Humor While Not Shying From Heartache

Welcome to Hope for the Caregiver, this is Peter Rosenberger. This is the nation's number one show for you as a family caregiver. How are you doing? How are you holding up?

What's going on with you? The purpose of this show is to speak into your journey as a caregiver. We know your loved one is struggling, we know the challenges are great, but you're the one we want to focus on for this show.

877-655-6755, 877-655-6755. If you want to be a part of the show, you can also go to Hopeforthecaregiver.com, send us a message. If you've got something that's on your heart you want to share and talk about, we take those and then we'll kick it around as well. We don't try to give advice or solve people's problems because that's not what we're about. What we try to do is just listen and then hopefully provide you with some clarity of thought, some objectivity, and draw on my 35 years of experience to help point you to a place of safety.

But the main thing is to penetrate into that isolation that all caregivers deal with so that you know you're not alone and there are people out there doing this thing and you can learn from them and we can learn from you. And that's the whole point of it. So speaking of learning from, here's a guy who has now for lo these many years been a steady hand on the till of this show. He's John Butler, the Count of Mighty Disco. John Butler, the Count of Mighty Disco. He's tall. He's tall.

I told people I'm not about like 5 foot 17. I don't know what the big deal is. I just, you know, I was playing that for people today at lunch. I said, you got to hear this.

Yeah, it's they wept openly, John. John, I have a special guest. How are you feeling, John?

I am doing pretty well. I got to get out on the disc golf course today. It's a beautiful day here in Tennessee. We had some flooding over the weekend, so everything was nice and damp, but it's all mostly cleared out now. And yeah, it's just a nice deceptively spring-like day. And you had some tornadoes near you too, didn't you?

Very near me. Yeah. Yeah. Everything's okay. But, uh, you know, on, on our end, but, um, and it doesn't look like there's a huge amount of, of damage from those, but, uh, still we get a little, we get a rough weather week. Yeah. Yeah. We get a little nervous about that stuff around here.

So I can imagine so I can imagine. So, well, listen, I've got a guest there. He's been with us before and I've been begging him to come on. I mean, it's been rather embarrassing. I mean, groveling. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're like self-abasement, you know, hanging onto the leg and say, please won't you come on our show? You know, and you know, and he said, you know what he said? Five bucks is five bucks.

Five bucks is five bucks, man. This is Denny Brownlee. And let me tell you a little bit about Denny. Denny is a long time radio guy, long time. And, uh, he's done it all with radio, just kind of like you, John, with the same kind of, lengthy real, no kidding radio background. And, and, and he's, except if you combine your years and my years, he still got more years, you know, he's the old school with it and he does a lot of voiceovers. He's one of the funniest guys you'll ever meet.

A lot of impressions. He's been working on a, uh, new children's, uh, it's a weekly podcast based on a book, a series of books called the Epic Order of the Seven. He can talk a little bit about that.

And he's been, um, voicing folks books and commercials and all kinds of stuff, but also he's a caregiver and he is, uh, he brings, uh, his insights to it, but also brings what I love the most is just this wonderful sense of a comedic viewpoint that helps us navigate these waters a little bit easier and a little bit better. So Denny, welcome to the show. Well, thank you very much, Peter. Good to be here again. Hey, John. How you doing Denny?

I live in the same area that John lives in and just a update on our end. Uh, we, we, we went out without power for six and a half hours last night and, uh, driving to church today, I saw a golf course where basically a few teas and a few greens were elevated. The rest was water hazard. The entire golf course. It's a tough, tough course. I was letting everybody play through on that one.

I'm not even gonna try to talk about an island green, you know, use a nine iron and a snorkel, a nine iron and a snorkel. Well Denny, tell me a little bit before we get into the, all things caregiver related. Tell me a little bit about your latest project that you've been voicing over. And, and this has obviously been a very, very big project for you.

Oh yeah. And it's going to continue to be, it could be a full time job if I, if I took the time to do so, but it's called the Epic Order of the Seven. It's a series of novels written by Jenny L Cody, who is a phenomenal writer for kids. And I'm talking about middle school age kids, not, not little tiny ones, but kids with a little school under their belt and a little bit of reading ability. These are not easy books. These are 600 page novels, but they're based on fact.

They have some fantasy into them and there's always a good bit of, of God underneath it all. And, and you can just, you, you see that coming through very clearly with her writing. But what I've done is I, two years ago, three now, three years ago, I voiced the Ark, the Reed and the Fire Cloud. That was her first in the series and it was all about Noah's Ark from the vantage point of the animals. So I had to do 105 animals in 40 different dialects, male and female. I created them as the, as the word says. And so the, the main, the, the main character was a Scotty dog named Maximilian Braveheart the Bruce. Braveheart the Bruce.

You got the road hours in there. And then the other main character was a female kitty from France named Lizette Breon because she was brilliant. So anyway, those are two main characters. I now created a podcast weekly where they host the show along with me and I'm usually the butt of their jokes. A lot like this show we'll say.

