for now. In a second, we're going to come back and talk to Latrice and Alice. For now, please enjoy the dulcet tones of Joanna on her piano. [00:21:25] Speaker A: When you wish upon a star, you will remember the beauty in the star. And you wish upon a star because you wish on a star, because that's where the beauty comes from. You. [00:21:49] Speaker B: All right? And we're back. We hope you enjoyed the latest tunes from Joanna. We are so fortunate today to be joined by one of the dream teams, members of my mother's care team, Latrice, who is here to talk to us today about her experiences in caregiving in general and also your experiences with our mom. So we really want to know, to begin, how did you decide to get into the caregiver world? [00:22:21] Speaker D: How did I decide? I didn't decide. I got a funny story for you. [00:22:27] Speaker B: We love funny stories. [00:22:29] Speaker D: I started caregiving at Waltonwood, but when I got hired at Waltonwood, I was not hired as a caregiver. I was hired as a housekeeper. When the supervisor interviewed me, she was like, I love your personality. She was like, can I Hire you as a caregiver. And I was scared because she was like, the pay is more. She's like, but your personality, I love your personality. And I feel like you would be a great fit for that. I was so scared, guys. I was like, I don't know, I never did this before. She was like, I'll hire you for that and then we'll do it for maybe a month and if you don't like it, I'll give you the housekeeping position. [00:23:13] Speaker B: What was scary to you? Why were you feeling? [00:23:15] Speaker D: Because I never, ever dealt with elderly people as opposed to taking care of them with their everyday needs. Yeah, I babysit kids before, but that's totally different. So the first week I was like, oh, I love this. The residents loved me. And that's how I got into caregiving. I was hired as a house, literally a housekeeper, but that's how I got into caregiving. I was 19 years old. Wow, that's incredible. And I've been doing it ever since. I think she. That lady changed my life forever because I have came across so many great families. I've came across so many great people as a whole. So I feel like she changed my life because I never ever got into caregiver until she offered me that position. [00:24:05] Speaker B: That's incredible. And did they give you training or did you have to go to school? [00:24:09] Speaker D: I did training. We do training online and then we did hands on training. So. So of course we did the training for the first maybe two days. And it was like slay. It was so easy going. Like it wasn't hard for the residents to get attached to me. It wasn't hard for me. [00:24:32] Speaker C: That's not a surprise at all. [00:24:33] Speaker B: Yes, we're pretty attached to ourselves, so we get that idea. [00:24:38] Speaker D: But when you work in this field, I tell people you have to have a calm, loving heart. I bet you have to. [00:24:48] Speaker B: Sure. [00:24:48] Speaker D: Because you won't make it far doing this if you don't. You have to have a calm, loving heart. You have to. [00:24:55] Speaker B: And have you worked at lots of different kinds of. [00:24:58] Speaker D: I only worked at actually two facilities. Private duty. I always did private duty. I always had my own clients after that. [00:25:06] Speaker B: I would imagine that there's a lot of turnover in the profession. You were probably one of the more days. [00:25:11] Speaker D: That's why me and my girl Kelly. You know how many people. [00:25:16] Speaker C: Kelly, who you all know if you've been listening to the podcast. [00:25:18] Speaker B: Episode one. [00:25:19] Speaker C: Kelly, we work together. [00:25:21] Speaker D: Yes. You know how many people I've met and I still talk to this day, to this Day like nurses, and they always contact me to see if I'm doing private duty and can help them with a client. [00:25:33] Speaker B: I bet it seems like all of you who are working with us have a hustle. Can you tell us just a little bit about what you daily life is like, even including. I mean, your. You have your own life as well. [00:25:46] Speaker D: And I try to balance it. I try to balance it. One day I really want to venture off and take a leap on faith and just do this full time, though. [00:25:58] Speaker B: And. Well, you should, because you work for yourself. [00:26:01] Speaker D: I do. [00:26:01] Speaker B: And that must feel pretty good. [00:26:03] Speaker D: It does. [00:26:03] Speaker B: But also scary. You don't know where your next person is coming from. [00:26:05] Speaker D: I don't know where my next person is coming from. And I mean, I really like meeting people, like families that recommend me. [00:26:17] Speaker B: Of course. Right. But that must happen all the time. [00:26:20] Speaker D: It does. And that's how I got a lot of my families from recommendation, you know, so hopefully one day I won't have to wake up and go to the Kony anymore. [00:26:32] Speaker B: I think that day has probably arrived for you. [00:26:35] Speaker C: Latrice's customers at the Kony will. [00:26:38] Speaker B: They will be. [00:26:38] Speaker D: Because they love me, too. [00:26:40] Speaker