Jessica expands on the Invisible Caregivers - Cultural Diversity episode to spot light how language barriers includes the medical jargon which is connected to billable codes in the US. Expressing our feelings or symptoms we may be experiencing is hard enough. Adding in the language barriers with medical doctors makes it feel impossible to communicate our needs as caregivers. If you are struggling to find healthcare assistance beyond the typical prescription pad response, a Naturopathic doctor may be your answer. Let's make a conscious effort to change the caregiver culture together. Jessica dives a little deeper on why seeking a second, third, and finally a fourth opinion was necessary in the fight to heal her kidneys before needing dialysis.
It's is already so challenging for caregivers to find resources in their areas. So what happens to the countless caregivers that become invisible because there is a language barrier such as the large Spanish speaking community? Listen in as founder of Caregiving Café, Lynn Greenblatt, joins Jessica to discuss the need for a spotlight on the invisible caregivers in a multicultural society. Learn more at https://proactivecaregivere.com
Whether you are a caregiver with tons of family support or you're like many others, learning to navigate the twists and turns, you will eventually ask, "Now what?" Finding Care Navigators like Dura Sims is such a blessing, but what if you don't know that her services are available? What do you once you reach the limit of your abilities or knowledge. Listen in as Jessica goes into more context of caregiver needs, and especially those who feel like they have reached a dead end. When a family caregiver realizes they are in over their head it is usually because they are at their breaking point.
Navigating each stage of the caregiving journey is challenging. Once you think you have a handle on the highs and lows or odd challenges, your loved one's needs shift yet again. So what do you do aside from panic or having a tantrum on the inside yet showing a face of calm on the outside? Listen in as Dura Sims shares how her world seemed to turn upside down as a professional hospice care coordinator. Dura's background spans in over 30 years of healthcare services, yet became a caregiver for her mother and found herself frustrated with the lack of knowledge and resources available to caregivers. She channeled this frustration into creating a consulting service for senior care solutions in many stages of life. What we need in the early stages of our journey is quite different as we near the end stages.
Listen in as Jessica expands on the Becoming Proactive episode to spot light how self-care is overlooked. We learn by watching our parents and then as we go out into the real world our habits change. Sometimes those changes are improvements while other times convenience and avoidance puts a damper on our self-care regimens. What do you say to convince yourself that certain habits are not important or can wait for the perpetual tomorrow? Are you waiting for the moment of crisis? Burnout? Or for a doctor to prescribe antidepressants because reacting to life is getting harder. When I stop to reflect on our system of healthcare and insurance and how it is not designed for prevention, I realize the responsibility is ours to ensure self-care habits are created and maintained. Let's make a conscious effort to change together. We need to pour into ourselves for replenishment, recharging, and reprograming our minds, hearts, and soul. Jessica dives a little deeper on why self-care is not selfish as she shares her moments of how our heart space can make a world of difference on your caregiving journey.
What does self-care mean to you? What does it look or feel like to be restored? Listen in as the Jessica chats with Health and Life Coach, Kaley Johnson, who is also the co-facilitator of our monthly Refuel Caregiver Support Group. Kaley has a degree in human services and has been a professional caregiver for over 25 years and was a foster parent in addition to caring for her two sons and 92-year-old grandmother. Kaley created Spark Your Journey Coaching, to support caregivers by helping to fill in the gap in services. She understands from first hand experience that caregivers, like you and me, often lose their own identity while caring for their loved ones.
In this episode, Jessica reflects on a transformative conversation she had with Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers, the author of Shameless Parenting and a leading expert in sex therapy, feminism, and social justice. Through a poignant personal anecdote, Jessica explores the challenges of navigating societal shame and sexual expression in the context of dementia. Dr. Tina's insights resonate as Jessica grapples with the profound impact of cultural taboos on personal autonomy and well-being, highlighting the importance of embracing shameless human responses amidst adversity. Join Jessica as she revisits this conversation, inviting listeners to reconsider societal norms and advocate for authentic self-expression.
Listen in as Jessica chats with the author of Shameless Parenting, Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers, who is a licensed sex and gender feminist psychotherapist, researcher, and professor. Dr. Tina's expertise covers sex therapy, spiritual intimacy, parenting, medicine, and social justice. When Mom refused to even consider using a vibrator because she was worried what her priest would think of her, I had THE sex-talk with Mom I wished she would have given me as a teenager. Living with Dementia was challenging enough, but Mom lost more then memory when pleasure and sexual expression became a dilemma to choose more behavior altering medication or her to have a shameless human response.
When a caregivers journey ends there is a mixture of relief and grief. Many caregivers might think the journey ends when their loved one goes home, but the reality is one stage ends and another begins through the necessary cleansing of grief. Listen in as Jessica shares how the journey continues with the reflection of how Caregivers are blindsided through the reconciliation of love, loss, and learning to keep living.
Listen as Jessica chats with the Author Debbie Weiss, about her memoir, "On Second Thought, Maybe I Can." Debbie became a caregiver at the early age of 17 for her father, then later for her husband and sons. After a life of prioritizing everyone else’s needs and opinions other than her own, Debbie realized at the age of 50 that this was her one and only life. She didn’t want to look back years from now with regret for the things she had never done. She stopped saying “I can’t” and replaced it with “Maybe I can.”
