Speaker Identification
Speaker 1 - Host: Nicole Brandon
Speaker 2 - Production / Control Room Voice

[Opening theme music: lyrics evoke The Care Compass as a gentle light for elders, caregivers, and families navigating the soft hours of the night.]

Hi, it's Nicole Brandon with The Care Compass I am so honored and privileged to be with you Each and every time that I am here It is an ever-unfolding journey And this evening I decided to speak to you on a personal level As we have so many phenomenal guests that we bring in And every aspect of having an aging parent And whatever that is that you are going through Whether that is somebody that is going through early stages That you want to take the keys away That you are looking for assisted living Maybe it is somebody with medical challenges Or you are looking for a wheelchair van You are looking for the proper walkers You are looking for nutrition You are looking for Medicare, Social Security Insurance, safety for the house Whatever those questions are We each have our own journeys And those of you that have been watching my journey We get these new surprises So in transparency I want to share with you As I am going through this I can tell you that is is a good thing And I have to share with you As I am going through this Because maybe it can help somebody

So today I have decided to be here by myself So I can talk to you about what has been going on with me Since the very last time we spoke

So my parents One of my parents is At a stage where memory care would be a possibility care is not nearly, he's not, my dad is not nearly ready to be in a memory care facility.

We have a fiduciary that was trying to push both my parents into a memory care facility in hopes of saving money and not having to have caregivers, which would be absolutely detrimental and could be a death sentence for my parents because my father, who is not ready for memory care to be constructed to lose his independence, do not have his friends, do not be going out, do not have the quality of life that he has just financially to be saving money on caregivers.

So I had doctor after doctor after doctor after doctor after doctor after doctor after doctor, there wasn't one single one of my father's doctors that thought that moving my father right now to memory care would be a good idea. They also that he could decline very quickly that it could cause an early death and that depending on where he's at, that my mom follows suit because my mom is happiest when she is with my dad and having to fight the system, having to go through the process of keeping my parents in assisted living, keeping my parents with care, trying to figure out the very best way to do that because even if they were in a memory care facility, my mom still needs 24 hour care. My mom went from a feeding tube to now being spoon fed baby food and every two hours my mom needs to be fed. Otherwise, she could aspirate if she has too much at a time and liquids. And so how do we navigate these tricky systems and give the quality of life to our parents. And that's it's a journey. It's a journey trying to find support. It's a journey trying to talk to adult protective services as trying to find elder care attorneys that could assist trying to find assistance if my dad is a vet. Are there assistance services they could help and can protect him and why is somebody that is supposedly a fiduciary and being able to take care of them and in charge of them and at a level in which they should be having my parents best interests at heart, just wanting to cut costs and the more and the need to cut costs at this time is heartbreaking and heart wrenching and an uphill battle and something that I struggle with every day.

And of course, when you're doing that, when you wake up and your very first thought is how do I keep my parents safe or during the day, you're trying to figure out who do I contact and spending hours online looking for agencies looking for sightings from court hearings looking for ways to keep them together looking for ways to be able to give them the best quality of life looking for facilities working with care agencies. And then it's very hard to navigate your own midst in the process of that. And how do we do that? How do we stay steady? How do we not become overwhelmed? How do we not fall off a cliff? How do we sit there and say, oh, my gosh, I missed a friend's birthday or oh, I didn't take care of that. And

I learned something quite recently. I was introduced to a cognitive development agency and this cognitive development agency not only helps people as far as keeping their brain sharp. So it actually helps prevent Alzheimer's and keeps your memory and keeps your mind and keeps the sequencing. They are working with seniors and actually being able to repair the brain, literally be able to give you more brain cells and more brain power. And even for people that are Parkinson's or had a stroke or that truly can reactivate brain activity. And the way that that works is so fascinating. But what I have learned in the research and we will post and I will bring them on so we can interview them directly and see everything that they are doing for these seniors.