C: But. [00:26:40] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I want to. What a curse that everyone. [00:26:44] Speaker D: I want to eventually just take care of my little cute ladies and men. [00:26:50] Speaker B: For the rest of my life. [00:26:52] Speaker C: One of the things you said really rings true because the one thing I noticed just from our experience at the assisted living facility that mom was in and since is you're talking about you have to have a good heart and you have to really want to do the job to help someone, because this is not the type of job that you can just do for money. [00:27:11] Speaker D: You can't. [00:27:11] Speaker C: You can't. And you'll know it right away. [00:27:13] Speaker D: And I feel the first week, I'm. [00:27:14] Speaker C: Sure you realize that you had something in your heart that said, this is for me. And I'm sure you've also seen others who've come in maybe just for the. [00:27:22] Speaker D: Money or you could tell the difference. [00:27:24] Speaker C: You can tell the difference, right? [00:27:25] Speaker D: You can tell the difference. You got a lot of people that just go there because they think that the money is good. And you cannot do this, doing that, because so many people are failing in this field. That's why it's so hard. Yeah, it's so hard. [00:27:42] Speaker B: I would imagine it's very hard to stick with this profession because, I mean, you lose people. [00:27:48] Speaker D: Yes, it is a very emotional attachment. You have to have a loving, calm heart to do this because you want somebody to be safe with you. [00:27:59] Speaker C: Right, for sure. And so we want to ask a couple questions just about the actual work itself so people get an idea of what you're doing because you've had a bunch of different experiences. It sounds like you've had two assisted homes, kind of a more formal setting. But between that there was a lot of time and now that you're doing private care. So, like where we met you or we kind of overlapped and met right after at the assisted home. What was your, like, daily shift like? Like, what were you doing when you're there? [00:28:29] Speaker D: What are some important things in the morning time we get up the residence. Excuse me. So we have breakfast. So you have a list where you have to get up. Maybe you might have five to 12 residents on your list. Okay. Unless you know what showers you have to do before breakfast. It lets you know what that resident may need. Some residents, you just can get them up, set their clothes out, and they know what they need to do. Some you have to really assist them. So it's more hands on. But a lot of them, you just get them up and remind them, hey, you, my best friend. Today we're gonna have a good day. And it's me and you. So I tell people if you get aggressiveness from a person, it's because of the way you talk. It's the tone, it's the way that, you know, you handle it. Hey, today might not not be a good day. Guess what? It's okay. Me and you going to do this together. [00:29:35] Speaker B: That's amazing, you know? [00:29:36] Speaker C: Amazing. [00:29:36] Speaker D: Yeah. You just have to change your perspective on how you handle things. Sometimes people just don't be in a mood to get out the bed. [00:29:47] Speaker C: Well, and a lot of people are suffering from things like dementia. [00:29:51] Speaker D: Yes. [00:29:52] Speaker C: Like, how do you keep your cool when you know that they're gonna do things you told them not to do? And you're gonna encounter situations where you have to see a little disaster going on in the room. [00:30:02] Speaker D: Yeah, but see, that comes with. Again, you have to have a love. You gotta have demeanor. You gotta have the right demeanor. Because it's like, okay, yes, I told you, you can't do that. But guess what? It's okay. I'm gonna step in the kitchen. By the time I come back in, it's gonna be a different answer. [00:30:24] Speaker B: Yeah, that's true. You must see lots of changes. [00:30:26] Speaker D: Yes. Just from it's gonna be a different. It's gonna be a different answer because they're facing that. So with me telling them, hey, you can't do that like this they are not gonna remember when I walk out the room and come back in and say it again. So it's just a demeanor thing. It's how you handle it. You just gotta change the way you say it or you have to talk about something else. And then we'll go back to that. [00:30:55] Speaker C: And at the facility, did you have people that you were managing, like a team of people that they had and all that? [00:31:02] Speaker D: No. When I started being a med tech, that's when I became the head on the floor. [00:31:09] Speaker C: Okay. [00:31:09] Speaker D: So I. Even with me passing meds, I still help the girls on the floor. If we were short caregivers, I still helped. I was supposed to just really pass out meds or check vitals, and if someone fall, I have to call ems. But if we were short on the floor, I always help my girls. [00:31:28] Speaker B: And you were probably short on the. [00:31:30] Speaker D: Floor all the time, so I always help. [00:31:32] Speaker B: So you really feel that crunch of the caregiver? [00:31:35] Speaker D: For sure I do. Because