Mother-in-law, Addiction, Abuse, Caregiving, and Fuel Efficiency

I'm Peter Rosenberger, and many years ago when my wife Gracie became a double amputee, she saw the importance of quality prosthetics. She saw the importance of a support team and people that could help her regain her life after losing both legs. And she had this vision of creating an organization that would help others do the very same thing while pointing them to Christ.

And for more than 17 years, we've been doing just that. We purchase supplies, we send equipment, and we train and we send teams over to West Africa. We've been working with the country of Ghana, several clinics over there now, and each week more people walk because of Gracie's vision. In 2011, we launched a new program outreach to family caregivers.

Drawing on my now 36 plus years as Gracie's caregiver through a medical nightmare, I offer insights I've learned all of it the hard way to fellow caregivers to help them stay strong and healthy while taking care of someone who is not. If you want to be a part of this, go out to standingwithhope.com slash giving, standingwithhope.com slash giving to help us do more. At Standing with Hope, we're reaching the wounded and those who care for them. Standingwithhope.com slash giving. Take my hand, lean on me, we will stand.

I'm forgiven, now I have a reason for living. Jesus keep giving and giving, giving till my heart overflows. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver here on American Family Radio.

This is Peter Rosberger. This is the program for you as a family caregiver. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. If you want more information, you want to let us know what's on your heart, your mind.

Hopeforthecaregiver.com. I have a longtime friend and quasi mentor. I say quasi mentor for his benefit because he doesn't want to take the blame. But he has been instrumental in helping me with radio and broadcasting and podcasting for a very long time. He is known throughout the Fruited Plains as the Christian car guy.

He's Robbie Dilbore and he is from North Carolina, Winston-Salem, North Carolina. And so, Robbie, I am glad to have you here. I have waited for years to be invited to be on your show, Peter. Waited?

Is that the right word you want to use? Wait? That you've waited or you've held your breath hoping you wouldn't be?

No. Robbie's been just super encouraging to me and he brings this. I mean, Robbie, how long have you been in radio?

About 20 years now. So you bring a wealth of experience and you, before we get into all the car stuff that you do, because you have a lengthy history of being able to speak to car issues and from a biblical perspective. Please don't tell the joke about they were all in one accord, Robbie. I'll just go ahead and get that out of the way now. You're a caregiver, too. I got a whole group of stations in New York, like six of them, for telling that joke. So I don't ever tell a joke. Well, for that, we're grateful, too.

I preempted it for you. You're a caregiver and you've been in this world now for some time and it's been illuminating for you, hasn't it? Oh my gosh, yes. First, actually, with my father. We cared for him the last year and a half of his life and learned many hard lessons right there. And then for the last three years, with my mother-in-law, where really more of the burden of that one is on my wife. And wow, it's been a test. As a matter of fact, she is one of your biggest fans and listens to your podcast every night. She often reminds me of what a gift you are.

Well, that's said very few people ever. No, I appreciate that. I'm glad that we're able to be a source of encouragement to her because it is a hard thing. As you are watching your wife struggle caring for her mother, where does that take you?

What have you learned about a Christian marriage and husbands loving their wives and all these things as you've watched this unfold? This is going to sound really strange, but it's actually true that due to the very complex relationship of my wife with her mother, her mother was very abusive most of her life and continues to be, honestly. Even in the latter parts of her life, she was an alcoholic and all sorts of other things that were challenging. And so my wife's being a caregiver from her mother's actually brought us, I think, closer than we ever have been from a standpoint, and I hate to even use this word, but we kind of have a common enemy. How about adversary?

Adversary. Well, you know, I don't mean to say, I mean, I love my mother-in-law and I help her every single day in all sorts of different ways. But because my wife only has me, to an extent, to come to with all the things that she said to her yesterday, and all the stuff that happened and all that, and maybe the word adversary is better, but I think you know what I'm saying? That we had just been drawn together as we faced this foe that we realized that it's her behavior that we have a struggle with. She's obviously listened to the adversary for years and years and years, and so she easily falls to that, although I believe that she is now a believer. She made a confession a couple, maybe ten years ago, and we feel like she's making progress, but it's a hard road. But I will tell you that it has really brought my wife closer than we've ever been, really. And we were close before, but we really, you know, she talks to me a lot, and I talk to her a lot about that whole situation.

