PillMap: A BRILLIANT Tool to Help Family Caregivers

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Call 866-WINASIA. Or to see chickens and other animals to donate, go to crittercampaign.org. Welcome to Hope for the Caregiver. I am Peter Rosenberger. This is the nation's number one show for you as a family caregiver. We are glad that you're here. How are you doing? How are you feeling? 877-655-6755.

877-655-6755. If you want to be a part of the show, we've got lots to talk about today. We've got some great guests. And as always, as always, he is here. Sorry about that, John. I had a guy the other day, he said, he talked to me and he said, yes, ma'am. And then he corrected himself and said, I'm sorry, yes, sir. And I said, thank you.

I really, really worked hard to achieve that. He didn't know how to respond to that. John Butler's with me. John is the Count of Mighty Disco. You know him, you love him. You can't get enough of him.

He is just awesome. And the two of us are, well, thank you very little. And the two of us have, we've worked at this for a long time and are committed to bringing a powerful message to family caregivers that you know what? You are important.

You are critical. You are worth spending the time for to help and to strengthen and encourage along the way. And if you're not in a good space, how's everything else around you going to reflect that?

I mean, what's going to happen with your wallet, with your job, with your heart, with your body, with your relationships, all of those things. And that's what we focus on here on Hope the Caregiver. We also come up with tools to help you along the way. We love tech. We always love tech.

And tech is good because that's a way to offload some of the tasks and the stress. But there are other people that are coming up with innovative things every day, particularly the COVID-19 world, of things that can help us along the way as caregivers. And so one of those individuals is here with us today. And I really, we've talked for a couple of years now, back and forth on some things. And I wanted to have remote, you've been on before, haven't you, Kimberly?

It's been a while. I have not been on your show before. You've not been on my show?

No, we've had conversations, but I have not been on your show. Well, welcome to the show. Well, we should remedy that, you know. We are fixing a problem. Yeah.

We'll get you on as soon as possible. Well, you are gracious too, Kimberly. That I know, you are very gracious. Kimberly Westmoreland, she is a senior client safety manager, one of the largest security providers in the country. She helps prepare individuals, get this John, you ready? For the unexpected.

Fire, earthquake, power outages, zombie apocalypse. I think that's on a race map. Oh yeah, that is, that is, yeah. But by the way, John, I saw something, Kim indulged me, Kimberly just indulged me for a minute, but I saw something for John that really touched my heart. It showed this guy for his tombstone had put on the, there on his epitaph, on this tombstone, it said, have successfully accomplished step one of my desire to become a zombie. Fantastic.

And I thought, that's got John written all over it. Oh yeah. I'm all about some, some humor, you know, after dark after some humor after people, you know, I'm not around anymore for people to yell at me for how bad it is. That's true, but the laugh is eternal, John.

The laugh is eternal. Absolutely. But no, Kimber, Kimber helps prepare people for those kinds of things.

I mean, and, and think about what's going on in our country today. You know, we're having rolling blackouts now in California, North Carolina just had a 5.2 earthquake, you know, storms and tornadoes. I think there were some pretty bad ones over there in Nebraska.

Well, there was the direct show in the Midwest, you know. Yes. Yeah, lots of, lots of, lots of damage there, so. So all these kinds of things, this is in her wheelhouse, but she's a caregiver and she's been a caregiver through some pretty tough times and she came up with some things to help us. Let's, Kimber, first off, let's get your backstory a little bit and, and thank you for your patience and just being with this goofy here on the show. I mean, you know, we just kind of, you know, we're, we're trying to have fun. Well, we tried our best because we know that as caregivers, we have plenty of tears. Do we have enough laughs? Agreed. Agreed.

And I think, I think the laughs for caregivers are about as, as, as scarce as toilet paper to Walmart, but it's, but it's, but we're trying very hard to, to lighten the hearts, but we also want to provide tools and that's where you come in. But let me, let me hear your backstory. Okay. So the, the backstory really is you did say that, um, my profession is in emergency preparedness, so that is what I take pride in. I'm in California, so I'm heavily weighted earthquake preparedness, but fire, power outage, medical emergency, bomb threats. By the way, that is California. All the things you just listed, that's, you know what you call that in California? Tuesday.

