THE Solution to Caregivers' Legal Needs

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. As a caregiver think about all the legal documents you need. Power of attorney, a will, living wills and so many more. Then think about such things as disputes about medical bills. What if instead of shelling out hefty fees for a few days of legal help you paid a monthly membership and got a law firm for life? Well we're taking legal representation and making some revisions in the form of accessible, affordable, full service coverage.

Finally you can live life knowing you have a lawyer in your back pocket who at the same time isn't emptying it. It's called Legal Shield and it's practical, affordable and a must for the family caregiver. Visit caregiverlegal.com. That's caregiverlegal.com.

Isn't it about time someone started advocating for you? www.caregiverlegal.com. An independent associate. It is my wife Gracie with Joni Eareckson-Toddler singing that great Andre Krauss tune through it all. That's from her new record Resilient and I would suggest to you that my wife Gracie is very resilient and if you want to get a copy of that record it's very easy. Go out to hopefothecaregiver.com and click on the record cover. You see Gracie right there.

This is Hope for the Caregiver. I'm Peter Rosenberger. Welcome back to the show. If you want to be a part of the show 877-655-6755 whatever is on your heart. We're on the Family Talk channel here on Sirius XM and we're live and we're glad to have you with us and as always I'm joined by himself the Count of Mighty Disco Jon Butler and it is a treat always Jon.

Back at you buddy. It was an interesting week and we're going to unpack this a little bit more as we go through this through the week here I mean through the show but we got into this dispute with this company and it turned a little bit unpleasant and to the point where we needed to take some action on this and resolve this issue. Well there's a couple things and I'm trying I don't I want to come from the mentality is I don't want to tell you about the company and how bad they are and steer you away from them. I want to tell you what's a path towards help and what's a better way to do it. Again I refer to myself as the crash test dummy of caregivers and my failures are teachable moments for you. Yeah I know I have benefited tremendously from you know all of your rather impressive failures. It's a it's a real uh hall of favor event here for me.

Oh is this one that good? All right well it is well we had to get it we had to get legal help involved with this. Yeah. So you know what I did? What'd you do? I called the law firm that I have through Legal Shield and I was able to get to a lawyer and she called me back within three hours. I tried to get a lawyer to call you back that fast.

Okay now for additional perspective you're in. I'm in Montana. There is no part there's no part of Montana that is not rural. All right Montana is is a very small town with a lot of long avenues. Right right and so you're not you're not in an urban area. No no no and this attorney is 200 miles away. Yeah yeah. Okay but every state has a firm or firms that are contracted with this.

Right. So if I'm in Tennessee for example there's a or Nashville I would where you are John I would have a firm there. If I'm in Dallas where Ed is who's producing this show from Dallas then I'd have a firm there but I happen to be out here so this is where I go. So I called him up and they called me back they took all the stuff and they said yeah we'll call you back. I'll have the attorney call you back several hours later the attorney called me back and we talked we chatted for about 30 minutes about this issue. She said well how about if I just write a letter and you know from now on I'll just communicate with these people and I'll take this off and I'll send it to you for your approval and you take a look and I said well how about that because how about I just write how about you just write on and I said how about I just say thank you because there I was very grateful because it was it was a little bit dicey and and it was getting dicier by the moment and so I I took her up on it and said okay and she did and I she sent me the draft of the letter and I thought this and I gave my official okie dokie to it and he said it and then in the letter she says look you don't talk with these people anymore you talk with me directly you know I'm their attorney and you talk with me okay okay handled how much do you think I paid for that this is no no no no there's no more to this there's that's it that's it no there's plenty more all right I have to be very careful but I just want to stop right there and see I don't want to spill the tea on the air all right how much do you think like no but it just got handled like there's like that's it she handled it with that one letter done well she's she's worked it out with me and now she's sending that I don't know what these people are going to respond back with gotcha gotcha okay okay she's prepared to deal with them and negotiate with them on our behalf and I noticed something like I didn't hear any like I you didn't weren't threatening to call a lawyer you're like oh well you'll hear from your hell for my attorney trying to resolve it that way in this bullying sort of way you just called your lawyer they sent a letter and there you go how much did it cost you well the people that were involved in this dispute with us were incredibly um um inappropriate ah let me just say that okay okay and they were not cool and I didn't talk with and it was a legal term yeah I learned that in