Is that weird? I guess it is. No, it's not, because I've had a lot of folks that have called in to this program and struggled with alcoholic family members who are now in need of full-time care. And the wounds that were created by addiction and all those behaviors that flow from it are not easily healed, and some never get healed this side of heaven. And it's a real thing, and there are family members who are struggling with abusive parents that they're now having to care for, and yet they're unresolved issues. And so they, and then I know plenty of them that are being cursed at and yelled at and berated while they're caring for them.

And it's a very hard thing to do. Dr. Haley, believe me, in my household, it's almost unbelievable the things that she says to Tammy every day. And maybe as I've had a chance to think about it, we have a common enemy in Satan who has her mother's attention a great deal of the time. That's probably a better way to put it. Because, I mean, that is, I mean, it was this morning my wife was telling me, you know, how her mother just called her in the room and told her how she needs to be ashamed of herself for this, this, this, this, this, this, this. And shame on you, and shame on you, you know, for all these things that she really was responsible for.

You know, it's just, it's a challenge. But I feel like, man, I'm so glad I can be there for my wife through this, because it is a really difficult time. How do you help lift all that off of her? Because I know she walks out of that room sometimes with her shoulders sagging. How do you help lift that off of her? She knows.

She's going to come tell me. And I think to some extent, just to have somebody to vent and know, you know, as a husband, I'm having to learn. I can't fix this. You know, I want to fix it.

I want to go in there and tell my mother-in-law all sorts of stuff. But actually, that exasperates the situation, makes it worse. And so, you know what, I just have to listen and love on her and tell her, honey, you know better than this. And know that, you know, she doesn't know what she's talking about. And don't take that. And don't take that shame. And pray a lot.

A lot. That's exactly what you do, is you release them from that, because the disease has its own voice in this dysfunction. And it will do horrific things. And I had a guy call in one time, I remember, and he was struggling with how do I honor my father, like scripture tells me to, and yet he's so abusive because of his alcoholism and everything else. I said, well, scripture says to honor your mother and father doesn't say to honor alcoholism or Alzheimer's or any other cognitively impairing disease that creates its own dysfunction. You're not there to placate all the things that come out of someone's mouth under the influence of an addiction or a cognitively impairing disease. And so your wife is right to come back to you, let it tell you, and then the two of you pray through it, and recognize that all of that is symptomatic of this great dysfunction of sin that has gripped this entire world and creation since the fall. And so I think that is extraordinary how you guys have pulled together with this.

And I applaud you for doing it. Yeah, it's a challenge because like this last night when I came home, you know, Tammy had left her upstairs and she is on oxygen and she'd come down the stairs without her oxygen. She has like a little chair that rides her down the stairs and she's sitting there with a power cord to her oxygen and one handed her phone and she first of all didn't even know who I was.

She was like, Tammy, and I said, no, I'm not Tammy, I'm Robbie. And she goes, I need help. I need help. I said, what do you need help with? I can't breathe. I said, well, where's your oxygen?

She said, I don't know. You know, so it's at times like that, she's extremely vulnerable and definitely needs the care. And I felt so glad I was in that situation to help her and that kind of thing. And so it is an honor to some extent to be able to be there for somebody like that. But then at other times it's very difficult. You know what I'm saying?

Well, I do. And I had a great conversation with Rob Morgan a couple of weeks ago and he talked about caring for his wife. And he said something and I've repeated it for several shows now because it was such a profound moment. He took care of his wife for 25 years through MS. And he said, you grieve incrementally every day.

And there's loss every day, incremental loss every day leading up to where you know this is going. And that's a hard thing. That's a hard thing. And my hope and prayer for not only Tammy, but myself and all of us as caregivers and you is that when we do stand at a cemetery and hopefully we're the ones standing, not because we don't want to, I mean, go be with the Lord, but we just don't want our loved ones to have to live without us being there. But when we stand at that grave, that we do so without clenched fists at our loved one, ourselves, others, doctors, God, we can live peacefully with these very, very difficult circumstances. But we cannot do it apart from Christ. I am convinced of that.

After 36 years, I cannot do it. And, you know, if other people want to try a different path, I can't stop them from that. I can just tell you from my own experience that it is that peace of God that surpasses all understanding that guards our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.

And right now, you and your wife's hearts and minds need to be guarded, don't they? Yeah, when you think about it, it's a fascinating, you know, David said in 119th Psalm, you know, seven times a day, I'll praise you because of your righteous judgment. Like, what? But the idea is all these things that are happening that are literally judgment are God's way of perfecting us through struggle. Like, this is a strain. This is a hard, hard thing. But clearly, you know, this is part of what he had for Tammy and I in order to get where he had for us. And it's just a fascinating time. And like they all say, you know, it's the worst of times. It's the best of times because it is driving us to where, you know, we're beyond ourselves and in our weakness.