The host is really the, it's not the smartest guy in the room. And so I played Peter on this. You know, I, I've worked hard to reach this stature only to be kicked down.

But anyway, we've got a whole season under our belt. We're now working on the second book, which is called the voice, the revolution and the key. And it's centered on the, the, uh, life of Patrick Henry, who was the voice of the revolution. And just a spoiler alert, I kind of gave him a, a James T. Kirk, uh, voice.

I, I'm kind of doing Shatner, but toning it down just a bit so that he doesn't come across as captain Kirk. Yeah. So, so bad. Yeah. Yeah.

I pulled him back just ever so slightly. Um, so there you go. That's what, that's what I'm doing. And it's getting a much, it's getting a bigger audience every week. And that's been very encouraging as well.

And of course we've got audio books that are available on audible.com where can we find these things? Yeah. Is this the best?

Is that the best way to go get them? Yeah. Go to audible.com and look for the epic order of the seven is the name of the series. Um, the two books are the arc, the read and the fire cloud and the voice, the revolution and the key.

She, uh, patterned her titles after CS Lewis is lion, which had wardrobe. So they all have a, they all have, I'll have three things like that. Anyway. Yeah.

Very awesome. Yeah. But now listen, you've done all of this while being a caregiver. I mean you, your life continues to, I mean you, you press on, you're juggling quite a few things and you're, you're a caregiver. Now you, you went through a kind of a rough patch with your wife. Last time you were on, you guys were kind of entering into that rough patch and then it got a little bit more challenging and then you kind of, you know, got off the exit ramp of that a little bit, but then you went into another one with, not with her, but with your mom. Right.

It's a juggling act here. First of all, with my wife, my wife, she had a major back surgery a couple of years ago and a corset, you know, incapacitated her for a while and then it made it more of a semi-capacitation thing. And now we're, we're having to look for a newer car that we can't afford, but we need to because we've got a five speed with a standard transmission and she doesn't trust her legs after that surgery to mess it with a clutch. Okay. So we need to find an automatic transmission car that we can afford. So there's those kinds of, so I'm doing 99 and a half percent of the driving right now. Okay. Let's just say a hundred and so if she wants to go someplace, that means we want to go someplace.

So we're at that stage that I would like to get past and I think a different car would do that. But then yeah, like you mentioned, my mother is, uh, she's 83 with Parkinson's disease and just recently had a mini stroke and had to have surgery on her carotid artery and go through all of that and go now she's in rehab and all of that mess. And like I say, she's 83 and she's a little, a bit feeble and the lion's share of it falls on my sister cause she lives nearby. But yeah, my, my job is to be the family clown and call her and cheer her up. So I have the easy part. While you say that, but that's super important.

So it is important. And I'd like to, I'd like to drill down on that a little bit. I, um, uh, I have a friend of mine, uh, actually it's a mutual friend of ours, Denny, that has found out that his, um, pancreatic cancer has come back and it spread to his lung and it looks, looks like it's the end.

And I called him up and we talked for the, uh, since he got the diagnosis just the other day and we started to just reminisce over some things and his voice is very weak. But then we, we delved into comedy and, and humor and, and, and it was, um, it was, you know, even if, as my eyes were kind of tearing up a little bit, I found us both laughing and I thought, you know, again, how important is this to be able to have that sense of, of, of mirth, of humor and, and not inappropriate, not being weird about it, but just letting it flow naturally, just as easy as the tears flow. And what does that mean to you? How important has that been to you through this process? Well, obviously very important, but I think the thing here is, is, and kind of what you're hinting at is not shying away from it or feeling bad that you feel good about something.

And by that feel good, I mean that you're willing to laugh at some things to not shy away from that and take those moments and, and let the laughter fly, you know, in spite of what's going on, you know, you got to take your eyes off that once in a while and say, okay, what's fun about this world right now. And I found that with my mom, I'll get on the phone with her. And the first thing I said, well, how are you doing? And she'll say, oh, not good. And that's the last time I hear that.

Cause little by little, I get it on a different topic. I start talking about things that are going better. And by the end of the conversation, we're saying, I love you. And she was happy.

I called and wish I didn't have to hang up. So yeah, there's some great value in, in, in turning that around to the positive and even funny side. Does your mom have a pretty good sense of humor? She has to, she was married to my dad and she's got me for the kid.

She really has no choice in that matter. Well, there is that. Well, my dad has Parkinson's and dad's a minister, also captain Navy, and he loves to laugh.

And he's got a good sense of humor as far as appreciating other people's humor, but he's not known for being comedic. But my mother, she's Irish stock and she's got a wicked sense of humor. And I mean, I, we were going to go down and see her a couple months ago and Gracie was feeling kind of sick and we ended up postponing.

