Woman caring for ailing mother comes home to needy husband.

Thank you for listening. Welcome to Hope for the Caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberger. I am glad that you are with us. More than three decades of experience as a caregiver to help you stay strong and healthy as you take care of someone who is not.

How does that happen? Well, it starts with helping the family caregiver deal with the reality that's going on with their own challenges, their own heart, their own issues that they're struggling with. And you back them away from the cliff of some very difficult heart spaces and head spaces that lead folks into very difficult situations. You see, I'm of the mindset that as a caregiver, you're not in a situation where you're going to make good decisions if your head is squirrely.

Not financial decisions, not emotional decisions, not relationship decisions, any of those things. So, you know, it doesn't do much good to throw all kinds of solutions at somebody if they are just in such despair or their fists are just clenched with rage or they have lost themselves or they are struggling to even breathe. They're not going to go to their own doctor. They're not going to see a counselor.

They're not going to eat healthier, any of those things, until you help them understand a path to safety. And that's what this show is all about. 800-688-9522, 800-688-9522, if you want to be on the show and if you feel like you're standing on the cliff, if you feel like your head is squirrely, this is the place.

I know, hey, I've been doing this for over 30 something years here as a caregiver. I got a lot of squirrely things going on in my head. Speaking of squirrely things going on in your head, here's the man, the Baron of the Board, the Salt of the Sound, the Earl of Engineering, the man who is so sharp that water balloons sent him hate mail.

He is John Butler, the Count of Mighty Disco, everyone. Welcome back, by the way. Well, thank you very much. It's great. I've been in Montana for lo these many months and it is a different sensation to come back into... Oh, by the way, just for those of you in the middle Tennessee area that are listening, that bright shiny thing up in the sky, that's the sun. I know, it's been a while. And I came back from a big sky country into no sky country.

Yeah, tornado watches and flood warnings. I mean, it was like, whoa, this was a jolt. But speaking of jolt, how you doing? Doing grand, how about yourself?

I'm just lovely. I'm sorry, I don't have Facebook Live going right now. I'm having some technical difficulties. Yeah, well, this is the thing. Can you run it on mute? Because I know it's an audio thing, right?

It is an audio thing, but I don't have anybody to run it in here with me. I am staff deficient here. Yeah, you're a little short-handed.

Speaking of short-handed... No, I'm just... No, no, I was giving you an eyes wide open one. I'll save that for the rest of the show. I've got actually a stack of stuff here that I want to get to. I'm going to start with our caregiver tip of the day. And I am a member of several online groups for caregivers.

I'm so sorry. Well, I watch. Yes. I don't participate very much, but I do watch.

No, and I say that in jest, guys. I know. Well, it could be a little bit gnarly on there, but I watch. Oh, by the way, 800-688-9522. Let me give that slower here for those of you in Mac Duncan.

800-688-9522. And we would love to have you on the show. And we've got some very specific things we're going to get into today.

And I think you're going to like what you're going to hear, but I think it's going to be very meaningful, maybe kind of tough for some of you, but stay with me, okay? Okay. I was watching some posting and the lady was posting. She's taking care of her mother, I believe, who has dementia or something to that effect. And she said that her marriage is struggling and she doesn't know what to do. Now, this is a common problem. Yeah. And I looked at the people responding back to her, and this is what they said.

We're praying that you will be able to find time to show your husband that he's important too. And it was at that point- I'm sorry, I made a face, guys. It was at that point that my hands leapt to the keyboard. And you shrugged off your lurker status. I threw myself full tilt into that conversation. And I said very- Diplomatically. Directly was the word. Never mind.

Never mind. Forthrightly, yea even. And I said, it is not your responsibility to make your husband feel better about your pain at caring for your mother. It is his responsibility for him to step up and learn to love sacrificially and without demands and without expectations.

And that is the key. And if he can't do that, that is not your responsibility to make that happen. And so what we're looking for out of that situation is for individuals who can recognize that I'm not responsible to make you happy.

If you don't like what's going on, if you are not happy with what's going on, that's not my responsibility. By the way, Jon, you killed all my headphone feed. And you brought it back.

