"Don't Pass the Snowplow!"

Welcome to Hope for the Caregiver here on Family Talk Channel 131.

I am Peter Rosenberger. This is the show for the family caregiver. For those of you who are putting yourself between a vulnerable loved one and even worse, disaster.

For those of you who are struggling as you care for an aging impaired, chronically ill, disabled, special needs, addicted loved one, whatever the impairment, whatever the chronic impairment, there's always a caregiver. How are you holding up? How are you doing? That's why we do this show to find out what's going on with you. Are you in a good place? Are you in a good place physically, fiscally, emotionally, spiritually, professionally, all of the above? If you're not, how is that going to affect your loved one? And how is that going to affect you and your ability to do what you're trying to do?

See, the goal is not to somehow just get through this white knuckle it and get through it, but the goal is for you to live a healthier quality of life, even while doing this. That seems a little bit counterintuitive. Sometimes you think, well, we just got to get mama through this until she goes on to be with Jesus.

Well, that's what a lot of people think, but that's not cool. That is not the right way to go about this thing. You can live a healthier life. You can live a calmer life and guess what? You could even live a more joyful life. It's not easy. Take some work, but you can do it.

We're going to talk about how, and I'm glad you're with us. If you want to be a part of the show, if you're thinking for the first time you're hearing this, are you kidding me? A show for caregivers?

Yeah. There are 39,000 hours of programming, 39,480 hours of programming on Sirius XM every week. This is the one hour for the family caregiver. This is your hour. This is your time.

Whether you're driving along, sitting at home streaming, whatever it is you're wanting to do while you're doing this, just listen for a moment and you'll realize, oh, wait a minute. We speak fluent caregiver here. We talk about things that are affecting you, not your loved one. I'm not asking about them.

Not that we don't care. It's just that that's not the purpose of this show. It's not hope for the patient. It's not hope for the parent. It's not hope for the politician. It's hope for the caregiver.

Period. You as a family caregiver. So we'd love to have you chime in. 877-655-6755 My wife says I have to say it slower.

877-655-6755. And speaking of slower, you know, as the parent of the board, the salt of the sound, the Earl of Engineering, the man who's a late bloomer, but full of humor. He's my sidekick, John Butler, the Count of Mighty Disco, everyone. Well, that was just, that was fantastic.

You are on today, by the way. Just wonderful. And you know, I might be wrong about a couple of things. It takes a big man to admit when he's wrong. And you are that big man.

Well, thank you. Yeah, it takes a big man to admit when he's wrong, but it takes a bigger man to give a giraffe a haircut. So... John is a very tall fellow.

Yeah, that's the joke. What are you, 6'7"? I'm 6'5". 196 centimeters, I think. Maybe 192. You've really worked out the math on this, haven't you? Yeah, again, you know, we've talked about math not being a thing about this. And yet you still talk about the 39,480 hours of programming. But I think it's really important to know that there's so much devoted to sports, to politics, to, you know, finances, health.

But 65 million people are taking care of someone that we can count. There's probably more than that. I think there is. And yet there's just very little out there that's cohesive for them other than you get a lot of pockets of it like platitudes, take care of yourself.

It's usually part of something else, too, like a larger program. It's like, oh, we have our caregiver corner or whatever, you know, sort of deal. And no, I just really like the way you put it.

This is not, not that politicians don't need hope and not that parents don't need hope and not that, you know, patients don't need hope, but so do caregivers. And this is that. This is it. By the way, there's a little static on your line. And so, sorry about that little inside baseball. John's in Nashville. I'm in Southwest Montana.

Ed is in Dallas. And we are here all for you, crisscrossing this great country and here for you as a family caregiver. And we're thrilled to have you here. I do have our caregiver tip of the day. Our caregiver tip of the day.

Our caregiver tip of the day is something I heard yesterday, John. And it is we have a good bit of snow on the ground from a little wintry passing that comes early to the Rockies up here in Montana. And we just moved out here from Tennessee. I mean, coming out here for a long time, but I was going to drive, I had to drive across a big, pretty good size hill to get to a place where I was going to get some new tires. And tires are a big part of your life in rural Montana. You want to have good tires.

And but I had to go across a pretty steep hill that could be ugly in the winter. And a friend in here, I said, well, how's the how's the road on the way over? And he said, he said, don't here's and here's the caregiver tip of the day.

You ready? Don't. Thank you, Ed. He said, here's the caregiver tip of the day. No, he didn't say it was a caregiver.

He just said, here's he just gave a piece of advice. But I grasped it and applied it to my life as a caregiver. And he said, don't pass the snowplow.