We're going to go next week. And, and I said, mom, we don't want to get you sick. And she's like, ah, we've had a good life. You know, we've had a good life, you know, and she's, she's wickedly funny. And, and I think that's been a, a huge part of, and she's gone through some stuff herself and she's got, she's almost blind and she's got, and I'll call her up, mom, how are you feeling? Well, I don't see too good. I don't hear too good.

Don't walk too good, but I'm doing pretty good. You know, I love that. You know, and what about your sister? Does she have a pretty good sense of humor? Oh yeah.

She, I mean, again, she grew up in the same house I did and we all, we all have a warped sense of humor and have always thrown it around and tried to make each other laugh. Our goal every night at the supper table session when we had buddies over was to see if we could get my brother to spit milk on his nose. That was the, that was the, I try to do that with John, but he's lactose intolerant. No, no. He was drinking coke.

That was why it was so weird. This is, this is hope for the caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberg. We're on the phone with Denny Brownlee and of course, John Butler, the Count of Mighty Disco, who is very tall and has his own theme song now. We're glad to have you with us. The healing power of humor and not shying away from the difficult things, but embracing the whole journey of it together.

That's, that's a beautiful way of putting it, Denny. We're going to be right back. Don't go away.

877-655-6755. We'll be right back. Are you going to church? It's hard to do that as a caregiver, isn't it? Isolation is one of the toughest issues we face and in the COVID-19 world, wow, it's even harder. A lot of churches are struggling with how to care for people during this. If your local church is not accessible to you or you don't feel comfortable going out in public right now with it because of your loved one's conditions or yours, why not try what people are doing all over the country from Alaska to Florida? They are going to Stevens Valley Church in Nashville, Tennessee.

That's Steven with a PH. Stevens Valley Church in Nashville, Tennessee. My friend and pastor for more than 20 years, Jim Bachman, leads this church and he has cared for Gracie and me through many dangerous toils and snares and he still takes my calls.

Bless his heart. Virtual church doesn't take the place of participating in a local church body. I know that.

We all know that. But until you're able to participate in your local church, I think you'd really benefit from being a part of the Stevens Valley community. Please visit Stevens Valley and hear the message of God's faithfulness that is so necessary for you and me as caregivers to endure. To hear that strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow that Stevens Valley Church in Nashville, Tennessee. They stream their worship service live every Sunday morning at 10 40 a.m. Central time. Stevens Valley Church dot com.

Stevens Valley Church dot com. 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 standing with hope dot com to learn more and participate in lifting others up. That's standing with hope dot com. I'm Gracie and I am standing with hope. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the show for you as a family caregiver. 877-655-6755 if you want to be a part of the show.

We'd love to have you. Go to Hopeforthecaregiver.com and also submit whatever things are on your heart and you can also follow along on streaming social media on our Hope for the Caregiver Facebook page. Hope for the Caregiver at Facebook. And we also have a Hope for the Caregiver group that you can join as well. That's Gracie CD.

Gracie from her new CD Resilient and if you want a copy of that, please go out to Hopeforthecaregiver.com. You'll see it right there on the front page. You'd be a part of what we're doing. We'll send you a copy of that. It's our gift to you. I think you're going to love it and share it with folks that you know and love.

It's a wonderful CD and she does a great job. We're on the phone with Denny Brownlee, a long time friend of mine and truly one of the funniest, wittiest guys I've ever met and I just enjoy hanging around with him. I had to shamelessly beg him to come on the show. He looked at his schedule and he said, after a long sigh, he said, sure why not? You know, and then of course that, that lovely velvet voice of John Butler's with us as well. Do we have John Butler queued up for anything?

That'll do. Denny, of course you're old school radio and I could pick your brain all day long about radio, but I love this format and even though, and you've been getting into your podcast and all that lately and the delivery method of talk radio has changed certainly because of, you know, people don't listen to terrestrial stations as much, but the format of talk radio, I think the bonding experience that it has with the audience and the host, that's not going to go away anytime soon, is it? No, I, I, I nodded off. I thought you were talking to somebody else. I think that the key is, is message and delivery thereof. You know, you, you, the messages don't really change all that much, even though the formats and the media does. At the end of the day, we're trying to encourage each other. And you know, the fact that you have the name hope in your name is a testimony to that regardless of what medium it's being transferred on.

It's the hope is what matters. Well said. And I do, I will tell you this when you said you nodded off and remind me, I got a call one time to my show and I think I may have told you this, but this guy called on the broadcast show, it's really color driven and you never know what you're going to get. And just to let you know, I did this, John, the guy that was call screening was evidently something was wacky with it. And I was answering him laugh on the air. Oh, now that, you know, that's dangerous.

Both of y'all know that that's dangerous. And when you say, you know, you're live on the air, don't swear much, you know, that kind of thing. And, uh, but this one guy called in, let me know so I can, uh, no, I will not let you know as a matter of fact, but, uh, this one guy called in and I promise you this I'm sitting there, you know, try to do my show. And this guy says, uh, it always asks my callers, how are you feeling? That's first question I ask, how are you feeling? How are you doing? Cause I want to know how they're feeling from a caregiver standpoint.