Yea, from the dead. Sorry about that. We just had some words of encouragement.

Well, thank you. But the point is that these people were instructing this woman to go and make her husband feel better about the fact that she's having to be a caregiver. And I personally kind of had a rough time with that. I was indignant on her behalf that she was somehow being put in this position that her husband was pouting because he was obviously not being cared for in a way that she would have liked, I mean that he would have liked, and that she had the onus was put on her to make him feel better. Yea, granted we're getting a small window into this situation, so there could be all kinds of stuff going on. However, it's not... I saw enough of the window and I wasn't lurking outside the window, I just saw it.

They just put it on full display there of what was going on in his mouth. I was watching this dialogue unfold and multiple women, multiple women were telling this woman to make her husband happier while she was caring for her mother. And I stepped into that as a man and I said, nay nay. No, it doesn't work that way. It does not work that way.

If you are taking care of your mother or your father or anybody else, and you come home to a needy husband, the needy husband has the problem, not you. Well, and last time I checked, marriages were a bit of a teamwork sort of sport. It is not 50-50.

It is 100-100. And you know what? Yea, you're going to have some friction in moments like that. Somebody's going to pull the cart a little harder at different times. But right now, if you're taking care of a loved one with all kinds of impairments or any kind of impairment, and then you've got a spouse that's over here, you know, basically with their arms folded over.

Hey, what about me? That person has a bigger problem than just the surface issue going on. Yeah, there's some, yeah. And that's a demandingness. And that's a demandingness that's not fair.

And it's not fair for this particular, in this case, this woman to feel like somehow she's got to find some other reserve of energy so she could have a special time with her husband. And you know, I get that. I understand it. I understand what's going on.

I'm not clueless on this. And I'm not without compassion about what's going on with this couple. Because what I am a little bit indignant about is what's going on with these people that are speaking into it with sorry advice, lousy advice. How bad? Real bad. Real bad? Real bad. Thoughts and prayers bad? Yeah.

I mean, just like, you know, really, that's what you offer. This woman is struggling because she's taking care of her mother and her husband is at odds with her. And the advice she's getting from people on Facebook is, hey, you know, maybe you can carve out some more time just to make him feel special. That just flew all over me. And I'm thinking, no, that is not the way it works. What it works is somebody needs to get a hold of this guy. Number one, first off, tell these women on Facebook that we're telling this woman to be quiet. I did that in a very understandable way. Okay.

I was not ambiguous in my response. And I wanted to make sure that this poor woman had better direction to realize it is not her responsibility to make her husband happy about her suffering right now with her mother. That is not her responsibility. Remember the lady that called in one time?

It's been a while, John. And she called in because she was taking care of her. Her mother was 92 years old and she was just mean.

Yeah. And she wanted to start drinking again. This woman had been sober for six years and her mother's behavior was just so antagonistic toward her, it made her want to start drinking. She said, and I can't make her happy. And I stopped her. I said, your job is not to make her happy. Your job is to do the best you can to be the best steward you can of caring for her. But she can get happy in the same shoes she got mad in.

Happy in the same shoes she got mad in, huh? Oh, I'm stealing that one. That's good.

Thank you. And so I said, your job is to call your sponsor and for you to go to a program and work your own recovery program. Because if you lose your sobriety, your mother's really up a creek. And so I think that that's the problem that a lot of caregivers face is somehow we think we got to make everybody happy.

And you don't. And that is our caregiver tip of the day is that you don't have to make everyone happy. That is not your responsibility. It's your job to make you happy. It's your job to do the best you can to care for this person that is in your life that has an impairment. That is your responsibility.

But your job is not to make them happy or anybody else around you happy about what you're doing. You do the best you can with it. Our caregiver tip of the day brought to you by AARP.org slash Tennessee. This is Tennessee's chapter of AARP. Just dear friends of this program from the very beginning. AARP.org slash Tennessee. Those are some resources that you can use today.

Go out and take a look and see what you can do to help make your life a little bit easier in this journey. This is the nation's number one show for the family caregiver. I am Peter Rosenberger, and we're glad you're with us. 800-688-9522. 800-688-9522.

