Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:06] Hey there. Welcome back to the life in the sandwich lane.
[00:00:09] This is a place where I'm talking about the season of life that I'm in right now, where I'm still somewhat taking care of kids. They're young adults.
[00:00:19] I'm taking care of my parents, I'm trying to take care of my marriage, take care of my work, and sometimes I remember to take care of myself.
[00:00:28] So my name is Wendy and today I want to tell you about how yesterday was just one of those days.
[00:00:37] And it's a day where I say, you know what, I'm going to have to step away from the office for a few hours. I'm going to take mom to two doctor's appointments. It'll be easy.
[00:00:46] And by the end of the day, you're just sitting in your car wondering how it became your job to help coordinate and manage medical calendars, paperwork, emotional support, parking specialist referrals, and figure out what the heck is going on with the whole healthcare system.
[00:01:07] But before I tell you this story, I want to say something that really matters to me. I'm not here to air my family's dirty laundry. They may hear this at some point or somebody I know may hear this at some point and think, why in the world is she telling us all this?
[00:01:21] I'm not here to tell you every private detail of my parents lives, my life, their medical history, or what's going on with business.
[00:01:28] I'm not here to make anybody the butt of a joke, a punchline, anything like that, especially people that I love. And I'm not here as an expert on caregiving, aging parents, Medicare medical systems and what any other family should do.
[00:01:43] I'm a daughter, an only child trying to figure out one hour at a time. That's it.
[00:01:50] I've always been a planner, but I have learned you can have a plan, but one hour at a time is about all you can do.
[00:01:57] And the reason I'm sharing this is because caregiving is everywhere in my world right now. And you know, 25 years ago, 20 years ago, all I thought about and heard about was people having babies and juggling work and child care. Well, fast forward and now caregiving is the topic.
[00:02:17] So if I'm talking to a client, I hear them talk about their 89 year old father and then somebody else will talk about oh my mom fell, somebody will say something about their dad's diagnosis or a spouse's medication or we've been trying to figure out a sitter situation for our parents or assisted living options, toured a bunch of Facilities don't feel good about it.
[00:02:43] So you go out to dinner and you talk to your friends and you find out their parents are starting to navigate some of this stuff too, and that your friends are starting to go through it.
[00:02:53] And trying to get parents to accept help is really hard.
[00:02:57] So you sit in a doctor's waiting room for five minutes and somebody beside you, beside you says something that makes you realize they're carrying a story just as complicated and as exhausting as the one that I think I'm going through.
[00:03:12] Everybody is going through something.
[00:03:14] And you can read every book and you can go to every lecture and you can watch every webinar and you can talk to every friend, but until you're really in it, and until you're the person sitting in the waiting room going through the paperwork, trying to understand the referral, why the doctor can't speed things along, you're trying to keep your car from getting towed because the parking lot at the doctor's office is so packed, you. You realize you're not fully equipped.
[00:03:43] Maybe somebody is, maybe no one is.
[00:03:46] So this is not advice. This is not a how to. This is just me in the sandwich lane telling the truth about one day, what one day looked like.
[00:03:58] So a couple of weeks ago, we'll backtrack. My mom had what they call a tia.
[00:04:04] Some people call it a mini stroke. And since then we've been trying to figure out next steps. She stood up from a booth in a Mexican restaurant one Friday night with my daughter and my dad. And her vision went out on one side and a head pain on the other side. My daughter's in nursing school.
[00:04:19] She gets her to the car, they head to the er. She calls me and says, this is what's going on. I'll call you when I know something.
[00:04:26] So after a bunch of tests, that's what they think that they said that's what she had. So since then, we've been trying to figure out the next steps for that. And if you've ever had a parent with a health scare, you probably know what I mean when you say that. Follow up process feels like a game where no one gives you any instructions before they hand you the board or the cards or whatever. And they just say you need to follow up with your primary. We're sending a referral to a neurosurgeon.
[00:04:51] Okay, am I supposed to be calling? Are they going to call me? Nobody ever really says so. Of course you feel like you need to get on the phone and start following up.
[00:05:00] And then you realize that there's test results and medication questions. Do you stay on this for the hour after the 21 days, or do you go off of it? What if we can't get into the Doctor by day 21? There's referral specialist, insurance questions, phone calls, all the patient portals and the paperwork. And each person gives you just enough information to get you to the next person.
[00:05:23] So it's. I feel like it's like that human relay baton thing that you watch on TV with the Olympics.
