Hope for the Caregiver

Welcome to Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the nation's number one show for the family caregiver and we are glad that you are with us.

We are live on American Family Radio 888-589-8840, 888-589-8840. If you want to be a part of the show and we welcome you to call in whatever's on your heart whatever's on your mind this is a show for caregivers and what we're doing is reaching out to those who are putting themselves between a vulnerable loved one and even worse disaster. Maybe you're taking care of somebody who is aging. Maybe it's somebody who is dealing with a trauma. Maybe it's somebody who has, especially his child, or somebody who is involved with addiction issues. That's a chronic impairment and if you're in relationship with somebody who has an addiction, alcoholism or drug addiction or whatever, guess what?

You're functioning as a caregiver and you may not think of it as such but you are and this show is for you and it's for you to be able to have some place to be able to bang around ideas with other folks who are struggling in their own journey as a caregiver. You know we're not going to get this right every time but what we're going to do is we're going to encourage each other and strengthen each other so we can stay healthier along the journey. See the goal is not to feel better. Okay you're never going to feel better about this.

My wife's had 80 surgeries of both legs amputated. She's not going to feel better about it. I'm not going to feel better about it. Okay but we can be better. We can be better in it. We can be stronger. We can be healthier. I can't fight amputation and chronic pain but I can fight high cholesterol, weight gain.

I can fight being a jerk and so can you. See these are things that we have control over as caregivers. I think a lot of times this is embarrassing but you know why should I stop now? I've embarrassed myself for years but I remember one time we had been back and forth to the hospital back and forth the doctor's office and it was just and we had two small children and and I had we got home from the hospital and and Gracie was sitting in her wheelchair and she was she was feeling very insecure and and she was wanting to be helpful and she felt bad she was it was just one of those kind of days and I um she said can I help you with dinner. Well our kitchen was not really set up to have a lot of people in it particularly wanted a wheelchair but I was just being a jerk that day and I remember just slamming a cabinet door and I said no I'll do it I have to be in control of something. Now that I mean yeah that's embarrassing okay I get it. The only reason I share that on the show is because you know what this this is what happens to us as caregivers we feel like we've got to be in control of something well we are in control of something we're in control of our own thoughts words and deeds but we're not in control of our loved ones issues I cannot control what happens to my wife medically I can't do it and you can't either you can't control Alzheimer's you can't control Down syndrome or autism or Parkinson's or anybody's addiction you can't control those things and as long as you keep trying to do it you're going to end up doing more than slamming a kitchen cabinet door you know and and by the way I've done more than that too I mean I am the crash test dummy of caregivers if you can fail at it I have failed at it and I have forgotten more mistakes than most of you going to ever have to make and I get that so what I'm hoping that you'll do is learn from this time and have a time that you can uh you know listen to other people try to wrap their minds around something like this so that you as a caregiver can be in a healthier place healthy caregivers make better caregivers it's that simple and if you're not in a healthy place as a family caregiver now you think about this think about your aging parents or think about your special needs child or think about your spouse who's dealing with such and such whatever fill in the blank of whoever you're standing between them and worst disaster for and think about okay you know what's the plan if you go down what's the plan if you're not in a good place physically fiscally I mean if your if your checkbook is just a a disaster area what's the plan if you're not in a good place spiritually who are you listening to now I want you to really think with me on this because the world is offering increasingly more destruction and death and and despair that's pretty much all the world has just if it if it causes you pain get rid of it my case exhibit number eight the governor of virginia you know are you going to listen to people like that if you're a parent of a special needs child and and that child is is acting in such a way that it's you're being pushed to the breaking point and you're going to listen to the governor of virginia you know this is happening around here people are hearing what's going on in our pop culture in our society and all these things and they're saying you know if I don't want it I just get rid of it don't think it's not happening because it is just last year about this time last year 28 year old woman or she was in her 20s shot and killed her special needs child then turned a gun on herself but she was unsuccessful at taking her own life a little more than a year ago in tennessee the father beat his non-verbal child with autism to death while