We'll be right back. Have you ever struggled to trust God when lousy things happen to you? I'm Gracie Rosenberger, and in 1983 I experienced a horrific car accident leading to 80 surgeries and both legs amputated.

I questioned why God allowed something so brutal to happen to me, but over time my questions changed, and I discovered courage to trust God. That understanding, along with an appreciation for quality prosthetic limbs, led me to establish Standing with Hope. For more than a dozen years, we've been working with the government of Ghana and West Africa, equipping and training local workers to build and maintain quality prosthetic limbs for their own people.

On a regular basis, we purchase and ship equipment and supplies, and with the help of inmates in a Tennessee prison, we also recycle parts from donated limbs. All of this is to point others to Christ, the source of my hope and strength. Please visit standingwithhope.com to learn more and participate in lifting others up.

That's standingwithhope.com. I'm Gracie, and I am standing with hope. Welcome back to the show for caregivers about caregivers hosted by a caregiver. I am Peter Rosenberger.

This is Hope for the Caregiver. I am glad that you're with us. 800-688-9522. I'm going to change it up a little bit, John, just because of watching the clock. Let's go to the phones. This is Nancy in Jacksonville. Nancy, good afternoon. How are you feeling?

Oh, I'm fine. You gave the advice to the woman struggling with a needy husband as she cared for her relative. You said someone needs to talk to that guy.

Well, in the average middle to low income America, that doesn't happen. Usually when there's a man like that, a husband, he will not talk to anyone. He feels he's right, okay? So I would think some of the advice, and I didn't even see this woman's thing on Facebook, but I think some of the advice that the people gave her was probably really realistic in that the husband isn't going to go and get himself any help. He's not going to go talk to someone.

He may not even have any friends outside of work. Well, that's probably true. However, the advice they gave him was not realistic.

The advice they gave him was basically, and then this is a family show, but basically what you got is a needy husband who's wanting a little Marvin Gaye music going on in the background. Okay, I understand that, but you know what? She's got to understand that she is not responsible for that particular part of his life, whether or not they're able to work that out or not, or anybody's going to say something to him. But it starts with her realizing that she's not, and somehow has to go out and enable his behavior as well. I agree with that. I do agree with that, but a lot of women aren't that strong. I'm not exactly a person to back down, and I realize my husband's happiness is not up to me, but I'm just telling you most men won't go talk to anybody.

They'll just continue with their behavior and see how much they can get away with. You're exactly right, and most women may do that, and you're right. She may not be that strong, but that's why I do a show. What other advice could you give her besides have someone talk to her husband?

Get her pastor involved with it, get a counselor involved with it, but she can learn to say no to him as well. Yeah, that's true. Why I do this show is to strengthen the family caregiver, and part of the family caregiver strengthening is learning to say no. I agree. It's exhausting being a caregiver. I died at age 92 from Parkinson's. I know. I've been doing it for 32 years.

It's horrible. And no is a complete sentence, and that's what I want to do for my fellow caregivers, is learn how to do this, men and women, is to learn to say no to these things that are just pulling you down these paths that are just so destructive or heartbreaking. I did a whole article on this on Valentine's Day because I had a pastor call into my show, and he was basically struggling because his wife was taking care of her mother and basically her father, and he was bivocational. He was working another job, and he's being a pastor, and he was basically feeling lonely. And I stopped him, and before he could whine any further, and I said, well, who's doing the laundry? Well, and he said, well, I'm working too.

And he stopped because he realized who he's talking to. And then I said, you know, who's cleaning the toilets? You know, all these things. You know, if you're going to love your wife as Christ loved the church, and you're a pastor, by the way, I'm going to call you on it. Oh, I agree.

And I'm going to push hard on these guys. So yes, somebody may not talk to this guy, but I will. Well, can you please give that poor woman some real down-to-earth advice about how to say no to her husband? I mean, how does she disconnect?

People don't know how to disconnect. Well, I did, and that's why I'm talking about it on the show, because I started off with the concept you are not responsible for someone else feeling good about your suffering. That's the first thing that we start off with. And you know who I learned that from? My wife. My wife, she took the cover off of her prosthetic legs because she wanted to go swimming one time. And her prosthetist told her that the foam around that thing would swell up and it would ruin them and so forth, and she couldn't get in the water. And she kept looking at everybody in the water.