Listen in as Jessica expands on the previous conversation with Dr. Amy Baker, pharmacist and healthcare administrator turned Leadership and Intimacy Coach. Dr. Baker has combined her personal past challenges of sexual trauma, addiction, eating disorders, depression, and emotional liability with years of therapy, over 30 years of leadership, dancing, yoga, athletic endeavors, and studies in Taoism and sexuality, Vipassana meditation, Gateless writing, mindset and relationship coaching into one, simple understanding: A healthy and resilient nervous system is the core of health, therefore if we are not addressing our nervous system health, we are not addressing health. If we do not address our feelings during the caregiving journey, then we are not addressing the sources of victim mentality. Watch the episode at https://youtu.be/YIRTfG4CLiY Learn more at proactivecaregiver.com
Today I want to talk to you about Caregiver nutrition habits and those that affect our seniors. We gain many habits during our childhood centered around marketing trends, family financial resources, and what is provided through school lunches. I don't know about you, but many of those habits I have gradually had to replace with healthier habits as I got older. When you understand what the body needs, you can change your level of energy and help your body age better, especially in response to stress
Listen in as Jessica reaches a special mile stone for The Proactive Caregiver show. "When I started podcasting, it was such an uncomfortable feeling that I could not see continuing past the first 10 episodes, and here we are now celebrating the 100th." This episode recaps the changes Jessica has experienced throughout her caregiving journey. From family caregiver to advocate, from feelings of hopelessness to hopeful, and to accepting there was always going to be an end to the journey for Mom - join us in celebrating 100 and going beyond.
Today we continue with our Medicare series , part two because it is now the U.S. Medicare Annual Enrollment period through to December 7th. To help us understand the upcoming changes for 2024, Co-founders, Joe and Monique Barajas of the Barajas Insurance Group joins me. Last episode we discussed the difference between the Medicare Annual Enrollment period and Open enrollment which is the difference between applying for insurance through January to March and making changes during October 15th to Dec 7th.
Today we begin part one of a two part series because it's that time again for the U.S. Medicare Annual Enrollment period of October 15th to December 7th. To help us understand the upcoming changes for 2024, Co-founders, Joe and Monique Barajas of the Barajas Insurance Group joins me. After reading through the CY 2024 changes in effort to find the differences between what changes are ahead of new enrollees, I knew you would benefit more from the agents.
Listen in as Jessica expresses what life becomes after one caregiving journey ends. Understanding your loved one is changing through the stages of illness causes an internal dilemma between gratitude for time spent and pain of needing to let them go. Thinking it is one thing, yet feeling the loss of their life force energy takes grieving to a different level. What happens when the caregiver loses yet another identity? Where does the anger come? How do we channel the grieving into something positive for the next chapter in life? These are questions that came to mind as Jessica adapts to life without her mother after over a decade of caregiving. In reality, we never stop being caregivers when self-care is still vital to our well-being, especially during mourning the life of a loved one passing on.
Listen in as Jessica shares what if feels like meeting the Journey's End with her mother. Knowing this day was coming did not make it any easier. After making so many decisions that increasingly challenged her abilities and emotional stability, the end was far from what she expected. The initial step into a role as caregiver that turned into a career shift and transformational journal takes another turn into the next chapter of life. "It's not Good-bye, it is so long for now." The hardest job anyone can imagine is caregiver because the struggle is beyond overwhelming. Jessica knows this and has connected with so many caregivers over her journey. In addition to what her mother taught her along the way, Jessica now understands the journey has only taken a pause to mourn because the fight is not over. The real fight has just begun for change.
Listen in as Dr. Ethelle Lord shares the intent behind her latest White Paper addressing the problems in long-term care communities with care workers to resident ratio and communication of care with families. Our aging population is becoming more dependent on home health services because long-term care communities fall short when profit takes precedence over basic human needs. Rather than wait for regulations to be updated, Dr. Lord is proactively educating caregivers globally on how to adapt to this evolving epidemic of increasing Dementia cases. As the founder and president of the International Caregivers association, Dr. Lord is on a mission to change the dependency on medication to manage Dementia patients. Through Dementia coaching, Dr. Lord is able to help caregivers recognize the complexity of living with Dementia by discovering individual needs.
How can caregivers support their loved ones who self-isolate or become depressed as they lose their vision? When you have illnesses such as diabetes, high blood pressure, or heart disease it can gradually cause low vision. The truth is that our vision is affected by far more than putting lenses over our eyes to see. Listen in as founder of Empower Occupational Therapy, Regina Budet, shares her sandwiched generation approach to treating low-vision. Regina, created a mobile practice providing in-home occupational therapy for adults coping with vision loss and facing the challenges of functional independence in their everyday lives. She collaborates with her clients and their families to find solutions that will best fit their needs within their home environment. Regina does this by providing education for strategies to help compensate for their vision loss yet remain active in their communities.
Centuries ago, essential oils were used as remedies for unpleasant order to preventing sickness by harnessing natural antibacterial properties. Listen in as Jessica chats with the Founder of Teaching Oils, Donna Hall, to discover how caregivers can benefit from ancient oils to improve health and well-being. From Linguistics, Language Arts teacher, and caregiver at heart to a Wellness Advocate, she now teaches others the healing benefits available through various essential oils. Donna's health issues challenged her in ways that placed her in pursuit of natural remedies to avoid the harmful effects of most pharmaceuticals. Self-care is often going back to the basics of enhancing our senses. Combining sound through soft earbuds with a soothing smell in a diffuser on my nightstand became my life-saving restorative bedtime routine.