Finding Laughter and Resilience in Caregiving: Stories of Hope with Leah Stanley

When life handed Leah Stanley a caregiving role she never anticipated, it led her down a path filled with challenges, humor, and profound lessons. At twenty-nine, Leah's life took a sharp turn after a phone call pulled back the curtain on her grandparents' struggles with dementia. She bravely stepped into the caregiver role, navigating the twists and turns of a disease that often feels like a maze without an exit. Through our candid conversation, you'll hear how Leah tackled the steep learning curve of dementia care and the ways in which maintaining dignity and purpose became her guiding principles.

Leah's journey wasn't just a solo trek; it underscored the vital need for a supportive community and the irreplaceable role humor plays in the healing process. If you've ever wondered how laughter can still find a place in the midst of the tough times, Leah's personal anecdotes serve as a beacon of light. As we explore the transition of dementia patients into nursing homes, the emotional weight it carries, and the challenges that come with it, you'll find solace in the shared experiences and the reminder that each caregiving story has its unique set of trials and triumphs.

Closing our episode, the narrative takes a turn towards the spiritual and encapsulates a message of hope and resilience. Leah's story of unexpected help during a snowstorm will remind you of God's work in our lives. Her social media presence and books are not just resources; they are lifelines for fellow caregivers wading through similar waters. Remember, as a caregiver, you're not expected to chart these waters perfectly, but rather to navigate them with love, self-compassion, and the knowledge that you're never alone.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Rayna Neises: Welcome. This is Rayna Neises, your host of A Season of Caring Podcast, where we share stories of hope for family caregivers, breaking through the busyness and loneliness of caregiving to see God even in the middle of the season. Today, I’m excited to introduce you to our guest, Leah Stanley. Leah was 29 years old and still a new bride when her grandparents were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and an unspecified dementia, respectively. Leah, who shares her caregiving story in her book. Good Night, Sweet: A Caregiver’s Long Goodbye has been a featured speaker with medical professionals and family caregivers alike. Her newest book Caring for a Loved One with Alzheimer’s and Other Dementia: Everything I Wish I had Known is a practical tool to help future caregivers prepare and current caregivers thrive. She is originally from Memphis, Tennessee, and now lives with her family in Houston, Texas.

[00:00:55] Welcome. Leah is so good to have you here today.

[00:00:58] Leah Stanley: Thanks so much, Rayna. I’m so glad to be with you.

[00:01:01] Rayna Neises: Well start off by telling us a little bit about your caregiving, just tell us a little bit about your grandparents and what that looks like for you.

[00:01:09] Leah Stanley: Absolutely. As you said, I’m from Memphis, Tennessee. My grandparents lived in north central Arkansas, so about two and a half hours away. It wasn’t, I couldn’t just get in the car and run over there. You know, it was a day trip, of course, but. It wasn’t like 10 minutes across town. It was, it was an ordeal to get over there. So I went as frequently as I could. And I had seen my grandmother was starting to repeat herself. And I had seen different things that made me kind of give her a little bit of a side eye. But again, the observation, I was quite young. I was going through the whole, taking my boyfriend over there.

[00:01:45] Then I got engaged. Then I was planning a wedding and I was still going and visiting. We were very, very close. I was still seeing these things go on, but in my mind, first of all, I was like, well, I, I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t even know if there’s problem. Is this a problem? Is she just getting older?

[00:02:01] What’s going on? Well, spoiler alert. No, it wasn’t that she was just getting older. There was an actual issue that needed to be addressed and I just didn’t know what to do with it. So one day I come home from work and I have a phone call from their neighbor, not from them, but from their neighbor, which that in itself was stunning.

[00:02:20] Like, okay, wait, what are you doing calling me? He told me a horrifying story. He said, okay, your grandparents left home on Saturday morning. Four days later, they turned up two hours from home. They were on the side of the road with a partially wrecked car with a flat tire. And it was below freezing temperatures.

[00:02:41] And he was just saying, you really need to get up here. And I was just like, and I mean, we, my husband and I, eight months married, we dropped everything and went over there. And that started a three year journey of providing care for these folks. And then of course, learning on the same day that both grandparents, my grandmother had Alzheimer’s. My grandfather had an unspecified dementia. As I’ve told people, when I speak, I’m like, you know, at the end of the day, you really didn’t care what they called it. I just knew something wrong. So that started the journey. And then from there, you know, I would laugh and tell people, guess what Leah knew about caregiving at 29 years old, that would be nothing, exactly nothing, nothing.