the mother watch kid was five then he told the community kid ran off and everybody's out there looking for the kid don't think it's not happening because it is and then you've got aging individuals who are taking care of themselves a spouse taking care of a spouse and then all of a sudden something just snaps and then the spouse and it's usually a man at this point will turn a gun on his wife and then kill himself this just happened to one of the uh owners of the minnesota vikings they had all the money they had plenty of money been married 60 years but evidently something just happened and he took her life and then took his own so if we're not speaking life into these situations what's the alternative for folks where are they going to go what are they going to do who are they going to listen to who are you listening to and so one of the things we're doing on this show is we're committed to going out and just getting right into the nitty-gritty of this thing with caregivers we want to make sure that you have some path to safety and that some path to safety where you know that you can okay if i can just get to here i can catch my breath for a minute and you can you can we're not going to solve these things you're not going to make my wife's legs grow back i'm not going to fix your situation but what i can do is point you to a place of safety based on years of experience i've been doing this 33 years it's still going on and i've had people intersect me over the years and and help me navigate to place but what i've done is i've aggregated all of that into one condensed message for you as a family caregiver and it all stems from the light of the gospel now i want you to hear something i'm getting ready to my wife has a lot of scars her body was busted up in this wreck she had 83 years back in 1983 83 years ago my wife's gonna beat me for that one and she she has so many scars but her scars are temporary now you need to hear that her scars are temporary but our savior scars are not you see one day one day all this is going to be made new for her she's not going to have this anymore but the scars in his hands and his feets his feet those are eternal and they have eternal significance they have life-changing significance for you and that is why we have hope as caregivers this is not the end of the story 888-589-8840 888-589-8840 this is hope for the caregiver hopeforthecaregiver.com the book is hope for the caregiver the website the youtube channel the show it's all there and it's that conviction that you can live a calmer healthier and even more joyful life while dealing with harsh realities you can do this we're going to talk more about it 888-589-8840 we'll be right back have you ever struggled to trust god when lousy things happen to you i'm gracie rosenberger and in 1983 i experienced a horrific car accident leading to 80 surgeries and both legs amputated i questioned why god allowed something so brutal to happen to me but over time my questions changed and i discovered courage to trust god that understanding along with an appreciation for quality prosthetic limbs led me to establish standing with hope for more than a dozen years we've been working with the government of 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 the show for caregivers about caregivers hosted by a caregiver this is hope for the caregiver on american family radio we are thrilled to have you with us to be able to connect to you as a caregiver one of the three eyes that every caregiver deals with is the loss of independence we lose our identity and we become isolated okay and in that isolation dark thoughts can overtake us how are you doing how are you doing with that those dark thoughts struggling and and it's they can come in a variety of of ways and variety of issues and it's a um and they can they can uh take us down in some bad bad bad places i know been there done that i am the crash test dummy of caregivers if you can fail at it i failed at it but you don't have to you can learn from those um and uh it's um that's i've always found it's helpful to listen to a lot of people with scars because you can avoid how they got theirs you know and uh that's that's kind of the point of what we're doing here 888-589-8840 888-589-8840 if you want to be a part of the show are you struggling with this right now are you caring for somebody that is uh non-responsive to you or responding in an abusive manner and in a way that is um beating you down and if that's what's going on in your life where are you getting tanked up who are you listening to where are you going to recalibrate your thinking you know and that's part of what we have to do as caregivers we have to recalibrate the way we think and and we have to to um change the way we look at a situation you you you realize that like for example let me give you an example uh gracie doesn't have any any legs below the knee my wife um if i cut my foot is it inappropriate for me to talk about my foot being cut and seek attention from my foot just because i don't want to say anything because she doesn't have any feet and it's kind of you know that well who am i to complain about my cut foot when she doesn't have any feet i'll tell you exactly who i am to talk about my cut foot i'm the guy that's got the feet that she's depending on so it's not only appropriate it's it's imperative to talk about my foot it's not only appropriate it's it's imperative that i deal with