law school I watched I watched a lot of law and order um so they were not cool and so I didn't want to talk with them and so I called my attorney who I've never met before this the first time you know because we're new out here I had one a group that I worked with down in uh in Tennessee when we lived there but this is different and so she called me back within three hours she drafted up a letter sent it to me for my approval and then is sending it to these people and we're going to work it all out 25 dollars oh 25 dollars a month because that's what I pay as a subscriber subscription to legal shield yeah that's what I do 25 dollars now I'm going to ask all my fellow caregivers we'll talk about this more in the next segment I'm going to ask every one of you I want you to think about any event in your life where you need legal help somebody to write a letter to cease and desist somebody to help you with the will somebody to help you get a you know file an order of protection you don't even know where to go start with somebody to help you transfer your business or incorporate your business somebody to help you with a traffic ticket there's all kinds of stuff that we need a lawyer for how much are you paying how much are you budgeting for this how much are you enduring without it that's my question that's really the key thing yeah how much are you having to absorb in your emotional and mental stress without an attorney that is fighting for you that represents you did you used to think it was unaffordable well guess what I'm gonna prove you wrong so don't go away we got more to come because this this is this is a story it's my story but it could be your story too hope for the caregiver this is peter rosenberger 877-655-6755 don't go away we'll be right back so 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 gana 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 amidst the pain welcome back to hope for the caregiver here on the family talk channel serious xm 131 this is the nation's largest show number one show for the family caregiver and we're glad to have you with this eight seven seven six five five sixty seven fifty five eight seven seven six five five sixty all right john as i was saying and first off before i get back to the all the things we're talking about the legal stuff i gotta tell you about my ongoing feud with a moose and a moose bit my sister once really no no that's another monty python joke there's something wrong from the subtitles at the beginning of holy grail it goes in the finish for a little bit of course it did all right so mind all right so about this moose i'm out here in montana and we the family has six horses and i feed them in the morning during the winter time and we have a barn with hay in it okay okay well the barn doesn't have doors that close it's just hay put under a shelter thing is you have to go in there and get the hay and it's it's um and i do that but then i noticed that my chain was down across it and i suspected that i was having a nightly visitor okay and so i went and i put up two more chains so i put the head of chain across and then i put in some eye bolt things and i put a chain above that that's about chin high for me and i'm six feet tall it should have been chin high for you but because you're quite a bit taller and then i put a chain below it so they you know you you don't see many i mean they will crawl but there's it's not easy and so and so i can't and i noticed that my chain was this is the chain is specifically for moose well no this is the chain that was just to be a deterrent to wildlife now the cats i can't do anything about because we have mountain lions out here and they'll get in there and they'll curl up in the hay that's that by the way that's a fine howdy do and so so gracie and i were coming home from church the other night and it was dark and but i saw the light by the barn and i thought the chain and i wanted to pull in to see what's going on i saw that the chain was down one of the one was down one of the chain was down there were three chains but one of two of them were down but the top one was still up i thought okay hmm that's odd and i pulled in sideways there and i didn't pull it full frontal to face it i just pulled in sideways and the sound of the car evidently created enough of a of a whatever disturbance rose such as a clatter that all of a sudden this enormous creature comes flying and when i say flying i'm not kidding it looked like santa's reindeer taking off and it was it was a cow i don't think it was a bull didn't have the palms okay okay but but sometimes the bulls will shed their palms and i wasn't going to peek under its skirt you know what i'm saying if you're doing that you're too close to the moose and this this thing came flying and leapt over the top chain it is as big as a horse yeah and and if i had pulled in straight it would have landed right on the hood of of our truck yeah and and that would be that's a bad thing that's a bad thing yeah so um they're classified as megafauna all right well this this is uh and so by the way you write this down for all you listening right now write this down if you're going to sneak up on a moose come at it sideways okay just i'm just saying just write that down that's a little piece of information that may come in handy one day write that down and so i thought okay i'm going to fix this problem and i secured the chains even more and and then i saw the moose have you considered doors well i've thought about doors but i got strong chains and a place of an interval so it's not easy for the moose to to leap into this place and it's