[00:03:24] I had to learn everything from the ground up. So it was, it was an appalling journey. I, I, that’s why that’s one of the reasons I seek to educate people today. It was so important to me coming through that journey, learning everything on this very steep learning curve. People need to know people, people don’t know what they don’t know and they need to learn to be prepared because it could happen to you. You could be minding your own business one day and the next day the whole world’s upside down. That is exactly what happened to me.

[00:03:55] Rayna Neises: Yeah, for sure. And I know for me that’s one of the reasons why I became a positive approach to care trainer, because I’m so passionate about what Teepa teaches

[00:04:07] and how much that would have helped me in my caregiving. Because though Teepa was around, things were just not quite the same. Even it would have been 10 years ago when started caregiving for my dad, full time driving the four hour drive, all of that.

[00:04:21] stuff. And so there just wasn’t the access to all of it. There weren’t, if there were podcasts, there were very few of them, you know, there just wasn’t a lot out there.

[00:04:30] I think also for us, going through it so much earlier with my mom, you know, we’d read the 36 hour day. We’d done some of those things early on, but I definitely, did not know Teepa existed.

[00:04:41] And I, and so. Such a huge advocate for educating ourselves of what’s happening in the brain. So we can have realistic expectations and we can really focus on what’s left. We can’t do anything about what they can’t do, but we can give them purpose and dignity in what they can do. And so I think that’s what educating ourselves does.

[00:05:02] So I’m totally, had to jump on the soapbox on that one. Leah,

[00:05:06] Leah Stanley: No, I’m right there with you for the same reason. Exactly. Because people don’t understand. What I find is, and I hate using this word because sometimes people misunderstand it. People are ignorant. I’m not saying people are stupid. Let me be clear. No one’s stupid. You don’t know what you don’t know. I didn’t.

[00:05:22] I was ignorant. I just didn’t know. I didn’t know that this was not just normal aging. This was a condition. a real condition. And then I didn’t know how to talk to them. In the early days of it, I would correct and I would think, well, no, no, no. Let me help you understand. And I had to learn. No, no, no this is not something that gets better.

[00:05:44] A child, people like to compare it to childhood. It’s not like childhood. It’s not like child because the child will grow. The child will learn. The child will mature. This is a mature adult. who has a condition. It is a,

[00:05:59] Rayna Neises: They have brain damage. Their brain is dying.

[00:06:03] Leah Stanley: and when you understand that, that’s when you give up arguing. That’s when you give up trying to course correct and quizzing.

[00:06:10] Oh, Lord have mercy. That one, I see people, Who am I? Do you know who I am? It’s like, okay, please stop. They don’t necessarily know who you are. And with intuitive thought, they still understand that they realize they don’t know. And all this does is make them feel bad. This does not help at all, but people don’t know that you don’t realize that.

[00:06:32] So again, some well meaning folks. just launch into, well, I’m going to just help them understand. It’s just not that easy. It’s, it’s not at all.

[00:06:42] Rayna Neises: Yeah. So you had, you said three and a half years of trying to care for them. What did that look like?

[00:06:48] Leah Stanley: Well, initially, my husband and I are in our first apartment together. It was a two bedroom walk up with no elevator and which was fine for us when we were young, of course, in our twenties, but my grandparents were significantly older. So I knew that was going to be a problem. We saw mobility issues with my grandmother.

[00:07:08] So I thought, well, I can’t keep them here. So then we were like, well okay, so maybe we sell their property and we buy a house, but then I had two half brothers and I thought, well, okay, the problem there is they live out the term of their lives. I take care of them. I quit everything to take care of them. And then at the end of their lives, what about me? What happens to me? Do we have to suddenly move out of our house so that the will can go through so that each each grandchild gets what they’re supposed to get? Do you see what I mean? It was just the whole thing was fraught issues. So it came down to realizing that my grandparents truly needed, together as a couple, they needed more than I could provide for them. That was not an easy decision to come to. I wrestled with that. I tried to put them in independent living. They had long gone past that. That was not going to work. And they wound up in a nursing home simply because they needed the skilled nursing care that was provided in a nursing home.