She's thinking, that's the only thing keeping me from water is cosmetics? And so she tore off the cosmetic covering of her legs with the knife. It looked like the Terminator, man.

It was so freaky. And yet she said, this is how I'm going to live my life on my terms. And if you're uncomfortable with my disability, that is your problem.

Exactly, and you need to work on it. And so that's who I learned it from. And I thought, you know, that's a great life lesson to realize I don't have to make somebody comfortable with my suffering.

Very good. And this is what I wanted to introduce that concept to this lady so that she would feel a little bit more empowered. I mean, I can't fix it, Nancy. You and I, we both know that. We can't do that.

And we're never going to get it right 100% of the time. But what we can do is we can start inching towards that particular destination saying, you know what, I'm going to get a little stronger today. Exactly, and giving more of those stories that you just gave about your wife, it helps some people to visualize that, you know, well, I guess I could do that. Yes, and it doesn't require a full blown military assault here where she's got to go take her husband and just beat the crap out of him. But it does require her standing up and saying, you know, I'm tired. Have you done the laundry?

No huggy, no kissy till I get the laundry done kind of thing, you know, if I may paraphrase the Georgia satellites, but that's the thing. But Nancy, you are a dear for calling and I am so grateful that you took the time on this. Thank you. No problem. You helped us drive this home a little bit more.

Would you keep calling? Well, I guess. I love the fact that you called and wanted to talk about this. Thank you for that. All right. All right. Bye bye.

All right. This is home for the caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the nation's number one show for the family caregiver. We're going to basically help teach fellow caregivers how to say no. That's what we want to do. We want you to be stronger in this. We want you to be healthier in this.

We want you to be joyful in this. And you can be. You really can be. I promise you, you can have strong marriages. You can have all of those things.

You can. And we're going to continue talking about this a little bit more. 800-688-9522, 800-688-9522.

We'll be right back. 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 great. The things we do for love. Welcome back to the show. Four caregivers about caregivers hosted by a caregiver. I am Peter Rosenberger, bringing you three decades of experience to help you stay strong and healthy as you care for someone who is not. And by the way, I am on Facebook Live.

How you got it working? No. Oh, I got, well, they could see me, they can hear me, but they cannot hear you. It's not my fault. It's not my fault, man. It is not my fault. It is, there's something, there's something amiss here. Something awry.

Something smells fishy in the state of Denmark. Okay. Yes, if that helps you. Look, I quote Shakespeare at you and you, and you give me what? Yes. Yes, I give you what?

But the what for is more likely. 800-688-9522, 800-688-9522, if you want to be on the show. And again, I'm sorry about this thing with the Facebook Live. I really try to do the show as a video thing here, but our adapter is messed up, John.

Oh, so you're using the onboard microphone, aren't you? I am, I'm just, I'm on board with it. And it's in, you know, I'm just, I'm doing the best I can with what I got, John. Don't get too excited there. God love me, you know, for a man of my limited abilities and so forth. But it's, we're glad to have you with us.

800-688-9522. We need to get straight to our Today's Senior Moment. Today's Senior Moment. You know, and I'm just kind of going, I'm going through a series of these things here, John, because it's important to review on this, but it's brought to you by MorningPoint.com, MorningPoint.com's memory care, Senior Living Center memory care. Because our Today's Senior Moment to see your dentist.

Ooh, good one. See your dentist. I think sometimes we think that we kind of forget about that as we get older, some of these little things, but I'm not talking about just for cosmetics.

That's important. You know, it's always good to have pretty white teeth. However, you get a lot of health issues going on, particularly as you get older. And if you're not properly getting good dental care, you're running some risk of heart issues and other things, infections and things that you just cannot afford to have.

And also your loved one that you're taking care of. Make sure they get to the dentist. There are dentists out there that understand, they're trained, they know how to deal with people that are older and so forth, and they can deal with that. And that's what I love about MorningPoint is they make sure that you and your loved one who comes there and stays there, if you're going to be the one that's going to retire there or whatever, all those things, they make sure that you have access to all of those proper places to go for your health and so forth, but dentist is one of them. And so please do yourself a favor and continue to get good dental care because your heart is counting on it. Okay.