Don't pass the snowplow. And I thought, what a great reminder of our journey as caregivers. John. Well, no, that's just that's fantastic. You looked I have John here on video conference so I could see it. But did you looked eager to speak into this?

No, no, no. I was I was just listening to that. I just really like that that that metaphor that there are. There's lots of just environmental things going on in any sort of complicated situation, like being a caregiver or driving down the mountain. And the snowplow is one of those things that's going to do its job, whether you're there or not. And, you know, you're going to have to go at the pace of the snowplow if you want to stay safe on the road.

Exactly. And and the pace for you as a caregiver, the pace of somebody that is plowing the road for you or a set of circumstances that can keep you safe. It may frustrate you. You may not like going at 10 to 15 miles an hour. But and as I was talking to a buddy of mine last night and I said, you know, I got these new tires, you know, because I was really excited about my tires, John. I mean, you know, I don't want to make tires, but I was.

I paid a lot of money for the tire, so I want to be excited about them. But he said. The key to it out here is drive at the speed of drive at the speed that you feel comfortable slamming into the ditch. Oh, it's. You know, there's there's some real great wisdom that comes sometimes living in a harsh environment like this drive at the speed that you feel comfortable slamming into the ditch. And I think for us as caregivers, we tend to move really fast and we get kind of frenetic and frantic in it sometimes. And I know I do. I don't know about you, John, but I do.

I do. And and and so I am trying to learn how to slow down and go with the speed that keeps me safe. And I may not get to where I want to be as fast as I'd like to be there, but I'm going to get there a whole lot faster if I'm not in a ditch somewhere or going off a cliff or whatever, you know, and I think as caregivers, that's where we are.

That's where we live. And let me let me explain. You know, when you when you have a doctor that is saying to you, here's the deal. You don't have to accept that doctor's word for it, but you're going to be served.

You're going to be served better by doing so. I remember I was talking to a family member to have a surgery and they said we were trying to talk that sometimes a doctor will offer you a choice. Do you want it regular type of surgery? You want to try laparoscopic?

And I stopped him. I said, if your physician is offering you a choice of what type of surgery to have, you need a different position because you didn't go to medical school. So you don't really get a vote in this.

You can agree to have it or not, but you don't get to have a it's not a menu. You know, it's it's yeah. If you need surgery, you need surgery.

OK, let the doctor who went to medical school and figure that out. Yeah. Yeah.

And so. I was you know, but I remember one time that I Gracie had had a pretty ugly back surgery and it was it was it was a brutal surgery and we were no stranger to surgeries by this point. The doc came back and he said, hey, look, you're going to she's got she's got a post-op infection, something is in her back in her spinal cord area, and it's pretty serious. And we're going to have to keep her here for three months and we're going to have to open her up every couple of days. And we have to irrigate that section out and she's not going to be able to lift up more than 15 degrees.

Well, I want you to think about that reality. And and I looked at the doctor and I didn't really look at the doctor. I just kind of looked at the wall.

I just I just my spirit was just so my shoulders, everything just sunk. And we had smaller children at home. And I said, I can't do this for three months.

And he stopped and he put his hand on my shoulder. He said, you're not going to do it for three months. You're going to do it for 24 hours.

That's the speed of the snowplow. And that's how fast you're going to go one day at a time. You're going to deal with this one day at a time. Nobody can do this for a lifetime.

Anybody do it for 24 hours. And I, I got through that. I held on to that piece of advice that that, and he quoted Matthew 6 when he said, you know, tomorrow is sufficient for itself. The worries of tomorrow are sufficient for itself, what Jesus said there. And I thought, OK, I'm going to have to live this out.

And Gracie is too. We're just going to have to live this out. We cannot pass the snowplow.

That's how fast the snowplow goes one day at a time. And, you know, it's just amazing. And I think that's one of the things, John, I like about being out here is I see these harsher, more stark reminders of how little control I have. And I think for me as a caregiver, one of the things that I've struggled with and I don't know about you as a caregiver. And I remember being asked by this reporter, they said, what is the hardest thing you've dealt with as a caregiver?

Well, now, let me let me give you some background for those of you just now tuning the show for the first time. You know, my wife's had 80 surgeries that I can count. Both of her legs are amputated. She lives with relentless pain.

This has been going on since Reagan's first term. That's a long time. A hundred plus doctors have treated her, 12 hospitals, seven insurance companies.