[00:08:10] And you know, it was, it was a mess. It was just one thing after another. They perpetually kept wanting to go home, home, home. But they didn’t know where home was. And I recall walking in, I share all of this in my book. I recall walking into the room one time and my grandfather had packed their things in the opaque garbage liners in the room.

[00:08:35] He had just dumped the trash out and put their clothes in. So you see, I mean, it was things that you wouldn’t do if you didn’t have a condition, a situation, you know, with dementia for him. And then, you know, poor grandma, she just didn’t know. She knew me. She knew Leah. I could walk in and she knew me. And that was a blessing from God for till the day she died. She always knew me, girl. She did not know anything else, but she knew that was just such a blessing. I’ve watched many, many people who do not have that, who their loved one loses their identity, forgets who that person is, you know, and that’s tragic. That, that is its own trauma.

[00:09:16] So we have, you know, we have a lot of the adjustment phase was trying to figure out, well, how involved am I supposed to be in the nursing home? Because I’ve got these professionals that are helping. One of the things I always, people actually have said they appreciate hearing me talk about them being in a nursing home because that’s kind of the bad word, you know, or phrase really nursing home. It’s everybody thinks, well, oh, I don’t ever want to put my person in a nursing home. Well, I understand that, but. Sometimes the situation necessitates they may need more care than the caregiver is able to provide and so I’ve seen patients where there’s extreme aggression and if the aggression is not controlled and managed, if it’s not understood what’s causing it, sometimes a spouse may have to put their loved one in the nursing home because of they can’t handle the aggression and things like that.

[00:10:08] And I know there’s a lot of, discussion back and forth. Well, what’s causing it? Okay, well, sometimes a caregiver may not have the bandwidth exactly to try to figure out what’s causing it or understand it and it can be really, really challenging. So, I am glad to share my experience that we did have my grandparents in the nursing home.

[00:10:28] Our experience was not a dreadful one, but I also tell people all the time, please be actively involved. If your loved one is in a nursing home, if they need the skilled care available in a nursing home, that’s fine, but you need to be actively involved. You need to be involved in the care plans. You need to be talking to the nurses. You need to make yourself available. Let them know that you’re part of the team. You are there to help answer questions. Hey, maybe I can give you a hint about something that they like or that they don’t like that may help the care. So that, that actually turned out to be very beneficial as far as me coming out of this thing and saying, wow, I know there’s other caregivers coming. I really want to help them. What can I do to help educate folks to get them ready? Because they may have to deal with this.

[00:11:21] Rayna Neises: I think it’s important to understand that you’re building a team and where they are and who’s caring for them and you, and they are all a part of that team. I know for us, after my dad had his blood clot and surgery, we had to place him in a rehab facility for that 21 day period. And I just want to encourage people to know, rehab facilities are not used to dealing with people with dementia or

[00:11:49] Leah Stanley: That’s

[00:11:50] Rayna Neises: so to just be able to place them and think that the care staff are going to know how to navigate that just because they’re a nurse or just because they’re a CNA doesn’t mean they understand dementia and Alzheimer’s. And so I think it’s really important to remember to offer that support and make sure that you’re providing as much support for it to be a successful setting for them.

[00:12:11] We actually had 24 seven caregivers while he was in the rehab facility because of the fact that he was not weight bearing on one leg and he wouldn’t remember that. So unless someone was right there with him, reminding him that he can’t stand up, then he was going to stand up or he was going to take the bandage off and possibly even, you know, earlier.

[00:12:33] He had had stitches in his finger and woke up in the middle of the night much earlier in his progression of his disease, woke up in the middle of the night and pulled his stitches out because he just didn’t understand what that was that was poking him, know? And so it really is important to know and, and be able to build that team that makes it successful.

[00:12:53] Every family has to do what works for them. And being a person who had both parents with the disease, the progression was very different. And so there are no two patients that respond exactly alike,

[00:13:06] Leah Stanley: my gosh. That is so true. And that’s the thing. People hear, Oh, Alzheimer’s? Oh, well then they’re going to act like this. And I look at them and I’m like, Are they? Are you sure? No, they won’t necessarily be the same. It won’t be. Alzheimer’s patients, dementia patients in general can have sundowning episodes.

