Protecting Gracie When I'm Not There

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Call 866-WINASIA or to see chickens and other animals to donate, go to CritterCampaign.org. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. I am Peter Rosenberger.

This is the nation's number one show for you as a family caregiver. How are you feeling? How are you doing? How are you holding up?

877-655-6755. John, did you recognize that voice singing? I did, I did. Well, John's holding up a sign to you, Gracie. She's here with us. That was Gracie. Your big head's in the way. My big head's in the way. This is my wife, Gracie. I love that fact.

I can have her as bumper music. Yeah, you don't have to pay royalties or anything. Well, I pay for it. Just trust me, I pay for it. John, do you have any idea how difficult it is to be a trophy husband? I mean, it is a burden. I imagine it is just so much work, day in, you know.

Heavy lies the crown. John needs to be turned up more. I like to hear John. Most people do.

All right, listen to this. Imagine a parent at the end of a rope caring for a special needs child, and they get a daily phone call from a caring person breaking through the isolation and checking on that stressed mom or dad. What kind of difference do you think that would make? Particularly, we've gotten a sense of isolation now in the coronavirus, but think about that parent who is just feeling so alone, so lonely, so isolated, and they get a phone call that just checks in on them and says, how are you doing? Imagine going to the grocery store in peace while knowing a century was on duty for your aging loved one, that you didn't have to be afraid, being able to look at them on your phone or from your watch. John, do you have an iWatch or whatever those things are called?

I do not, but I do have, I've got an Amazon show, and I can drop in from anywhere and take a look. I have a Dick Tracy decoder ring, does that count? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, be sure to drink your Ovaltine. Well, and imagine- Yeah, we'll talk to you about that, Gracie, later on.

That's some good stuff. Well, being able to look at it from your phone, from your watch, from what John just said, whatever that was, and imagine- Because you were talking over John? No, it's an Alexa device that has a camera and a screen on it, and I can drop it on the kids, or if I really want to, I can have every device in the house broadcast, like a PA, and be the voice of Dad. Well, imagine being able to do that, safely monitor your loved one if they're in assisted facility, even during the quarantine, because people are having to trust that they're being cared for by the staff and so forth.

And then imagine a system that guarantees your privacy with such a network that it provides a $1 million guarantee. These are services that are available to you right now. Gracie and I take advantage of them. You can go to companion247.com. But I do this with Gracie, and I wanted her to talk a little bit today about why she finds this valuable, because Gracie is a very vulnerable individual. She has two prosthetic legs. She lives with a lot of significant mobility challenges from orthopedic damage and trauma that she's had over these 37 years since her car wreck. And so you can't just abandon her and leave her to her own devices there to hopefully, well, you'll be all right, pin a $20 bill on her shirt and say, best of luck to you.

I mean, you can't do that. You have to provide a mechanism where she feels safe, but at the same time, she doesn't want to feel smothered, do you, darling? And how did we know that you don't want to feel smothered? Because I tell you. Because I've smothered her.

But tell us a little bit, what are some of the services that you take advantage of through Constant Companion? Well, number one, we've discovered, especially in Montana, I can snow ski, but apparently I'm a huge fall risk. You know, just being an amputee. And then when I'm in the chair, I mean, you know, I've given myself a couple of concussions.

You know, falling back and, you know, Peter, Peter wasn't there. And I'm thinking, what am I going to do? I'll just let me lie here until somebody comes.

Seriously. So in the bathroom, there's one, but that one's white and she is on no disturb. So if something happened and I fell, then I would say, computer, call for help.

That's all I need to do. Computer, call for help. And it doesn't matter what it is. I mean, if I want to say something different, I could. But I mean, that's just the gist of it.

Computer, call for help. And then the rest of them, though, they all, though, what I think is really cool about them, is that they play Pandora music and stuff. And so I can say, play the Frank Sinatra channel.

To be fair, I say that. I'm going to out myself here. I listen to George Gershwin in the shower.

So you could do that. Mine is right next to the shower. Well, there's one in the shower. There's one, I mean, there's one in the bedroom. There's one in the bathroom and there's one in the kitchen.

So we have it wherever the fall risk could be. Yeah, yeah. And all this is to say that there are these wonderful tools through Constant Contact that can really reduce the stress on both the person being caregived for and for the caregiver and really be efficient about all this. And like we say a lot of times on this show, what we talk about is focused on the act of caregiving, but it's also really good for really everybody else.

Just caregivers deal with it in this magnified thing. I mean, I could say, call the hospital, call Peter, any of those things. Or, hey, I'm bored. I want to play a game. I'm bored.

I want to play a game. Or read. It'll read to you or talk with you. It'll talk with you.

Yeah. And it'll bring a book to me. It'll read the Bible to me.

I mean, it's really, I have to say it's pretty cool. Only thing, you know, that I have, because I have the, you know, who, who must not be named. Sometimes I'll forget and I'll call the computer that we had to name, you know, that's really Alexa.

I've had to call them computer. And sometimes I'll say, Alexa, of course, you know who comes on. Well, when we went to the Constant Companion system, that was one of the concerns because I didn't want to have to have Gracie reload all of her stuff that she had on Alexa. Because a lot of people already have Alexa and say, well, why do I need another one?

You could either reload it or you can have it and run two separate systems. And it works either way. But like on Mondays morning, Monday mornings, I get a call that they ask me, you know, how are you doing?

How are you feeling? From a real person. Yeah, from a real person. So this is a combination, because I'm learning about this too. So this is a combination of both device and service.

Is that correct? Absolutely. Okay. Okay. Okay. Gotcha. And they'll call and then like I had a conference call last month with, I guess, the board or something.

