Ep25_how-hard-will-caregiving-be.mp4: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Ep25_how-hard-will-caregiving-be.mp4: this mp4 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Isabel:
I want you to be well cared for in the coming years and months. And I also want your older loved one to have a good ending, a peaceful ending. I want them to have a good, proper send off when they die. And I want you to feel good about things and not have your caregiving experience haunt you. Hi, I'm Isabel Tom and this is the Value of Wrinkles podcast. Whatever age you're at or consider yourself to be, maybe that's young, youngish, midlife older, or maybe you just call yourself old. There's value that you bring to this world. Let's explore how to love the older generation and ourselves more. I am no fortune teller. But today I'm going to give you an idea of what caregiving will be like for you. This episode is really for those of you who have parents, grandparents, or aging relatives or friends that are healthy for the most part. But let's say you are starting to notice or realizing that you're noticing they're getting up there in age. And maybe you just also know that in the future, maybe it's unspoken, but you know that you will be tasked as the 1 or 1 of the people who will be caring for them. It's likely that you try not to think about this topic, your parents or our grandparents getting older, but I want to get into some meaty and real stuff today, so stick with me.

Isabel:
And by the end of this episode, you'll have an idea of what you're up against in the future. Now, I know for sure, and sometimes I wish that, uh, talking about the future was a little more interesting. Like, sometimes I really wish maybe I could be a foodie influencer or a fashion blogger and just, like, share with you all the different cool outfits or do home decor. But that is not what I'm sharing with you today. But really, we are going to talk today about how hard caregiving will be for you. And I'm telling you not to bore you, but because I really think it's important to know what you're up against. Maybe as you're thinking about this topic and you're thinking about the future, it's important for you or you're asking yourself, what will it be like? Like will you or your loved one have the money needed to get care? How are you going to manage working and caring for them and dealing with all the other things that you have to do? Bills, family, all of that. Maybe you're asking who's going to help them and, uh, where are they going to live when they need more help? So today I'm going to have you grab a sheet of paper, a scrap paper, whatever, notepad, journal. And I'm going to have you ask yourself some questions to evaluate what you're up against and whether you need to start preparing now or like yesterday.

Isabel:
Before I get into questions, I want to explain why I didn't title this episode. How hard or easy will it be? If you know you're going to be caring for your parent or grandparent if you plan to and want to, and this is your act of honoring your elders, it's important that I share with you this a truth. This piece of truth, and that is that caring for your older loved one. It will be hard no matter what. Yeah, it will be hard no matter what. And this is why aging is not like the beginning of life, where their expected milestones. When a baby is growing, they are expected to be walking or talking by a certain age. They are expected to be picking up things and stacking blocks or jumping on one foot by a certain age, and it's around the same time as other kids their age. When it comes to aging, like at the end of your life, people age at different rates. There are no milestones so that you know exactly what age someone will stop walking or stop cooking or stop driving. We don't have milestones for when an older adult can't reach above their head any longer, and don't have that range of motion, or won't be able to go up and down stairs.

Isabel:
We don't have milestones when an older adult will fall. We don't have a milestone for when they'll die. People die at all different ages and that uncertainty of when things are going to occur, that is aging. That is what aging is. That's very normal uncertainty, that uncertainty of how aging will affect a person is also there. So aging varies from person to person. No one person ages the same way. And that's exactly why it will be hard no matter what. It will feel like a roller coaster. No matter what, you won't know exactly what to expect. Your loved 1st May decline and have back issues. Your mom's friend may decline, but they may struggle with bone density and fall easily. Let's say you know, your mom's friend may break bones more often and be in a lot of pain, but then the other older adult down the the the street may have heart issues. And another person you know who's older may experience Alzheimer's or ALS or Parkinson's. Are you getting the point? Caring for someone who is aging will be hard no matter what, because it is different for everyone. And that's why we need to do what we can while we can. It will feel like a roller coaster at times because aging affects people differently. I'm really sorry if I scared you or made you anxious. Listen, while you're feeling anxious now, the fact that you're listening today, it means that you are.

Isabel:
You are doing some preparation work. And preparation matters when it comes to caring for our parents, our grandparents, and the older people we love. So let me get on with the show. But at the end of today, I do want to share with you a resource that I have that will guide you so that you can prepare now for later on. All right, so grab a sheet of paper and let's do some work together. Now I'm going to have you rate and give me a number from 1 to 10. Write it down on a sheet of paper for a number of different questions. Number one is like the lowest score. Number ten is very good or the best okay. So the first question I want to ask you and I want you to write down, rate it from 1 to 10 is how is your relationship with your parent or grandparent now like today? How would you rate it? One being very poor, not very good at all. Two number ten being very good. Think about that for a second and pause if you need to. The second question is how is your relationship with your siblings if you have any? Or you could ask the same question how is your relationship with close family and friends? Again, one being not very good to ten being the best, very good.