[00:13:29] This is an increased agitation that theoretically can occur later in the day, but I’m telling you sundowning can occur at any point on the clock. So overnight hours, things like that, so people don’t realize that. Not all dementia patients have sundowning, but some do. And it seems to be more prevalent in Alzheimer’s patients, but not all Alzheimer’s patients will have sundowning.

[00:13:53] Then when it does start, people are like, well, what’s, what’s going on? What’s this? It’s like, okay, we’ll see that sundowning. That’s something that’s kind of coupled along with the Alzheimer’s. It’s not a new problem. It’s all kind but not everybody’s going to have it. So it is funny what you said, not ha ha funny, but just realistic that not every medical professional knows how to work with the dementia patient. It’s very highly specialized and a lot of places will say they have a memory care unit, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the folks in there are trained to work with dementia patients.

[00:14:29] And you know, I kind of laugh and I’m just like, here’s the thing about it. If you have a broken bone, are you going to the gynecologist? Probably not, you’re probably going to go to someone who deals with bones, you know, so that’s the thing it’s like, and it’s not that the gynecologist wouldn’t have some knowledge, but they wouldn’t have the specialized knowledge that you would need. And so that’s what it is, it’s like, again, working with a care team and trying to find out, look, do we have people here who really know how to work with dementia patients? Who really understand what’s going on in as much as anyone does understand. That’s part of the problem. Dementia is still such a mystery, so much of it.

[00:15:13] Rayna Neises: Definitely.

[00:15:14] Isn’t Leah, a joy and it was so amazing to step into that caregiving role at such a young age. Hang on there with us as we get to learn more about Leah’s caregiving season. Today’s podcast has been brought to you by dementia education with Reyna. That’s right. I’m an independent, positive approach to care certified trainer with the Teepa Snow method. It is one of the things that I am so passionate about, providing an opportunity to educate those who work professionally in roles as caregivers. And family caregivers, just like you.

[00:15:49] If you are living with someone who is living with dementia. I would love to have an opportunity to help you understand better what’s happening in their brain and how you can interact with them to give them the best quality of life. And you as well as a caregiver. Reach out if you want to get a group of family members together, we can do a zoom training.

[00:16:10] Or if your church is looking for people to be able to support family caregivers, I would love to be able to talk to you about how I could do a presentation for your group. Zoom or in-person. Uh, one of my favorite things to do. So just reach out rayna@aseasonofcaring.com. I would love to talk to you more about this opportunity. Now let’s get back to our conversation with Leah about her grandparents’ journey.

[00:16:35] So do you have a favorite caregiving story you want to share with us about your grandparents?

[00:16:40] Yeah.

[00:16:45] Leah Stanley: I tell people this story because this relieves a lot of stress for people. It’s not a laughing matter. Let me clarify. This is not a laughing matter. This whole caregiving thing is not a laughing matter, but When we had first gotten to my grandparents house and when all of this heavy was going down and it was one blow after another after another and it was just several days of us being over there with them and it was, we were just, my husband and I were just frazzled trying to make everything work together. So one morning, early, early, we were in our bedroom which was across the hall from my grandparents room. So they’re in there, we hear them, okay, we hear them talking. He’s trying to get her up, and she’s calling him daddy like her father, and I’m just in Pieces laying there listening to this going doesn’t she realize that’s her husband not her father? Why is she doing that you know and the whole dialogue goes back and forth and she’s saying I love you daddy And he’s saying well. I love you, too, and I’m just like oh, this is just it was killing me It was just I thought what what am I I can’t even believe this She gets out of bed. I hear everything. I can, I can see it happening in my mind as I’m listening to it. She walks in the bathroom and out of nowhere she goes, these your teeth? My husband I were laying in our bed in there and it was one of those, my husband told me, he said, I thought I was going to die. He said, I was laughing so hard. He said, I can’t laugh. I can’t laugh out loud. She’ll kill me if I laugh out loud.

[00:18:22] Well, I’m sitting there thinking I can’t laugh. Chris will think I’m cold hearted and mean. I can’t laugh. So he and I are both sitting there and we’re like biting our knuckles, you know, and we’re starting to start shaking the bed. I am telling you, we, when we finally realized that we were both just really tickled, we sat there and laughed and we were like burying our heads in the pillows, trying to be quiet, you know, and at the end of it, it was, it was I, I even talk about this in my book.