That's important for them to learn to speak in their own voice. So that's what I do. And I asked this guy, you know, and he was calling from North Dakota things, Jim and North Dakota. He says, I said, Jim, how are you feeling?

And this is what I hear. I feel nauseous. I hope I don't get sick on your show. I have a pill. It's the first thing I hear.

And I thought, well, dude, I get you, man. I feel that way. Every time I listen back to my show, it's like, what do you, how do you even respond to that?

I feel nauseous. Who calls a talk radio show when they're about ready to hurl? Maybe it's a medical advice show.

I don't know. Well, when you were, you said something in the last segment, Denny, that I really responded to that you don't shy away from the difficult things. And I think this is something that, um, John and I, when we started doing this show low these years, many years ago, that back in 2013 together, we used to meet after the show out on the, uh, the deck there at WLAC in Nashville. You've been over there with us on a music row and at the I heart building.

And, um, we would meet back there. We talk about the concept of what we're trying to do. And, you know, we want to, uh, never shy away from the painful things and, uh, and never just try to skirt it, but not necessarily get to the point where we're just all just thinking.

And, um, it's not, it's easy to do as one would think, but it's really important to do. And I love what you said about that. You don't shy away from that. So I know that through this journey with you and Sandy, and then certainly with your mom, there've been moments where, you know, you don't feel like it's not really the right time to be silly. You don't want to be silly, but at the same time, there is such a release that goes on when you cut up and you laugh and it's like, it's like, we're saying it's going to be okay.

It's going to be okay. Is that, is that resonating with you? Oh, absolutely. Uh, you know, I was just thinking through, um, you know, my mom's had one of the things because she's in rehab and in bed here for several weeks now is unfortunately she's got one of those nasty bed sores and it's scaring the daylights of her because that's what my dad passed away from was sepsis due to a bed sore. So that's at the forefront of her mind.

Forget the, forget the surgery, forget the rehab, forget the, forget the Parkinson's. That's what's scaring her the most. And I don't remember what I said to her last week, but I actually got her laughing about a bed sore that scaring her to death because just looked at it from a different angle, so to speak and better them having to mess with it than me, you know, that kind of stuff and got her laughing about it. And I've had some unique experiences with mom lately. Even we, we went over to see her and I was there the day of her surgery.

And, uh, part of the problem with Parkinson's is, uh, if the meds get a little bit off, sometimes they have, um, uh, hallucinations. And mom, mom had a major hallucination with me thinking I was dad. And there's a lot of baggage that she had with dad that never got resolved in her mind. And, and I'm sitting there and I'm going, Lord, I don't want to deceive my mom, but, uh, do you want me to play this out? And you know, as Peter mentioned, I've been around a while and I've got a lot of acting experience and I can do my dad's voice pretty easily.

We sound quite a bit alike. And, uh, so I played dad and she thought I was him and she asked me every question she ever wanted an answer for. And I gave her the answers she wanted to hear for an hour for an entire hour.

She was in this hallucination. And it's one of the most special conversations I've ever had in my life. And I pray that she's got these things resolved because dad can't come back and fix it now. So I thought, yeah, well, he kind of got a chance to do that through me and what a, what a, you know, taking, taking the lemons of this, you know, and turning it into something that was beneficial for her. And she's been on cloud nine about it ever since. That's really quite amazing, Denny. I never, that's the first I've heard of anything like that. And I think that is incredibly thoughtful.

What a great gift to give to your mom, to be able to help her process that out. Even in that state, this is Peter Rosenberg. This is hope for the caregiver. We're talking with Denny Brownlee. We got more to go. We come back and another special guest is supposed to be joining us. I'll save that for John. And then we're going to talk about some things as a caregiver that may be peevish to us. We'll be right back.

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 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.

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Isn't it about the time someone started advocating for you? www.caregiverlegal.com, an independent associate. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberg.

This is the show for you as a family caregiver. We're glad that you're with us. We are talking with Denny Brownlee, my long-time friend and truly one of the most clever, wittiest guys I've ever met. And speaking of witt, we also have himself, the Baron of the Board, the Sultan of Sound. He's John Butler, everyone. Here he is.

John Butler, the Count of Mighty Disco, and he's so tall. Oh, yes. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good night. Good whenever and wherever it is you find yourself, my weird little wonders. It is a delight to be here.

Weird little wonders. And Denny, all right, look, Denny, I'm going to ask you an official radio guy question. Is that not a world-class intro for John? Yeah, world-class was not the first term that came to mind, but yes, yes. I'll go with that. Is that what we're calling it now? Yeah, yeah.

If that's the title, we'll give it. No, all I could think of was that if he's that tall, then he's really, truly somebody we can look up to. Yeah.

Well, I really, I miss seeing eye to eye with everybody. I'll just say that. Look, I could only handle one person doing dad jokes at a time. Did you see the... Why did you call me? Well, by the way, there's a good place to keep all your dad jokes and that's in your database.

