Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver here on Family Talk Series XM 131. And we're glad to have you with us.
Before I go any further, I want to ask you something, if you wouldn't mind, please. I got two things in this week at the prison we partner with, run by CoreCivic. And it's one of their many faith-based programs, and we collect used prosthetic limbs from all over the country. And they go to a local prison there in Tennessee, where they will disassemble, the workers will disassemble them, and recycle all the parts.
And I got two specific ones in this week, shipments of some things, from a funeral home. And I was very, very moved by this because the families don't always know what to do with these devices when a loved one passes away. They don't know what to do, but we do. And they'll go to this prison. This is something that is unique to what we do. The inmates will work together to disassemble the pylons, the knees, the feet, the sockets from everything, and they'll just disassemble the whole leg. And then everything that can be recycled will be.
And here's what can be. You can do the foot, if it's in good shape. You can do the prosthetic knee. You can do the pylon that connects them. You can do the adapters, the connectors, the screws. You can do the belt system if they have one. If it's a hip disarticulation, you can do that hip joint.
If it's an above knee, you have two different pylons with it. So a lot of that can be recycled, and then we'll send it over to West Africa. And we work with the Republic of Ghana, and it is something we've been doing for 15 years, and I have the founder of that here with me. And that is my wife, Gracie, who has recently recovered from the coronavirus. But this is a great program that was started to recycle prosthetic limbs, and we're very grateful for all the folks over at CoreCivic who have allowed us to come in there and use this as one of their faith-based programs.
It's an extraordinary ministry. StandingWithHope.com slash recycle. StandingWithHope.com slash recycle, if you want to pass that word on to folks and let them know. I mean, if you know somebody that runs a funeral home, so let them know this. If you know folks that are dealing with prosthetics in their life, and maybe they have a child that's outgrowing them on a regular basis and they don't know what to do with it, we'll take it.
StandingWithHope.com slash recycle. All right, Gracie's with me. I've tried very hard to keep her quiet because there's not a mute button on her microphone. Yes, I'm going to get some hose since I don't wear hose anymore on my legs, and we're going to put it over this wind screen. No, that's not what's doing it.
It doesn't need a wind screen. Yes, I know I breathe heavy. No, no, the hose won't stop that. You're a heavy breather. But I appreciate you coming down here. You just got over the corona, speaking of heavy breathing. I'm over the corona.
Okay. How was it? How was it? Because a lot of people don't know.
They've been reading this. So how was your symptom? When you first started getting sick, what did you feel like? I started just feeling really tired and really run down and like I was getting sick, but then it just came on real fast and I thought I had a really horrible strep throat. Because it was very much like what you've had to strep before.
And so I called the doctor and they said, let's give it a day and see if you still, and the next day it was worse. What was your fever? It was 103. Did it make it all the way to 103? Yeah, it made it 103. And we had a real problem because we didn't have a... We had no thermometer.
Yes. That made it challenging. It was challenging. And did you feel like you had the corona or did this feel like strep you've had in the past? I didn't know what it was. I just know it was...
It just felt awful. I mean, I thought that it was a really bad case of strep and they did all the tests for strep. And you remember before she came right over to me with the regular face mask like you and I have, and then this... Then they came back with the hazmat. To say that it was all the stuff before strep was negative. Then she said, you have all of the markers for this virus.
So we're going to have to do a test. And so they did and I had it. I don't have it any longer as of last week. Actually, you didn't have it before last week. I mean, I think that's just when they tested you.
I don't know. But all I know is they kept us quarantined for months, not two weeks. Well, they told us... You took the test on the 17th of March. The test came back on the 20th that you were positive of March. And then they said that we were going to be locked up until the 4th of April.
But then it got longer. Well, I am immunocompromised. I could have sworn you were Baptist. I know. I'm sorry you're finding out here on national radio, but that's just the facts.
That's the facts, sir. So, I mean, I still feel very run down. And you know, we did a five hour MRI. Yes, I know.
A full body MRI this past Friday. And they should have charged you less because full body for you is different than most people. That's exactly right. Except they had a hard time. You know, when I lay down, without the prosthetic legs, they don't lay down. My wife is a double amputee for those of you just now tuning in. So they should have charged you less. And so the lady, she was just ready to give up. I said, no, no, no, no, no. I know I can remember something, some way we can do this.
And finally, I remembered, you know, at Vanderbilt last year before we came and moved out that they strapped them down, you know, so they would stay down. Now, it makes the rest of your body, if it's been broken, crushed up, feel like a piece of crap. But other than that... Gracie, this is a family show.