My father, luckily, is going through this process and what it does in the reactivation of the brain pathways and of the thinking sequences is absolutely amazing because when you test you're learning that there is your emotional body and then there is the part of you that can sequence and then there's the part of you that can task. And there are different levels of brain activity. And for someone like myself or someone maybe like you who has had emotional trauma and I've talked about it at great lenses we've been doing research on cognitive function on brain camps. But for those of us in my age category whose parents are going through this, the woman that originally I spoke to that signed my father up for the classes, she was sharing how her mom was in the hospital and that her mom was an ICU. And when you are in the hospital and I personally went through this and you maybe personally have gone through this, but at one point I have talked about in previous shows my mom was on one floor of the hospital and my father was on the other floor of the hospital and I was literally running up and down between floors to be with my parents sleeping on the couch and my mom's sleeping on the chair and my dad's room living in the hospital, eating in the hospital, spending 24 hours a day in the hospital. And when you are in emergency mode, when you do not know if you've got a parent that's an ICU, if you've got a parent that has a stroke, if you have a parent that is now on dialysis or my mom needed the surgery for the feeding tube to keep her alive or whatever is that you're going through. My dad canceled my uncle with Parkinson's, whatever those things are that in that moment is your moment. Not saying my person's moment is more daunting than the next because every moment is daunting if it's so many love. It doesn't matter if it is your child, if it is your parent, if it is your beloved, if it is your friend, if it is someone that you just met, if it is your pet, when you are going through something and you see anything or anyone hurt, the natural care instinct kicks in and when it is someone that gave you life, your life is connected to their life and as their life is diminishing or as they are fighting to survive, you are there in the struggle, you are there in the moment to moment, second to second emergency mode of are they going to make it? What happens next? What do I do? How can I help? And at that moment, you're not thinking, oh, I need to do Andrea, or oh, I have to call this person back, or oh, I had this two o'clock appointment yesterday, or I have an appointment today that I had said or I have a Zoom call for whatever reason our brain, when it's an emergency mode, when you see somebody that's hurt, you see a car crash and you run over to help that person in the car crash, you're not thinking about where you need to go, you're just thinking that person needs your help in that moment. And then when the trauma or drama is over, all of a sudden the ambulance comes, they take the person away or all of a sudden you're in the hospital and they move them out of ICU and to eat run, or all of a sudden that person that you love is no longer with us and they choose to leave. And now that fight is no longer fighting in that moment, but our brains are in the emergency gear. So even though we may now have safety in the fact that they're still alive or they're moved or they're out of the emergency, or we may have this space once they have passed that we're no longer fighting to keep them alive anymore, but our brains don't know that we are no longer an emergency mode. Our brains are in that gear, just like a gear shift of a car. And so we go back to our lives, but our brain isn't going, oh, Zoom call today or oh, have to pick up the dry cleaning. It's not sequencing, it's still in emergency mode. And so what will happen is it seems like all of a sudden we're foggy or out of a sudden we're what people say out of sorts, right? It's not that we're out of sorts, it's that our brains have switched gears. Well, if you can imagine our parents who may have had a heart attack, who may have had a stroke, who may have had an angioplasty, an angiogram, or maybe they fell and they broke a hip, or maybe dad fell and he broke his whatever that is. Even though the then heal, even though they have a heart valve, even though they are now walking or talking again or whatever the surgery and that they have come through, they went through the cancer treatment and here they are now on the other side of the chemotherapy. Their bodies and brains have still gone through this emergency door and they can be stuck in that emotional emergency door and their brains don't go back to the sequencing that our brains did before that the tennis game of all these things that we have to do and all these thoughts that we have going on. And so the cognitive classes, the cognitive institute is able to reconnect these brain waves not only to prevent Alzheimer's or to stop the memory from failing, but to give us back memory, to give us back brain activity. If you had Parkinson's, you had a stroke, all of a sudden it can give you back your brain activity and all of a sudden people are getting younger and younger. My dad always says and wants to be like Benjamin, but and age backwards. We actually can do that. So we will post for you ways that you can go ahead and find out how to do these classes. You can do them in person. You can do them online. And one of my questions was that as my dad is doing these classes, as my dad is doing online, which I absolutely love and I cannot tell you what state the instructor is in that that is working with my dad, but he's working with my dad three days a week. I love, I just love knowing that there's something out there that can do this and not only brain activity, but his balance because he felt he broke his hips. So having that left brain, right brain having that activity is actually helping in an incredible way.

