Nurse Maureen‘s Health Show Podcast
Welcome to Nurse Maureen's Health Show Podcast where we dive deep into all things health, wellness, and everything in between. Hosted by a passionate nurse with years of frontline experience, we bring you expert interviews, real-life stories, and the latest insights on staying healthy. Nothing is off limits as we delve into menopause, mental health, sexual health and more. Whether we’re breaking down medical myths, discussing cutting-edge treatments, or chatting with top health professionals, this show is your go-to for practical advice and inspiring conversations. Let’s get healthier, together!
Nurse Maureen‘s Health Show Podcast
Navigating Grief and Loss: Insights from Carol Banens
How do you navigate the seismic shift that grief brings into your life? In this heartfelt episode, we sit down with Carol Bainens, who tenderly shares her journey after losing her husband Brian to cancer. Carol opens up about how her past losses, including the death of her sister, have profoundly shaped her understanding of grief. Together, we unearth the societal pressures that make grieving even harder—like insufficient bereavement leave and the reluctance to discuss loss openly. Carol's story illuminates the necessity of acknowledging our pain and the critical need for robust support systems.
Shifting gears, Carol and I delve into the transformative power of grief. How does such a deep loss alter one's capacity for compassion and understanding? We discuss the intricate process of decision-making post-loss and the concept of delayed grief, where unprocessed emotions can resurface with heightened intensity. Whether it's the loss of a beloved pet or dealing with complicated grief tied to dependency on the deceased, we explore how essential it is to consciously choose life despite the overwhelming sorrow.
In the final segment, we unravel the complexities of coping mechanisms and the unique nature of losing a child. Debunking common misconceptions, we clarify that the stages of grief popularized by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross were meant for the terminally ill, not those mourning a loss. Carol shares insights on the physiological impacts of grief, such as prolonged fight or flight responses and Takotsubo syndrome. We stress the importance of resilience, social support, and the courage to feel grief fully to integrate it into our lives. Join us for a poignant exploration of loss, resilience, and the path to healing with compassionate insights from Carol Bainens.
This podcast is brought to you by Life360 Innovations, creators of the Contino urethral insert, a non-surgical Health Canada licensed medical device for men with stress urinary incontinence. Contino is easy to use and blocks the flow of urine without the need for adult diapers or pads. More than just a medical device, the Contino care program connects you with experienced medical professionals and creates a personalized treatment plan that provides ongoing support so you can get back to life. Go to MyContinocom to see if Contino is right for you and book your free continence assessment. Get bladder leakage control with Contino and get back to living. Remember, go to Mycontinocom. That's M-Y-C-O-N-T-I-N-Ocom.
Speaker 1:Good evening and welcome to my Little Health Show podcast. I release these episodes weekly, typically on a Sunday night and just carrying on where I left off in Canadian National Radio. So thanks so much for tuning in to me. I really appreciate you joining me. We're still carrying on with the esteemed guests and great subjects for you to live your best life.
Speaker 1:But you know what Sometimes life ends. Sometimes it ends all too short, shockingly, or even after a long battle with a particular illness and humans. I think every single human if you've ever loved, you've experienced grief. Grief is the anguish experienced after significant loss, the death of a beloved person. They say it equates to the degree of love that you've had or how much you have loved. Joining me to talk about this very sad subject at times, but also a subject where we can walk through, get through and get to. The other side is Carol Bainens, and she shares her own story of grief but also helps others. Good evening, carol. How are you? I'm fine. Thank you, maureen. Thank you for having me, thank you so much for joining me and thanks for all the amazing work that you do. First of all, if you wouldn't mind, sharing your story with the listeners you do.
Speaker 2:First of all, if you wouldn't mind sharing your story with the listeners, yes, of course.
Speaker 2:Actually, it's six years next week that my husband, brian, died. He was diagnosed with cancer in 2012. And then we went on that cancer journey that people do and you know surgeries for lung cancer and and all of that radiation and as his health declined and all of that radiation and as his health declined, I was also dealing with a sick mother in the UK, a friend with Alzheimer's here working full time as a physical therapist dealing with patients with chronic pain, and so I had my plate very, very full. I wished I'd had more time available to spend with Brian. Of course, you know, in hindsight, I'd had more time available to spend with Brian. Of course, you know in hindsight and he passed away on June, the 5th in 2018. And I have experienced grief. I lost a sister when I was nine. You know I've lost jobs. Grief is any significant loss. Subsequently, I've lost both my parents. I've lost pets, so but this was very different and I thought I knew what I was going to feel. I had no idea.