not easy for it to crawl into this place but then uh gracie got a picture of me and the moose was laying down just relaxing in the snow right across the road promise we live 10 miles from the paved road and so it's it's not across the street it's across the road and and he's laying down there and there's the wooden fence there and for that particular passage our neighbor and the moose was laying down there and gracie got a picture of me walking out of the snow by the fence and i'm in knee-deep snow and i'm scolding them say hey stay out of the hay it's not yours and um and the moose you know the moose does not care the moose had a a look of practiced apathy practice dealing that one sir and so anyway so i just that's what's been going on so i'm kind of the wiley coyote of i had to get my acme anti-moose kit right yeah yeah in any moment now he's gonna say you know i'd see a flying squirrel say come on bullwinkle we don't have to take this crap from anyone okay um but anyway so back to the story of what happened so we called the lawyer right call the lawyer we had for those of you down just joining us by the way this is hopefully the caregiver gracie and i had a a legal dispute with a service provider and it and it did not go as as comfortably as we would have liked i'm being very delicate on this okay and it's um the company did not act very professional they didn't come back and say hey you're not happy with our services um we want right you know whatever we want to we want to meet in the middle somewhere here and and so that was fair to us fair to you that kind of thing oh no they it was it really really went into a bad place so we had to get a lawyer involved but lawyers are expensive and so i called through it because i'm a member of legal shield and i called to the law firm that i have access to and got a call back three hours later the lawyer said we'll take care of this i'm going to draft a letter i'll send it for your approval that i'll send these people and they can only talk to me they don't you don't need to worry about it and then we'll see where it goes from there and we'll make a presentation see if we can get this thing resolved bada-boom bada-boom bada-boom it's done the consigliatore consigliatore as Billy Crystal would say and and i thought first off it felt too easy yeah and but but i'm only paying 25 a month for this and i thought that is extraordinary that i have this level of service for that rate and i thought how many caregivers people just like me who are just inundated with all kinds of stuff we if we want to contest a bill or whatever yeah deserve and require good legal representation but we think it's unaffordable so we just absorb it financially or absorb it emotionally exactly and we fall into one of those you know those landmines yeah that it's all up to me it's all up to you it's not all up to me and i asked for help and received it yeah but i asked for help and i received it and was quite frankly glad that i did and and so i thought you know it's not just for business disputes it's it's more than that there's so many things that we can have access to as caregivers that we need help with and who's helping you as a caregiver legally i mean there's a comedian that i i can't remember the guy's name but uh it's it one of the things that said is is there anything more satisfying than canceling plans like i was gonna i was getting ready to go out and then just like uh you know i really don't i would rather be at home in my pajamas watching netflix yeah or whatever it's like this is a very satisfying thing and it's not it's it's it's a comedy bit so it's not really supposed to be real but think about the satisfaction you had and you if you did not have access to a lawyer you were going to have to make plans to do all to go i have to figure this out what am i going to do this out i gotta deal with these people instead you have that's what a lawyer is it is someone who is authorized to act on your behalf legally and they know the law better than i do and they're not emotionally involved exactly they're gonna be great at it and you don't have to do it i thought for us as caregivers who is helping you and and you know what i said to this attorney after she called me and she said look i got this you know all right this is what i'm going to do how about this does this feel all right yep yep yep and you know what i said i said thank you thank you because it was a huge weight off of my shoulder to know that i am not fighting this battle all by myself and as caregivers how many times have you fought this battle all by yourself how much have you absorbed financially over things that you didn't need to do how much have you shelled out to it another attorney possibly or how much if you just take it on the chin and just had to suck it up and say okay i don't have any choice i'm just gonna have to do this because i don't have the wherewithal to fight this how would you like do you ever watch wrestling john i know you do i i i grew up in jonesboro arkansas which is about an hour and a half away from memphis and jerry lawler was on no jerry lawler he had a show on like uh i can't remember it was like the public access station right after a show i was watching and i knew that was the end of my time well if you're watching wrestling that is the end of your time no but that but if you ever watch wrestling tag team wrestling and think about the relief it gives you to tag out and just climb out of there and let somebody else fight for a moment and just take a breather you know that's kind of what it feels like when you're able to tag out to somebody who