And she's had about another 100 and 150 smaller procedures. This is not a small set of circumstances we deal with here. But this reporter asked me, so what is the what is the most difficult thing you've dealt with as a caregiver? And hands down, I had I admitted to that reporter and to you all, it's knowing what is mine and what is not mine to carry. And all too often, I'm trying to take on more than is mine to do.

And I don't want to stand behind that snowplow and let it go at its pace where I know that I can be safe. I want to just what about this? What about this? What are we going to do about here? You know, I can't do anything about tomorrow. I can't do anything about it and neither can you.

I cannot do anything about yesterday. I can only deal with right here and right now. That's all I can deal with. That's all any of us can deal with.

I don't hold the monopoly on that. That's all any of us can deal with. And if you're in a situation right now with someone and you're living in abject fear, and I get that. I truly get that. And I've had fear grip me in this situation in ways that would just, you couldn't even think straight. I really couldn't. You ever been in that kind of situation, John, where you've had so much fear about, oh my gosh, what are we going to do? That you don't even know how to assess it.

Oh, absolutely. My second child ended up in the ICU right after he was born. And just what are you going to do? You know, the complete lack of information and a lack of just there's nothing. There was just nothing. Everything you do is upstairs. And exists in this new reality that's just, that's everywhere. You're caught in the middle of the rain in a field and there's nowhere to go. And you got to stay behind the snowplow. And the snowplow is this team of doctors and professionals of people you don't even know who now have the most precious thing in your life in their hands and you can't do anything about it. It's an unsettling thing, isn't it? It really is. It's just, and giving that the reverence it deserves, that fact, the fact that it is a hard thing and you're going to get through it because you can do this for 24 hours. And that's the speed we go at.

And I think if we can learn to slow down and we've talked a lot about this on the show, the fear, obligation and guilt, the fog of caregivers, fear, obligation and guilt. And we get, we get so disoriented in this fog and I don't know anybody who has successfully sped through a fog. I've never, I don't hear those stories.

You don't know them because they're not around to talk about it. You never read on the news or hear on the news, Hey, here's a, here's an amazing story of a guy who was doing 80 through a fog. Here's a great story. You don't hear those kinds of things because when you run into fog, you have to slow down.

You must go at the speed that is assigned to you. Whether you, if you don't, you will pay the consequences. And I've learned, by the way, I've learned out here in Montana, something I hear, something I learned today, John, not today, but I've been picking up. Sure.

Sure. And this is everywhere, but you kind of, it kind of becomes a little bit more vivid to me out here. There's no rewards or penalties in nature, just consequences.

Oh yeah. Nature's, nature doesn't have a vendetta against you. It's just, this is the way it is. You don't have to like it. You can't, you can't plead with it.

You can't, there's no bargaining here. And that's, that's the big thing. That's the, you can't change any part of this that we're talking about. That's not, that doesn't make you powerless.

It just makes, it makes that the reality of the situation. Well there's, there's a, at the barn where we're feeding the horses, we have a lot of hay in there. And I was talking to a guy that, that used to do this. I'll be, I'll be feeding the horses here.

I actually did that yesterday and I'll be starting to do it now that we got snow on the ground. And he said something to me. He said, you might want to, when you go to the barn to do this, he said, you might want to announce your presence loudly, make a noise and then be prepared to not just go straight into where the hay is because a moose is liable to be hanging out in there and they will charge you. Now the moose doesn't personally have anything against me, but if you, if you sneak up on a moose, it could get a little bit gnarly.

I just, I'm just throwing that out there, John. I don't, you might want to write that down. No, I'll keep that in mind next time I run into a moose. It's something you might, just a little handy piece of information.

You might want to announce your presence because the, or the mountain lion that could be in there just kind of staying warm and Exactly. Well, and you were talking about all this stuff, having being in Montana and these are, you know, we talk about having to slow down because a lot of the things have really long term consequences. If you make a mistake. Yeah.

Yeah. But for us as caregivers, there are very long term consequences of rushing around, frantically trying to take on or go faster than we really can. People are going to get hurt. You're going to get hurt and you might take your family with you. I was talking to a guy and he is, he's got several special needs children who he has adopted.

No, he's got four children, he's, he and his wife have adopted, but they are, they're all having some emotional issues because their mother was a drug addict. Okay. It's a tough situation. And, and I was kind of pointing, I wasn't kind of, I was pointing him to safety or here's some, here's some paths you might want to explore.

Cause that's all I do on the show. I try not to give advice because I can't take care of your loved one anymore. You can take care of mine. But what I can do is tell you here's some things I've learned far better than us. Yeah. And here's some things I've learned and in here's, I know a dead end when I see it and I told him, I said, he was 72 years old, he's got four children, all under nine and two of them are twins.