It is a family show, but it's Sirius XM. Well, that's true, but there's still... My wife, so you're done with it. They tested you. You've got the antibodies. Well, we're not done with it. No, you're done. I mean, you're not done with... We're done with the Rona.
Yeah, you're not done with life. But you've got antibodies in there, but they don't want your blood because you've had so many transfusions. Yeah, and I'm still on oxygen at night because I didn't really get scared about it until, what, about five days after they got back with us. That was positive.
That was the beginning stages of the testing. And so when I felt like an elephant's foot was... Had many elephant feet on your chest? Yeah, I have. I forgot to tell you about that. You were in the circus?
No, I went to India one time and I slipped underneath the electric fence. Let me handle the heavy lifting on the humor. But it felt like an elephant was pressing his foot down on me and that's when I got scared because that felt like I've had pulmonary embolisms and that's what that feels like. Emboli.
Oh, emboli. I hooked up our keyboard and I thought Gracie could sing a song for us. Would that be okay if Gracie sang for us? Yeah, I hope it's going to be okay because she gave me no... You're a professional. You're a professional. That's a really hot mic.
Do this, Welcome, by Marty. Oh, okay. Can you hear that okay? You know other questions. Can you hear that okay? Yeah, I can hear it. All right. Ed, are our levels okay?
Because we've never done this before on live radio. All right. Go ahead, Gracie. Oh, welcome, welcome, into this place, Lord. You're welcome, into this broken vessel, you desire to bide on the praises of your people. So I lift my hands and I lift my voice as I offer up this praise unto your name. I love it when you sing. Oh, you're welcome, welcome, into this place, Lord. You're welcome, into this broken vessel, you desire to bide on the praises of your people. So I lift my hands and I lift my voice as I offer up this praise unto your name. I just love it when you sing. We've never done that before.
No, no, we have not. Well, I thought I'd surprise you with it today. Hey, this is the only national radio program right now where somebody who has survived the corona is singing. Well, we know other songs.
Well, I understand that. How much singing would you like to do? I don't know. Ed, how much would you like to do? We can go hours.
We can go hours. Well, no, I thought it would be good for people to hear that you've lived through this and you survived it to sing about. You know, people are living with a lot of fear. And I asked you that in the emergency room when they had us come down there, we're all messed up and your fever was spiking pretty high. And I said, you know, are you afraid? And you said, well, a little bit, but I've been through worse. And you have been through worse.
Yeah. And the next week, when you have a hard time breathing, that's when, for me, the fear started coming in. And so when they observed me that whole day and she said, look, you need to be in oxygen. Do you want to be on it up there or down here?
And I said, are you kidding me? Up there? At the house. You mean? Yeah.
Up the mountain. Well, we try to avoid admitting her on any given day, just simply because most hospital situations are not good for you. It overwhelms the staff too. I mean, you have to have a lot of extra care and then you are susceptible to a lot of things. So, you know, keeping you out of the hospital is a good thing. And they would have had to suit up and the whole hazmat thing.
It's a lot of work. And that makes nurses not like you. But, you know, I never, I mean, we didn't change a whole lot of stuff around you with this. But this is not our first infectious disease that you've had too. Well, we didn't though, but we've been sleeping in separate bedrooms and we've not been sitting at the table. We practiced good, safe distancing, but we didn't get overly weird about it. Well, just don't get used to it. Okay. That's all I can say.
But I felt like people might want to hear from somebody who's lived to tell about it, lived to sing about it and any other thoughts? It's so new. I was thinking about all the, there's just so many questions, you know, cause I have a service dog. You know, my, my question all along has been to the doctors down here in the Valley.
Can he get it? And they are straight up no nonsense. And she looked at me and goes, I have no idea. Yeah. I don't think a lot of people know what to do about all this. I just, I'm just grateful.
I mean, I know of a lot of people who've lost loved ones to this who have not been compromised at all. It doesn't make a lot of sense, does it? And I just know apparently God's not ready to have me up here with him yet. Well, that's like Winston Churchill said, I'm ready to meet my maker. Whether or not my maker is ready for the ordeal of meeting me is a different, but there's a reason we call your records resilient.
So you are resilient. Hey, don't go away. We got one last segment to go.
This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope for the Caregiver. I'm joined right now with my wife, Gracie, who is a Corona survivor and she fought it. She licked it.
She whipped it. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. We'll be right back. Are you enjoying this podcast? I mean, I really hope so because I'm John Butler and I've helped produce Peter's show, Hope for the Caregiver, since it began. I'd like to think that I'm responsible for the explosive growth this show has enjoyed.