[00:18:46] It’s, it was a major stress release and talk about the fact we were not laughing at my grandparents, but it was like to me, I could just imagine teeth in a glass and you’re trying to figure out whose teeth they are. It just, it had never hit me. I thought that was the funniest thing I’d ever heard. And I just thought, I need people to understand sometimes in the middle of the horror show that is dementia caregiving, sometimes you just need to laugh and sometimes there are just funny things that happen and it does not mean you’re cruel, it does not mean you’re mean and heartless, it means you’re human.

[00:19:26] And you’re just looking for a way to release that stress. And for us, that was a major stress release. So I frequently share that with caregivers, especially when they invariably, they’ll tell me, okay, we’ll see, we thought it was kind of funny, but we didn’t want to start laughing. And I’m just like, laugh. It’s okay. know, I promise you have full permission. It is okay. No one thinks you’re horrible. So, you know, that’s one of the things we need to realize this thing is unscripted and sometimes they are going to say things. There was another time I had to get driver’s license for my grandparents to the folks at the nursing home.

[00:20:01] They needed the picture IDs. So I had to get them. So I gave them to the girl. And when I was getting them out, my grandmother looks at the one from my grandfather and she goes, that sure is a bad picture of your grandfather. And I was just like, no, she didn’t just say that about her husband. Yes, did. we chuckling. So then she takes the license off. She comes back. And my grandfather takes my grandmother’s license at that point and he’s looking at it and he goes, that sure is a bad picture of your grandma. It’s like, no, they didn’t. Yes, they did. So, you know, things like that, things like that happen. And it’s funny and it’s okay to laugh. It, you need it. You need it. That’s part whole, the whole picture of, because, I mean, if you swirl into the, the depressive, down, sad, negative, and all that’s there, all of that’s there, and all real, it’s so hard. But there are going to be some funny moments like that. Let yourself laugh. You are not a bad person for it. Truly.

[00:21:06] Rayna Neises: Very true. What would be one thing that you would say surprised you most about caregiving.

[00:21:15] Leah Stanley: I could not. really hardly believe how they degraded mentally, the magnitude of how far down it went and how awful it got. And because in your mind, you just think, well, I’m just gonna, I’m just gonna reason with them, you know telling my grandfather you can’t pack your clothes in the garbage bag.

[00:21:43] Okay. You just can’t do that. Why would he have done it in the first place? And I was sitting there for the longest time. That was something I struggled with was just, well, I just want to reason with him. I just want to explain. And part of my problem, too, in that respect was, you know, they give the verbal cognition test.

[00:22:02] And so when my grandma took the verbal cognition test, she scored a 7. Okay, this is an epically low score. Now, my grandfather, they, they were telling me how bad she was doing, and I was like, they were saying, well, he’s, he’s a little bit better than her. And I was like, oh, excellent. I can get him to help me. And then they revealed to me that he scored a nine. And I was like, so better is, how do we quantify better? Okay, he got two more questions.

[00:22:32] Rayna Neises: So, and I think just to clarify, I think like mild cognitive impairment starts at 21. Is that,

[00:22:39] Leah Stanley: Yeah, the numbers are higher, way higher. Today’s tests back in the day, this was 1997. So there you go. I was not, I didn’t know anything. So they had to educate me through the whole thing. And one of the doctors said, what we’re going to do is we’re going to give, what he called, a little 20 point quiz. So back in the day, they asked 20 questions. And again, she scored seven, he scored nine. So today’s verbal cognition tests are rated, there are 30 questions, and there is the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, and that is, they call it the MOCA test. The MOCA test is the one that tries to test more for executive functioning, which is frontal lobe thinking, reasoning ability, and so they, I think they’re favoring that test a little more than some of the others today. But that’s, that’s what it is. It essentially, yeah, they, if you can’t answer, and they’re basic questions. They are questions it’s none of this question of a train left New York, you know, it’s nothing like that. They’re

[00:23:39] not to make you crazy. They’re trying to really get to the root of how you’re thinking.

