Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver
The Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver podcast offers a candid, unfiltered space to confess the good, the bad, and the ugly of being a caregiver through storytelling, guest interviews, and information sharing. JJ & Natalie are a dynamic duo of sisters supporting their mom living with Parkinson's and a husband who survived cancer. Along with their guests, they discuss their shared experiences in caregiving. Viewers and listeners alike will relate to our reluctance, be affirmed in their ability to be caregivers and gain the courage to confidently step out of the shadows to express their own needs. You are sure to laugh, cry, and everything in between but in the end, all will leave feeling better for the journey and part of the sisterhood of care. So grab your favorite guilty pleasure, and let's get to confessing!
Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver
Beverly Barnett - After the Confesssion
Thank you for your support! Here's the link to watch the behind-the-scenes bonus episode on YouTube! https://youtu.be/VF1TRRBOPgw
Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver
Sisterhood of Care, LLC
Kristen daukas, Hey guys, it's your favorite sisters with the Confessions of a reluctant caregiver podcast, and you're listening to after the confession now let's listen in, as it was just getting good.
JJ:We're back here with Beverly Barnett, and we were talking Beverly right before the podcast ended, and we just jumped back on. We kicked Natalie out, but we jumped back in here because Beverly was talking about her brother, and when he passed a lot of family in there, eight siblings, I believe you said, Beverly and not prepared at all, no wishes, no barely tell me about that and how that also leads into what you do now, how you help families.
Unknown:Family. Family is something.
JJ:Let me just preach. Preach sister.
Unknown:There are eight of us with him. Was nine, but he had no wife, no children, so when he got ill, at first, we were doing okay, but we were having difficulty with communication, because the doctors in the staff can't talk to eight people every day. No. So they wanted one person to be the person of contact, and that was me, because that's what my brother had wanted. But my dad, being his father, was really the next person to make the decision when he for him, because he wasn't a POA. He didn't have a POA, but other siblings, it was just doing all kind of things. Is, you know, calling up there constantly. We had created a message group for us to communicate, and communication became difficult because people were not accepting of what was going on and reacting, just reacting to stuff, and it just over. This was like the end of September, and my brother died in December. End of December, I was I'm gonna have to tell you that that was three months of pure hell, because apparently it's a weird thing about when people are dying, sometimes people want to be in charge of them. I was like, Why, if I was just saying, why didn't he have a wife? Why didn't he have one child? I wouldn't have to do anything, you know, yeah, but support that person. But somehow people want to be the one that makes a decisions, or whatever, and it becomes an issue of who going to make that decision? Yeah, and I'm a person like this. If I was surprised that I was his person that he put down, I thought it would be my one of my other sisters, but she didn't live in this state, so that's why he put me down. I do believe that. But if she had been a person down, hey, I would have supported her, you know, absolutely, but he didn't. So, you know, you you work through it, and sometimes you can stay like what happened to my brother. He was doing he was really ill when he came in. He was semi you know, he was conscious, but barely conscious, then he ended on a ventilator, then he coated, and he had caught, he arrested, and from that point on, things just went haywire for the family, and the dynamics just started. People were at different stages in acceptance. People were at different stages in how they deal with stress and anxiety, because that's the difference, is how you deal with stress and anxiety. Are you aggressive? Are you passive? What type of person are you assertive? What kind of person are you during stress? So all of those features in the eight people, somebody's gonna be aggressive, somebody's gonna be something, you know, you have to, you know, those, those things start coming out, and they do,
JJ:you know, I can say, with the three of us, we, we do like what you said, we defer like even if there's a bit of a disagreement about the choice on how we manage our mom, we still support one another exactly like what you said. And I look at what you're saying about your brother and somebody wants to be in charge of someone's health and even their passing. I look at that as well when someone passes, and then these families who you thought were so close fall apart because of wills and it just, you know, family dynamics, you think that everyone is so close, and families fall apart with things like that when it's not laid out by that family member. And I always tell people, If you love your family, be protected. You're absolutely, I mean, absolutely prepare. It's like,
Unknown:if you love you love your family enough that you would be prepared so that if something happened to you and you hope that somebody will step up, you have things in line for them, because you love them enough to do that. And, and sometimes people just don't like my brother. He just didn't even he was only 59 you know. Again, he was my husband's in his 50s, when he, you know, started late 50s, so, but, but a lot of people just don't think anything can happen to him. But it can now, now, when my husband died, we didn't have an issue. This is me, my three children, and his siblings, and so everybody was very supportive, but, yeah, you know, but this was a unexpected one, you know, I'm going to say that there were many people in the family that were very supportive, but then there were a couple of people who were not
JJ:who stirred the pot. You say that and you talk about unexpected I know there's a little bit of a difference, I think, with the when you have time for someone, where there's an anticipation when you're grieving, but there's an anticipation that someone is going to pass. And we had a very similar situation with our dad, who passed suddenly at 58 of a massive heart attack. He was playing softball. We had no idea he'd always been healthy. And so in that instance, you have no ability to prepare. And so there was, although we had our mom, there was still no preparation. There was no correct documentation. There was it was a hot mess. And so trying to wade through that, especially with our mom's health issues, the three of us trying to help wade through it again, we would say to dad, Dad, I know you're listening. If you should have been prepared, you know, tell everybody be prepared. So,
Unknown:so I have two brothers, two other brothers, yeah, and they don't have a wife, and they don't have any children. So I said, Listen, you all better get a POA. I said, because I'm not going back through this. You need down the law Beverly. You need to have in writing who you want to make decisions for you, and then you need to tell people what you want, what decisions. My brother had not told me directly what he wanted. Yeah, so, but I know him. You know I knew him, but making, but Imma tell you making that decision, when the doctors asked me to make that decision about pulling him off the Venus like, no, no, no, no, no. I got to talk to daddy. I can't make that decision. I have to talk to daddy because and I told dad, and he says, Well, I'll take over. So he took over, and he made that burden to make that decision. It was a heartbreaking decision for him, but it took him a long time to get there. It took him a long time, and that's how the dynamics started unraveling the family, because the longer you sit in this situation, the more stress it is for the family movie. So my my brother arrested in October. He died in December, so that's a long time for a person to be in coma and family dynamics to be playing,
JJ:to play out. So tell me about that. After with this, you've tell me about the grief process and and what you would recommend for people, as far as get a little prepared, a little more prepared for this.