[00:05:31] So my mom and I go to the same primary care practice, but we do not seem to see the same doctor.
[00:05:38] And I feel very fortunate with mine. I know I've known my doctor for years and years. I know he's busy, he's overworked, but when I see him, I feel like he listens, I feel like he cares. I feel like he tries not to rush, and I don't feel like I'm a burden. If my appointment's at 10:30, I'm back within five to 10 minutes. I'm out the door by 11.
[00:05:59] No circus.
[00:06:01] Not a whole bunch of people in the room.
[00:06:04] When you go to my mom's doctor, same practice, different suite, different doctor.
[00:06:09] It's a little different. And I'll say, my mom is not a passive medical patient. She comes prepared. She has her printouts, she's got her notebook, she has her bag, she has her pen, she has her daytimer, she has her lab work.
[00:06:20] She has questions. She wants to know why certain tests were not run. She has questions about medications and how long does she need it? Does she need more refills? Is there going to be an authorization issue with her insurance?
[00:06:33] She wants the doctor to explain something, and then she wants to talk about it again. If she doesn't feel like she fully answered, if it was fully answered.
[00:06:41] Now, if you're a doctor listening to this or working healthcare, you're probably like, oh, Lord. And I understand that, but I also understand my mom, because underneath the printouts and the questions and she likes everything buttoned up. She's type A, she's ocd.
[00:06:55] But I think some of her frustration is fear. She's 80, she's not happy about it. She's grateful to be alive, but she feels like when she turned 80, the wheels started falling off for her.
[00:07:06] And she's frustrated, and I think she's irritated that her body's starting to break down and things are happening that she doesn't have control over.
[00:07:15] And so, you know, she had a tia, she had a mini stroke. It can happen. Again, it can happen to anybody.
[00:07:22] And people are starting to use words that they've never heard. She's being referred to specialists.
[00:07:28] Um, and I feel like when she asks questions, maybe she's trying to get a little bit of that control back. And I understand that, and I think a lot of us do that we want an answer because the answers feel like a railing that we can hold on to. Like, I know this. I've got this. So yesterday, when we went to go see her doctor, we knew that she was going to have an appointment with the dermatologist later that day. She has a couple of skin cancer spots, and she was going to have a Mohs treatment.
[00:07:55] So my plan was simple. We are going to go to the internist. We're going to go have a quick lunch up the street. We're going to go to the dermatologist, we're going to come home. I'm going to finish working.
[00:08:04] Easy day.
[00:08:06] And I would like to apologize, but I keep saying that I thought it was going to be an easy day because clearly I did not ask enough questions ahead of time. And I ask a lot of questions. I just do. It's what I do for a living.
[00:08:20] I did not ask, how long do you think these appointments are going to take? I did not ask, would there be, like, a real procedure?
[00:08:27] I didn't ask what the procedure process might be. I did not ask what would happen if I don't move my car from the parking lot next door. I did not ask whether the waiting room would physically hold the number of people scheduled for that day. I did not ask whether my mother would form a small social club before the procedure was over.
[00:08:45] And I learned my lesson. So we went to the internist. That was first up. We got checked in, we got called back, and then we sat and we sat for an hour. Nobody went in that suite. Nobody came out of that suite. I have no idea what was going on.
[00:09:00] And I know some people are thinking, an hour, that's nothing.
[00:09:04] I know, but I don't have to deal with that. My husband doesn't have to deal with that. My kids don't have to deal with that. My dad didn't have to deal with that.
[00:09:10] We all have efficient doctors. I don't know what was going on yesterday. Maybe something crazy, but it seems like it's this way every time.
[00:09:19] So trying to coordinate appointments, then you start thinking, are we even going to make the afternoon appointment for the. For the leg skin cancer surgery?
[00:09:28] Your parents already anxious, and that hour felt long. That hour felt like Two, two and a half hours. And there's just some emotional pressure building. And I'm like, let's let him talk, and then we'll ask your questions. We know that's not going to happen.
[00:09:44] So the doctor comes in with an assistant or a scribe. He's got an iPad. She has a computer. There's just a lot of commotion going on.
[00:09:50] And I want to be fair here. I don't know how busy he is. I don't know what he's dealing with, but it just feels like there was not enough space for us in that conversation. He is like, I'm going to come in and be loud with my equipment, and I'm just going to start talking over everybody.