the the injury to my own foot so that i can better care for her and i'm not doing her any favors if if i'm simply allowing myself to go along with a string problem and neither are you and so you're not responsible for what happened to your loved one you didn't do this you can't change it you can't cure it you can't fix it here's a little test look down at your hands do you see nail prints no well then this is not for you to fix but you are a steward of it and you could be a good steward of this and all you have to do is keep reminding yourself of what your role is in this if you're doing it out of obligation then it's only a matter of time before you start doing it with resentment but if you're doing it with stewardship understanding that this is not yours to fix but you're doing the best that you can with it and you leave the results to god because god owns this not you gracie got hurt before i met her i didn't do this to her i've done my own stuff i've had to make amends for a lot of things and i've caused a lot of pain and trauma my own self but i can't fix amputation and and i can't fix chronic pain i can't fix somebody with 200 breaks but that's not my job my job is to care for her and the more you do this the more you realize there are things in your life that are going to bubble to the surface that god will show you you deal with those things and you find out you turn around one day and you realize wait a minute i'm a little bit stronger i'm a little bit healthier i'm getting better in this i'm a little wiser i'm understanding things i can love in a deeper place i told somebody the other day i was doing an interview i i've been a pianist since i was a kid majoring in music and so forth and i love the way i play the piano now i love the way i write i love the things i talk about now i just hate how i got here and and but that's that's the whole thing i can appreciate things of beauty and appreciate things of value much more than i could before going through this and suffering can do this and watching somebody suffering can do this and um and this is what the this is what the goal is of this show is to help you walk through that so you're not doing it alone and not listening to to really dark thoughts that have come from you know the world basically they're not going to offer you anything that's positive they'll talk about things like take care of yourself or whatever no that's great thank you for that basic information we're going to point you to the hope of the gospel what does the gospel mean in this what does it mean to be a christian this what does it mean to trust jesus in this what does it mean when your scared hand is being held by his scarred hand what does all that mean and that's what we're going to talk about uh mark i'm going to try to take a call here i know you're having some trouble screening right now but i will try to take a call here and let's just go for it uh good morning how are you feeling good morning i'm carol i'm good thank you carol thank you for calling so you're good so where are you by the way well i was calling just to testify about my experience of homeschooling three children for nine years and the scripture that the word gave me carol are you a care are you a caregiver for one of these children not no no they're all healthy children have you been a caregiver yes well okay i raised three kids in my home school no no no have you been a care have you been a caregiver of somebody with a chronic impairment no okay well that's what we do here that's what we're talking about is uh family members who are taking care of somebody who is dealing with a chronic impairment or aging or disabled or things such as that you're tracking with me and uh but i but i sure do appreciate you calling about that because i think it's important that you do that obviously you've very committed in your work there's a mother but if it's okay with you i'm going to go ahead and focus on folks that have been caring for uh impaired loved ones because that's really that focus of what we do here but it means a lot that you called okay and uh and i do appreciate that very much and and that's what the show is for is is about individuals who are caring for chronically impaired loved ones uh whether you're dealing with something that is uh trauma related or or suffering um anything of impairment that's kind of where we go with this because that's the person we want to reach and as parents we all go through things as um uh when taking care of children and so forth and that but those children are going to get older and they're going to get wiser and they're going to get stronger and healthier and be self-sufficient and some of the things overlap but the the point of dealing with the chronic impairment is that you know it's not going to get better it's probably going to get worse and it's going to um weigh on you pretty heavily and so one of the things that we want to do is make sure that those individuals have have a time to be able to talk about this there's 168 hours in the week and this is the show for caregivers there's a one hour for caregivers so we're going to be very stingy and jealous with that time for the family caregiver because we don't want them to lose uh themselves in it a lot of times caregivers will will just completely lose themselves in someone else's life and someone else's story it's that loss of identity we're talking about and i'll prove it to you ask