Speaker 2:And I also thought, because I knew Brian was going to die, I was prepared. I was not prepared for what I felt afterwards.
Speaker 1:Of course not. I don't think anybody can be prepared for grief. Grief can be a burden, but it's also an anchor, and do you ever get used to that weight?
Speaker 2:Yes, and you know it's harder than you think and it takes longer than you think. That's in my experience, and you know I think so much. The way we respond to grief depends very much on how it's been modeled for you. In the past I mentioned my sister died. We didn't have a funeral, a memorial. It was 50 years ago or more yeah, 50 years ago. That's how it was in England. You kept calm and carried on. So of course, when Brian died, that was what I thought I had to do. I went back to work very soon after he died and I burnt out. I couldn't cope looking after other people's pain. But also, you know we've got the societal pressures like we don't really want to talk about grief. You get three to five days bereavement leave. Well, you haven't even had a funeral by then. So how can we expect people to handle their grief when nobody talks about it? So I'm so glad to have this opportunity to chat to you about grief.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks you so much for coming on the program to talk about it because it's such an important subject you mentioned, your sister died. You lost your sister when you were nine years old.
Speaker 2:I was. I was nine, yeah, just nine. And how old was she?
Speaker 1:21. 21. 21. And were you allowed to talk about it in the family?
Speaker 2:No, I mean no funeral does sound a bit.
Speaker 1:Nothing, yeah Right. And so you sat with your pain. Your pain was internal, I would imagine.
Speaker 2:I think so and I think at nine you don't really realize it. I and I think at nine you don't really realize it. I don't think you appreciate it. But it's a trauma to not talk about somebody you loved, and she was a physical therapist, so guess what I became? And she was this beautiful spirit. And it's only now that my sister and I talk about her and I'm really sad for my parents. I'm particularly sad for my mother, who didn't know any better, didn't have the support that we can now offer people these days, particularly in England. You know you didn't get counseling and so, yeah, we need to talk about grief. It's going to happen to us all.
Speaker 2:It will happen to us all right.
Speaker 1:Of course, and of course at that age, when you're nine, you think people are going to be able to come back. That's not finite. When you're nine, you think people are going to be able to come back. That it's not finite. But there's also probably a shame associated with your sadness and perhaps even depression at that young age and also seeing the changes in the family around you as well, how they're responding to grief, because everybody responds to grief differently. How did grief change you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh and well, it's interesting, isn't it? I've always been pretty decisive. I've known what I want. All of a sudden, after Brian died, I had a hard time making decisions and I thought well, that's strange. And I think what's happened with grief is I've become more compassionate with those around me, with myself, I have a greater understanding that it is a normal process, as painful as it is, and that we have choices, choices of how we deal with it. And I didn't think about that, because I didn't think about grief really, until this happened. The choice of choosing life, of choosing to live the life you have left I think that is the biggest thing for me is that conscious decision of saying you know what? I was 55 when he died 54 actually and sitting there a year later thinking, well, I don't want to feel like this for the rest of my life, for another 30 years, so what am I going to?
Speaker 1:do, and oftentimes people will say to comfort others is you know your loved one would not have wanted you to live a sad remainder of your life. Grief often includes physiological stress, separation, anxiety, confusion, yearning, obsessive dwelling on the past, apprehension, nervousness about the future. You know, if people know that, can people delay grief? Or is grief something like? Can you put it on the shelf and say I'm going to deal with that next year and carry on with life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, people do. I can think of one person in particular who's done that. And sometimes you have to. If you're a young widow or widower and you have children, you have to keep going, you have to take the kids to school and the whole life around you. And sometimes you don't deal with your grief and then something happens.
Speaker 2:It might be small, it might be the loss of a pet, which is not small, having just lost my cat or something happens and then the grief hits you, and I think when Brian died, the grief of the loss of my sister is what made it harder, because all of a sudden I had to deal with that grief too. So, yes, I think there is something called delayed grief. People don't grieve in that moment, for whatever reason, and it may come back later. Or they throw themselves into things to try and distance themselves from the grief, to not feel it, because of course it's very painful, and so they get busy, or they open a charity for the you know, or try and find something to fill that void. But they still have to deal with the grief at some point, and I think the further you put it off sometimes, the harder it is to deal with it at some point, and I think the further you put it off sometimes, the harder it is to deal with it, because it comes back to bite you.