Not just your smile, but your heart. Ooh, nice one. Thank you very little. Yeah.

But I... All right. 800-688-9522. 800-688-9522. I do appreciate Nancy Cohen from Jacksonville. And who was it that called the... Raquel from Central Florida. Shout out for her. Shout out for her. Raquel, thank you for listening. Do you know what she was listening in Central Florida?

Unknown. From an undisclosed location on the vast plains of Central Florida. Well, we are thrilled for all of our listeners in Florida. I want to welcome again WDEL in Delaware. Just thrilled to have them with us. No, they're North or South Delaware.

I'm not sure, but there is an issue there. And we're literally on from coast to coast. And I want all the folks up there in Seattle listening on Salem, and thank you for that. And a big shout out to Ed in Dallas, who was a real hero while I was in Montana. We were connecting from Montana to here to Dallas to... Oh, he's still a hero. He's... Yeah, he's doing the same gig. Yes, he is. And he's a fine, fine fellow.

And so lots of things going on. Hopeforthecaregiver.com if you want to see more of this going on. This week, I'm going to be up on The 700 Club with Pat Robertson.

Right on. Do you know who he is? I'm vaguely aware of his... You're a little young for him.

Yeah, but no, and I also pay attention. So yes, I know exactly who Pat is. Well, he ran for president not too terribly long ago.

Well, he actually was a long time ago. Yeah, don't start saying things you don't mean. But I'll be on with him. And then I've got... I was in Harvard's blog this week, last week.

Now, what... I did an article. I did on that with Harvard. Okay.

And they picked up the story of their blog. And so anyway, just trying to... And then Yale, I've got a... And Yale's doing the thing on me as well. Well, those Crimson guys are going to look down on that one for you. I understand. I mean, I look at the way I academically performed in school. No, I was not exactly a model student.

Oh no, just... But no, I was not exactly a model student, as you can imagine. But I appreciate this, because I wrote about some things on health care. And I'll post it on hopeforthecaregiver.com. You go take a look and see how I did.

I'll proofread it for you. Well, and I've got more things coming on this issue. We delve into a lot of issues.

I want to swerve into something. I know we've been kind of goofy here, but... It's your first week back. It's true.

It is true, but I did want to briefly touch on this. Let me see. Watch the clock here. I actually have paper, Jon. I have paper. This is a very serious issue.

I want to swerve into this real quick. There is a man up in Montreal who was... His name is... Something French. Michael Cadotte. Michael Cadotte. I'm betting that tea is silent.

I don't know. But anyway, he's 57 years old. He was just sentenced to jail for manslaughter. He was taking care of his wife, Jocelyn, who had early Alzheimer's, early onset. By 2013, he was out of options.

I'm reading from this from the Montreal Gazette. Exhausted and stretched, then mentally and financially, he decided to have Lizotte hospitalized. Over the next four years, court testimony and documents show he would continue to be worn down in burnout, increasingly frustrated by the care she was receiving. In 2017, a year after requests for medical aid and dying, he filed on her behalf, was refused. Cadotte, as the judge once described, reached his breaking point while visiting her at a long-term care facility. He pressed a pillow against her face until she stopped breathing. I snapped.

He then posted to Facebook, no one asked me how I was doing, but now you know. That is in the Montreal Gazette. And on Saturday, a jury found him guilty of manslaughter after a month-long trial.

Sentencing will begin on March 5th. His lawyers have described the case as a personal intimate story of a man who was broken down by a decade of helplessly witnessing his wife deteriorate. A judge described him as an exhausted caregiver and the killing as an expression of physical, psychological, and moral exhaustion.

How do we respond to this? This is why I do this show, because I am asking how the caregiver is doing. And I do not let a caller go by, a conversation go by when we talk about this, when I do not ask the caregiver how the caregiver is doing, and I'm asking you to do the same thing. If you know a caregiver, ask a caregiver, how are you feeling? Do not ask the caregiver if there's something you can do. Ask the caregiver how the caregiver is feeling.