[00:23:44] So they will ask, they will ask the participant to answer like math questions. They will ask them basic questions. Who is the president? What day is today? What city are we in? Things like that, you know, but Most of the time people will take the test when there is no cognitive issue They will take the test and most people will score, you know, 28 29 to 30, you know When when cognitive impairment starts to show when you’re starting to get answers in the lower 20s And then it goes on down from there And so you can imagine what seven and nine look like at that point, you know, it’s

[00:24:18] like, Oh, how did we get here?

[00:24:19] You know, well, it didn’t happen overnight,

[00:24:22] Rayna Neises: Throughout this time, I mean, there’s so much stress in living far away, having a new marriage, having all of these things, and then, not even the family dynamic of how you end up being the primary caregiver

[00:24:34] Leah Stanley: right.

[00:24:35] Rayna Neises: But then looking at through this journey, just share a story with us of when God showed up for you?

[00:24:42] Leah Stanley: Oh my gosh, that one was so quick and so easy. One of the first things that happened, okay, so again, we’re in Memphis. They’re over in Arkansas. It’s a two and a half hour drive. Well, guess what had happened the day before we went over there? Snow hit across north central Arkansas. So, as we went further north, we saw more snow.

[00:25:02] Well, guess where my grandparents lived. They didn’t live on an ordinary street. No, no, no. They lived on the gravel road that was off of the other gravel road. You understand? I mean, it was just like a nightmare. So we’re trying to get into this place. Now, we’re going along and we’re doing just fine until we get to that first really big hill.

[00:25:20] And then all of a sudden, my car is fishtailing and I wind up, and I mean, this is a gravel road in the middle of nowhere. There is no traffic out here. You know what I’m talking about? No cars. It is the middle of absolutely the country. So I’m sitting in the middle of this road, and I’m thinking, okay, we cannot be stuck. We cannot be this close and be stuck. So we had kitty litter in the back. We were like, okay, the kitty litter’s gonna help. No, the kitty litter did not help. In short, the kitty litter did not help. So I thought, okay what else do we have? Floor mats! Floor mats! We got floor mats! So we pulled the floor mats out, put those under the tires. The floor mats flew out, like, as my husband put it, like they had been rejected. And I laughed so hard when he said that. Of course, that was another one of those laugh moments. It was just like the stress was

[00:26:05] everywhere, but we were sitting there laughing our tails off about this floor mat that had gone flying. So we’re sitting there in this thing going, okay, I’m out of ideas. I don’t know how to do this. So I am looking, I’m kind of, you know, I’m kind of wiping my face and I’m laughing so hard. I’ve cried. And so I’m wiping my face. And I say to God, okay, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? And my mom was with us and she was in the back seat.

[00:26:34] She turned around and she said, somebody’s coming. And I was like, and I turned and I looked back. Yes, indeed. It was the neighbor. Who had called me the day before and

[00:26:46] he came out and he got out of the car and he hollered up the hill. He said, Leah. And I was like, yes, yes, it’s me. And I could not believe it.

[00:26:55] I was like, what? How? We did not sit there five minutes. Do you hear me? I mean, we could have been

[00:27:01] there for hours with nobody. And there was no back, there were back ways in, but there was no back way in that didn’t involve hills, you know, up and down

[00:27:11] hills. And I was like, I don’t know how to do this. Well, you know, Max shows up and he’s got chains on his tires.

[00:27:18] He’s ready.

[00:27:19] And I was just like, I, I, I mean, this is unbelievable. You know, we had asked the Lord as we left Memphis, we were just like, we don’t know what we’re going into. So you’ve got to help us. You’ve got to go before us. And he did,

[00:27:34] but that

[00:27:34] Rayna Neises: was

[00:27:34] ready.

[00:27:35] Leah Stanley: he was ready. He was there before we were, I was like, thank you.

[00:27:38] I’m truly serious. Thank you, Jesus. Because it was, I don’t know what we would have done. I mean, I couldn’t have gotten to them. And then of course, I share all of this in my book. And so I walk through it, you know, explaining it just step by step what happened. So that whole rest of the day would have been shot if we hadn’t been able to get in there. As it turned out, that was the day I was able to get them to the hospital to have them checked out, get the diagnosis, you know, meet with the lawyer the next day. It was just, It was remarkable that he showed up, went in where he did and he was so ready to help. He was just like, what can I do to help? And we were just like, who are you?