But I was curious if there was a study for caregivers because as my dad is doing the all of these classes, I'm wondering if the caregivers themselves are getting smarter and sharper and sharper because they are busy doing these classes with my father, which I absolutely love. So if you were going through your own trauma, drama, doors of anguish, I invite you to reach out. I invite you to send us an email. I invite you to write to me to share with me what is happening in your life. We have resources. I believe in the world, like literally the finger pulse and the tap to every expert and every specialist in every field. And if you are an expert or specialist in your field that is working on a new technology for a Parkinson's or for stroke or for Lyme disease or anything that people have going out there as shingles and that somebody can be experiencing. I invite you to reach out to me or let me know we will absolutely bring you on the show because there's so much you can do.

And I think that's what we can get a sentence. Somebody says, oh, this person has cancer. Oh, this person has whatever they have. And it's like the world shuts down for them. Instead of realizing there is nutrition, there is health, there is research. There are so many things that you can do that are positive and so many survivable ways to get to the other side. And also as a young person that is watching their parents go through this to realize that there are resources.

And sometimes it's a simple conversation I just had with a friend of mine the other day and his mom is in her late 80s and it was the conversation about taking the car keys away from his mom. We had this whole conversation about it. And for him it was a new conversation. He's talking to his brothers. It's a new conversation for me. It's a conversation I had years ago. And it was not an easy journey to have my father not be driving anymore, to have my mother not be driving anymore. That fight for their independence, how he wanted to drive and how she wanted to drive. And then my mom when she wasn't even driving anymore, when we were saying that my dad shouldn't be driving, my mom would say, well, all he can drive. And she had been driving for years. But I remember as a little girl, my dad going through that conversation with his own father and I remember his own father, like would run over mailboxes or knock over things in the neighborhood and trash cans and they were always worried. And so that's a simple conversation. Even though for us it might seem like a mountain. It might be a simple conversation compared to somebody that needs oxygen or somebody that's on dialysis or somebody that needs 20 for our care. Each conversation is its own mountain. Each conversation is vitally important because it's a conversation that matters to us.

So a beautiful presentation today, a wonderful presentation today about a senior day camp. And I absolutely love the idea of a senior day camp because it's a place where people go to have fun. It's a place where people go to socialize. It's a place where people go. And I was listening to some of the testimonial from the kids, our age kids, whose parents are going to the senior daycare. And they were saying that their parents are so excited, they're like kids going to camp that they're waiting by the front door and morning to be picked up or they're waiting for the car to take them there. And then they get there and all their friends are there and they're playing games or they're hearing music and they have all these activities and they have amazing events and fabulous food. And then they also have nurses on staff and they have medical care and staff and that doesn't matter what your mobility is, you can be there. And so do you know you can send your parents to day camp? I know that I have puppies and I know that the puppies can go to day camp and I was like, oh, what a great idea that the dogs can go on a play dates all day long. Our parents can do that too. So if your parents are not in a retirement community, if they are not in the assisted living, if they are not in memory care, but they are living on their own still and fighting to be on their own still and maybe you don't want them cooking because you're afraid if they put something on that it's going to catch on fire or maybe you don't want them to go on all day or maybe you can only afford somebody to come for nightcare or maybe you're there at night and they live with you but you work during the day and during the day you're terrified to leave your parents alone or your mom alone or your dad alone or whoever is living with you. The fact that you could send them to adult daycare I think is fantastic and the people that work at the adult daycare love the patrons that come in and they try to design the very best ideas and the very best activities and the very best surprises and they come in and so there are solutions. It's not about just sitting and saying well my parents at home and there's so many financial services and financial aids and things that are possible for you to be able to get assistance and get help. There are people that volunteer, there are pets that volunteer that go and visit seniors. There are teenagers that go and for community service or there are foster kids and there are orphans that don't have parents and being able to have a grandparent or somebody that can love on them or mentor them or nurture them is the greatest gift of all.

I can share with you that I have gone through deep dark doors and I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to say oh this has been all sunshine and roses and beautiful and light. It has not. I never imagined that things could be this difficult and I like a little enchanted magical being and yet every new surprise is something that you never imagined before. And you take a breath and you breathe and you take stock and you realize there is guidance and there is help and there is support out there and so I'm sharing with you so you can share with me. I'm sharing with you saying please feel free to write in. Please feel free to say I had an XYZ day or I just went through this or this is what I heard or this is what I'm being told they can't be right or is there any way that you know anyone who or is there any resource for or how can I help them experience whatever or what does it mean or what does this say and I learned about signing things that I shouldn't have signed right I I signed something that totally turned my world upside down without realizing what I was doing because I thought I was protecting my mom and you know the most gargantuan thing I ever did but I didn't know right I didn't know there wasn't a lawyer standing next to me saying hey you should be rather this is what this mean you and sometimes when people are talking to you in the hospital they are you know the community workers and they say okay this is what we can do when we can put them in when we can send them to this rehab facility or we can do this with them or we can send them home with home health from the hospital.