So when he's 82, he's going to have two 17 year old twins when he's 82. And I said, you know, you hear some things you might want to consider. And he just locked it down. He did not want to hear what I was saying. And sometimes people don't, and I'm not there to hold you down and help you. I'm not going to do that.

I'm going to point you the best I can to safety. And I, but you, you know, you can lead a man to an idea, but you can't make him think. And I'm trying to offer my own failures as exhibit A, that if you don't, and his thing was, well, look, I'm just, you know, God's not going to take me home until all my work is done here.

You know, I said, you know what? I'm a man of faith too. And I have life insurance because something happens to me.

I want to make sure that Gracie is as cared for as I possibly can. I can't guarantee I can't do anything other than try to be the best steward of what I have. My resources, my time, my body, everything else. And part of that means being able to slow down.

You as a caregiver, I'm just telling you, slow down. Don't pass the snowplow. There's a reason the snowplow is out there. I learned that in the heavy winters of Montana, and I don't want to pass the snowplow because that's where you get hurt.

That's where things can go off the rail. And I don't care what kind of a hurry I'm in, being in a ditch in a wrecked car is not going to make that journey faster. And this is the risk we face as caregivers. If we try to rush too much, and I am guilty of this, John, it's shameful how guilty I am of this. But I'm getting better at it.

Okay, I mean, I'm making progress, not perfection, just progress. And in baseball, I'll give a little baseball analogy, John. A baseball analogy.

Go ahead and just prepare yourself for it. Oh, I love baseball. If you put the bat on the ball three out of ten times in baseball, they're going to put you in the Hall of Fame. You're hitting 300. Oh, yeah.

330, you know. They're going to put you in the Hall of Fame. The goal is not to be perfect at this, and the goal is not to live an exemplary, flawless life as a caregiver. The goal is for you to be safe and get to your destination safely, even if that destination is a graveyard, for you to get there safely. Now, that's hard. That's hard to hear, but that's our reality.

I'm not here to dress it up. I'm just going, this is reality. This is our life, and we're caring for someone that may indeed beat us to the graveyard. Actually, that's the goal for me, is for me to outlive my wife. I can't promise it, but I want to live as if I could.

Now, some of you are dealing with special needs children, children with autism and things like that, Down syndrome, so forth, that aren't necessarily terminal, and they may outlive you, and you have to plan for that. I get that, but it still means being good stewards of who you are while you're in the driver's seat, while you are behind the wheel of this car, don't pass the snowplow. Let it do its job. Let this thing go at the pace it needs to go. If the doctors are working on this, don't try to get out in front of it. Just let it be what it's going to be.

It's going to go one day at a time, and that's all you have. Anything more than that, and you're trying to force an outcome that could have disastrous results. Now, I've seen people pass a snowplow.

I've seen them do it, and I've seen them do it successfully, but I'm not willing to play those odds. How about you, John? No, I'm not, and what I was thinking this whole time, all this sounds really bleak. We've been dealing with the bleak side of this, but letting go and letting the snowplow do its thing is like the first step in getting to the other side of this, which is living this in a joyful sort of way, and that's the way you end up being better at this, even though that's not the goal. I have driven on very snowy and icy roads out here when there was no snowplow. It's nerve-wracking. It's a lot more peaceful when you stay about a couple hundred yards behind that thing and got a nice, smooth road to drive on, and that's the key. Hey, let me ask you a question.

Are you trying to pass a snowplow? 877-655-6755. 877-655-6755, if you want to be a part of the show, we'd love to hear from you.

This is Hope for the Caregiver, nation's number one show for the family caregiver. How are you feeling? How are you doing? How are you holding up? Let's talk about that. 877-655-6755.

We'll be right back. Hi, this is Jeff Foxworthy. 65 million Americans serve as a caregiver for a sick or disabled loved one. If you're one of them, then listen to my friend Peter Rosenberger's show.

He's got redneck tendencies, but he's really good at what he does. 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 the show for caregivers about caregivers hosted by a caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope for the Caregiver, the nation's number one show for the family caregiver here on Family Talk Channel 131. We are live. 877-655-6755, 877-655-6755 if you want to be a part of the show. I got something I want to say real quick. Somebody had posted something on Facebook, because we do stream the show on Facebook, by the way, Hope for the Caregiver on Facebook.

It's a friend of mine who I know is going through some tough times, and I heard something, and I'm just going to pass this on. We caregivers tend to be a pretty capable lot. I've often said we're high-functioning multitaskers. We're pretty capable people, and we do things without being told or supervised. We just step up and just do it, and we get a lot of things done. I mean, I can bring home the bacon fried up in a pan and never let you forget I'm a man.