Isabel:
The third question is how strong is your loved one's community now, today? How strong is their community? Do they have a super strong community or do they have no community at all? Are they in mostly isolation? Number four. How good are or is your loved one's communication skills? One being super, super duper poor like they are not able to communicate. Maybe they're very passive. Maybe they don't tell you anything. They're a poor communicator. Number ten they're really good at communicating, telling you what they want in a very gentle and kind way. So rate that. How good are their communication skills? Next question. I think that's let's see. 12345. How good are your communication skills. Now be honest here. One being poor ten being very good. And if you need help because this is self-reflective and sometimes it's a little skewed, ask a friend. Ask somebody who's close to you. Ask a child if you have one so that they can give you an honest score. Number six. How close do you live to your older loved one? How close in terms of proximity are you to your parent or grandparent? Now, so number one means you live far. Maybe you are overseas. Maybe you're a thousands and thousands of miles away. You need to fly an entire day and you're in a completely different time zone. Number ten rating at ten would mean that you are right down the block from them.

Isabel:
You are close by. You can get to them easily. I'm going to count the numbers one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. We're on seven. How much money do you have set aside to help your loved one? One being like zilch. Nothing. No money? Set aside ten. You have, um, set aside. You've been thinking about this and saving up for a while. And then finally, the last one is how much time and preparation have you put into planning for caregiving? Planning for when your loved one is going to need more help, first of all, well, I guess a good question for later is do you know how to prepare? But um, just answer the question how much time in preparation have you put into planning ahead? One being none. I guess it might be zero two, but one being none. No time, no preparation, and ten being. You have been preparing for a while and you have things set in place. You've been talking with your loved one and you feel ready. So now I want you to average all the numbers together. Or you could actually, well, average all the numbers together for one. And then that's one way to kind of evaluate this. And then I also think that if you have time, you know, write, um, a timeline, a timeline, a line 0 to 10 and then um, map all the answers, the numbers and how you rated and just kind of look at it.

Isabel:
If the numbers that you have from all of these questions are closer to ten, then that is pretty good news. It will be hard caring for your older loved one, but it's going to be much easier than it will be for people who are closer to one. You are probably going to be doing a lot of hard work. It's going to be hard. There's going to be decisions that are going to be tough, conversations that are difficult. But more than likely it's not going to be as traumatic. If your numbers are closer to one, then you haven't put that much preparation in. And it could be traumatic. And caregiving could be really, really, really difficult for you. Like if you don't do some planning now and prepare and equip yourself, then it is going to not just be a roller coaster and hard. It's likely going to be traumatic. Do me a favor and DM me on Instagram. Or if you took this quiz, tell me what number you have in questions you might have for me too. You can also email me at the value of wrinkles at gmail.com. So here's the thing we cannot control or predict what our parent or grandparent will go through as they age.

Isabel:
I mean, we can guess, but we won't know for sure until it happens, right? So we can't plan ahead and research everything. But there are ways. There really are ways that we can minimize stress, drama, trauma by preparing now. And it is so important to start thinking and preparing now. And I'm telling you that, uh, from personal experience and from professional experience working in the end of life care field, that's hospice care, especially, um, I have my Prepare to Care digital course that you can enroll in right now. And the link is in the show notes. And you you can you don't have to take my course. You can piecemeal and find other ways to plan ahead. But the most important thing, it doesn't matter what you choose, whether you choose my course, another course, you hire somebody. But the most important thing is that you don't keep pushing. Excuse me, this topic to the side, because every time you neglect certain conversations, certain tasks, or preparing and thinking ahead, it really is going to make life more stressful later on. Ignoring and just postponing and not thinking about the future. Not thinking about decline and yeah, death. Um, it is going to make later super duper duper hard. And I don't want that to happen to you. I truly believe that caregiving is often a traumatic experience because families and individuals, adult children, grandchildren, they're not equipped.

Isabel:
So they haven't done anything, they're not well informed, and they don't have any guidance on what to do. They are just, uh, blindly caring for their loved one. And sometimes I know the terme sounds great, but sometimes all they do. Is show up. That is their plan. So I know this is a hard topic to hear, but I wanted to bring it to you because I want you to be well cared for in the coming years and months. And I also want your older loved one to have a good ending, a peaceful ending. I want them to have a good, proper sendoff when they die. And I want you to feel good about things and not have your caregiving experience haunt you. That's it for episode 25. If today's episode was helpful to you. Would you do me a great big favor and rate and review this on your podcast app wherever you are listening? What this does is this helps get the word out about the Value of Wrinkles podcast to more people. It helps more people, and it also helps me because it helps me to be able to get the sponsors and funding needed to be able to sustain the work that I do and the work that I really care about. I'm so thankful for you coming to listen today, and I can't wait to bring you another awesome episode next time.

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