Speaker 1:Because does it eventually and always rear its ugly head?
Speaker 2:I would say it probably does. I mean I think it's 10% of people that go on to have complicated grief and that can be because of the dependence they had on the person for numerous other reasons, whether they already had mental health issues, physical issues themselves and they're just not dealing with it and they go into that yearning and living in the past and wishing. So that can be really challenging. Now I've lost your question.
Speaker 1:No, that's fine. You know you mentioned that your sister died and you know, effectively, your mom lost a child, which I think is probably the worst. I mean, you talked about pets dying and that's terrible, you know, because pets are unconditional love. They're around all the time. You know they love you, they don't want any money, they don't want anything from you, they just want to love you. It's a massive loss and I think people are very surprised at the grief that they face when their pets die. But when you lose a child, there's nothing comparable, really.
Speaker 2:I don't think so. Yeah, I agree, maureen. I think one of the things is we shouldn't compare our griefs, you know, because everybody's grief is different, and a pet to somebody who hasn't got children may be like a child. So I never want to compare. But as a mother imagining losing one of my children, I can't even begin to do that. And of course it changed my mother because she was not really that present for me as I went through my teenage years. I understand that now I didn't then, because how could she? She'd never had the help. She'd lost this beautiful daughter. Right, losing a child is is is very, very challenging.
Speaker 1:And there are different stages of grief that people go through. Of course, the shock, the denial, you know. One may not be as shocked if their parents die in their 90s, for example. You know, is it almost easier? I don't even like to say that because it's different, you know. But we expect people to die, then we don't expect people to die young.
Speaker 2:We do. I'm going to do two things here Talk about the stages of grief. First of all, because Elizabeth Kubler-Ross talked about the stages of grief and they were not for the griever, they were for the terminally ill. And I think this is a real issue for people, because they Google grief I know I did and they see oh, the five stages of grief, Wow, Okay, Denial and anger and bargaining. And oh, wow, I'm not angry and they were not meant for the grievous. So if anybody's listening to this, please don't think there's a linear stage that you have. You know, you're going through one step after the other and you're doing it wrong. I think that's the problem with this. Yes, you may go through some of these stages, but it's not a definitive way of grieving. There isn't one.
Speaker 1:That's so interesting. I had no idea about that. I've read her work.
Speaker 2:Isn't that interesting? Because I did my education with david kessler, who worked with with elizabeth cooper ross, and I think we can get stuck and I think a lot of counselors get stuck on this, who maybe are not experienced in grief saying, well, you should be going through these stages. No, you won't. Yes, initially you've got that numbness and shock. That's to protect you, because you can't absorb what's happened all at once. It's just too much, and so it comes in little bits and as that shock and that numbness wears off, then you start to feel the feelings. And these are the things that we have to do. We actually have to feel the grief to be able to integrate it course and to be able to live with it essentially if you enjoy the show.
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Speaker 1:I'm sure that some people have an unhealthy response to grief. If there is such a thing, what are some of the unhealthy ways that people might respond to the death of a loved one?
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course. Well, I think it's so painful that sometimes people turn to short term ways of coping, which can be too much alcohol, too much food, too much TV, too much exercise. You know the things that make you feel good or numb out for that moment or for you know a little bit, and then that can lead to further problems. I think it's difficult if people are not accepting of what's happened and are clinging in many ways to the past and I don't mean this disrespectfully. I miss my husband so much, of course, and I'm in a place now where I can be grateful for the life that we had together and what went you know, all of his life and I can look to the future with hope rather than always looking back in sorrow.
Speaker 2:And I think if you get stuck looking back all the time of what you've lost, what you've lost and how life will never be the same, I think it's very hard to move forwards in life and integrate that grief. I think we have to come to that acknowledgement that a grief is normal, it's going to happen. Sometimes it happens in the most awful ways, whether that's a death by suicide, addiction, accident, homicide, unexpected heart attack. All of these things are very hard, but in the end we have to accept that there is going to be life, birth and death and that we have a choice. We do need to move on. So I think that when we, you know, drink too much, all of these sort of things are not going to help you move on and they don't help you cope. It's a depressive way of doing it.