Unknown:Well, one of the aspects of after people died is that you have to get to a point where you have to accept that that happened, and it takes time. You know, they say time heals all things true, time will help you to heal and will help the family to heal also. Now, it may take longer for different people, and hopefully it will that you heal, but you may not go back to the relationship that you had prior to that, either, you know, so you have to see that. But you know, it's only been about two months since my brother died, and I still feel the pain. It's a lesson somewhat. And when he died, I knew he was going to die. I had accepted that he was going to die and but I couldn't make that decision. So afterwards, I don't think it was my decision to make anyway, but maybe the family as a whole to make, but it was still hard, but it was daddy's decision to make. That was his father and go ahead and But afterwards, it was so much pain, with so much pain and anger and anger at different people. People you know, in the family, there was a lot of anger going on. It's still, still some anger that's that's still there. Because recently, when my dad was sick and he had to go back to the VA, I just it really, really stressed me out, because I felt like I was on the same pathway that I was last year. Because last year, this time, my dad was sick, in and out of the VA and this year, he's doing the same thing. And I said, don't want this here to end the same way, you know. So it really stressed me out. I had to call on my son. I said, I can't go to up there to see him today. Can you please go see him? I just can't do it, you know. And, and there were days I couldn't, I just couldn't go up there, you know, that's
JJ:knowing your boundaries, that's saying I gotta check out today, and I think that's so important. Beverly, I gotta, I just need to not do this for your own mental health, right? To really take care of yourself, because you won't be your best self if you continue to not take care of yourself during those
Unknown:and because you don't really, when you're going through something like this, you don't really think about yourself, that's right. You don't really think about yourself. You You're in your own a mission or vision to get this Person healed, or whatever, to prolong their life as much as possible. You don't really think about what's going to happen to you afterwards. And like I told you when my husband died, I had a friend that helped life coach that helped me get through that. Now, the the cancer place had sent me messages about grief support, but I ignored them. I didn't think I needed them, but let me tell you, you do. You really do need some grief support after someone really close to you die, and you've been a caregiver. You've been a wife, the spouse, whatever you need help, because it's not easy to talk about how you feel, because sometimes, if like saying that I was angry, sometimes people wouldn't understand that you're angry, because why are you angry at him? And I know I had to apologize to my husband before he died. I did. I said, I want to apologize. I said because I knew I would come across real angry at you, and at times, he says, Well, I knew I know you and I know you didn't mean it, and you know, Beverly, you was just trying to help me. That's all so but I did apologize
JJ:after 35 years. I'm sure that that he knew, but she's like, that's okay. You've been hateful before. That's what my husband that's okay. You've been hateful before.
Unknown:Know that I recognize that what I was how I was acting at some point, and I just wanted him to know that I was sorry, yeah, you know. I wanted him to know that, you know, you know. Beverly, after
JJ:all the care, though, I don't think, I don't see anything for you to be sorry for. I just your heart is just amazing. And I thank you so much for the information I know right now that you do a lot of work. Tell me just a little bit about the work you do, because I know your goal is to help families in preparation. Tell me a little bit about what you're doing these days and the help that it offers families, because I know that we want to have you back on to share more information, more education about what you're into these days. So
Unknown:I have this Men's Health Ministry, black men's health ministry, that I do, and I help men to become aware of their bodies and the physiological processes that occur as they age. And so I do a couple of things. What I offer this product where I actually do some coaching of men. First I start with group coaching, and then I move into individual coaching. And basically what I do is that I ask men to tell me what is the legacy you want to instill in your children and grandchildren. This gets them to thinking about my grandchildren. I don't have any right now, but I want to be around Absolutely. That leads to, when was the last time you had a physical? Do you have a doctor? If not? Let me help you now, this one, if you accept my help now, your wife now no longer has to argue with you about this. You're
JJ:the bad guy. Your wife does not have to be the bad guy. That's right,
Unknown:but, but men are more accepting. Sometimes men are more accepting of and all people outside help versus family, you know, absolutely spot. So once we do that, get your appointment, go through a series of webinars about health and men and aging, and I include their health. I talk about their financial health. And because I like to talk to men, 35 and older, because I. That's when men start having trouble, but they don't know it. Everybody do. It's like not exercising, working too much, gaining weight. So that's when you start having problems. But if you don't go to a doctor, you never get it when you first start. Yeah, so let's get it early so we can correct the problem. So after we get through with that, the other thing you know do when they go to the doctor, send them what's a little form. And the form starts off with, why are you here? Because I go in there and I say to the patient, tell me why you came in today. My wife told me to come in. No, no, no, but why are you here? So I want to write down whatever their wife want to know. Yes, maybe let's start off that way. But then when they leave the doctor, the doctor's nurses filled out this form so that when they go home, what's the question that the wife is going to ask?