You don't know what those rehab centers are like you don't know what the survival rate is of those rehab centers you're saying oh they must be good because it's on the list from the hospital the hospital wouldn't send my parents to a place that isn't perfect or fantastic or is not going to take care of them it's the hospital it's their reputation now those are the local rehab centers that is the list of the rehab centers they give it to you they just print it out from the paper whatever and I can tell you they are not all the same. They

I almost lost my mom in a rehab center and had I not been there the very moment that I was there my mom would not be with us today she would she would be gone and the fact that this staff has such little power because they have to get approval from the attending doctor but the attending doctor is not there and they could page him and it could be a couple hours and they still haven't reached the attending doctor and they can't do anything because they don't have the power to do anything and had I not been there and called her primary care doctor and said something's happening and I don't think my mom's going to make it she's something and the doctor said the staff may not have the power to get her to the hospital now but you do you as her family member have every right to get her out of there and to get her to the hospital now and when the paramedics came they said she was like two or three minutes away from not having still been alive had I not been there had I not taken action to get her help of the rehab center and into the emergency room at that time she wouldn't be here today and then other rehab centers that I had her in were gyms they could have been one of the oldest facilities you know didn't have all the modern artwork or you didn't have all the you know 3D printers and the equipment and whatever that is and the fancy beds that went up and down and the prism TVs on the wall or whatever it is and might have been a facility that has been around for 80 years as a rehab center but the care they like they it was like there was their own mother every single person that worked there loved on her carrot on her checked on her cheered on her and she couldn't get up they rallied to get her up and she couldn't eat you know they played games as if she were to get her whatever it was that they did to make her feel encouraged to heal and to get well and then she had a downside and they called me and said we think that she should go to the hospital we don't think that she can make it here and we think that she needs to go to the hospital but it's your call and this rehab center knew enough and cared enough to be able to take steps to be able to get her back to the hospital which we did and getting her back to that hospital turned everything around because that's only we were able to give her the feeding tube was when she was able to start being nourished and she started to get stronger and now here she is almost two years later with the feeding to remorried when she is eating and she's still with us and now she's walking and she's talking and she could tell you she loves you and she was doing exercise classes and then at that time she couldn't sit up she couldn't say her name she couldn't speak so you have rehab centers that are worthy you have rehab centers that are not because the hospital gives you the list does not mean that they are all equal does not mean that they are going to take care of your parents does not mean when you go through a rehab center and you hear people crying for help in the halls and it's not where you want your parents to be when you're in a rehab center and all of a sudden their clothes are missing because things are being stolen all of a sudden you know there and there's like well you know I do what happened to it was their name on the inside so do you there are things that we'll go through there are things that you're going to learn there are things that as we go through these steps of aging it was my birthday last week and my dad kept calling and singing me happy birthday and kept saying he wanted to take me out and do something special for my birthday but he is not in a position to be going out and taking me out right now for my birthday but the fact that he wanted to do that and all I wanted to do on my birthday was to spend the day with my parents there were a million things when I was younger you know every year I wanted a party every year I wanted to be so rounded by my friends every year I wanted to travel I wanted cake and I wanted music every year I wanted celebration of my life that was for me birthdays are a really big deal and this year the most important thing to me was just to be with my parents to say I don't know how many more years or days or times I am going to get to be with them and it is air birthday my mom gave me birth my dad obviously had a lot to do with it and together they created me and all I want now as a gift is to be with them to be in their presence and so it changes and it's going to change for you I can't tell you if you want a birthday party I can tell you what matters to you I had shared on one of our previous broadcasts that my dad always wrote me these incredible valentines and got me Valentine presents and and when my dad didn't get me a valentine card or a valentine gift that's when I knew things had changed right I he did not even know to do that anymore and that was hurtful for me and when I look at it it's so minuscule compared to a valentine card compared to health and their happiness and their joy the friends that call them and then the friends that are passing away and then how do you tell your parents when they're trying to call their friend John or their friend so whoever that they are trying to call that their friend is no longer there how do you share that information it's it's not an easy journey and there are not easy answers but there answers and there are ones that are full of laughter and there are ones that are full of joy and there are answers that are full of optimism and there are answers that are full of hope and there is support and I did not know that you know when I started this journey I never ever imagined that I would be in it the four years almost five years that I've been in it at this time