you got people working on the floor with you that don't want to help you. I have my own. This is how they think. I have my own set of people. You on your own. [00:31:47] Speaker C: You were there for three years. Is that a long tenure for a caregiver at a certain facility, for someone to say that long? [00:31:55] Speaker D: It is. [00:31:56] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:31:56] Speaker D: Especially today. [00:31:58] Speaker C: I imagine so. [00:32:00] Speaker D: Especially today it is. Because it's hard to keep people that want to work, you know, and it's not because of the residents. It's because of the workers that they have. If I'm going to work today, some people don't. Just don't want to show up anymore because, oh, I got to work with Andrew today. He never does nothing. You see what I'm saying? [00:32:22] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:32:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:24] Speaker D: So I'm stuck with doing everything on the floor, and, oh, Andrew's gonna come in, he's gonna be hiding in the bathroom. And this is why a lot of people don't stay at facilities, because they don't handle being left well. [00:32:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:39] Speaker D: So if it's. If you can't pick me up and I can't pick you up, a lot of people don't want to work with you. [00:32:44] Speaker B: That makes sense. [00:32:45] Speaker D: So that's why they're always short. [00:32:48] Speaker C: Yeah. It seems like it's not just where you're at, but every place has a turnover challenge. [00:32:53] Speaker D: It has a turnover challenge, and that's the reason why. [00:32:56] Speaker C: Yeah. And when you were there, did you get to know a little bit of, like, the different levels, like, between assisted living and memory care? And did you deal with Both of those. [00:33:07] Speaker D: I deal with both of them when I worked in both. [00:33:09] Speaker C: How would you describe the main differences between someone who's assisted living and someone who's in memory care? [00:33:15] Speaker D: Memory care is the last stage of dementia. That's it. That's the only way I can explain it. But they are still happy, you know, but we have to assist them more. We have to sit with them more. So even in a facility, memory care, we all have to be together. We cannot let a memory care person stay in their room by theirself. [00:33:41] Speaker B: Right? [00:33:42] Speaker C: Yeah. I heard it described when we were there and we were looking into the different stuff as someone in memory care has a tough time staying focused on. [00:33:52] Speaker D: Anything for more than anything, anything, anything. So literally, if you go to memory care, once we get memory care up, we're all together all day. We cannot leave memory care alone in their room, anything, because they wander off and things happen. And so. So we won't have to take a chance with that. When we get memory care up in facilities, we sit together all day. We have lunch together, we have breakfast together, we have dinner together. We do activities as a whole together. It's. Everything is together with memory care and. [00:34:35] Speaker C: Switching gears a bit towards this lady over there. By the way, it should be noted that we have one live audience member, and it's Joanna Edelson. Mom, you want to say hello? Yell a big hello. [00:34:47] Speaker B: Hello. [00:34:48] Speaker C: Yay. [00:34:49] Speaker D: That's right, Jojo, you know it, too. [00:34:54] Speaker C: We are. We're talking all about you. I'm sure you love that. And today happens to be one of the days where you have all three shifts, so it's a latrice day. Can you walk us a little bit through, like, even this morning when you got here, like, what goes on and what you're doing? What are you doing with Mom? [00:35:10] Speaker D: Morning time. Sometimes my Jojo is woke. Sometimes she is, and I have to wake her up. But this morning, she was woke. I walked in the room, she looks over, and she always smiles. I turn the light on, I say, good morning, Jojo. Good morning. So we get up and we start our daily routines. I say, we're gonna go to breakfast. I'm gonna take her out to breakfast one day. [00:35:37] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh, she'll love it. [00:35:40] Speaker D: I get her up in morning and there's some. [00:35:42] Speaker C: We don't have to talk about all the details. There's some bathroom work right away. [00:35:46] Speaker D: Shower. Yeah. Get dressed, and we go to the kitchen table. She eats breakfast. We might watch Morning Joe. Sometimes she's. She haven't been Feeling Morning, Joe. [00:35:58] Speaker C: Lately she's been less tv, more Sound of Music through the Alexa. [00:36:03] Speaker D: She's been less tv. She hasn't been. She'll watch it while she's sitting at the kitchen table, but she won't go. Go and watch it anymore. [00:36:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I know. [00:36:09] Speaker D: She's been less tv. [00:36:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:36:11] Speaker D: Less tv. [00:36:12] Speaker C: But she's been eating better lately. [00:36:13] Speaker D: She has. She has been eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner better. So this one right here, she loves outside, though. [00:36:22] Speaker C: Yes, loves it. Yeah. She's been trying to escape out of the door and out of the window. [00:36:25] Speaker D: This morning I said, jojo, it's raining. We can't go outside today. [00:36:30] Speaker B: She does. Yesterday when I came over, we sat on the deck for a long time and she was just so happy to be outside. [00:36:36] Speaker D: She loves outside. That's one thing I love. She loves outside, outside. [00:36:40] Speaker B: I love when we take her for walks and when we turn back to the house and she says, yep, that's it, there it is. [00:36:47] Speaker D: It's still there every single time. That's why I love taking her for walks, though, because I don't care which way I go, if we go to the left or the right. It makes me happy that she always remember where her house is. [00:36:59] Speaker B: She's so happy to be here. Thank you. [00:37:01] Speaker D: She's happy to be here and she. [00:37:03] Speaker C: Loves playing her piano. I heard it this morning. [00:37:05] Speaker D: Yep. So if we come from the back way or the front way, she knows each time where her house is. [00:37:14] Speaker B: Do you find that? I mean, we know how hard it is to find good caregivers and how lucky. We'll say it a thousand times over how lucky we are. We wouldn't be in this spot if it weren't for all of you. Do you find there's a huge demand are people calling you and saying, can you cover this shift? Can you meet this person? [00:37:35] Speaker D: I did have a couple people call me. [00:37:39] Speaker B: We almost joked, Andrew and I, about how we were going to put you in the caregiver protection plan, got her. [00:37:43] Speaker C: In the witness protection program. Notice we haven't said her last name and we're not going to. [00:37:50] Speaker B: It is true. We don't want anyone to steal you. So what advice would you give to someone who's trying to find a you? What should they be doing or what kinds of questions should they be asking if they are trying to find someone to help with their aging? Loved one. [00:38:07] Speaker D: Ask someone, do they love doing this? [00:38:13] Speaker C: How do you know when the answer is true? [00:38:15] Speaker D: You can just feel it because you can feel it. When you first met me, how did you feel? [00:38:19] Speaker C: I knew it right away. [00:38:21] Speaker D: When you first met me, how did you feel? [00:38:23] Speaker B: Well, I will tell you this. We ended up having all of you over for brunch. Andrew, you weren't here, but Julie and I were here and we had you just come over. I honestly Sunday afternoon so we could all chat before we brought my mom home. And I wanted to cry. I felt so just wrapped in a cocoon of the joy of having. We could feel it, the connection for all of us. How you all felt about each other, how we knew you were going to care for our mother. And one of you, it might have been you or it might have been Alice who said, listen, if you're lucky enough to be able to keep a loved one in your home, that's the greatest thing. [00:38:58] Speaker D: Yes, bring them home. [00:38:59] Speaker B: Bring them home. If you can do it. And we recognize. [00:39:02] Speaker D: Bring them home. [00:39:03] Speaker B: Listen, we were first floor accessible. You know, that was a huge factor. We knew that we had the three of us involved in her care. And then when we found our team, we knew that was possible. We recognize that's not the case for everybody. But when you said that, that just made me feel like we're, you know, it was risky for us to bring her home. We were nervous. I immediately felt wrapped in this great decision that we have not regretted for a moment since. [00:39:32] Speaker D: Because you can ask someone a million questions and they can give you the right answers, but they still not there. Look how many people get jobs doing this. [00:39:41] Speaker C: Yeah, you're right. [00:39:43] Speaker D: And they. [00:39:43] Speaker C: That's true. [00:39:44] Speaker D: You have to. You can feel if someone is right or wrong. I say this all. I mean, now that I'm older, when I was younger, I never realized that, but now I can just sense, look how many people have jobs doing this and they're still not made for it. They're not made for it. [00:40:02] Speaker B: True. [00:40:04] Speaker C: Well, I think that's a great place to end. Mom, can you help us out, please? [00:40:08] Speaker D: For what? [00:40:09] Speaker C: Repeat after me. [00:40:10] Speaker B: What? [00:40:11] Speaker C: We'll be right back. [00:40:12] Speaker B: Okay. [00:40:15] Speaker C: And that is a wrap, ladies and gentlemen. [00:40:18] Speaker B: And we will be right back after people listen to you. So you play the piano, Mom. Thanks, Latrice. We appreciate this so much. [00:40:34] Speaker A: Everything's going to be coming up roses and it's all very inside it today. So when you want to ride, really have it done today. This is kind of thing. You're really gonna have a day today. [00:40:55] Speaker B: And we're back just off a conversation with my mom's caregiver, Latrice, who is such a delightful human, we wanna mention that we had intended to interview both