I can do it all. So can you as a caregiver. That's what we do, but I've also found something about capable people. The more capable we are, the longer it takes for us to realize we're not, and the more carnage that we can cause in that journey. We're not capable enough, okay, and that is a hard lesson to learn. We are not capable enough. No matter how good you are at this, it's not enough. It's still bigger than you, and you can't carry it by yourself. You just can't, and that's why our caregiver tip of the day is don't pass the snowplow.

There is a safer way to do this for you, but it's going to involve you being slower and letting go of the control that you think you have because you don't. Now, how do I know that? Well, that's 30-something years of failure. Failure is a great reminder of just how incapable we are because we're not, and that's okay. You are not supposed to be. This is not something that was assigned to you because you're a capable person that can fix it. It's just a part of your life.

It is what it is, but it doesn't mean that you have to be miserable in it, okay? I just kind of wanted to pass that on a little bit. These are things that I wrestle with. These are things that I'm learning, and all I'm doing is aggregating a lifetime of experience to offer a lifeline of help to my fellow caregivers. I just want to point you to the same solid, solid ground that I still depend upon to find those places, and I get off of it, too.

I mean, I get out in the quicksand. We all do, so we've got to remind each other of where safe ground is, and safe ground is, number one, admitting that you are not in control of this. I can only control my own thoughts, my own words, my own deeds.

That's it. I cannot control the weather. I cannot control the fact that my wife's legs are gone, that she's in pain all the time. There's none of these things that I can do, nor can you. You can't fight autism. You can't fight Alzheimer's. You can't fight addiction, an addicted loved one.

You can fight your own, but you can't fight theirs. So what do we do? We deal with today and we go at a speed that is a little bit alien to us, which is slow, and that's hard to do, and it takes reminders that we need to breathe and just slow down. It's going to be what it's going to be. A friend of mine told me, he's an engineer, in fact, hey, Chris Latham, he and I wrote my theme song together, and he said, a song, John, you'll get this, a song is like a train full of boxcars, okay? And you may be in one particular boxcar, and the tempo of the song is that locomotive pulling that series of boxcars. Inside that boxcar, you are free to run around at whatever speed you want to, but you're not going to get to the end of the song any faster. I like that. I like that a lot.

That's a very jazzy sort of, yeah. Well, you might as well just enjoy the drive because you're not going to get there. You cannot force something that's beyond your control to go faster or slower than you. It's just going to be what it's going to be. That kind of brings up a little bit about it because what you were saying earlier, it sounds like, you know, if you weren't thinking about it, that this means that you're powerless in this, and that's not the case at all.

It just means that there are things that are immutable to you. There are rules to this game that we're playing. And I didn't make the rules.

And I didn't make the rules. So all right, let's take a call from Sheila in Montana. Hey, Sheila. Sheila, good afternoon. How are you doing?

Welcome to the show. How are you feeling? How am I feeling? Well, I'm feeling... I asked you first, Sheila. I know. I said, how am I feeling?

I'm feeling relieved, I guess would be the word. I love the analogy that you're giving about...because I just got home driving through the snow in four-wheel drive. And I'm thinking, okay, don't go...oh my gosh, don't go faster than the snow plow. Don't pass the snow plow. Don't pass the snow plow. Oh my gosh.

Every time my special needs son calls me, I have...and it's like, okay, all right, I'm going to have to remember that. Okay, there's a snow plow. And don't try to speed...and I always do...it seems like what I'm always doing, speeding past. You know, come on, what's your problem? Let's deal with it. Let's get it over with, blah, blah, blah.

Okay, how can I do that? How can I do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah? And he's going, da-doo, da-doo. And I felt like, oh my gosh. I remember it wasn't too many weeks ago. The one time I did this right, I let him talk. Do you know it went for an hour and 15 minutes? An hour and 15 minutes.

I didn't try to solve the problems. I just listened. But that's one time out of 500. And it's like, oh my gosh. And my husband and I, we both go through this and we're always trying to fix everything.

Like you said, we're trying to fix it and we can't. And so I love your analogy. It's awesome because maybe they'll help me. Here's your snow plow. Again, I would take credit for it, but it wasn't mine.