You know, we got to cry out for help because we got no help. Indeed. We're talking with Robbie Gilmore. He is the Christian car guy. He's going to give us some car tips here after the break. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope for the Caregiver.

We'll be right back. I want to tell you about a program I've been a part of now for almost 10 years, and that's Legal Shield. For less than $30 a month, I have access to a full law firm that can handle all kinds of things.

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This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the program for you as a family caregiver. Healthy caregivers make better caregivers. But what does healthiness look like for us as caregivers? It looks like being in a better path financially, emotionally, spiritually, professionally, relationship-wise.

All of these things, because if we go down in any of these areas, what's going to happen to our loved one? It's not enough to just have a good diet and be healthy physically. We need to be healthy fiscally.

But what does that mean? And those are the things we get into this program. And then one of the things I want to address is being healthy automotively. And that's why I have Robbie Dilmore on the line with me here. He is the Christian car guy.

And, you know, Robbie, I want to jump right into this, and I appreciate all the stuff you talked about in the last block about your journey as a caregiver, the challenges it is on you and your wife. I want to pivot just a little bit to the reality that we have very high gas prices, that we have very high inflation, cost or everything. What are some ways that you know you are the Christian car guy and you have this massive following of people who talk all things automotive? What are some things that people are doing that they should not be doing that is potentially wasting a good bit of gas, which is money? That's not gas, it's money.

And how can we help rein that in a little bit? So I have these, you know, talk on my show quite frequently, because a lot of people are definitely concerned about the price of gas, and that is something that, you know, we can all be talking about what we could not be doing. And since we do work quite a bit with caregivers on the Jesus, Labor, Love, that's part of the Christian car guy show where we help out single moms, widows and families in crisis, so a lot of those widows and other people are caregivers.

And so the number one tip that I actually have to save gas is to pray and ask God, is this a trip I even really need to take? Would it be possible that some other service in my town, you know, like we have all sorts of county help that will actually take people that need doctor's appointments and that kind of stuff for absolute free. And so one of the resources that's out there that a lot of people don't realize they could take advantage of is services like, you know, ours is called why Betty out here, just, you know, an acronym for the county that they're in the county, and and they will, you know, take your loved one to the doctor's appointment, you can go with them. And they and again, who's paying for the gas they are. Are you familiar with that, Peter? I am familiar some of those out here in Montana, though, where I live now, we don't have a lot of those services.

We don't have Uber, we have Goober. And it's, you know, dog sleds are involved and covered wagons. It's so it's a little bit different way to rural area where I live. But I am familiar with those things.

Back east, we have a lot of those with my folks that are still living in South Carolina. And some of those things as well. What are some other things they can do to your car we can do to our cars? Okay, so the other thing, well, the number two on my list of ways to save gas is to just simply give yourself more margin, leave sooner, get up earlier. Because if you if you drive when there's less traffic, there's not as much stop and go and you save money on gas. So a lot of people give themselves no margin that makes them in a hurry. And that hurry makes you burn gas.

It's just it's a horrible thing. You'd be shocked at how much you can save by just leaving sooner, the next thing you can do. And for most people, they've got way too much stuff in their car. That would you believe that the manufacturers will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to reduce a pound or two. The whole reason we have miniature spares instead of full size spares is they're lighter weight. And they realize that when you're carrying around extra weight, just think if you're on a bicycle and you put extra 30 pounds on it, how much harder is the pedal? Well, that's the whole idea behind your car. So when you're carrying around all that water in the backseat, or a bunch of books or whatever it is you got, getting rid of that stuff out of your car is literally costing you tons of gas you've never even thought about.

So there's one big deal. And then of course, there's always nowadays with all the heat. I'm sure you're experiencing that even in Montana. So I've had this that I've said for years, you know, when you're in town, you know, if you keep your windows down, believe it or not, it's it's more efficient, but over 50 it's not thrifty. In other words, your windows down if you're going over 50 miles an hour is actually costing you aerodynamic wise.

So like I say in town, keep them down over 50. It's not thrifty. Did you did you come up with that all by yourself? I did. Can you tell?

Well, yes, I actually can tell. The other thing that a lot of people especially if they're going on vacation right now, oh my gosh, people realize how much those roof rack things or carriers or bike racks, all those things, they ruin the aerodynamics of a car and over 50 miles an hour, almost 80% of the horsepower is being used to move air. And so anything you can do to make your car more slip through the air is going to really help you on the highway. And so you know, if you can possibly make that trip without the roof rack, oh boy, will it save you some money. There you go.