is competent who knows what they're doing a professional and they help you and and i listen i gotta tell you it was a huge it was a huge thing when i when i had that interaction with this attorney and and i thought about all the things that we need as caregivers all the legal help we need um the filing for disability 25 a month i mean what is that for happy meals i mean you know i mean honestly you know what what are we talking about here for that kind of peace of mind and how how troubled is your mind as a caregiver how would you like to have at your beck and call a full legal firm that can handle these things from filing for disability for your loved one or you or finding a parking ticket um disputes with a with with you know different kind of service of providers including medical providers has any let me ask you a question as a caregiver have any of you ever seen an incorrect bill from your health care provider for your loved one i don't care what the dollar amount have you ever seen it i have i have caught more mistakes on medical bills on gracie stuff of the i mean think about she's had 80 surgeries she's been in 12 different hospitals and we're you know 11 million dollars in medical bills a hundred different doctors have treated her and i've caught mistakes and what was it you know i know what it was like for me to go and protest those mistakes and and and go to sit down with the hospital administrator and uh it was not cool man it was just not cool tell me how you really feel oh it was not cool i mean they didn't teach me all this in music school i'm a music major for heaven's sakes when i first got married um you know i didn't know anything about health health insurance and health care and all that kind of stuff i remember going to the first job i had in the corporate world and they were they were going to have a meeting for employee benefits in the in the break room they said we're having a meeting for employee benefits i said i didn't know what they meant by benefits i hand to god john i really thought they meant longer lunches and better parking i thought yeah yeah yeah like like oh oh yeah yeah guys we're we're getting the really good coffee for the break yeah i mean yeah that's that's where i went to when they said benefits i did not know and and i think about all the the different things i've had to battle on my own and i didn't have any legal help to do it but now i do now i do and it's 25 a month and guess what you could have it too 25 a month come on i mean honestly caregiver legal dot com just go out there just go out there you click on a note and just say hey i want to hear more caregiver legal dot com 25 bucks a month that's it there's no hitch there's no catch i do this this is what i do as a caregiver why aren't you hope for the caregiver eight seven seven six five five sixty seven fifty five eight seven seven six five five sixty seven fifty five if you want to be a part of the show this is peter rosenberger don't go away we got more to come and we still have the count of mighty disco with us we'll be right back we'll be right back as a caregiver think about all the legal documents you need power of attorney a will living wills and so many more then think about such things as disputes about medical bills what if instead of shelling out hefty fees for a few days of legal help you paid a monthly membership and got a law firm for life well we're taking legal representation and making some revisions in the form of accessible affordable full service coverage finally you can live life knowing you have a lawyer in your back pocket who at the same time isn't emptying it it's called legal shield and it's practical affordable and a must for the family caregiver visit caregiver legal dot com that's caregiver legal dot com isn't it about time someone started advocating for you www.caregiverlegal.com an independent associate 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 gana 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 here on the family talk channel series xm 131 this is peter rosenberger this is the nation's number one show for you as a family caregiver that is my wife gracie singing with rust taff the joy of the lord that's on her new cd resilient and you can be a uh proud holder of that cd in just a matter of steps just go to standingwithhope.com you've heard gracie's story you've heard what we're about and standing with hope has two program areas it's for the wounded and for those who care for them and for the wounded is the prosthetic limb outreach that gracie herself envisioned after giving up both of her legs and she wanted to be able to put quality prosthetic limbs on her fellow amputees and tell them about christ that's it very simple and they go walking and leaping and praising god and they really do i mean it's just an extraordinary thing you give the gift that keeps on walking and part of that is is we have a recycling program we recycle prosthetic limbs and they go to a prison in tennessee run by core civic it's one of core civics uh many faith-based programs you know what faith-based programs work for inmates they work they work for all of us you know i i am i am i am a faith-based program um because that's my whole life is i am putting all of my trust into something that is greater than myself and that is christ and i can't do this on my own and these inmates have participated in this program with us for years and they help us disassemble used limbs that come in from all around the country and they go to the prison and then they disassemble them for us it would pack them all up and we send those parts that can be recycled