So just put that. I didn't get a comment back from John. I bought him for Christmas, I guess a year ago or two, two years ago. I bought him a dad joke book, but then I sent you a picture. He's reading it right now. I sent you a picture and I didn't even get a response from you, John.

Did you not see my picture I sent you? What, just now? No, several days ago, like the first of March.

I mean, the 20th of March. And it was a huge spring that somebody had tossed. Yes, that's right. That's right.

And it was, spring is in the air. So it's right. All right. Call me in the middle of dinner.

You're not going to get a response, man. Come on. Do we, I'm going to do a little segment on pet peeves.

I don't have a theme song for that. Let me see what I can do. Yeah. Going right. I shall trot over to the caregiver keyboard. All right, here we go. Um, these are my pet peeves. These are, I don't, I got to get Hank to sing this, but Hank was supposed to be joining us today, but he blew it, blew us off here.

I don't know what's happening, but he'll be, he'll be here with us later. But my pet peeves, and I don't know if you guys have one that you've learned along the caregiving journey. There's not pet peeves with a person per se. It's a pet peeve with the system that you find yourself in as a caregiver and see if this resonates with you, uh, Denny and John. Are you familiar with HIPAA? It stands for health insurance, portability and accountability act of 1996. I remember when this thing was enacted. I was in heavily in the throes of the medical world at that time.

Uh, Gracie had had about, she was getting close to her 50th surgery about that time. And, uh, so it was, I was very familiar with all the journey, but when you go through the HIPAA process and they make you jump through all kinds of hoops, they won't let you talk to, you have to get them on the phone and give permission. If you're calling on their behalf, you know, there's all kinds of forums you have to sign, yada, yada, yada, yada. Y'all familiar with this process? Now, why is it though that when you go to the doctor's office and you've gone through all these hoops with HIPAA and then they yell out your name from the nurses station to go back, you know, um, you know, Mr. Rosenberger, your hemorrhoid rectum is, is, you know, I mean, it's, it's, you know, uh, we're, the doctor will treat you for that boil and you give them your real name when you have boils to be last. I mean, well, I tell them, John Butler, you got to pump up those numbers. Mr. Butler, your boil needs to be last. That's okay.

Oh man. That's what I, but, but I, that is one of the biggest annoyances that I've seen in this process and, and, uh, and I do that with when, when gray and Gracie looks at me and she's like, why are they calling out my name in front of all these people when they have made me jump through all these hoops with the HIPAA stuff with you and everything else. And it's very annoying.

And I didn't know if I was alone in that pet peeve or not, but that's one of mine. John, do you have one? Um, let's see. Or do you just want to comment back on the boil issue? I was going to comment back on the boil issue. I knew where John was going. I could see it on his face. Well, like, uh, uh, with, with that HIPAA stuff though, that's, I mean, that's like, yeah, there, I mean, you're, you're in a public place.

You don't really have an expectation of privacy, but if we're doing all this, we're putting all this effort into it. You know, that's, that's just, that's, you know, I'll, I'll, from, from a weird perspective, I, uh, I don't like it when people leave shopping carts in the handicap lane way. You and me both. Yeah. That's, that's, that's my thing. I mean, I, I already have like a really neurotic relationship with, with shopping carts, but this is, this is the worst thing. Um, cause like I'm, I'm trying to, you know, that's clearly for something else. So, I mean, that might be, that might be something that tickles your fancy. That's, that's, that's a little bit of a pet peeve of mine that might have something that's, it's caregiver adjacent, certainly. Well, it is adjacent to the van or the car.

Yes, it is adjacent. Well, what about you, Denny? What's something that has kind of irritated you through this process? Well, the, the whole, uh, I, I really stink at technology. I know I, I use a lot of it, but only, I only know enough to get by. I, I, we have a love hate relationship mostly.

I hate it. And, um, so they have, whenever you get set to go to a new, a new doctor or facility or whatever, of course you've got to fill out a million things. And of course the best thing to do is to go online and fill it out ahead of time so that you can get there to your appointment on time instead of having to get there a half an hour early and fill out 20 pages of junk.

Oh yeah. I did, I did that recently. I did everything according to what the thing said. And when I got there, um, they said, well, you need to fill out with these forms. I'm going, I did that online and well, it's blank sir. It's blank.

So is the look on my face. Yeah, no, I, yeah. The words that came out were mostly blank, blank, blank, but not really, but yeah, no, well I, I just, I just had to do that with, uh, with my son, taking him to the dentist and filled out all the forms ahead of time. And then I get there and there's still like four more forms. They could have, they, they were, they could have sent to me. Um, but when they hit the forms and they were therefore very good, you know, confidential. Is that what the deal was? No, I think it was, uh, uh, I want to say it was, it was like COVID related, so that might not have been necessarily there for, but still.

Yeah, that's a whole new wrinkle. Yeah. And, and I, I just feel like we have lost, um, the, the, the whole purpose of HIPAA was to provide patient privacy, but somehow that just goes out the window.