[00:10:08] And I feel like he had skimmed what was going on with her, but he had not slowed down long enough to really listen to her. And then at some point, he starts talking about imaging that showed my mom's carotid arteries did not look smooth. They look bumpy. She might need stents.
[00:10:25] There was this whole thing, some type of dysplasia that might be affecting the arteries. She might need to see a neurosurgeon.
[00:10:31] And Mom's like, why wouldn't I see a neurologist or a vascular surgeon? And so I said, I know the referral's been sent over. We've called. I know if it were an emergency, we would get in. Is there any way you can make a call for us? And he said, no.
[00:10:47] And so I asked him to re explain what was going on kind of in kindergarten terms. And he kind of said the same thing all over again.
[00:10:55] And so you start thinking about, oh, great, maybe we need to get in quickly. Maybe tomorrow I need to be calling that neurosurgeon again to see if she's on some type of list yet.
[00:11:05] Is there going to be another procedure? Is she going to even want to do it?
[00:11:10] And so that was kind of that appointment, and the doctor just kind of ended things. He got through what he wanted to talk about. He didn't really want to listen to her.
[00:11:24] And he said, I'll see you in four months.
[00:11:27] So it was a little frustrating. So we both left that appointment. There was a lot of commentary on the car on the way to lunch.
[00:11:33] We had opinions. We had some feelings. They weren't that great.
[00:11:37] I'm not saying that's the healthiest way to process that visit, but sometimes you just kind of have to let off a little steam. We went to lunch, sat there for a few minutes, headed up the street again, and we're going to the dermatologist. Easy enough. Dermatology, that's not messy. That's one of those clean office visits.
[00:11:54] So my mom's had a skin cancer on her leg, the last one that came out. It's taken forever to heal. She's got some other spots.
[00:12:02] She's changed dermatology practices.
[00:12:05] We pull in, we cannot find a parking spot anywhere. So we have to park at the doctor's office next door, walk, cross over a chain, walk through a lawn, walk inside, and found out it was surgery day at the dermatologist office.
[00:12:19] The waiting room was not much bigger than my average size dining room that I have in my house.
[00:12:25] Maybe 20 chairs all along the wall. There were maybe 35 people in it. And people were waiting so long, the staff had set up a card table with snacks and drinks, I guess, so people wouldn't pass out because they were having to wait so long that they could be able to get a snack. I'm not exaggerating.
[00:12:43] These people are not waiting for Botox. These people are not waiting for a skin check. They were all having procedures, but some of them had not gone back yet. Some of them had their ears bandaged up, their noses bandaged up, their legs bandaged up, their forehead bandaged up, all under their eyes, everything. And most of these patients were older, probably like 80, 85 and up. So they had a caregiver or two with them. They were wheelchairs. There were walkers. There was a lot of equipment everywhere.
[00:13:10] And so we wait and we wait. And I remember looking around that room thinking, everybody here has a story. A lot of people in this room are caregivers just like me, but they're even farther down the curve than I am.
[00:13:21] So I need to just sit here and keep my mouth shut. I'll talk to Mom a little bit. Broke out the laptop, started doing a little work.
[00:13:27] And, you know, you see people holding Mom's purses. You see people trying to keep older people calm. A lot of people in there missing work.
[00:13:38] And so we're all just sitting there again, waiting at the doctor's office.
[00:13:43] So then my mom starts talking to the woman next to her, because that's what my mother does. She could be at the grocery store, the dmv, a cheer competition, an airport, a funeral, a doctor's office, stand in line at the grocery store.
[00:13:57] And she's already made a connection. She does not make small talk.
[00:14:01] She conducts a full relational investigation.
[00:14:04] She wants to know where you're from.
[00:14:07] Do you know any of these people?
[00:14:09] And this is why she's here. Why are you here? And I'm sitting here thinking, oh, this poor woman, she came here for surgery. She has been adopted by my mother. But then something really sweet happened that kind of just softened the whole day.
[00:14:25] They figured out that this woman knew my great grandmother, my mom's grandmother that she loved dearly.
[00:14:32] She died in the early 80s.
[00:14:35] They found out they were kind of from the same area and that this woman lived right up near where my grandmother had lived.
[00:14:43] And Lola's barking in the background.
[00:14:46] And so suddenly this was not just waiting room chatter. This was family history. It was a connection and made me realize how small the world is.