not all of it can be but the ones the things that can be we send it over to gana and we work in west africa been doing that for 15 years and then we'll also purchase more equipment on in country there to make the new parts so like the socket has to be custom fitted to that patient right there in country and so they'll use the pylon or the recycled foot or the recycled knee or the screws the adapters the prosthetic socks all those things so take a look at that for the wounded and those who care for them and the the prosthetic limb outreach and then this radio show for those caregivers for the wounded and those who care for them standing with hope and check out that program that core civic does with the with the inmates it's really cool i mean it's just so cool uh and they and they love it the guys love it i've talked to more guys over there in that program and they they find it interesting work they find it heart driven and meaningful they they have a big poster of of the of us over in africa of different pictures of patients that we've treated and so forth right there in the workshop and you know i've heard comments from these guys like you know i never did anything positive with my hands before this program i never even thought about crippled people before this program and so that's what we're doing so how about how about you being a part of that today and for donations standing with hope for any amount any amount doesn't matter we'll send you a copy of gracie cd you'll love it it is a fabulous cd and she just is uh she's the real deal so uh john anyway the lesson i learned was and it's all part of it's in my books heaven caregiver landmines right on landmine number seven is thinking that it's all up to you and i have been guilty of this i mean look at me you could tell i've hit landmines one does not wake up and look like this this is this is a pattern of behavior over a lifetime well i was i was thinking about this earlier um and uh it's understandable all these landmines that you talk about are completely reasonable it is not it is not a failing to fall into these because that's part of the deal you know it's yes the buck stops here when there is a problem i'm the one that is going to solve it when when when at the end of the day that is you know you're the last person between or your loved one and disaster however you can plan ahead for a lot of things and make sure that you're in the best possible spot to do it so it is not all up to you and and there are people who really can come alongside you and help you yeah there truly are and those people may not look like what you think and then they may look exactly what you think some of those people are going to be wearing a lab coat and they're going to be physicians as we said earlier for the caregiver tip of the day go to your dentist and get your teeth cleaned by the dental hygienist some of those people are going to be wearing a mask and a big face shield and rubber gloves and make little drill sounds so you know really close to your mouth but you know what they're helping you they are helping you by keeping you healthy and some of those people are going to look like attorneys that you can afford through our program that we're offering here caregiverlegal.com just take a look at this is what i do some of those people are going to look like a pastor and some of those people are going to just look like a friend who will sit with you and listen to you and just be with you either way either way be willing to accept help okay be willing to accept help and if you don't have enough courage to ask for it for yourself today borrow some of mine okay learn from my failures learn from my mistakes learn from my lack of doing this and the things i've learned the hard way and and say okay if peter really believes this and he's been a caregiver now for 34 years and this is what he does maybe i can learn to ask for help too and and i had a reporter i've shared this story it was one of those kind of seminal moments for me and i had a reporter ask me what they were doing an interview and they said you know what would jesus do as a caregiver which i thought was just such an interesting question and it wasn't for a christian news outlet it was just i don't know they just it was back a while back when everybody was you know wearing braces wwjd or whatever uh what would donald do or something i don't know everybody was just going kind of crazy with it but they asked me that question what would jesus do as a caregiver and for whatever reason i had a moment of clarity john and i said what they come sporadically and certainly it's certainly unplanned um but i i said to this reporter i don't know what jesus would do as a caregiver but i can tell you what he did do and what he did do was he delegated care of his mother to the apostle john from the cross if you go back just go back look at the text it says there john he said looked at it says mother your son son your mother and he turned over care of his mother which was you know his responsibility because evidently joseph had died at some point was out of the picture by the time jesus went into public ministry so it's his responsibility to look after his mother but he's on the cross fulfilling a greater responsibility for you and i and he delegated care of his mother to john and i thought you know if jesus can delegate if jesus could assign or ask for help so can i and so can you this is hope for the caregiver hopeforthecaregiver.com the record the ministry the podcast it's all there take a look at it all the books healthy caregivers make better caregivers we'll see you next week