Please do that. In this guy's case, he was first diagnosed with major depression around the same time he had finally had his wife hospitalized. And as early as 2013, and this happened in 2017, as early as 2017, he told a social worker he was not only suicidal, but he was also having homicidal thoughts. He couldn't take seeing her in the state she was anymore. And he was watching the people taking care of her, and he would go in and she'd be just strapped to a chair. And her head was all twisted off sideways, kind of like this, and she was just strapped to a chair. And it just compounded more and more and more as it got worse. And finally, he just snapped and he said, you can't live like this. And he took his wife's life.

This is why I do a show. This is why I do a show for family caregivers, these dark thoughts that get into caregivers because of isolation and nobody's bothering to ask the caregiver, how are you feeling? We just had the whole thing earlier in the show where a lady was taking care of her mother and her husband's upset because she wasn't taking care of him.

And he didn't need the kind of care that she was giving as a caregiver. And to compound the already stretched, grief torn, frustrated, all the things going on weary beyond belief. And if somebody doesn't intercept a caregiver and just stop for a moment and let them know that somebody notices them, that's how you help a caregiver. That's how it starts. This is how it starts every time you look at them in the eye and you say, I see you. I see you and I see the magnitude of what you're carrying.

And I hurt with you. Now let's get to some help. He told a social worker this.

I don't know. I mean, I'm just befuddled on why a social worker who is listening to a caregiver taking care of his wife with Alzheimer's saying he feels suicidal and why that didn't just start ringing alarm bells, but I don't have any more information than what's in the Montreal Gazette here. But this is not the first time this has happened.

It won't be the last time this has happened. I wrote an article sometime back about the going into the dark thoughts of caregivers, speaking light into them. And it just starts with just seeing them, asking them how they feel, letting them know that their well-being, their emotional state is important. And it's not the fact that it has to be right. And we just want them to know it's important. We'll worry about whether they're mad, whatever. Don't try to talk them out of that tree. Just let them know you see them in the tree and just spend some time with them while they're in the tree. Don't try to fix it.

Just be present in it with them. This guy, I mean, this is his words. This guy put a pillow over his wife's face in the hospital, in the nursing home or the facility where it is, but he said, this is what he said. He posted this on Facebook. No one asked me how I was doing, but now you know.

No one asked him. I get that. I went through decades of this, knowing that few people ever asked me how I was doing.

Few people. Surgery after surgery after surgery was mounting with Gracie. Back and forth, back and forth. And let me just say for the record, I wasn't doing well, John. I was not doing well.

I was a hot mess. And people weren't asking. And you also have to understand a lot of caregivers will have stock answers that they will come up with.

And I'm okay with stock answers sometimes. But those of you who really know a caregiver and know them, press in. Don't just say, hey, I'm fine.

No, you're not fine. And let them know that it's okay for them not to be fine because now we can start from there and go to help. But see, this is why I do the show and here it is. Go out and take a look at it.

The Montreal Gazette is right there today in black and white. This guy is saying it. He's laying out the case on why we've got to reach family caregivers. Two people's lives. Now, this woman's life is ended and this man's life pretty much is over as well. I mean, he's going to prison, I don't know how long, sentencing's not for another couple of weeks, but listen what they're, look who they're listening to. I mean, this guy might as well be listening to the, the, the legislator of Hawaii that says, you know what, you can go and have a medically assisted death. They're, they're legalizing this. Now, if he's listening to Governor Northam of Virginia, who says you could save your life, you could save your life, you could save your life, you could save your life, Virginia, who says you could set a child that has deformity aside and have a discussion, you know, a little later.

This is a natural consequence for these kinds of things. I mean, in the world of Governor Northam of Virginia, how does this guy speak life to caregivers? Let them know that they are seen. Let them know that you understand the brutality of what they're dealing with. Come alongside them.

You're not going to be able to fix it. You're not going to even be able to carry it, but you can be with them in it. This guy was isolated. That is one of the three I's that every caregiver deals with, the isolation, loss of identity, and loss of independence. And he was trying to do all of this by himself, and he was caring for his wife to the best that he could. And when it got to the point where he couldn't take care of her anymore, and he did hospitalize her and put her in an institution, and he watched the way she was being handled at the institution, he just snapped. And he said it.