You call that Tuesday in California. But, um, with, with the preparedness, uh, what I do, we have an online training and, um, my late husband actually created it and it prepares people in high rise buildings for, um, that have to prepare. It's also also an OSHA requirement. So that being said, I take great, um, care to get people trained. I believe in training. I always have just those first two to three minutes of an emergency are critical. That's why when you're on a plane, you know, you keep watching that same, um, video it's repetition.

It gets it in your head and it's, it's valuable. But what I've learned over the years is that 95% of the people when I go and actually speak physically and I see the response of, of people on their, their, you know, mandatory that they had to be at the training. Most people don't believe that they, they will ever experience, um, an emergency and they, they think if they do, it'll be when they're home with their family, with a full pantry. You know, it's just, it's, um, it's scary to see that, um, people can watch the news and know what's going on. They could have already experienced something in their lifetime, but the mentality to prepare is, um, it's just, I don't know. It's not human nature, I guess, to have those supplies ready. I it's human nature to me because, you know, it's just how I'm built.

But so my job has always been trying to make it a little more interesting, try to connect, um, try to get, create a reason that someone would need to do that. And, um, so that's the backstory, but what really hit me just, um, right in the face when I had, uh, three events happen in, in three months time, I had my father who already had a heart condition collapse and, um, was in severe trouble. And in the hospital, my mom about two weeks later fell 87 years old, fell and broke her top two vertebrae of her neck. And, um, of course was in another hospital. And then my mother-in-law, um, the mother to my late husband.

So I had, you know, very much, um, there was a need for me to help her as well. And she was diagnosed with metastatic fourth stage cancer. So all of it went from, I had very independent parents.

They live locally, they were living life and traveling and taking six week vacations. And I have four grown children. Um, I have two grandchildren and I didn't have the grandchildren at the time, but when this all happened, my whole world turned upside down, of course. And, um, there was the trauma, um, to the family and the trauma, um, that went on, um, to me personally, because I was at the top of the food chain. So the responsibility to care and manage, even though of course I couldn't physically care for each one, I was hands-on in rotation and I had to, um, manage family and then rehabs and doctors.

And so that is the backstory. That is how I ended up in this wonderful community of, um, caregivers. And, um, that is how I got to the point that I felt there, there needed to be some changes and I thought I could help. So what you're saying is your elbows deep into this, aren't you? I am. I am.

All right. So all that to say, you understand the challenging logistics of not just taking care of one individual, multiple individuals, multiple crises going on. And what, with your background in, in client safety, all the things you do, emergency preparedness, what is a, uh, what is a good axiom of what happens when people are trying to juggle too many things? What usually happens? Well, for, I experienced it, I think what happens is the opposite.

You, you are less of who you are. You, you completely, um, lose your, your common sense, your, your train of thought, your ability to communicate properly. If you're overloaded, um, it, it's, it's completely debilitating. And caregivers are often overloaded and yet we continue to try to soldier on. And that's what brings me to what you've done on this. What happens when you're trying to manage medication for somebody when you are overloaded and dropping all kinds of balls?

What happens, what happens when you try to manage someone's medications on that regards? And I think this is what set the frame, uh, the table, if you will, for what you have done. So talk a little bit about this because you saw a problem. You said, you know what? I'm going to speak to this problem.

Right. So, um, there were a lot of things I had no control over. Um, and I had a lot of very smart people in my family to kind of think these things through. My brother's a doctor, my daughter's a nurse, we're all sort of in the space where we, we feel capable, but we all felt that even coming together, we were, we were having a hard time. And the thing that we had the most problem with, and it was most discouraging, very disappointing, um, was that our parents were being mismedicated. And, um, there were medication errors in the rehabs, there were medication errors by caregivers, by, you know, we hire caregivers, we, we, we mismedicated. I personally, um, you know, no one died from it, but we, it was so confusing to be handed a stack of maybe 12 sheets, white sheets with black type and you go to the pharmacy and you come home with a bag of pills. And so we would sit around the table and my dad's there in the living room and his bed, and we know that we've got 24 to 48 hours before even that first intake nurse is going to come and help us walk through this. And we're supposed to keep my dad alive.