And of course when you're in the doctor's office and the so forth, the emergency room and everything else, like we are as much, you know, I get that and everybody knows you. Um, but you know, after a while it becomes a little annoying that why are we had to jump through these hoops? But back to the, another pet peeve of mine, John, back to your handicap thing.

Oh, there you go. Is when people park over the lines next to a handicap vehicle so that you can't get a wheelchair up to the car or lower the ramp down, you know, either way. And I've had that where we couldn't get Gracie into the vehicle because the, uh, somebody had parked over those, those slides. You got to move the whole car to, you know, and, and so that, and she used to be by herself, she would drive a lot. She still sometimes does drive, but, um, it would be very difficult for her to get into the vehicle when somebody's right up on encroaching on her like that.

And, and so that, that is, and my brother has a daughter who is wheelchair bound and they have a ramp for their vehicle and so forth, and they can't lower the ramp to get her in until the people move or they have to move out the van or whatever. And it's, you know, if you're doing this in the rain and things like that, it is incredibly frustrating. And so that's just something that, uh, you know, does it for me that just, it just, it just, you know, it really grinds my gears, the instant rage. Yeah. Well, it's a, uh, speaking of shopping carts, like when, when somebody, you know, uh, like I had my daughter push the shopping cart a lot, but the quickest way to get instant rage out of me is to run over the back of my foot when I'm walking in front of the cart and it pulls the shoe off or whatever. It's like, yeah, it's payback for when I did it to my mom. Yeah. I'm like, yeah, I wear a size 11 triple T. They're really wide feet now.

They didn't used to be so bad, but yeah, you run away enough. Like, are you a part duck now? I don't, you know, to be honest, I spend most of my life wishing a goose would, you know, I heard a great quote about shopping carts and a very successful businessman once said, I've never seen anyone who was successful in business who did not return their own cart.

I read a whole thing about that. Like that is, uh, the shopping cart is the, uh, that is, that is the, uh, the indicator of, of your ethics. Like if you put the shopping cart back, you know, there's no reason to do so, but, uh, that's, that's the, that is the, um, you're, you're invested in a, in a, in a more perfect union for us all.

Well, you know, people try to say, are people basically good or basically bad? And I tell them go to a parking lot and you will see that people are going to find the best spot they can. They're going to, they're going to jockey for it. They're going to yell at each other when somebody cuts in front of them, they're going to yell about the carts.

They're going to leave the carts there. We do a lot of bad things in parking lots that just kind of show off human nature in a very negative light is unfortunate. Do you have an, do you have another one? Uh, Denny, anything else that is?

Yes. That's something that you didn't expect until you became, got into the caregiving world. Um, well, not that I can share without getting political.

Um, thank you for that. Let's just say I changed healthcare systems a couple of years ago and can't wait for the next one. I, you know, I, yeah, I, I'm, I better not say, cause you'll, you'll get letters, but, um, I'm glad to have the IRS behind me with, uh, with some issues on affordable healthcare and just what that word really means. And we'll leave it at that.

I'm tracking with you on that one. Well, one last one for me, I guess we're going to be going to a break here pretty soon, but, but one last one for me is I hate it when I'm, when I help out at the grocery store and I'm bagging groceries and then somebody, you know, like little old lady looked at me the other day and she said, I am so glad they're hiring people like you. And I'm like, really? What? I mean, come on, man.

That's just wrong, man. Well, if this radio thing ever falls through, you can be, yeah, I got 50 cents out of it, but still, man, I mean, still, you know, I mean, come on, come on, let me hear your welcome to Walmart. Let me just hear you say, that's exactly where I was going.

I was like, if this radio thing doesn't work out, there's always Walmart in the front. I've got mine ironed in press. Well, we have, um, these are things that I've, along the way as a caregiver, I have, uh, you know, encountered things like this in the medical world and you, and you see this, uh, departments, department of redundancy department, you know, you get that a lot where there's just so much overkill and, and, and like, I, we got to go, for example, all right, I'm going to share this one that, and then don't y'all tell this to anybody. Okay. Let's just keep that. And, um, and, and we got to go back over to, uh, to Billings this week for an orthopedic surgeon, um, to look at Gracie with some stuff she had MRIs and so forth over there last week.

There's some very big specialists over there. They're working on her, but we got all the stuff and they just need to, she has to meet with the surgeon. Okay. I get it.

But they took all the films. She's never met with the surgeon, but I was wondering, can we just not do this in, in video? You know, because I mean, he's not going to do anything.

He's just going to look at her, but he's going to look at the films and the charts and everything else. You know, no, we can't. Okay. So what day? Well, he's the surgeon's only in the office on Thursdays and I'm thinking, really Thursday?

Is that it? That's the only day you're in the office. You know, I mean, and I know they're doing surgery all the time, but I mean, they've got to have some level of follow up with all these patients are doing operations on.