Speaker 1:Of course. Of course, and sometimes that's how people learned how to deal with problems in life or stress. The moment we learn about loss, our brain triggers the fight or flight response and that puts extra stress on our organs and bodily functions. And you know, typically people experience fight or flight for a few minutes to a couple of days, but after bereavement the effects of fight or flight can continue for a longer period. And what's that impact on grieving? Well, it's profound, because you don't feel calm on grieving.
Speaker 2:Well, it's profound, because you don't feel calm, you're anxious, you're worried, you're scared, you're fearful because it's a shock. And so now you're in this fight or flight and everything becomes difficult. You may have heart palpitations, your respiratory rate goes up, your aches and pains may all of a sudden be flaring up. You may find ones you didn't have before. You can't sleep, you eat too much or, you know, not eat at all. So it has this physiological effect on you and yeah, and that can go on Actually there's one more thing.
Speaker 2:Sorry, there's one more thing. Go right ahead. Yeah, sorry. There's something called Takotsubo syndrome and we've all heard of it. You know an older couple, you know maybe the husband dies and two weeks later the wife dies and we say, oh, they've died of a broken heart. It is actually called broken heart syndrome and it's very rare. But what happens is the left ventricle of your heart enlarges and it looks like this octopus catching pot in Japan called the takotsubo pot, and sometimes people can die from that. So it's a real, real thing. It is a profound shock to the body when you agree, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I mean you think of people who've spent 60, 70 years together. I've seen it in my clinical practice. You know, one dies and then the other dies shortly thereafter. Yes, you know. Does anybody grieve, right or well? Is there a way to do this?
Speaker 2:Yes, that's a really interesting question. I don't think there's any way to grieve right. I think we all do it in our own way. Maybe there's a way to grieve better and I think that is by not doing it alone, by talking, by acknowledging, by feeling the feelings yeah, it is so individual, but I think what we've when I read about it.
Speaker 2:We talk about resilience. You know how you've handled things in the past difficulties, all of this sort of stuff. If you're pretty good at bouncing back with that, then the chances are you're going to handle grief with a little more, little less hardship. I'm not going to say more ease, little less hardship, because you have the coping strategies, not the drinks, not the food, but maybe you know to talk to people. You know that this is a normal thing. So I think resilience is a part of grieving. There's a beautiful book by Lucy Hone, I think, called Resilient Grieving, and she lost her daughter in a car accident. I think it was her 10-year-old daughter and she was doing a master's in resilience and she's like well, how can I bring this into my grieving? And again it's that choice of okay, how are we going to grieve in the best way we can with what we have, and I think a big part of that is your social network and the support you have.
Speaker 1:You know, it reminds me of a friend of mine who lost her husband in her late 30s. She suddenly became so fearful that she would lose another member of her family. She said I just never thought about it, I never thought it could happen, and now I'm so afraid I might lose one of my children or my siblings, or or my parents. And and she lived with this fear. What do you say to somebody who's grieving? Are there any right words? Sometimes are there are no words.
Speaker 2:The best for people who sometimes I think no words are the best Maureen, even as somebody who's grieved. When I meet somebody who has just lost someone, I think very carefully about what I say, because I think if you bump into a friend in the street, you tend to say hey, how are you? It pops out of your mouth. Well, if you say that to a griever, you know they're thinking well, how do you think I am, how the heck do you think I am? And I hated it when people said that to me and I did a Facebook post on this. You know what is okay, what isn't. And one person said I hate it.
Speaker 2:When people say I'm sorry for your loss, and I thought well, I say that I think that we don't know what to say. I think the grievers are very sensitive. I know what not to say, which would be at least they had a long life, at least you can have another child, at least they're not in pain or God has another angel. Those type of things are not helpful. I think if you can go up and just say I have no words, I'm so sorry, or just give somebody a hug if you know them well enough. It's challenging to know what to say, but definitely don't say. And the other one is I know how you feel. I know we think we do, but we really don't. I lost a husband, somebody else has. We don't feel the same way. We have a bit of an understanding, but I don't really know how they feel. Maybe they didn't have a good relationship.
Speaker 1:And sometimes we want to say it, for us to comfort ourselves, to say we've done that, we've said something to them. You know, we in an effort to make them feel better yet, and we may not have done that at all.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly. And I think we always want to try and fix people and fix grief, because we are uncomfortable with pain, with tears, with sorrow, and so we tend to try and chip people up.