They've, they've gotten him to a point where he can come home and they've come up with a, you know, a brilliant regimen that's going to help him heal. But the pass off of the communication was so, um, it, it, it surprised me that they would, that the medical community, you know, it's their language, but to us, it was a foreign language. When we heard now it's, you know, I can rattle them off Pradaxa, Metropolol, Digoxin, but it was, you'd hear those words or you'd read them and it, it was, um, you know, we just could not imagine that we were supposed to do this correctly. Um, 0.5 meant cut the pill in half, you know, it was just like, it was crazy. So, um, what we, I know a lot of your listeners have probably managed by their own ways.

I've seen so many creative ways, Excel sheets, color coded, you know, all different cards. And some people just take the bag of pills to their doctor. But what we learned is that we needed to see the pill.

One white pill looked very similar to the other pill that we looked up on, you know, our techie apps. And, um, we just couldn't tell, is that music say, saying something? I'll watch it. I'll watch the client. It just lets us know that we're coming up on a break. And so I tell you what, why don't we just hold that thought? We're talking with Kimber Westmore and she is bringing an innovative approach to helping us as caregivers and our loved ones as well be better equipped to manage medications.

If you're particular, if you're not used to taking any kind of medications, um, and that becomes a real challenge to get into this world. This is hope for the caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger.

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. Welcome back to hope for the caregiver.

I am Peter Rosenberger. This is the show for you as a family caregiver. It's a show about caregivers, for caregivers, hosted by a caregiver. And we're glad that you're with us. If you want to be a part of the show.

877-655-6755. We're talking with Kimber Westmore. And by the way, Kimber, I apologize for introducing as Westmoreland, I think at the beginning.

Because I have a very, very good friend of mine with the last name Westmoreland. And so I was like, oh, I messed that up. Well, when I get on the shows a lot of the time, they'll introduce me as Peter Rosenberg, often. I do it on purpose. Well, I do. But I tell people, I say, no, it's Rosenberger, it's Irish.

And then they don't know what to say. So anyway, we're talking about Kimber's journey of learning to manage quite a few challenging set of circumstances. And so she came up with this thing called PillMap. PillMap. And it's pillmap.com. Kimber, can you give me a 30,000-foot view of what PillMap is? Basically, PillMap is what goes with the patient wherever the patient goes. It is a guide that allows, it's basically a cardboard guide that has clear windows in it that you are able to put one of each pill in.

So there's a visual. It's not a pill box. It is a visual that will always keep the caregiver clear. It will, even for the patient to know, oh, I am supposed to take that pill.

It provides that. But it also provides the name of the medication, what it's for, what you're taking it for, such as blood thinner, et cetera. And then your regimen, when you're going to be taking that pill.

And then also how many pills you're going to be taking at each time of day. So it's very hard to describe on the radio, Peter. But to see it, you know, if you go on the website, you'll see it.

So is John. Hey. It's so simple that I could not believe that we couldn't just buy it. And that's why I felt something had to be done.

And of course, what is on my website now is maybe the 10th iteration. But we started with something very simple to just solve our own issues for our parents. So if there was a 911 call and my mother was going, first responders were going to show up, we could just hand them this the minute they walked in the door and nothing needed to be said because they could see exactly what medication she was on.

They weren't reading it from a sheet. They could see, you know, the blue and white pill, what that is. They could, they knew when she took it. So if she had the event later in the day, and we did have, you know, quite a few hospitalizations for all three of my parents. And my mom just most recently, she passes out quite easily. And I was not there and the caregiver called. And when I showed up, I'm very close to where she is, but when I showed up, she at her home, the first responders, we have to talk the first responders down because all they're talking about is how helpful this was to them.

When we go to the hospital. Well, I'm looking at a picture of it right now online. I'm looking at a picture of it and it's brilliant. Now, the pills that you have on the side column, that's just a picture of the pill, right?

No, it's not. Is that the real pill? That opens up and you are inserting one pill. Even if you're taking it four times a day, you only need one visual to know what that pill is.