Latrice and Alice, one of my mom's other, our mom's other caregivers. But she really wasn't even able to navigate the time with us because her hustle is big, as are all of our caregivers. Alice is. What did you say? She's working. [00:41:25] Speaker C: They're all very busy. And she has overnight shifts at the auto plants where I think she's working from 9pm to 5am Six out of seven nights. [00:41:36] Speaker B: Incredible. [00:41:36] Speaker C: And then she was coming here for a 7:30 to 9:30 shift. Six out of seven days. [00:41:43] Speaker B: Incredible. [00:41:43] Speaker C: Couldn't keep it up. [00:41:44] Speaker B: Yeah. And Latrice also works at the Coney island and I would assume maybe they have other families they're caregiving for as well. The hustle of the women who come in and out of our mom's house is really incredible. They have families of their own. They have, they're going from job to job. It's really a challenging life for them. And yet they arrive with smiles on their faces and this warmth and sensitivity toward our mom that just makes us feel that we made the right move in choosing to bring her back home and surround her with wonderful, caring people. [00:42:22] Speaker C: And I think it's worthwhile just to mention that it's also important to get your affairs in order as it relates to the group of caregivers that you have coming in the home and how it's set up in the first place, because if you set it up in the right way, it works well. But you do have to be a manager. You do have to make sure that it's well understood what the requirements are, that they're okay with that. We have two documents that guide our relationship with our caregivers. One is a simple contract that stipulates that they're independent contractors and that they've read the scope of services that are very clearly written out, which is the other document, and they assert that, yes, they're okay with all that stuff. We work together on them and putting these documents together and it's basically our own home care plan that we do. And I think that's very responsible. I mean, important to, to get that well understood. Because if everybody starts off on the rock, on the right foot and they know what they have to do, that's, that's great. And I think also it's important to know that you got to listen to their feedback because they are the ones that are on the ground doing a lot of the grunt work in the trenches. And so you have to have regular discussions with them while it's happening, listening to their feedback, adjusting care as necessary. And that's really important. And finally, I would just say that it's important create this feeling of a team. Obviously, we have our own group text chain that we're often talking on to. [00:43:54] Speaker B: Share videos and photos and. And also sweet things. I mean, one of our caregivers, Brandy, had a baby, what, two months ago, and we love seeing her little one. My mom loves it. We just. I think it's a really. It provides a nice connection among all of us. [00:44:11] Speaker C: Yeah. And we also have the. You know, one of their suggestions was to have an old school physical logbook that they hand write in every time they're here that says what's happened and alerts everybody else to what's going on. And so I think having that sense of team and the fact that we've got this dream team working, we're all working together, really makes it feel like an extended family. And especially that we feel very lucky about that. We created that for sure. [00:44:40] Speaker B: And again, I say this every time, but I will say it again. You do the bulk of that work. The scheduling, the communication, the checking in. I am on the background of that situation. But I think it really makes a difference that they know that you're at the helm and that we all communicate together and the three of us as siblings communicate effectively. All the caregivers have talked about that with us. We'll get into that more in another episode because I think it's important to discuss the dynamics of the family. And we're fortunate, but we're also incredibly fortunate that we found a team who we know cares about our mom and cares about their work. And because of that, that little lady sitting in that chair over there is indeed living her best life. [00:45:35] Speaker C: She certainly is. And I think that's a good place to leave it. Thank you guys for listening. We will see you next time. [00:45:42] Speaker B: As always, do the email. Let's give them the email address. You can email [email protected]. Maybe you have a question, Maybe you have a comment. Maybe there's a situation that you would like us to explore. We're happy to hear from you again. Our goal is to create a community of caregivers, and you're part of our community. So we would love to hear from you. [00:46:04] Speaker C: And as always, here's mom to play us out. [00:46:10] Speaker A: Embrace me, my eerie play, peaceable you Embrace me, the one to tell you who will be. Just one look at you brings out the history in me. You and you alone bring that the history in me. And then when you're finished, you can always go to see to what do you want to be forever? [00:51:34] Speaker B: We want to mention that we had.