the caregiver how are you doing and that they'll say well uh you know he is uh he's had a bad night or she's not doing too well or our situation is this or you know name it but they won't speak in first person singular and so that's one of the things that i do on this show is ask each caller and ask you as a listener how are you doing how do you feel what's going on with you and you may stutter and stammer as you get the words out it may be difficult for you to get those words out and that's okay that's what this show is for because i want you to learn to speak in your own voice and and i remember one time when my pastor asked me and he said by the way for those of you watching on facebook live and you're certainly welcome to stream along on facebook live at hope for the caregiver um i'm out out in a little church in montana now we've moved to montana and i i got up this morning uh to to do the show and i do the show up at the house and the power was out and i thought well this is not cool and uh um and i was thinking okay what are we going to do here then i realized that the car was in the garage uh okay this is really not cool and then the power came on but i made the decision to come down here and do it in the valley um and uh near Ennis Montana and i decided to come on down very early in the morning and i saw that they were working on the power line so i made the right call but it was a kind of a oh what am i going to do cut a moment here and uh but i'm i remember years ago when i was playing in Nashville Tennessee at my church and and my pastor came and asked me to start playing as uh people were coming into the service just to create a more you know reverent atmosphere and and so forth and i did um but i've been accompanying Gracie for years Gracie's a no kidding singer and wait till you hear some of the stuff that will be coming out later on this summer she's got a duet with Russ Taft that'll be we'll be releasing here soon and uh she's done a couple with Johnny Erikson Tada and then she's got her own record she's putting together so it's really great what's getting ready to come down the pike with her but i've been she and i've been doing music together for 30 plus years and as i sat down at the piano i started playing hymns that i've known for a lifetime but i wasn't playing the melody and and so um as i was playing i was playing great chords and as we say in Nashville great changes but nobody knew what i was playing and i had to go back and teach myself to play the melody because i was hearing Gracie's voice in my head i was playing around her voice that's what we do as caregivers that's exactly what we do as caregivers and so we have to learn how to play the melody we have to learn how to go back and speak in our own voice are you having a hard time doing that is that hard for you to speak in your own voice well this is the place to to learn this is the place to to work this out this is a show for caregivers and as you can see i'm i'm very specific on that 888-589-8840 888-589-8840 we're going to get to calls here in the next segment thanks so much this is peter rosenberger we'll be right back have you ever struggled to trust god when lousy things happen to you i'm gracie rosenberger and in 1983 i experienced a horrific car accident leading to 80 surgeries and both legs amputated i questioned why god allowed something so brutal to happen to me but over time my questions changed and i discovered courage to trust god that understanding along with an appreciation for quality prosthetic limbs led me to establish standing with hope for more than a dozen years we've been working with the government of 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 the show for caregivers about caregivers hosted by a caregiver this is hope for the caregiver you can follow along on facebook live if you want to at hope for the caregiver and you can also go to our website hopeforthecaregiver.com the podcast there please subscribe to it it is free and we put out the show we put out all types of different things with it as well the books are there the book is hope for the caregiver and my newest book is seven caregiver landmines and how you can avoid them these are easy books to read i wrote them specifically for a caregiver in a so you can take it to the the hospital the doctor's office whatever and it's uh it's super simple um you can stick it the seven caregiver landmines you just put it in your pocket uh or your purse whatever and carry it with you just remind yourself of these landmines that we can all fall into i give you we we've talked about two of them today loss of identity and isolation and another one is thinking that it's all up to me and it's not it's not all up to you it's not all up to me and these are things that i want to help caregivers retrain their mind on how to think about this so that they can do the long haul because otherwise you're going to burn out of this thing i promise you will if you don't think you will you know give it time i know people that have called up sometimes and they'll say oh i'm just blessed to be doing this well they hadn't done it long enough you know because when you're saying things like that i i well never mind i'll probably get some letters about that one so if you want to send a letter about that send it to peter at the internet google no i'm just kidding all right let's go to the phones here uh mark's having a little bit of time uh