Speaker 2:And what I would say to people is you have to allow people to grieve, have, to allow them to validate this loss that they've gone through, and so just sitting with somebody, go for a walk with somebody, and allowing them to talk about their loved one over and over and over. That is helpful, rather than saying come on, smile, or it's three months, aren't you over it yet? No, no, you're not.
Speaker 1:Exactly. And then there's something called unexpressed grief, and I had a patient in my clinical practice who had this, which I know can lead to emotional or physical complications. In this case it was physical complications a woman who had lost her mother, who was in her mid 30s. She had was experiencing the exact same symptoms that her mother had of her mother's fatal illness and you know, she kept having tests over and over and, of course, everything turned up negative. There was no pathology. Tell me a little bit about unexpressed grief pathology.
Speaker 2:Tell me a little bit about unexpressed grief. Well, it's interesting. Unresolved grief, I think, can be linked to about 10 to 15% of psychiatric illness. Interesting Isn't it? And you know as a previous life as a physical therapist when people would come across my table with chronic pain, how much of that was emotional pain stuck in their bodies.
Speaker 2:So, much, and you know the body keeps score. We know this. So this poor lady had, yeah, had a somatic experience of her mother's pain, and so that's again where we need to start talking about grief and saying it's normal Talk to someone, share with a, a friend, pick who you share it with, because not everybody can hold the grief and hold that space for you, but don't shove it down. Listen, I shoved it down to go back to work and I gradually burnt out. I did, and I left my 37 year career as a physical therapist, which I loved, because I couldn't cope anymore. Wow, yes, I know, and so, yes, we do hold it down. I held it down. I was exhausted. It's exhausting to pretend you're okay right every time go in and smile.
Speaker 2:you know, with patients you don't go inside, you go and say hey, how are you? And then you have to hold space for their pain. So it was very challenging. And it wasn't until last year, actually, that I started writing poetry which is a bizarre thing. I've never done that before and I wrote a grief poetry book, kintsugi Yo Heart, the Art of Living with Grief. That was the most healing thing that I did. It allowed me to express all those emotions that I'd been holding down.
Speaker 1:Wow, that is amazing, that is absolutely fantastic and you bring up such a great point that you think you may have grieved or finished grieving, and then it comes up again. It's like the ocean the tides come in, the tides go out, as does the grief. Carol Bain, thank you so much for joining the podcast this evening. It's great information. I really appreciate you sharing your story with a smile on your face.
Speaker 1:I can hear your smile and your love for life and, of course, I'm so sorry for your losses in your life, especially for your husband, because that's extremely difficult. So, carol, how can people get in touch with you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can go to my website, which is wwwcarolbannonscom. I'm on Facebook, I'm on LinkedIn, so send me a message. If you go to my website, you can download a free meditation and ease your grief burst meditation. So I would love to speak to you and if you have any questions, just connect with me.
Speaker 1:And this is wonderful work you do, and that was Carol Bainens helping widows and widowers move from grief to gratitude using a six step process and, ultimately, to finding joy again. And I'm Maureen McGrath and this is my little health podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in and I would really appreciate a follow. Thank you, thank you so much for tuning in and I would really appreciate a follow, thank you. Thank you so much to Carol as well. Thank you.
Speaker 3:Thanks so much for tuning in. I'm Maureen McGrath and you have been listening to the Sunday Night Health Show podcast. If you want to hear this podcast or any other segment again, feel free to go to iTunes, spotify or Google Play or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.
Speaker 1:You can always email me nursetalk at hotmailcom or text the show 604-765-9287.
Speaker 1:That's 604-765-9287. Or head on over to my website for more information, maureenmcgrathcom. It's been my pleasure to spend this time with you. This podcast is brought to you by Life360 Innovations. Creators of the Contino Urethral Insert a non-surgical, health Canada licensed medical device for men with stress urinary incontinence. Contino is easy to use and blocks the flow of urine without the need for adult diapers or pads. More than just a medical device, the Contino Care easy to use and blocks the flow of urine without the need for adult diapers or pads. More than just a medical device, the Contino Care Program connects you with experienced medical professionals and creates a personalized treatment plan that provides ongoing support so you can get back to life. Go to MyContinocom to see if Contino is right for you and book your free continence assessment. Get bladder leakage control with Contino and get back to living. Remember, go to mycontinocom. That's M-Y-C-O-N-T-I-N-Ocom.