It was given to me by a wise salt here in Montana. And I thought about, and also you might want to, you know, the snow plow guy, you get the feeling that the snow plow guy that is driving this thing is listening to Lawrence Wilk and we're listening to Led Zeppelin. You know, you ever get that feeling? And doesn't care. And he doesn't care. He's going to do what he's going to do and it's going to be what it's going to be and we can fight it or not fight it. And he'll call for help while we're laying a ditch, but he's going to keep on doing his job.

No kidding. Well, the other thing too is I keep telling myself, okay, God, I'm not quite learning the lesson. So, you know, I realized there's a purpose in everything, I think. And I mean, maybe, you know, maybe it's just, well, it's just life, but that I need to learn like that. I need to deal with it like the snow plow, because if I remember that, I see the phone call, I have special tone for him when he calls and I say, okay, here comes the snow plow.

You know, you know, by the way, here's a tip somebody gave me too. Change the name on your phone. Change the name on your phone to your loved one, like put their first name, then put be kind or be patient and type that into their actual name. Oh, instead of his middle name.

Yeah, that's pretty good. So when you see that come up, it says, you know, it'll say like, Fred, be patient, you know, whatever. Or mom, don't yell. Or, you know, so and so, don't swear. I like that. Oh, that's a good thought too. Again, these are just little things that we're not going to fix it.

But what we can do is learn to live peacefully. And I want to throw out a theory to you. I'm going to throw out a theory. And you tell me if I'm barking mad or I'm onto something. I can answer this question before. John's already got his answer. You can't buzz in until you hear the whole question, John.

It's like a family feud. But it's, I think that we as caregivers need very little in the way of instruction and a whole lot of reminders. Yeah.

That's just a theory I've got. A whole lot of reminders. And so I'm not, I mean, with your special needs son, for example, Sheila, I'm not going to instruct you and you don't need me to instruct you.

You don't need anybody else to instruct you how to deal with his son. But we do need reminders. Absolutely. You're right. And so I think that's what happens with me. I mean, I have caregiver amnesia. And, you know, I do. Sorry. That's funny. Well, you forget to let the snowplow do its job.

I laugh because I'm laughing at myself. Yeah. Every time I turn around, I forgot. You know, and I think that's the whole point of this journey as caregivers. If we could just take a moment here on the air, we're on the air on Sirius.

We're just hanging out, just caregiver to caregiver. And we're talking about it. Yeah, this is really tough. We're struggling with this. And then we burst into laughter. And that's that's oxygen to our souls. That's a reminder, you know, that we really can.

We could breathe along this journey without just killing ourselves and our loved ones. In fact, you have to. Yeah, we do. Right. Well, and yeah, on the bottom, you know, because it hurts when we realize when I realize my husband, I realize when the relationship is bad and we know it's not our son's fault.

Nobody's fault. He's not being mean or he's being who he is. But we feel terrible afterwards.

Well, because we can't do this or do that or we reacted this way or reacted that way. He doesn't get this. He doesn't do that. Oh, my goodness. He's God's creation, too. And, you know, God and God loves it.

We love him. It's, you know, those hard times when we think, OK, I don't want to deal with this anymore. I'm tired of this kid, you know, but but and I felt then you feel bad, you know, afterwards.

No, he's God's creation, too. And I know he has a sweet heart, a sweet soul. You know, that goes back to that that fog of caregivers I talk about. We get into fear. We get into obligation. Then we get into guilt. Oh, I feel guilty for even thinking this or whatever.

And I heard a great quote that helped me kind of reorient some things a long time ago. So they're not doing it to you. They're just doing it. Right.

They're just doing it. And you don't have we don't have to take everything personally. And we don't have to go to every fight that we get a ticket to. You know, we could just you know, we could sit a few of these things out. And so, you know, these are little things that I need to hear back.

I mean, I'm glad you called just to remind me of these things, Sheila, because I need to hear this. Just like the rest of us. And this is not going to end. And it's not going to end in a way that we wish it to. No, but but but that doesn't mean we have to be miserable.

And, you know, it's it's in the middle. I mean, it's a late afternoon here and you and I are talking and we're not miserable. You know, you've got a special needs son.

I've got a wife with severe medical trauma. And guess what? We're not miserable.

We don't have to be miserable. Cracking jokes. And John's making us laugh. John, say something funny.

Something funny. Well, Sheila, it means a lot that you took the time to call. I don't take it for granted that people are driving around and they're listening to the show or wherever they are.

They're streaming it or whatever they're doing. And we don't know how many people there are a lot of special needs parents out there. Sheila need to hear what you had to say. They need to hear from you that, hey, wait a minute, I'm not alone for feeling this way. You know, Sheila's calling in and she's feeling this way. And guess what? We're OK. We're not we're not miserable. Nobody's slitting our wrists. We're not jumping into the bathtub with toasters, you know. You know, we're just we're just.