screening them so we're just going to kind of go cold into these things here uh good morning this is peter how are you feeling hello good morning how are you feeling can you hear me i can hear you okay um i am supposed to be disabled i'm not doing very well this morning um are you a caregiver i've been disabled i'm who am i'm my husband okay um so you're not doing too well this morning i was just well i'm disabled and i was well i'm disabled myself and uh i was trying to move some boxes in the garage but my husband i'm watching him get weaker and weaker every day he can barely walk he can't go to the store without someone even saying with just a uh some pop and a lampshade he breaks out in a sweat his platelets are like 70 he may have leukemia he refuses to go to a doctor oncologist he doesn't want help he says if i want to sit here and die that's my right but i am disabled myself i knocked myself out in the garage trying to pull a box because he can't even lift a box i knocked myself out don't know how long i was out but i screamed for 20 minutes he couldn't hear me because he's hard of hearing but he won't go to the doctor for that either um all right all right let's back up let's back up hold on hold on let's back up just a little bit let's back up a little um and hold on go ahead and putter back up mark i can't make him go to the doctor you're right you can't he's got leukemia you're right you can't um whoops we've lost the call there and we have a little bit of technical problems let me just go ahead and answer this carol you can't make him go to the doctor you cannot make him go check out his hearing or anything saying and if he wants to sit there and die he that's what he needs to do i mean that's what he wants to do and and that's what he feels like he needs to do you can't stop that from happening what you can do is go to your own doctor what you can do is do things that are safer for you what you can do are healthier things for you and if you're going to be out in the garage lifting boxes and run the risk of knocking yourself out then you need to have a better backup plan than him and if you count on him for anything it's only going to get worse and so what what your starting point here is not sit there focusing so much on him and what he's doing as sad as that is he may not make it but you have to and i'm sorry i i am i i hurt with you i think we all can't hurt with you with you because we we we we know that that's got to be an incredibly frustrating heartbreaking thing to watch but it's not going to make it any better if you're laying in the garage passed out because you're not being cared for either and so your starting point is to say okay he's evidently checking out but i can't and that's where i'm hoping that you can get to where you can start thinking through these things and realize okay i can't count on him i can't count on him to come for me and help me even if i'm screaming because he's hard of hearing and he won't get it checked out so you don't put yourself in a position like that where you've got to reach out to him you keep your phone on you at all times you have other people that you call that's how you do it and that's what's going to have to happen here uh let's go to um good morning i don't have a marks have a little bit of technical difficulty screening call so we're just going in cold this is peter good morning who are you and how are you feeling hi my name is maryland hey maryland how you feeling hey um uh sad um i moved home to take care of my mother in 2008 and she just went home to be in with the lord the second of this month she had alzheimer's and uh the last three and a half years she was in a wonderful um nursing facility um but i just wanted to tell people that when they're when their loved ones even if you know they're in heaven uh our life is my life still feels like um oh if i go to a store i think oh i need to get a something from other and it's not it's not like mom doesn't need that anymore so it's hard to let go of that caregiving mentality well i'm going to have to trust you on that one and i believe you by the way i just i've never let go of it because i've been doing it for 33 years but i've got a theory and you're the perfect person to help me see if my theory is right okay okay i think that there is an element of ptsd that comes with being a caregiver and then when it's over that it's going to take a long time to kind of detox that's not really the right word for it but it's going to take a long time to recalibrate your body your life your heart your brain and everything because you're so into that routine of doing stuff and you don't know what to do with free time you don't know what to do to be still and does that is does that sound right yes it's absolutely it's like she's still here you'll you'll feel like you're still you know like all the millions of things you need to do because your your lovely wife is still at home with you uh you know all the things that you would be doing whether you still your mind is your mind is still in that mode yes it's exactly well i thought of it that way but yeah and she's only been gone for just you know a week or so days yeah yeah and so give yourself some time yeah you know give you give yourself some time let me ask you this what are you um uh are you you're in a good church situation oh yeah absolutely yes i'm pastors you know come to visit her and and yes absolutely wonderful do they