He just snapped. And he wanted to end her suffering. This is not uncommon, and it's going to become more common. And that's why we do the show. There is hope for the caregiver. There is a path to safety.

There's a path to mental and emotional clarity. Friends don't let friends' care give a loan. Okay? 800-688-9522.

800-688-9522. We'll be right back. Hey, welcome back to the show for Caregivers About Caregivers, hosted by a caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberg, bringing you three-plus decades to help you stay strong and healthy. And, you know, we deal with a lot of serious issues on this show.

We have fun on it. All of this is designed to show you as a family caregiver that there is a path for you to safety. There's a path for you to not be miserable. You are not condemned to misery, even though you may have to watch someone who is struggling watch something that is heartbreaking. You, on the other hand, do not have to be miserable. Doesn't mean you won't have tears. Doesn't mean you won't struggle. Doesn't mean you won't have grief and sorrow and rage and anger and all those kinds of things. But what we want to do is back you away from that so that it doesn't own you. It doesn't own you to the point where you are losing yourself in this and losing your compass of what's right or wrong or where to go or what to do.

You know, as we talked about what happened just in Montreal, just over the weekend. And this lady that was getting all this pressure to basically accommodate her husband because he was pouting because he wasn't being attended to in the way that he would like while she took care of her mother. These are all the kind of dynamics that go on with caregivers. It's everywhere. It's all over the map. How do you help them?

What does it look like? What does it look like to reach into the headspace and the heart space of a caregiver who is struggling? And if we don't do that, what are the consequences? I can go through scenario after scenario after scenario of caregivers who have gone into just train wrecks. And the common theme for all of them was isolation.

They were simply just cut off from everyone. That's why we do a show. This is why we do the show. And if we're not speaking life into them, who are they listening to? Who are they going to listen to? They're going to listen to all these state legislators now who are promoting medically assisted death.

They're promoting infanticide now. I mean, all these things. Basically, if it's causing misery or if they they're suffering or whatever, let's go ahead and just check out, check them out, check yourself out, whatever. And I'm saying, can we do better than that? Can we do better than this?

Yes, we can. I live with someone who suffers. I live with someone who suffers significantly. Both legs amputated, 80 plus surgeries. One resident counted when they brought her to the emergency room 35 years ago.

She had 200 breaks. How do you live like that and live joyfully? My wife has shown me how to do that. And she showed me that even in the midst of her misery and her heartache and her suffering, she sees purpose.

She sees value. It doesn't come easy and it doesn't come without tears, but it is there. There's never enough pain-free existence in this life to, I mean, we're not going to have that.

I mean, that's a fool's errand. You're going to have that. You're going to have sorry, you're going to have loss. It's how we deal with it. The goal is not to feel better. The goal is to be better in it.

But how are you going to be better if you're isolated and nobody's speaking anything to you? That's what this show is about. To help family caregivers learn to be able to back away from these cliffs of horrific decisions. And that's the purpose of this show.

That's why we do what we do. And it's all brought to you by Standing With Hope. Standing With Hope is the presenting sponsor of this show, standingwithhope.com. And what we do, we have two program areas at Standing With Hope. We have an outreach to Gracie's fellow amputees in West Africa.

In fact, just this week, I was purchasing supplies and getting them over there to them. We had a guy from Nigeria that showed up and got a leg at the clinic there in Ghana. And we get used limbs come in from all over the country, go to a local prison.

Core Civic runs here in Tennessee. And inmates disassembled the limbs so that we can use the parts again. And then we ship them over there.

We build custom fit legs on site in Accra, Ghana for amputees. That's purpose. And then we have this show is the caregiver outreach. It's for the wounded and those who care for them. And when you participate in this, when you give into this ministry, this is what happens. Lives are affected by this. People walk, people hear hope, people can back away from cliffs of horrible decisions because somebody is taking the time to speak into their lives. That's what we're doing. You could be a part of that right now at standingwithhope.com. Would you go out and see for yourself what we're doing and see how you can participate. Thank you so much for being a part of that. We'll see you next week standingwithhope.com.