I received a phone call that my dad had cancer and then two days later that my mind might have been stage Alzheimer's in the same week how my dad had been in and now the hospital for five months they did not know what was happening and I had been through all of the tests and all of the highs and lows and blood pressure high high low high high low they couldn't figure it out and I talked to somebody the other day they called me and they sang well they fought in the hospital and the blood pressures everywhere and I'm low low and I know they can't figure it out and it took me right back to when I was in the hospital and every time they would yell and for a test and my not knowing what was happening and not knowing the right questions to ask and not having the answers and I remember having holidays catered and bringing in like the entire holiday into the hospital arm just to be able to celebrate. I have to do the puppies in the control booth is a little bit more than that. Can we hear all the little puppies going absolutely full of love? I am going to mute you for a second. Oh perfect well fantastic.

Speaker 2 - Production / Control Room Voice

[The control room notes that the puppies can be heard in the background.]

Speaker 1 - Host: Nicole Brandon

I am being told that you can hear the little puppies which I am so glad so that I have to tell you I have emoji who is two pounds eight ounces and she is absolutely adorable she is a micro-Pomeranian at two pounds eight ounces and then heaven my dog, heaven who is a miniature American Eskimo and heaven is a healer and so actually this is the perfect time as I hear them in the background to tell you a story so heaven is a medical dog and I did not know that when my dad had cancer I just got in heaven as a puppy and as we would wander through the corridors she would stop and all of a sudden somebody's blood pressure would drop or all of a sudden a machine would go off and she would sit on the edge of the bed of people that were really sick she'd wander in and finally the chief of surgery came to me and said I actually think your dog is a medical dog you might want to have her tested and I did and she absolutely is so she did 10 months of medical training and she is on the United Nations emergency rescue team as a dog and she actually is something where to happen like the Boston Marathon they could put a medical pack on her and send her through a crowd and she could actually get to somebody faster than a paramedic faster than a fire truck she's amazing could put a little medical pack on her she'd be able to bring it or she'd be able to go get help for somebody that was hurt she's able to bring medicine to somebody that's her she does the little heart palpitations she is absolutely amazing and then I did a second 10 month certification for her to be able to do pediatrics so she can go and work with kids so we were on a plane and there was a little girl that was on the plane and she was in the waiting area for the flight and she was holding a stuffed dog and tears were running down her face and her whole face was staying brown with tears and the mother was in a military uniform and her mother was being deployed and the little girl she was maybe five or six years old was going to spend the summer with her aunt and when I saw what was happening I immediately went to the gate and I said hi I see this little girl this little girl she's holding the stuffed dog I actually have a real dog and maybe you could change the seat so she could sit next to the real dog and the one this is so how very nice of you and she sort of does the tap tap tap tap thing and the next thing I know she sits us next to this little girl the little girl is in the wind to seat and I'm there with my dog and as soon as I sit down she goes a dog great and she starts to pet my dog and I said her name is heaven and she goes already heaven and she starts telling my dog all about her life that she just graduated nursery school that her mom was going away and she was going to spend the summer with her aunt and there was no dad in this scenario just her mom was going away she was going to live with the answer certainly I didn't ask and a little girl starts showing pictures of her family to my dog and as we're sitting there this flight attendant comes and she goes to lean over me to check the little girl's ID and the flight attendant hands start shaking and the flight attendant starts to cry and the flight attendant says I'm so sorry I'm terrified of dogs I apologize I was mauled as a child I just dogs really frighten me and the little girl's gonna so okay her name is heaven you just kind of like this and the little girl is playing with my dog and the woman checks the ID and every time the flight attendant came back the little girl goes she's nice you should like her and took the flight attendant hand and would run her hand over my dog heavens back and the flight attendant would like just tap her and tap her and then finally the flight attendant would see that she wasn't doing anything and heaven be you so good heaven would just like lay there silently and let this flight attendant put her until finally every time the flight attendant was petting her more and more and more and then finally mid flight I went over and the flight attendant was in the jump seat and I brought heaven to her and I said um you can hold her if you like she loves to be held and she's in a full to work and I said well if you want and I put my little dog heaven in the flight attendant's hands and she starts screaming at the top of her lungs I'm like dumb dog when you take pictures and all of a sudden all these people are taking pictures by the end of the flight she was in love with this dog she kept coming and she kept