I'd like to think that, but it doesn't necessarily make it so. But all that aside, Peter and I do have a really just fantastic time doing the show. We really love it. In this podcast, we not only publish things from the show, but also include some special bonus materials. We really don't want to have like a subscription section that would exclude people from something, but would rather make all of this available for free to hurting caregivers. You can help us out with that by clicking on the become a patron button. For as little as a dollar a month, you can be a part of the world's number one podcast for family caregivers and help out a lot of people who are really in need of it. There's all types of gifts that we'd like to give to you, depending on what tier you'd like to join.
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That was my wife, Gracie with Russ Taft, and Gracie was singing along with Gracie and Russ Taft. I'm sorry about that. No, you're not. Why are you apologizing for something you're not sorry about? Because I thought maybe it sounded better to apologize even if I didn't mean it. It's all good, but you know what, it's your song and you did it, well, it's not, you didn't write it, Twyla wrote that, but it's your recording of it and you did a great job with it. Well, and Russ Taft, he held his weight there.
Yes, he did, and he usually does. I wanted to have Gracie on today. She did survive the corona and she's lived to sing about it and we're grateful for that.
And it's been quite a journey and quite an event for you. I wanted to also just again, put out a plea for prosthetic legs. We're planning, should all this stuff clear up, we're planning on trying to go back over to West Africa, but Gracie, when she lost her legs, had this vision of helping fellow amputees with good quality prosthetics and we can recycle parts, but I need your help to do that. And that is to get the word out.
If you go to standingwithhope.com slash recycle, take that link and put it in all of your social media, tweet it out, email it out everywhere else where you can think of. And what'll happen is, is that when people have a limb, they can donate from a loved one who passed away or that they outgrew. Gracie's donated some of her own over, she's been an amputee now for almost 30 years.
So she's gone through a lot of legs and those parts can be recycled. And these inmates at this prison run by CoreCivic, they manage prisons all over the country. And this is one of the ones they do in Tennessee and we started this unique partnership. We're the only ones in the world doing this, where inmates will volunteer to do this for us and help us with this and recycle it.
They love it. And Gracie got to go over there and spend some time with these guys and when she was able to, and that must've been very meaningful to you, wasn't it? Well it is because so many of them say, this is the first time I've ever done something good with my hands. I mean, that comment will always stand out to me, but besides just, it sounds so clinical, we need limbs if you have limbs. The heart of it is we use a physical need like we were reading today out of Matthew. We use that to be able to say, okay, all these other people that can afford it but just don't feel like coming or doing it to the wedding feast. And finally the king ended up saying, just go bring everybody in that we can fit in here. You kind of dropped us in the middle of a conversation you were having in your mind. So you said, go out to the highways and the byways and bring everybody in, whether they were invited or not, just bring them in, lame, crippled, everything, and that's loop 14.
So the thing is, is that when I know I was going there, don't worry, you're pushy. And so the thing is that when I go as a double amputee, when they see me as a white woman from America, they, most of them have the idea we're all rich. We have no problems. We do not have any lack.
And if it, I don't know, you know, I guess maybe multi-jillion dollars worth of stars maybe don't have to worry about those things, but you know, those of us who don't do have to worry about those things. And when they see me and I get to connect with them on that level of I'm not coming down to you, I'm just like you, there is no difference. It makes all the difference in the world because then we can share Christ. And when you've shown them love by giving them, getting them a limb where they don't have to crawl on the ground to get where they're going, they listen at that point. In the last seconds we got here, just sing one course of this. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. That's wonderful, Gracie.
You survived Corona, mostly because your caregiver was just so awesome. Is that right? Is that the press release I heard? Well, it's the press release, yes.
It's not the press release you heard, it's the press release you wanted to hear. You survived the Corona. Here's your food. You're going in the other room. Well, I did wear a mask, a Darth Vader mask. You slept in what we like to call? Captain America room.
It's got a flag blanket on it. I slept in the Captain America room. We had to be smart. We were smart clearly about it, either that or you are a mutant.
Well, I may be a mutant. We got to go. Thank you for joining me. Do you want to come back next week when mom's here for Mother's Day? I would love to. I would love to and I will try to not step on your mom because everything usually she pretty much has to say is worth hearing.
All right. Well, listen, we're going to put this out on the podcast later on tonight. Go out to the podcast, by the way, everything on there is free.
Take a look and see what you like to hear and there was about 400 episodes of stuff and we want to make it available. If you want to be a patron of it, it's easy to do. You can do it for a dollar a month and just help make it available for more and more people. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. This is Peter Rosenberger.
Let the caregivers make better caregivers. We'll see you next week. But you can subscribe for free. Yes, it's free. Yeah. It's free. Thank you for adding that on. I've already said it twice. Okay. Thank you very much.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-01-23 13:56:05 / 2024-01-23 14:05:18 / 9