And again, if the pill has to be cut in half, if the medication changes, this just happened to my mom. I went to pick up her Prudaxa and no, it was another pill, but I went to pick it up. It was a different color.

And I said, oh, well, could you check this? Because this is a different color than we normally have. And she said, no, this is exactly what you had last time. Well, can you check how many milligrams and, you know, I just, it looks different. So she comes back and she says, it is a different color.

It's the same pill, but it's a different color. So what this is. I'm looking at it.

It's so brilliant. John, can you pull that up and take a look at pillmap.com. P-I-L-L-M-A-P.com. My phone was getting weird. But yeah, I'll take a look. Yeah.

Take a look at this. It is so brilliant. It is so easy. And I'm like you, Kimber. I'm thinking, why is it somebody, you know, this is brilliant.

I know. And so we've had, we had the first year we were just using basically for our own sake, just pills taped onto a card for the visual. Because we'd want to go to the doctor and say, this is what we're taking, including supplements. Like, is this what we're supposed to be taking? When we went to the pharmacy to get a new prescription, this is what we're taking. Does this collide with any of these other medications that she's taking? So it just communicates exactly what you want communicated with regards to medications.

On the back, we added all the information, insurance, you know, emergency contact, allergies. It's so if the person could not speak for themselves, and we found a lot of spouses are buying it for their spouses who are actually quite healthy. But the problem is, if you had to speak for your spouse, and your spouse took say, you know, six, seven pills, and they took them every day, you were never bothered by it.

You know, you know, they're handling their pills, you're handling your pills. But, you know, things happen, emergencies happen, and who's going to speak for, for your husband, you're going to be the person that's going to have to talk to that first responder, will you have that information readily available? You know, you might be able to scrounge it up, but those first back to my, you know, training and emergency training those first three, four minutes are critical. My mom had AFib, so she was on all kinds of blood thinners. And when she broke her neck, it was imperative that they knew, you know, first responders, and when we got to the hospital that they were going to have to wait three days to do anything because of the amount of blood thinners she was on.

So, again, it's just, it's so simple that people that are really techie and John, I think you were mentioning, or maybe before we got on the call about all the techie things, there's these amazing apps that we use where we went on and we could identify certain pills and if they would collide and what they look like in case we dropped a pill. But this goes from, you know, caregiver to niece to, you know, first responder. Yeah, well, like I was a Boy Scout for a really long time as a kid. John's an Eagle Scout.

And my brothers. Oh, yeah, there we go. But like, yeah, this is absolutely stuff that we did for emergency preparedness and things like that. And it just, you know, you have the list of emergency contacts on a little Post-It right by the telephone or something or anything like that.

Poison control center. But this, yeah, yeah, all of that stuff where you can just go and physically grab the thing and not have to hunt for it at all. This is wonderful. I love it. Well, thank you.

Kimber Westmore, Kimber Westmore, and it's called pillmap.com. Would you go out and take a look at this today? Get a, and I think she's got a special discount offer. 10% off if you put in the word hope. Okay, 10% off. This is, this is brilliant.

Brilliant. All right, Kimber, I'm going to have you back on. Thank you so much for coming on today. Sorry, we got to go, but thank you, Kimber. No rest to all of you. Be well. All right. Thank you.

Kimber Westmore, pillmap.com. We'll be right back. Have you ever helped somebody walk for the first time? I've had that privilege many times through our organization Standing with Hope when my wife Gracie gave up both of her legs following this horrible wreck that she had as a teenager and she tried to save them for years and it just wouldn't work out. And finally she relinquished them and thought, wow, this is it. I mean, I don't have any legs anymore.

What can God do with that? And then she had this vision for using prosthetic limbs as a means of sharing the gospel to put legs on her fellow amputees. And that's what we've been doing now since 2005 with Standing with Hope. We work in the West African country of Ghana and you can be a part of that through supplies, through supporting team members, through supporting the work that we're doing over there.

You could designate a limb. There's all kinds of ways that you could be a part of giving the gift that keeps on walking at standingwithhope.com. Would you take a moment to go out to standingwithhope.com and see how you can give?

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