petting heaven and at the end of the flight the flight attendant took the little girl to be with her aunt and to escort her and I went with as well just to see the little girl off and her little girl is crying good boy heaven and the flight attendant is crying good boy heaven and so this little dog was able to bring healing and love and so maybe it's even that simple maybe it's as simple as I have these little ones reminding me I'm a background here whether you can hear them or not but maybe it's as simple as a pet of having a cat or a dog or an animal that your parent can love on and have companionship with they're also incredible service dogs that are available to you so if somebody has medical needs if somebody is blind if they're in a wheelchair if they have seizures if they have epilepsy whatever it is if they have medical alert if you're afraid they're going to have a heart attack there are dogs and you can actually have the dog trained either organizations that match you with your dog and that dog will get trained that you like to go to Broadway shows or that you write on buses or the dog is trained that you play mahjong or bingo or the dog is James you know that you play poker that you go to the doctors appointments or whatever it is that you go from and that they train that dog and they train you and then you're trained together and you have a graduation class but what happens is when a dog let's say is trained for somebody that is blind so that person that is blind is doing a video and they say okay I like Broadway shows and I like to go to the bakery and get my bagels in the morning or oh I like to go to poker games or mahjong or I like to go to antique sales or like whatever that is I like to I take the bus or I take a cab or I go see my grandchildren or whatever that person says that their life is like at I live upstairs I live in a condo and an elevator I live in an old rickety house whatever that is and then they're going to train that dog for that person and find the right dog for that person and that dog's in school and the person's in school and then they're in school together and you have this beautiful graduation let's say that dog is now working as a service dog for somebody that is blind when that person passes or that person is no longer in need of that service dog they service dog does not get retrained to be with somebody else that's why that service dog was trained as a service dog for that person but that dog very often now can be a companion dog for event for somebody that has anxiety somebody that has PTSD somebody that needs a companion that needs that calming that needs that security and safety of having someone near them and that dog now has a new home with that vet that and they're able to give them something extraordinary or that dog could be going to your parents that dog can go into somebody that actually needs that kind of companionship and love and so look for the services look for what is out there that is available to you because there is so much whether that be in transportation that the GoGo transportation services that will pick your parents up and take them to doctor's appointments or take them shopping and to the food market or to the department store and pick them up afterwards or if they just want to go to one art gallery or they want to go to an event they will drive them they pick them up where much like uber or they're uber is just for seniors or there are people that will just drop that but you can just hire somebody just to go sit with your parents and i know when my father goes to his oncologist they take his blood and then he has to wait like an hour and a half for the results to come back before the doctor sees him and then he's waiting in the waiting room for the doctor to come in and then the doctor comes in and then afterwards he has to go and make an appointment or get whatever his lab tests that he needs and so the companion that goes with him that sits with him that hour and a half in the waiting room that sits with him in the doctor's office waiting for the doctor to come in and they're great because i've had companions that have gone in with him that have the big-band music or the old radio broadcast or they put on comedy shows or they get him up dancing in the waiting room he's waiting for the doctor and their jitterbugging and the waiting room whatever that is but that you can actually match the right person you know i my mom needs somebody that's constantly taking care of her my dad needs some of that entertains him that listens to his jokes that keeps him company he needs somebody to be able to do that in this long span of time for him to be able to make sure that he gets there safely make sure there's appointments are met but also somebody that is able to engage him so he is just not sitting there by himself there are all of these resources for you like in the dark today because i'm not in the studio it's really interesting is a man i feel like in a portal talking to you but i absolutely love it and so i ask and i truly want for you to be able to as i'm doing all of this saturday thinking and sharing with you that every resource that i have had available to me which has been vast and many i want to make available to you i want to be able to let you know this is what you can do these are the opportunities these are the organizations these are the people these are the companies these are the tools these are the sequences even the safety you know things like in in my parents bathroom i went and i got like the the rubber from the that like a few halves a baby that's learning to walk and you put it around a coffee table so they don't bang into the little baby bumpers and stuff like that put it around like the sharp bathroom sink