come to visit you uh yes yes absolutely yeah absolutely a lot of times a lot of times they'll come visit the the the infern one but they'll overlook the person standing in the corner and um yes that's true and i'm glad i'm glad to hear that glad to hear that yeah it's just uh i just wanted to mention to people that that you're uh once your loved one is is not here anymore um it's still is it's like the ptsd which i don't know it yeah that analogy kind of stands stands in my life you don't really know exactly what to do now i know now that you know there are all kinds of things to to deal with that need to be dealt with like you know um uh just estate recovery if medicaid could come take yeah there's a lot of legal and financial stuff let me ask you another question um are you uh are you going to any kind of grief therapy or grief counseling or grief support group no no i haven't even thought of that would you be willing to sure there are programs out there around the country like grief share and all that kind of stuff that are they're really good programs and it's not there to just just you know feel sorry for yourself it's there to to be in in a group of people who can all work through this thing to get stronger it's too much to kind of bear by yourself you know and and you don't you don't just have to kind of grief share go ahead i'm sorry but go out and google it uh there's i don't know where where are you by the way because i don't have a little rock i am i am 99.9 sure there are grief share uh being done all through the little rock area and you could probably just go out and google it and uh i will do it i'll just let that go it and and there and yeah do that too uh and my my friend john who's watching this he's a big fan of that too so i'll just do a shout out to him uh i because he's the one who put me on duck duck go so i i like your style of that um but but do um do do explore that because i don't think it's one of those things where you can just kind of assume okay now that my mother is gone and i know she's with jesus and all that but i'm just going to be fine because that's not you're not going to be fine you your body and your heart and your mind and your spirit and everything else has been consumed with this and give it the respect it deserves by by processing that out as long as it takes don't don't be in a hurry either okay good idea and i'll do that right away but i just wanted to call and let people know it it just it just kind of it lingers oh i need to do this for mom i need to get nail polish you know just like all the things like she's still there and it was a lot it was a joy to have her for so long she always knew who i was it was a joy i mean she was a joy there and every day i would pray that she would find favor with everyone that she met you'll love this and she would she was in a wheelchair uh because she wouldn't do her knee therapy and uh but at any rate um she would go around and tell everyone you're beautiful i love you to everyone and and hang on to those hang on to those things as you walk through your own grief on this hang on to those moments okay absolutely thank you and as and thank you for taking the time to call and share this and and feel free to call back and just let us know how you're doing i'll do it and thank you for this show it's awesome we appreciate it you're quite welcome thank you all right uh good morning this is peter you're on the show and tell me your name and where are you from can you hear good morning my name's homer i'm from oklahoma yes how are you feeling this morning homer uh just buoyant uh i'm looking out on a sunny morning beautiful landscape and just listeners i have been a caregiver i have suffered loss and my faith is strong many outlets many resources have presented themselves elevating my hope biblically god is definitely granted me a crisis well great to hear that homer we are up against a break here and i've got to go but i want you to know it means a lot to hear from you again thank you for calling on that we'll be back in just a moment hey this is peter rosenberger have you ever helped somebody walk for the first time i've had that privilege many times through our organization standing with hope when my wife gracie gave up both of her legs following this horrible wreck that she had as a teenager and she tried to save them for years and if it just wouldn't work out and finally she relinquished them and thought wow this is it i mean i don't have any legs anymore what can god do with that and then she had this vision for using prosthetic limbs as a means of sharing the gospel to put legs on her fellow amputees and that's what we've been doing now since 2005 with standing with hope we work in the west african country of gana and you can be a part of that through supplies through supporting team members through supporting the work that we're doing over there you could designate a limb there's all kinds of ways that you could be a part of giving the gift that keeps on walking at standingwithhope.com would you take a moment to go out to standingwithhope.com and see how you can give they go walking and leaping and praising god you could be a part of that at standingwithhope.com here's dr carl truman from the american family studios documentary the god who speaks the early church fathers viewed the scriptures as divinely inspired often they would use the image of a musical instrument as if scripture had been