[00:28:16] I mean, you know, he was just basically almost stopped his life to help us. And I was looking at that. I was like, you know, that is God just providing. And it was

[00:28:25] wonderful.

[00:28:27] Rayna Neises: Yeah. I love it when he does that, when he calls our attention to it, because he’s doing it all the time and we just miss it. But there are times that we are so desperate that we see it,

[00:28:37] Leah Stanley: it, is, you’re so desperate and it is so obvious. There’s just no possible way you could explain it. You know, it’s like, well, you can try to tell me, Oh, it was coincidence. I don’t believe I’m telling you, I know that Jesus is so faithful and I just was so, I look back at that and I’m like, yeah, God’s auto club. He took care of us. Well,

[00:29:00] Rayna Neises: So share with us what one thing you would do that helps you to live content, love well, or care without regrets.

[00:29:08] Leah Stanley: I always encourage people, caregivers that I talk to, do the absolute best you can. I was not a medical person. My degree is in journalism. Girl, we in journalism, we don’t, we don’t do medical, you know, we don’t do science. We, do our science that’s required for our undergraduate work. And then after that, I mean, we are done with science.

[00:29:30] So I was not a skilled medical practitioner, and I’ve learned a great deal as I’ve come through, but I had to just own up to the fact that I, I wasn’t superwoman. I couldn’t do everything they needed. And so, that’s what I tell people. I tell caregivers, look, cut yourself some slack. Give yourself a break. When you are doing everything you can, that’s enough. You’re doing everything you can. So it’s all right. Okay, so you weren’t sure what to do medically. You weren’t sure what to do. You don’t know about dementia. All right, fine. You can learn and it’s great that you’re going to learn, but it’s okay to get help. It’s okay to not be everything to that person.

[00:30:18] And really and truly, well, I hate saying this. I always hate saying this, but I do tell people because it’s the truth. This job won’t last forever. This is a job that has a term limit to it. And for me, that term limit came three years in and my grandfather passed first and very sudden, very quick, my poor grandma, she just lingered and lingered and lingered. And when my journey was finally over, That’s when I began to realize I was like there are so many others coming up behind me What can I do to help them? Well again, my degree is in journalism so I couldn’t deal with all the medical stuff, but I could write my story So that was a way that I could give back that was a way I could connect with other caregivers And that’s what I wanted to do just and if I can encourage you in anybody anywhere today as a caregiver you’re doing your best be alright with that.

[00:31:14] Don’t don’t beat yourself up Thinking you should have done something more. You could have done, you coulda, shoulda, woulda, do the best you can. And then, guess what? Your famous book title, No Regrets.

[00:31:27] Rayna Neises: That’s right. So that’s what I was, that always is what comes to mind to me because that is, it’s not about being perfect. It’s about doing what you can do and not looking back and beating yourself up over it. Knowing that you don’t have regrets is just meaning that every step of the way, when you had a chance to do better, you did.

[00:31:45] Leah Stanley: Learned. Glew.

[00:31:47] Rayna Neises: important to take responsibility and to learn and to do the best that you can do.

[00:31:51] Leah Stanley: Absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:31:55] Rayna Neises: Well, Leah, it’s been a joy to be able to talk with you, share with our audience, where they can find your books and how they might be able to stay connected with

[00:32:01] Leah Stanley: Oh, excellent. I’m on social media. I’m across the platforms. Usually you can find me at e3cares. And they can get my books anywhere that you can find books online. Amazon books, Barnes and Noble, you know, christianbook. com, things like that. Goodreads, it’s, they’re all there. So you can definitely order them online. And I am always glad to connect with caregivers. People can direct message me online. That is not a problem on, on social media. That is not a problem. I’m glad to answer any questions that I can.

[00:32:34] Rayna Neises: Well, thank you again. We’re so glad to have you here today

[00:32:36] Leah Stanley: Thank you, Rayna. It’s been a real pleasure.

[00:32:40] Rayna Neises: and thank you audience for joining us for stories of hope with Leah. Season of Caring podcast has been created to share stories of hope for living content, loving well, and caring without regrets for you, the family caregiver.

[00:32:54] If you have legal, financial, or medical questions, be sure to consult your local professionals and take heart in your season of caring.