You can fit in more than just on a Thursday. And I was like, come on. You know, I mean, I, I, I've been to, um, Gracie's been treated now by more than a hundred physicians. Wow.

In, in her journey well over now. And, and believe me, the novelty has worn off and, and you know, I mean, do you feel when you're, when you're around surgeons and doctors, Denny, do you feel intimidated? Do you feel, how do you feel about it? Well, sometimes I want to slap them cause they're half my age, but yeah, I get, yeah, they call it, that's what we call them.

We call them doogie. But, um, I've, I've had some that you can tell they kind of have this God complex where it's like, you know, I have your person's life in my hands, you know, and in one sense I want them to feel that way. Cause it's like, okay, then, then you're going to fix them, aren't you? You're not going to give up halfway through going, you know, I'm not, I'm not really qualified for this, but now we had, we've had some people that I've just walked out of there going, never again. Don't let this man near you with a butter knife. And then other people that again, you won't break the skin with this bad boy. I've had other guys, 35 years old explaining things and I'm going, wow, I'd let you cut on anything you want, pal.

Well, I mean, I've, I'm the same way. I mean, I now with the last name like Rosenberger and when I wear a jacket and tie, I've been called Dr. Rosenberger many times and I tell him I'm a cranial proctologist and I let them figure it out from there. This is hope for the caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger. We'll be right back in just a moment.

We're talking with Denny Bradley and of course, John Butler, the Count of Mighty Disco and I've got a special treat for him after the break. 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 purchased citizenship equipment and supplies and with the help of inmates in a Tennessee prison, we also recycled 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. Hey, this is Peter Rosenberger and in my three and a half decades as a caregiver, I have spent my share of nights in a hospital, sleeping in waiting rooms, on fold out cots, chairs, even the floor, sometimes on sofas and a few times in the doghouse, but let's don't talk about that. As caregivers, we have to sleep at uncomfortable places, but we don't have to be miserable. We use pillows for mypillow.com.

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That is my wife with Russ Taff and a love that from her CD resilient hope for the caregiver.com. If you want to see more about it, we're on the phone here with Denny Brownlee, longtime friend of mine, just a great pal. And one of the sharpest guys I've ever met. And, and, but he, he loves comedy, but he's also a caregiver. He brings a heart and he brings the, the wonderful sense of comedic timing and healing humor.

And, and I love that. And then of course we were also with himself, the man so tall, he hunts geese with a rake. He's John Butler, everyone. John Butler, the Count of Mighty Disco. He's tall. I have a special treat for you, John.

The voice that you just heard on that jingle. He's with us. It's my friend, Hank Martin, who is joining us from South Carolina. And I asked Hank to cut these things. So Hank, welcome to my show, John Butler, the Count of Mighty Disco.

And you're tall, man. And Hank, those have been an absolute delight to me for the past two weeks. I have been truly blessed by their presence and I cannot thank you enough. Thank you, John. I look so forward to meeting you. I look so forward to meeting you. I listen to you guys.

You guys have so much fun. And, and I knew not, not to get on too serious a note, but you know, the one thing Peter's always done is he's been, we've been a caregiving each other for a long time. And the one thing he always, he always does in the middle of whatever I'm going through, it makes me laugh. And he'll cheer me up when I'm down and, and you're, and you're working with him and accomplishing those things for these folks that are listening. And it's a joy to be able to add a little music to the scene. Well, well, indeed, Hank and I've been friends for very important.

Absolutely indeed. And Hank and I go back 30 years and we're both from South Carolina and I'm going to brag on Hank a little bit, let you know his, his background. Hank is, is a world-class singer and he used to sing with the group that toured all over Carolina. Then he came to Nashville, started doing jingles. Then he went to New York and really started hitting it pretty big with all kinds of jingles. And Hank, tell us a few of the jingles that you've sung that people would know.

Just sing a few bars. Yeah. Well, back in the eighties, I was the voice of nationwide is on your side. Oh, okay. Okay. You make the most of who you are to us. You really are a star at McDonald's. Oh wow.

Family in California is raising land and with two scoops of raisins in Kellogg's raisin brands. Really? Yeah.

He did all of those. Fantastic. Yeah. We bring good things to life. All right, Hank, that's enough.

Cut it out. We know you're big tough, Hank. You're big tough, but I also want to introduce you to, uh, my friend Denny Brownlee, uh, lives in Nashville and Denny and Hank, uh, you all have met each other, but you guys would, would absolutely enjoy each other's company immensely. And, uh, Denny has been with us throughout the show. This he's been on the show a couple of times. Actually, Hank, this is your first time on the show.

I believe right. First time, first time. Well, we had to go through a lot of waivers before we had you on. It was ugly lawyers involved.

It was ugly, but no, we're glad to have you on there. And Denny Denny has been, um, he does that for me, uh, Hank, what you talked about. I mean, he makes me laugh. He, he, he just is, uh, it's just so much fun to be around somebody like him. And so, uh, he, and he does a lot of voiceovers and stuff.