And they just asked, you know, what do I want out of, you know, my computer? Your experience. Yeah.

Yes. They will tailor it to our needs. And the fact that, and for our situation, we set up so that Gracie gets a call at 10 o'clock every Monday morning. And they're just calling. It's a real person. And they contract, I think, with visiting angels to do this.

But it's a real person who does this. And they call up and they just said, look, how are you doing? How are you holding up? And what's going on?

Is there anything new? Is there something, you know, you need to talk about? It's a local person. And so I don't have to, it's not somebody across the country where, you know, you know what I'm saying? Like if I needed somebody to come to the house because Peter was speaking at a conference or something, they would make that happen. I mean, it's pretty amazing.

And really, as I'm thinking about this, you know, because they do have cameras you can do with this. And that's something that we talked about. But I don't want to see Peter that much.

No, I'm kidding. And they're a constant companion. There is a, it can be a little disconcerting.

We talked about the children though. I mean, when you say constant companion, first of all, it's a way for you to go, you know what, I can be in my own home and not have to go someplace I don't want to go. Or if I want to give them some privacy or something like that. Well, the thing that if you go into a facility, that is automatically a separation from your family and friends.

Especially right now. And it puts you in a different path. A path I never want.

Yes. And the goal is to help people to, you know, we've talked about this on the show, 92% of people want to age in their own home. Well, this is a great way. How is that going to happen with human resources? Better living through technology is what we're going for here. You're going to have to offset some of that stress.

There's not enough people. Yeah. And so this is able to do this. And it's a tool. It doesn't replace the human touch. In fact, one of the things I like about constant companion is that it engages the human touch through the phone calls that she gets it out. But I was thinking about this when we looked at this, of a stressed out caregiver, of a special needs child that is just blowing up the house kind of thing, a kid with autism or whatever.

And that person is not engaged regularly with other people. And if they're getting, and you can get a call every day, you can set it up so somebody calls every day. Program you in and say.

How many times? And just say, you know, here's the script we want you to have and say, how are you doing? How are you holding up? And I think about all these people who are so stressed and I think, what would it be like if they had a phone call just to say, you know, how are you doing? That is like, I like that you said, okay, you have cameras, John, and you have like a thing, like a PA system in your house.

Oh yeah, it's really cool, you know. Clean your, make up your bed. Well, but these are things that I'm always looking for, for myself and then for my fellow caregivers on, okay, how can we better offset some of the stress? And there is no one tool. There's no one magic bullet that's going to do this. We all know that.

But that doesn't mean we can't incorporate several things. I think what John said is perfect. I think what John says often is perfect. Well, it's true. And I mean, why do we need you, Peter, again? I'm sorry. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. You are needed.

I just miss John so much. Spectacular hair. You are an arctic blonde. It's true. But I, you know, seriously, there's not enough people. Think about it. And so if you, as a parent, or you just, I mean, even if your parents are not that old, but they need to be living with somebody, like me, I wouldn't think of myself as a fall risk. You have no legs.

Okay. But I, I am just because, you know, I don't, but I wasn't born this way. So I don't think of myself. I mean, I don't dream, by the way, I don't dream myself without legs.

That's kind of interesting. My dreams, I have legs still, you know, it's, and it's kind of like when my brain, because I still have all those nerve endings, when my brain forgets, like when I first wake up or something, or when I turn around to do something, and if I don't have my legs on, you know, I, a couple months ago, I didn't tell Peter this, but I did not fall. I almost did, but I did not. I just pulled my legs around and I just thought, I'm just going to get, I mean, you know, I forgot that I didn't have any legs.

And so, you know, but if I had fallen again, that's a perfect example. Now, if I'd fallen in the bedroom, I will say this Alexa is not quite as nosy John as the tower one, but so, but you know, if she hears something that's kind of out of line, she may say, you know, hello, is there something you need? You know what I'm saying?

Is that kind of thing now? And, but the camera thing, you know, we've not gone into that point, but with kids, man, or like if you had aging parents or somebody that's got Alzheimer's or dementia, I mean, you can keep an eye on them and immediately, like you said, with the, with the PA kind of, so to speak, you could say, Hey, what's going on? Exactly. Well, I'll get into this later, but I'm doing the distance learning thing with the kids.

And what I've done is I've set up a, you know, it's hard for me to keep a schedule. So I just have a set of alarms. That's every period. All right.

It's, you know, it's second period. Let's head to math. Wow. You're such a great dad. By necessity y'all, I'm sorry. Well, listen, this is Peter Rosenberg and this is hope for the caregiver.

We've got to go to a break. We'll be right back. We're talking with Gracie, my wife, and all of the things that are involved in helping you stay strong and healthy as you take care of someone who's not. That is for more information on Constant Companion, go to companion247.com, companion247.com.

We'll put this in the podcast as well, companion247.com. This is Peter Rosenberg and we'll be right back. Have you ever struggled to trust God when lousy things happen to you?

I'm Gracie Rosenberger. And in 1983, I experienced a horrific car accident leading to 80 surgeries and both legs amputated. I questioned why God allowed something so brutal to happen to me.

But over time, my questions changed and I discovered courage to trust God. That understanding, along with an appreciation for quality prosthetic limbs, led me to establish Standing with Hope. For more than a dozen years, we've been working with the government of Ghana and West Africa, equipping and training local workers to build and maintain quality prosthetic limbs for their own people. On a regular basis, we purchase and ship equipment and supplies.

And with the help of inmates in a Tennessee prison, we also recycle parts from donated limbs. All of this is to point others to Christ, the source of my hope and strength. Please visit standingwithhope.com to learn more and participate in lifting others up. That's standingwithhope.com. I'm Gracie, and I am standing with hope.