and i just went in we just glued it around the sink so that way there there is no sharp edges like something so simple on amazon something that's like four dollars and ninety nine cents can protect somebody from falling and getting hurt it doesn't have to be extravagant it's just the resources are there there are things that you can do for your parents and for yourself to change your life to give you a happier life a better life a more joyful life a more playful life a more peaceful life a more serene life a life fulfilled and certainly one that is filled with literally all of the information that you possibly could wish for and want and imagining your future so i will leave you with just a few little tiny nuggets of special magic as we all have special magic so my dad when i call him now he says you know there's somebody with one blue eye on one brown eye that loves you is usually what my dad would tell me and my dad has two different-colored eyes he has a blue blue eye and a brown eye and ever since i was a little girl my dad would tell me that he was from Mars and the way you tell Martian daddies human identities they have two different color eyes and invisible antennas and that i was special and gifted and he would tell me he was on this Mission Earth to guide me to greatness and mind's why he was here so when my dad goes in to give blood anytime he's tested my dad ever said did you ever test Martian blood before because i'm in Martian and now when i call doctor's offices if i call the oncologist if i call the pulmonologist if i call the cardiologist if i call wherever i am i'm reaching out even you know skin doctors or foot doctors they'll always say are you the daughter of the marsh which i absolutely love so what is your special what is your special i know that there's always a something that you share with your mom or your dad or your aunt or your uncle um you bonus mom bonus dad that we have your brothers your sisters that might be going through health challenges well we all have that one thing that nobody can touch that nobody can explain and you don't have to share it with anybody it can be your own just special a friend of mine her husband had park incense and they had these little jokes about cats they love these cat videos that they used to watch together and just even like a little meal or whatever would would share that that moment um i aunt um was very ill and she said that she was in bed with her Kindle and i thought she said with her kendall and i said you're in bed with your kendall and she started saying and she said i wish yes we're having a cigarette me and my kendall but that became our go-to just kendall they didn't have to say much more than that it just made us smile and it just made us laugh so you can pick an emoji on your phone and say i know that you might not be feeling well enough to call me but if you're thinking of me if you see a show and you think of me or you see something in a store window and you think of me or you just happen to all of a sudden having milkshake and it made you think of me whatever it is just send me this emoji just send me this little smiley guy or this little heart or whatever that is little champagne bottle and i'll have one that i'm gonna pick and i'm gonna pick this one for you and one i think if you are going to send you this and it just might be that in your phone all of a sudden that image comes in and you know the person is thinking about you without you having to have any kind of heavy conversation without you having to do some big check-in or call or have them not feel well enough to have a conversation you can just send this little emoji and so ask ask make that connection what is your special or what is your sign what is and you know and you can even ask for you know if you were ever not here how would i know that you were still with me is it a book that falls off the shelf is it a sound is it a butterfly is it a bell that um have those conversations now because then we can say afterwards gosh it's just thinking about them and i heard that bell and i know it was them right like whatever that is because you've you've had those conversations so pick your special my recommendation today is pick your special pick your special thing it's the one thing that you share with that person that you love without it having to be the spring thing just something that makes your heart a late and jump and skip with joy like my dad being a Martian you know i'm the Martian's daughter and i know what that means right it's i know what that means all the time you know when we were little we go to planetarium and father's dick because my father wanted to visit his family from the other world like that's been the running thing my whole life and now it's more special than it's ever been before and so find your special name that's my recommendation know that i am here for you i am here for you always write to me all let me know your thoughts let me know what you're going through don't be alone i did it i know not to do it um i wish that somebody was there to guide me which is why i created the show the Care Compass so i can help guide you in any direction that you are looking to be guided and if you are looking for specialists you're looking for an expert let us know we will bring them on the air we will make sure that they are here for you and if you are a specialist or expert reach out as well because we certainly want to hear um all of your guidance all of your thoughts so until i see you next time i am wishing you love i am wishing you comfort i am wishing you care i am wishing you joy i am wishing you happiness and know you're not alone i am right here beside you and i am walking with you and i'm walking with you and that work turns into light