You know what? But then also, too, Peter, is one of the things that's helped you help me in you was out of this. Whatever this tragedy or this this life experience.

God is used for good. And my now my older son, for me, years ago, I started, you know, at our church, the special needs ministry. There was no Sunday school for special needs kids. We're talking a couple of decades ago.

There wasn't one. And so I thought, well, my son has no place to go. He can't read and he can't read, blah, blah, blah. And now, you know, so that's a good thing. Well, then I just yesterday I talked to my older son and he's he's the chairman of the school board, a very large school school district in in in Calvary County. And he told me, he said, get this mommy.

So I spent all this morning. I had a school board meeting and there were some parents of special needs kids came in and they were. And he explained to me all the statistics of what's going on there. They had 13, 18 percent, which is a huge. I was amazed that the 18 percent of the children in that large school district are special needs.

I went, whoa. And then he said, because they had 19 kids show up at the beginning of the year that weren't registered. There were special needs kids. They were going to have to move, you know, do this and do that with these kids. And of course, the parents are upset because like, you know, often you just don't rent. You don't do this with special needs kids. There's all kinds of other. First of all, they like stability. They like routine. Number one.

Number two is you've got to have the other helpers, the other assisted things, you know, the nurse, whatever. And so my son here, he was with these parents. And you know what? It was so awesome to me. He said, Mom, I was able to tell them I know exactly what you're talking about. My brother had to change schools every single year. And it was all over the county. He would have an hour bus ride. Do you want to know what that meant to those parents?

Because they knew they had an advocate there that somebody who understood who really gets the journey. Yes. And you know what? I heard a great quote one time.

You know, our savior was a carpenter and he doesn't even waste the sawdust. You know, the things in our life that we think are meaningless or worthless, whatever. No, no, no, no.

They're nothing. You'd be amazed at what happens with the things that we consider frustrating, challenging, waste, tragedy, all that kind of stuff can be woven into something extraordinary. Well Sheila, listen, I'm going to, I'm going to, I've got a bump here, but listen, thank you for taking time to call. It means a lot. Okay. Well, I'm going to change his name.

Be patient. As I look out my window, I could not even see out the window yesterday because of all the snow here. And the fact that I got into town this morning was an absolute miracle in grace of God. So thank you.

I just happened to tune into 131 and I didn't realize I was wanting to come by and stay at the church and I couldn't. And so then I almost didn't get to Peter. So that's awesome.

And when you talked about the snow pilot. Oh my gosh. So thank you so much. Thanks for taking my call. And God bless you and we'll be gone out of state for a while.

So, but safe travels. And thank you very much, Sheila. Thank you so much. God bless you guys. Thanks.

Listen, this is why we do the show to let you know you're not alone. By the way, I need to tell you something real quick. I'm getting ready to ship some some knees and a hip over to West Africa. I've got some some parts and prosthetic parts for our work we do with amputees over West Africa. When Gracie lost both of her legs, she wanted to have an outreach to see again of things that would come out of tragedy. She had this vision for being able to, from her own tragedy, help someone else walk. And we do through Standing with Hope, which is the presenting sponsor of the show. It's for the wounded and those who care for them. And we work with CoreCivic out of Nashville, Tennessee, and they have a local prison in Tennessee where inmates volunteer to disassemble used limbs that we collect from all over the country. So I could really use your help going out to standingwithhope.com and see where you can share that with other folks who, you know, may be an amputee or funeral home directors or whatever. Wherever used limbs may end up, from a family member who passed away or a kid who outgrew them or whatever, we could take those devices.

These inmates do. It's one of the faith-based programs at CoreCivic. And we could really use your help in getting those parts so that we can use them to build brand new legs over in West Africa.

And they go walking and leaping and praising God. It's a great work for the wounded and those who care for them. So you could sponsor a leg, you could help get the word out, you could sponsor this show.

Be a part of what we're doing at standingwithhope.com. All right, let's go to Tracy in Georgia. Tracy, good afternoon. How are you feeling? Good afternoon. I'm feeling great, feeling wonderful.

Just trying to stay positive every day. Well, tell me what's going on with you on this. Okay, so my father has Alzheimer's. He's 78 years old. And I have left my home 24 years with my husband so that I may go up to help my mother, who is 76, take care of my father. I go Monday through Friday to work, but however, someone's there every single night all night with him. And that's a big time. That just seems like when things happen is at nighttime. So it's a really difficult time for my mother because during the stress of what's been going on over the last year and a half, she's lost a lot of weight, up to 65 pounds.