So you guys have a, a lot of similarities in your, in your background. And, and, uh, um, so we've been just kicking around this today, but I really do appreciate you doing this for John. And, uh, I've been laughing about it for, for weeks now.

And, and I played it in the car today for Gracie again, and she, she's been, she was just kind of puttering around the house singing John Butler. That's all I want. You know, And Hank, I gotta say, I appreciate how you brought out the best quality of John height. And I thought that was an amazing thing for you to hone in on that.

Yeah. Well, there's a reason why Hank is not quite as tall as John. And no, no, I'm just the opposite. My dad was six foot one. My mom was five foot two, and I ended up in the middle. There you go.

I didn't, I was told there'd be no math. Well, Denny, we ended up in the last few minutes we have, we just got a few more minutes. You know, what are some things that you would like to leave for folks that are just now stepping into this journey? You've, you've taken care of your wife, you've taken care of your mother. What are some thoughts that you'd like to leave with them and just a source of encouragement, things to maybe look out for things that to hold on to what are some things that, that, that are near and dear to your heart in that manner? And just help us close out with that.

I would say do what you do best and get help for those things you don't do so well. One thing my mom's got going for her, she's got my sister who's very good at helping. She's got my brother who's a CPA who's taking care of all the financial things. And then she's got me being the goofball. But one thing I'm getting to do, she doesn't, she doesn't read very well now. Her eyes don't work very well to read. And so, because I do audio books, I'm recording a book for her personally. I'm not making any money on it. I'm making a book for her so that she can listen and hear my voice doing a book about the 23rd Psalm in this case, her favorite Psalm.

So I'm going with what I can do because I'm not the CPA in the family, nor am I a very good helper, but I'm doing what I do best and find the people who, who can supplant what, what you don't do and get help. Yeah. Play to your strengths. There you go. What a great gift to your mom though, to do an audio book. You know, I may have to look at doing that for my mother, but I, cause she doesn't see as well and she does love audio books, but I may do it as Bill Clinton. Like, you know, it was a dark and stormy night. Give me a call and I'll help you out on it.

Cause I won't do it for free for your mom, but let me know. It was, it was a dark and stormy night. Stormy night. Do it as Rodney Dangerfield. And my mother doesn't get Rodney. Cause I mean, I'll say things like, you know, it was rough being me when I was born.

They told my parents, we're sorry. We did all we could, but he pulled through, you know, they don't get that kind of humor, but I, I think that is a great gift that you're giving to her and, uh, play to your strengths and do and do that. And that, that is what a great note to end on. And so Hank, thank you for the wonderful gift of music that you've done and the great laughs that we've had with this. You, you and, and Hank's got more, he's going to do by the way, he w he's going to do a whole bunch of these things for us. And, uh, Peter, thank you. And Denny, Denny, nice to meet you, pal. Look forward to your call back, buddy.

Yeah. As always at Denny, I am just deeply moved. Don't, don't make me wait so long next time and, uh, loved having you on here. Butler, uh, you, you you're the hand on my shoulder baby. And I appreciate you.

Hope for the caregiver.com. It's a rough ride with John's hand on my shoulder. We're gentlemen. Oh, that was fantastic. Thank you so, so much. Yes, that was great.

That was awesome. Thanks for being on time, Hank. All right.

So now I know what level of friendship we're talking about. There's always a story, Peter, I got a reason. Oh, I have no doubt. Oh, wait a minute. Before we go, before we go, because Denny and I were doing impressions and Denny's a wonderful impressionist, but one of my favorite singers of all time, BJ Thomas announced this week that he's got lung cancer and he's one of my Hanks, one of my dear friends.

Yeah. Hank's known BJ since the seventies and, um, Hank's a former brother-in-law produced several of BJ's records and wrote several of his big songs. And, um, but anyway, Hank can do BJ Thomas. So give it to us, Hank. I'll tell you what, I'll do better than that. If you hang on a second, I'm right here by the can. Hold on. Oh, I thought you're going to get BJ on the phone. The piano may not work, Hank.

The piano is going to be distorted, Hank. Isn't that great? Isn't that great? Wow. All right. So have I effectively made my case to have a zoom call with all of us doing this kind of stuff? So I'm going to set that up because I really want to do is I think this would make a lot of fun for a zoom call and I think we'd have a great time. We probably should have been recording all this right now, but I want you guys to know I really, really, really love this. This is, this is so wonderful and it, and it brightens my heart and it just lifts my spirit. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you all for the bottom of my heart. I'll put this out on the podcast here probably tomorrow and I'm just grateful. So thank you all. Well, well thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

You're always here. Yep. Yep.

Denny, you got a phone call to make Denny. Yeah. Mama. Yep. You go call your mother. Hey, we'll talk to you soon.

John behave yourself. Okay. No, I'm not going to do that. All right. We'll see. We'll see you guys. Thank you, Ed. Bye-bye.