written in the way that say notes come out of a flute when it's played by a flute player as if the the writer was the flute and the the spirit was was that which was creating the tune certainly they regarded scripture as authoritative when you look at the writings of the apostolic fathers they're very happy to quote scripture and consider that to have closed down the argument so obviously the apostolic fathers rooted tremendous authority in the actual words of scripture itself which implies they had a very high view of its inspiration visit the god who speaks.org welcome back to the show for caregivers about caregivers hosted by a caregiver this is peter rosenberger i am so glad you're with us hopeforthecaregiver.com hope for the caregiver dot com hopeforthecaregiver.com 888-589-8840 by the way when you call uh mark has told me our producer here has told me that we're having a little bit of problem with the call screening so what he will do is he'll just answer the call put you on hold for the show and we're doing the best we can normally we'll try to connect up with you before you come on the air and if so if you seem a little disjointed with that that's why uh no explanation mark will get on it we'll have top men getting on this top men that's from raiders of the lost ark so for those of you who are paying attention on that one also i want to do remind you if you want to be a part of this show in a different way and help us stay on the air and do the things that we do uh standing with hope you just heard the spot for it standing with hope is the presenting sponsor of this show and it's the administrator gracie and i found it many many years ago when she gave up her legs she wanted to be able to provide quality prosthetic limbs to her fellow amputees and we started doing that 15 years ago in west africa and we have uh an amazing program where we'll take used prostheses and they go to a local prison in in tennessee um and they um well the inmates will volunteer to recycle them they'll strip them down all the way sometimes down to the screw level we'll take all the recyclable materials and send them over to west africa along with purchase materials that we do and then we train and equip local workers how to build their own prostheses for their own people and it's been a great program very successful and then we launched the whole caregiver outreach so the the two programs we have are for the wounded and those who care for them and you can be a part of that today at standingwithhope.com and i would uh just encourage you to go out there and look around see what we do why we do it listen to what's going on there's there's newsletters there's podcasts all those things and and just so many things out there standingwithhope.com all right let's uh let's go to the call this is peter good morning how are you feeling tell me who you are and where you from are you talking to me i am indeed i know we're having a little bit of call screening technical difficulties here so uh you're you're on yeah yeah yeah it's it's good it was just hard to tell um i'm calling from north carolina and um i guess more uh two things well first off comment tell me your name and then how are you feeling well my name is kay and i'm a little kind of sad and sometimes just more more tired and weary you know and my situation i mean i've been a caregiver more than once in my life my mom had cancer and died when i was 28 then my father five years later he stroked um and then my wonderful husband uh with ptsd and a chronic pain syndrome from a whiplash injury so he's functional but you know you try not to grow weary doing good and you hold on to faith and you you know you're in a body and you share but i think the hardest thing is that christians are really afraid to admit that it's hard that you feel sad that you feel angry because you give yourself that guilt about you're not supposed to feel this way because you're a christian and you don't have faith if you can't do this and it was more of a comment to share to let people know it's okay to admit it because we i don't think we allow ourselves that cute well i think it's not only okay i think it's imperative i think it's it's it's critical to admit it i mean that's where you you let's let's we're gonna have real conversations here we're not gonna try to dress it up with christianese and god talk i've had people call and i say how you doing oh i'm just blessed but i hate my mama you know that kind of stuff oh yeah no it's not we don't talk the god talk here i agree it's not it's not that oh it's a blessing it's hard and sometimes you do better than others you know depending on the moments of the day but overall it's it's a pretty challenge and when it's long term and there is no end you know something that's chronic in nature that's never gonna end you have to find the balance and i guess that's the being honest and accepting you know the comfort of friends and being able to be vulnerable i think is hard because you feel like you gotta hold it all together and you can't well and i that's one of the things that uh we address on the show on a regular basis and i'm so glad you brought that up because i think we do feel like as caregivers that it's all up to us that's one of the landmines in my book seven caregiver landmines it's all up to me and it's not all up to me that's a landmine that is a dangerous place to go to that is when things start happening that'll be