[00:14:56] And Lola's still barking. I'm sorry, but I felt like my grandfather was there, my mom's dad, because every time that we went somewhere when I was a child and growing up, he could walk into a room and he could find the connection. He could meet someone for five minutes and somehow figure out that your families have worked together, gone to school together, or related somehow. I mean, we really, within five minutes, anywhere we went, I'm like, here he comes. He's bringing another one. We found a cousin. We found a for former coworker. We found a doctor that he went to once. Something that's just who he was.
[00:15:29] So here we were in this crowded, loud, chaotic waiting room no bigger than my dining room.
[00:15:35] I'm thinking, what is going on? Why are we going to be here this long? Everybody's wrapped up like a mash tent, and my mom's talking to a woman who knew my great grandmother.
[00:15:45] And the funny thing is, I think about my great grandmother all the time because the office doors in my office are these black French doors. And they came from the interior of her house. When we got ready to tear her house down, it was the only thing not broken in the house. And so my dad pulled them out for me and I had them refinished. And so I have my over 100 year doors here in my office. So every time I look at them, I think about her. And for a second, with all that going on, it felt really comforting.
[00:16:13] And, you know, I like to think maybe my grandma, my grandfather, was like, hey, this is just business. Just go in here, make the most of it. You're not alone in this room. Make some connections, talk to some people. Don't sit here and just be a grump about things. But then they called my mom back and they let me come back with her. The surgeon looked at her leg and talked about the spot that needed to be removed. And that the other area probably needed wound care.
[00:16:36] And I was grateful that someone said that, wound care, because she really needs to get that healed up. And it gave us the next step. And so next steps. A lot of times, even though you think, oh, it's another appointment, it's something else to coordinate, at least you know there's a path for things and you're not just sitting around wondering what to do.
[00:16:55] So the surgeon said, you know, we'll send you to wound care. We're going to go and remove this spot.
[00:17:00] And then they said, you have to leave.
[00:17:05] And my mom's like, I don't want her to leave. I want her to stay here and hold my hand. I'm gonna get numbed up. This is gonna hurt. I'm gonna be in here by myself while this numbs. I'm scared. And they said, no, there's really not enough room for everybody back here.
[00:17:18] If something goes on, we'll go get her, but we're gonna numb you up. And they want me out to the waiting room.
[00:17:25] And so I'm texting her, and I said, if anything goes on or you want me to come back, let me know.
[00:17:32] So I go in the waiting room, and I hear the woman at the front desk say, if you park next door, they're probably going to tow your car. She didn't say it to me, but she just kind of set it out to everybody. And I thought, tow my car?
[00:17:43] Are you kidding me? After all this? My car might get towed. So my mom's back there. I grab my stuff. I'm like, I'll do this quickly.
[00:17:52] I'm thinking, I need to let my dad know that there's going to be a wound care calling from the Peyton hospital.
[00:17:58] And so I got. So I'm like, please let my car be there. It was there. So I walked next door, got in the car, drove around, kept driving the circle, driving the circle, driving the circle. And then the spot right in front of the door opened up, and I was like, ha.
[00:18:15] It's like the heavens opened up. And they said, here you go, Wendy. Here's your parking spot. So I parked, and I sat there, and I looked down at my phone, at my mom, says, can you come in here? I need you. I told one of the texts to come find you. He's looking for you.
[00:18:30] I'm hurting. Can you come back? So I'm like.
[00:18:33] So I go back in the waiting room again, and she's in the waiting room, and she's already had her leg worked on, and she has Found that lady again. That lady's all bandaged up under her eye and they're just talking and talking and talking. And then she had met some other man next to her named Ken. And they're all talking and she said, I'm chatty. And she named her first name. And he said, well, I'm chatty Ken. So the three of them are just sitting there talking and then they call her back again later.
[00:19:05] So by the time we walked in to the time we left was 3 hours and 20 minutes.
[00:19:12] So I think, why did I not ask questions about how long this was going to be? When I go to the dermatologist, I. I'm there for 30 minutes max.
[00:19:23] So I realized maybe I'm just not the ride to the doctor or the person who just has a couple of things in their notes, but maybe I need to start asking more questions, keeping up with paperwork, asking more ahead of time. Like how long do you think this procedure is going to be? But I'm still a daughter. I can't be the boss. That's like running all over the place, bossing them around. You didn't tell me this, you didn't tell me that.
[00:19:47] But I don't know, it's just. It's just a lot. So after the appointments, I went back to my parents house and the day was not over yet.
[00:19:58] So my dad had asked me days ago to bring over some paperwork from my grandmother's estate.