JJ:What'd they say?
Unknown:You don't want him. I don't want him to say, I don't know. I forgot. I'm good. Here's my report card. Is what you're hoping exactly give them, give your wife or your significant other that that paper, and you can read it, and then you exactly questions, and then it may jog your memory. Okay, absolutely, absolutely. And then from that point on, we get your you know parameters, your biometric numbers, and I want numbers, and I tell them, Don't accept good from your doctor. Don't accept that your doctor says My blood pressure is good. Tell me what my blood pressure is, because if I know my numbers and I look at your blood pressure, your cholesterol level, your hemoglobin, A, 1c, and your BMF, which is your body based indie, to see about your weight gain. If something's wrong with those numbers, now we go one on one, because if you have something that's not within normal range, you are going to have another appointment in three or six months. So let's work on that one on one to get you prepared for that doctor. If you have nothing wrong with your lab, maybe you want him to be better, because your blood pressure could be okay, but it could be better cut out your cholesterol need to be less than 200 okay. I'm 180 I'm okay, yeah, but no better, but you could be better. So then if they decide, well, I want to work on my cholesterol because I want to be better. I want my health to be better. That's their decision, right? That's their decision. I wanted to be their decision. I want to be healthier, and so my goal is to move you from whatever level of health you are to a higher level of healthy or wellness and Institute and get you to start integrating proactive healthy lifestyle that mean age specific care. For example, men need to have a colonoscopy. Everybody need to have a colonoscopy at 50 Oh, 45 now,
JJ:I just did cologuard, just so you'll know yes or something like, there you go. I mean, it's so it's so great. It's so easy. I just know that, you know, Natalie talks about mammograms. I talk about cologuard, Beverly, so we just throw that out there.
Unknown:They need to have their PSA or prostate specific antigen, s 40. So there's some things that you need to have done. So that's part of being proactive is getting those things done. But what can you do in your lifestyle? Just small changes that you get, if your hemoglobin, a 1c is getting in the pre diabetic range. And I give you an example, because mine was the first thing I did was stop drinking all those, those fructose sodas that I was drinking. Oh, that's just that one thing I knew when they said that. So I started right away. No more sodas, no more sodas. Yeah. And it did, yeah, it started coming down. But I had other things to do, but that was one small step to do. So let's start with the small thing that you know you can do, and it's that simple. Start small, make little baby steps, but every step counts. What the end goal? Yes, healthy.
JJ:You. Yeah. Beverly, your your mission to wellness. I absolutely love I know Natalie, and I'll be like, Sign us up. I know you're, you're pretty much working with men, but just sign us up. We are on a mission for wellness as well. And I love the concept. We love the word wellness, because there's healthy, but wellness, to me, is just your overall lifestyle. That's everything, that's spiritual, that's physical, that's that's mental, that's everything, and that just that sounds like that's your your mission, and I love that. Thank you so much for for staying with me and talking.
Unknown:I have to reach 1 million men this year.
JJ:I mean, do Is there a counter? Should I put the counter up there? I'm ready, yeah,
Unknown:1 million men I want to reach this year, so then I will know that I made a difference. If I just make a little difference in somebody's life, one
JJ:person Beverly and you have made a difference. But that's what I'm telling you. Okay, well, we will take the 1 million, we will get you posted with all of our followers. That's, uh, let's see, that's probably 25,000 but you know, we're downloaded about 200,000 times a month. So we've got you there, yeah, so there and you're that's what, there you go. So we need everybody that normally listens to the telefriends. So that's going to get Beverly to 400,000 right there. So that's our goal, Beverly, is to get you posted everywhere. So Beverly, thank you so much. And I know Nellie, and I want to have you back to talk about all kinds of other things you got going on. Got going on, but we appreciate your time. We'll talk to everybody later. Thanks. Bye. Bye.
Unknown:Well, friends, that's a wrap for this week's after the confession, thanks so much for subscribing. It's your support that makes this podcast possible. And don't forget to visit our website to sign up for our monthly newsletter. Sign up for the free sisterhood advantage discount club, and of course, connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tiktok, Twitter and Pinterest. You'll also find the video recording of all our episodes on the confessions website and our YouTube Channel. We'll see you next time when we confess again till then, take care of you. You.