bad for us and you've really done an extraordinary job of just illuminating that this morning and it is sad it's work it's sad it's frustrating and it starts with the way to to do work through that is to start being honest with ourselves and say it's sad it's work it's frustrating and it's not necessarily going to get better what do you do for you so you know i um personally i've been going to counseling our church has grief share i have um i'm involved in a lady's bible study facilitating which helps me a stay plugged into the word but also my two sisters that i can call text cry to whatever you know just really be real in front of i trust them and i trust their council and i'm still in my involved in my church on you know sunday service and i'm just what do you do for fun i guess i go for fun so i ride bikes i work out um do a little camping well north carolina is a great place to do that i grew up camping out in north carolina western north carolina that's a great place to do that and uh now your husband right now it is yes it is um your husband cannot work out and bike ride and camp and all that with you well it's it's interesting because when um we were first married and met both strong walking christians both you know triathlons very very functional and then when all of this health stuff started kind of popping back up into the picture you know a lot of the things that we used to share together are gone so he's walked away from the lord because he's hurt and angry you know so we don't share that we don't share the ability to exercise in the way we used to together um and then there's some job stuff that's gone on and changes that some of the things we used to share you know because of timing so lots of things are well who who goes camping with you used to be oh he does we go together but we don't go often you know it's some it's a function of organization and you know schedules and planning and all the stuff that goes into that so he's functional um but it's just it's tough with the uh just the emotional parts of the landline you live in a landline is his attitude pretty lousy not all the time it's kind of like you're not sure what you're going to get on a daily basis so you know preparing yourself for what's going to be today and you got good people around you that are kind of helping you kind of recalibrate and deal with that you you so that you don't get yeah kind of having to walk around and exhales around him correct that's good that's very good yeah because that's that's not a good way to live no and i guess like me calling and everything was more to i guess let people know that there are things you can do and whereas it's not the cure all end all but how your faith and your walk and your trust in the lord and being connected helps you through the process because if it's not you know going to end and it's long term then trying to do what you can do for your own spiritual mental and physical health is is all you can do and while it's not perfect and while it's not always going to work out as well as you can plan that it's still going to be okay even though it's hard do you ever envision yourself reaching a point where you just don't feel like you need to work out anymore um there are days when i don't really feel like it when i not about feeling you are you do you ever think that there's a destination place where you said okay i've worked out enough and i'm done now i don't ever have to do this again oh no oh no it's the same thing with it's the same thing with being a caregiver with being a healthy caregiver with your christian walk there's not a a in place here we're going to keep doing this until the day we go home and um not necessarily being a caregiver but having to recalibrate ourselves having to push ourselves have to take care of ourselves have to work out it's work and working out is work you sweat and it's tiring and you you you you stretch muscles and and all those kinds of things it's work and but it's not bad work it's good work no and your faith is strengthened and your resolve is strengthened and your trust in the lord is strengthened even if you don't always see it in the immediate because you know what happens today has you know future uh uh positive end results as well as you know heavenly stuff that i don't even understand yet well i don't i don't think any of us do but and that's okay that's why we trust and if we knew all the answers we wouldn't need to trust but you know i i said something to begin the show and i'm going to say it to you and i just want to hear your feedback i i i say this regularly the goal is not to feel better you're not going to feel better about this stuff with your husband you know with my wife she's certainly not going to feel better about all the things she deals with and uh and neither am i but the goal is to be better not feel better how does that resonate with you yeah it sounds like it sounds like you're doing exactly that that you're being better i am i'm trying you're doing a great job you're doing a great job and you you've inspired me and a bunch of people listening this morning and i'm very grateful that you took the time to call it really means a lot i hope it does listen we're out of time we're up against the clock here hopeforthecaregiver.com we'll put the podcast out later and i'm so glad you're with us go out to hopeforthecaregiver.com for more information this is peter rosenberger we'll see you next week