[00:20:03] Deeds, farm property information, tax documents, a big zipper case full of papers. It feels like I just kind of tote this thing around when he needs it. Their CPA had given them more guidance about some paperwork because they had gifted farm property to me late last year, or my mom had.
[00:20:20] Somehow they were having to figure out values and all this. And so he's like, sit down. We're going to research these assessed values online. I need you to write it all out right now. And I'm thinking, the dogs haven't been out. I still have to finish this newsletter. I have several phone calls to make. And he's like, I've got to get this done today. I've been waiting for you.
[00:20:39] So my dad's an engineer when it comes down to the math. He wants equations, he wants everything laid out.
[00:20:45] And I'm sitting there thinking, I have spent the day trying to keep my car from being towed and now I'm not being spared from having to calculate property appreciation.
[00:20:55] But this is what life looks like. This is just kind of life in the sandwich lane.
[00:21:01] So I came home and I remembered I still had work, clients, responsibilities. Believe me, I had not forgotten that all day. The guilt that I put on myself is ridiculous.
[00:21:12] So why am I sharing all this? It's not because I think that our story is the biggest story or the hardest story out there that I think it's probably one of the easiest.
[00:21:19] And there are people carrying far more than I'm carrying right now. And I'm sharing it because I know I'm not the only person trying to hold several worlds together. And somebody I know may listen to this and say, well, why would I want to do business with her? She's got all this going on. We all got stuff going on. If you say that you don't have anything going on, you are a boring person.
[00:21:41] But I did start to wonder, how much support are my parents going to need and what's that going to look like and how do I help them without losing myself or taking time away from my clients?
[00:21:51] How do I keep working as much as I'm working and I'm wanting to grow the business more? Both kids are out of the house.
[00:21:57] My husband's teaching all the time. He teaches for two different universities.
[00:22:03] How do I stay present for everybody and make room for all this?
[00:22:08] So I'm just learning as I go. It's one hour at a time, one appointment at a time, one question or maybe a couple of questions ahead of time.
[00:22:18] And I really am open to hearing from people who've been through all this, because there is no one right answer. I don't think there is.
[00:22:27] Every parent, every family is different. Everybody has different finances, every health issue is different. Everybody's got different relationships, history.
[00:22:37] But sometimes it helps to hear we went through that too, and here's what we did, and we went through that too, and we didn't do anything right.
[00:22:45] And sometimes it's good to know what questions they had asked.
[00:22:49] I have a business coach and I was in a group with a couple other people months and months ago, and one of the ladies had prepared like a Trello board, a project management board of all the different things you need to keep track of with your parents, like medications, the questions, all the contact information, any new symptoms they've talked about because, you know, you take them to the doctor and they tell the doctor everything's fine.
[00:23:13] So that. That was great to have. Sometimes it helps just to know you're not a terrible person because you're tired, confused, frustrated, worried how all this is going to get figured out. You really can't worry about it, but you're human and you're learning.
[00:23:29] So if you're in this season, I hope you give yourself some grace. I am trying to give myself some.
[00:23:36] Because the truth is, you can read all the books, you can make all the plans, and you can talk to all the experts. But until you're in that waiting room holding someone's purse, checking your phone, wondering if your car is going to get towed, trying to remember the name of a medical cond medical condition you heard that morning in the internist office and realizing that your mom has made friends with everybody on her side of the waiting room, you do not fully know what it feels like.
[00:24:01] And I did not fully know either. Not until now.
[00:24:05] So thanks for listening to this episode of Life in the Sandwich Lane. If this episode made you laugh, cry, roll your eyes, or just look around your house for a giant zipper case filled for paperwork that somebody in your family's looking for, share it with somebody who may be walking through this season, too.
[00:24:24] And if you've been caregiving with your parents or other relatives and you're just in the middle of it, I really want to hear what helped you. What do you wish you knew earlier?
[00:24:32] What questions did you learn to ask?
[00:24:34] Are there any systems that make life easier? What helped you stay connected to yourself and the people that you really love when you're trying to help everyone else? I'm not looking for perfection.
[00:24:44] I am just learning. And I have a feeling a lot of us are.
[00:24:49] Next time, I'm going to talk about what happened after I got home that night, when the day got quiet enough for the real realization to hit me.
[00:24:57] Because I think yesterday was not just a hard day. I think it may have been the beginning of a new layer of my life.
[00:25:04] So until then, take care of your people and definitely take care of yourself.
[00:25:10] Sam.