She's 106 pounds, but yet she's a caregiver for my father. And my father is a Gemini, so it's kind of hard to decipher, is it the Alzheimer's now or is this his personality? And sometimes the I is the given when you know something's taking place. But sometimes that's not there. So it's hard for me to read him when he's really truly acting as himself or when it's the disease. Well, I think sometimes when you get in a situation like this where there's mental impairment, the rule that I've heard and come to live by is don't be surprised when they act impaired.

Be surprised when they don't. Because you've got a situation where Alzheimer's is your it's it's the filter or the it's the front line of what you're going to deal with with your dad no matter what. And there may be moments when he may express lucidity, certainly in the evening times when sundowners kicks in. It's not going to happen. And that's when you kind of to protect yourself and your mother learn to detach from that and realize that he's not doing it to you. He's just doing it.

The disease is taking over and you can't you can't have a relationship with Alzheimer's and you can still honor your father. No, you can't. And don't try. It's worthless to try. Don't try to reason with him. Don't try to argue with him. Don't try to do any of those things that learn to deflect. I'm a second degree black belt in the hop keto and it's a self-defense art. And when somebody throws a punch at you, you don't have to let them hit you and you don't have to try to hit them back harder to to counter.

That's called, you know, that's just rock and sock of robots. And but you don't also have to overpower them when they try to throw a punch. What you learn to do is deflect and you just push it aside and you be you don't be where the punch is thrown.

You get out of the way of that and you learn how to deflect and detach from that and realize that you don't have to prove him wrong in order for you to be right. Absolutely. And let me ask you, let me ask you a couple quick questions because we're going to run out of time and I just want to ask you a couple quick questions. You've only temporarily moved away from your husband or have you left your husband?

Just temporarily. OK. How often do you get to get back? Once a month, maybe. Can you do more and maybe have some other person come in to help with your mom?

Yes, I can. Because for your own safety and for your own marriage and for your own relationship, that's going to be a healthier place for you. If you can do that, I would highly encourage you to do so, because that's going to be healthy for both you and your husband. This thing with your father could go on for some time. I don't know how how close to death's door he is, but people can live with Alzheimer's for many, many years. And it can only, you know, it's going to get increasingly more stressful and worse as he becomes less and less able to do things. But you and your husband have to protect what's going on between you two.

Correct. And he needs you and you need him. And so I know that you've kind of, you're torn because you want to honor your mother and father.

You want to do all these things. And I get that. And that's important. But you don't have to honor Alzheimer's. OK, very true.

And you can honor your dad without honoring Alzheimer's. Hey, let me let me let me ask you, let me ask you a favor. Can I put you on hold and let Ed get your information? Can I just send you a book?

Would that be OK? Oh, absolutely. I've got I've got a little book called Seven Caregiver Landmines and How You Go.

I got several books, but this is the newest one. It's just a little like a field manual. I mean, Tracy, it's embarrassing. It's so easy.

You could read into the bathroom, I know, because that's where I wrote it. Right. That is awesome.

I love it. But I want to send this to you just so you have something just to kind of read. It really is easy, but it's reminders. Again, when I talked about the last caller, I don't think we need his instructions as much as we need reminders.

And I wrote this for myself just as easy reminders of how to be able to navigate through these things. So I'm going to put you on hold and let Ed get your information. And thank you so much for taking the time to call Tracy, OK? Listen, this is hope for the caregiver. This is the nation's number one show for the family caregiver. I think you know why. It's a different show. It's not what you expect. John's not what you expect. Are you, John?

Well, I'm not right. Go to standingwithhope.com. Be a part of what we're doing. If you like what you're hearing, support it. Share it. Spend some time reading and getting some of the information we put out there for you.

Healthy caregivers make better caregivers. Today's a great day to start. I'm Peter Rosenberger.

We'll see you next week. How about that? Beautiful, gentlemen.

It's fantastic. Yeah. OK, go ahead. I don't think you need to buy her a dress this early. That was a pretty good show, John.

Yeah, absolutely. Oh, I like Sheila. I think she goes to church here. Yeah, I was going to say, she's got to know you. She's got to. There's no way around it.

She's got a whole lot of personality. But we had three callers, but we had coast to coast, Montana and Georgia. Nice. So how did I handle it? So where was the other one? What was the other one? Well, the other one, she called in from Tulsa, but she wasn't sure what kind of show this was.

They call back, but she was like, she called. I was like, OK, so drive by. Cool. Just fine. Absolutely.