There's some tips. Just out of curiosity because my son noticed this the other day and I don't I never use the roof rack. Should I just take the whole rack off? Does that affect anything or is that? Yes, yes.

If you've got those cross members, most roof racks, you can take the cross members off and you should if you've got them because again, they're just pushing air that doesn't need to be pushed. You know, so we look at gases. Okay, we go buy it, but that's actually currency.

That's money and let's look for ways to save it. You know, out here, we live in a place where the speed limit is a little bit higher. Robbie, what does the speed limit do? I mean, when you're speeding and you go over a certain amount, you're burning lots more fuel.

Is that correct? Yeah, that's why they changed the speed limit to 55 back in the day. So yeah, speeding at one point in time, I used to do the calculation. It costs billions of dollars across the country and uses so much fuel. It's unbelievable because you know, essentially that extra five miles an hour that you're going over the speed limit or whatever is costing you you know, literally like two or three miles per gallon. And when you figure that into, you know, two or three weeks, you're going to see it's a lot of money these days at $6 a gallon or whatever fuel is out there. What about trucks with letting the tailgate down?

Talk about that a little bit. Yeah, that's a great example of a thing most people don't understand about the aerodynamics of automobiles is that there's two places where you save gas money. The one is where they originally impact the air.

In other words, how quickly the two air flows. One goes over the top of the car and one goes underneath the car. And so as quickly as they can separate those two air flows, the better the aerodynamics the car is. But then where the two air flows come back together, the further behind the car, the better the fuel economy is. And that was why that, you know, you remember when they had the Ford Thunderbird that they talked about the ducktail. It was beautiful the way the wind would come together after the car. So when you take the tailgate down in a truck, you're sending that air flow right back together with the air flow under the car, which actually creates a vacuum pulling the truck backward. And so by leaving the tailgate up, in fact you'll see there's a lot of spoilers on the back of tailgates these days, and that's in an effort to get the air flow to be as far behind the car as possible when those two streams come back together. You know, I first noticed that when you see the big tractor trailers hauling, the long haulers, and they had those panels that they would extend out behind the truck, kind of formed a kind of a cone behind the truck. You know what I'm talking about? Exactly, that is the exact idea. Talk about air pressure in your tires.

Yeah. You know, actually, I would find the maximum that, like my wife's car, maximum air pressure is 36 pounds and we run it at 36 pounds because it's like you want to try and experiment, go out there on your bicycle and lower the air pressure on your bicycle, go try to pedal versus if you fill the tires all the way. There's no comparison as to how much gas you lose when you run low tire pressure. So those people that are trying to get the ultimate mileage are obviously going to run at the maximum tire pressure, but don't take that too far because it's terribly dangerous to overinflate your tires on all sorts of levels. Number one, just when you do it, you stand a chance. I had a friend that was killed by overinflating the tire, so you don't want to do that just, you know, if the tire were to explode, but then also if you have a blowout on the highway, it's not worth it.

But I mean, if it's rated and it's right there, usually on the doorpost, it'll show you what the maximum tire pressure is for your car and I would definitely run the maximum. Well, these are good tips here. And Robbie, it's always a pleasure to have you here and thank you for all that you've done to help my program and the podcast and the broadcast, everything that I've done over the years. And I am very grateful.

If people want to find out more about you, what's the best way to do that? ChristianCarguy.com is my website. And you know, there it has all about me, about my different radio shows and all that stuff at ChristianCarguy.com. ChristianCarguy.com, it's Robbie Dilmore and Robbie, you are, it's national treasure, Robbie Dilmore, national treasure, Robbie Dilmore, the ChristianCarguy. If you have any questions about your vehicle, if you're transporting a loved one, if you're having a wheelchair mounted on the back or any type of adaptive devices for disabilities and so forth, please reach out to Robbie. He's the guy. He knows all these things and he will be glad to talk with you about it, maybe even talk with you about it on his program.

Because if you're dealing with it, a bunch of people are too. Hopeforthecaregiver.com, go to the ChristianCarguy.com, ChristianCarguy.com for more on Robbie and Robbie, thanks as always for being a part of the program today. I was honored. Thank you, Peter. This is Peter Rosenberger, this is Hopeforthecaregiver, Hopeforthecaregiver.com, we'll see you next week. The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast do not necessarily reflect those of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.