WEBVTT
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There are people who are caring for a career that is not a loved one.
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You hear me all the time refer to Zeddy as my L-O.
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But shit, if you don't like or love who you caring for, they not an L-O, they're just a Carrie.
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How do you do it all?
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Honestly, parenting up family, I decided to throw back what y'all have been throwing at me after five years and six seasons.
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There are countless questions that come to me from the caregiver community.
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But you know what?
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There's some themes.
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So this episode right here, this one right here, we're going to go over some of the big themes of questions that I've been asked over and over again.
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And I'm gonna give the best as I got.
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So let's listen.
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Parenting up Caregiving Adventures with comedian Jay Smiles.
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It's the intense journey of unexpectedly being fully responsible for my mama.
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For over a decade, I've been chipping away at the unknown, advocating for her, and pushing Alzheimer's awareness on anyone and anything with a heartbeat.
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That's why I thought don't be ready for the jokes.
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Caregiver newbies, OGs, and village members just willing to prop up a caregiver.
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You are in the right place.
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Hi, this is Betty.
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I hope you enjoy my daughter's podcast.
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Okay.
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Today's supporters shout out comes from our Tex community.
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And the name of the community is what?
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In community.
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I didn't make that up.
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It sounds really silly, but that's actually the company's name.
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It comes from Regina Davis.
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Yay! Three exclamation points.
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Send pictures.
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Ah, so cute.
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This was in response to the Alzheimer's walk in Atlanta, Georgia, where Parenting Up Community was a media sponsor.
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So we put up some clips, we sent some special stuff to the Tex community, and she wanted more.
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Thank you, Regina.
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If you want to receive a supporter shout out, leave a review on YouTube, Apple Podcast, Instagram, or in our text community.
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I have been a full-time caregiver since the summer of 2012.
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That's a long freaking time.
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And a lot has happened.
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I've met a lot of caregivers, I've read about caregivers.
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I listened to other people's podcasts, their movies.
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I mean, Alzheimer's and dementia is starting to get a little sexy.
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We haven't quite, we haven't quite caught up with HIV AIDS and cancer, but we're gaining on them.
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You feel what I'm saying?
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We yeah, I know.
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Y'all know I'm a comedian.
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But their people who were fundraising and caring for them kind of made it on trend in vogue and fashionable to support HIV AIDS, awareness, and cancer.
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So don't hate me because I figured out something intelligent.
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All right, anyway, the questions.
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A question that I get all the time that actually confuses me is Jay Smiles, how do you stay so pleasant?
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Real talk, y'all.
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I don't view myself as pleasant.
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I mean, I also don't view myself as mad.
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I'm just caring for my mom.
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Now, I believe what people mean is how come you can stay not angry or frustrated or pissed off?
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Eh, fair enough.
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Good question.
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First, I don't post when I'm in a bad mood.
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Who the hell needs to see more of me in a bad mood?
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The world is full of bad moods every day, all the time.
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Trust and believe, just because you haven't seen it on an episode or on social media or got it in a text from me, it doesn't mean I always have pleasant days.
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I have tons of dark days.
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Tons of dark days, dark moments, frustrated, snippy, pissed.
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Not necessarily with my mom, pissed with life, pissed with the hand I was dealt at times.
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I don't stay there long because I committed to being my mom's caregiver.
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So I usually have something in my head that I use as a trigger.
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I will say something I'm very grateful for, and I will think about and remember when caregiving was harder for me than it is now.
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When I first started, I didn't have as many answers.
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I didn't have as much support, help in terms of other caregivers.
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And you know what else?
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I also did not have Zeddy's men together.
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So usually if I feel myself in a dark space, what I will do is quickly try to think about two or three things I'm grateful for.
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Don't have nothing to do with Zettie.
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It might be that the sun came out today, or that I got a really good nap, or I watched a good movie.
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And that'll just let me take my mind off of my current situation.
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The next question that is a theme that really pulls at my heart.
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Jay smiles.
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What if you don't like, damn sure don't love the person you're caring for?
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And if it's your parent or grandparent or spouse or sibling and you don't like them, you don't love them because they were ugly to you.
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You know what I mean?
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It's a lot of bad blood, y'all mad, but now they need your help.
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Jay Smiles, what do you do?
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First thing is, I am not a psychologist or a psychiatrist or a medical professional.
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But the question is serious enough and it comes up enough that I wanted to bring it up just to let you all know that this thing is a theme and it's out there and we need to address it.
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The fact that there are people who are caring for a career that is not a loved one.
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You hear me all the time refer to Zeddy as my L-O.
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But shit, if you don't like or love who you're caring for, they're not an L-O, they're just a career.
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And that's cool.
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What I think about it, based on just what I've observed, is take care of you first emotionally and psychologically.
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Like, if it's too hard and it is taking you to a dark space like all the damn time, then maybe you should not be the primary caregiver.
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Don't let obligation and some sense of guilt or like, look, I'm Catholic, so I know about the Catholic guilt, Christian guilt, Jewish guilt.
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Like everybody seems to have guilt right now, but MAGA, but I probably wasn't supposed to say that, but anyway, I already said it.
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And just watch, you know, there's no straight answer for what to do when the person that you're caring for, you don't love or like them.
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I don't think there's no one answer, but check in with yourself and make sure that you're not losing who you are, right?
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Because, like, if every time you look at this person, you remember what happened 20 years ago, and now you end up with diarrhea or migraines, it's not working.
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So you have to come up with something else.
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Somebody else in the family, maybe they have to go to a facility, but figure it out.
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What you should not do is sacrifice yourself further than you could rebound when that person is no longer on earth.
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That's what Jay Smiles thinks.
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Okay.
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Jay, do you ever get resentful?
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The answer is yes.
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But I don't resent Zetty.
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Now they never asked me, do you resent Zeti?
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Do you resent what happened?
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So I don't really know exactly what part of resentment is the question.
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But what I can tell you is that I don't resent Zetty because she doesn't want to have the disease either.
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She did not knowingly contribute to this disease.
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Now I'm about to go too far for some of y'all, but I've heard people say this, like, oh man, you know, I got this person I'm close to, and they got diabetes, but they keep eating sugar.
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So I'm sick of them.
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Or, you know, they um keep relapsing on alcohol or drugs.
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Okay, but I'm not voting on any of that, but I have seen and heard where people seem to take a real stance, a hard line on if the person who's now sick knowingly contributed to what's going wrong.
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Well, Zaddy didn't.
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So I'm just wired in a way that if it ain't your fault, I'm not holding it against you.
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And it just so happened that she's my mama, but if she wasn't my mama, I still feel that that's why I don't have resentment towards her.
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She ain't fucking do it.
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Okay.
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Last question.
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Well, the last question that I'm sharing right now in this episode.
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Jay, how do you do it all?
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Caring for Zettie, maintaining the house, her doctor's appointments, being a stand-up comedian, having the podcast, traveling, keeping what looks on social media to be a full life with friends and a good time.
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How do you do it all?
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Honestly, I don't think about everything I just named simultaneously.
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It would be overwhelming.
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I only wear one hat at a time.
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When I'm being my mom's caregiver, that's it.
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When me and my team are putting together a podcast episode, that's it.
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And they would laugh and tell you, like, yeah, once Jay gets in talent mode, she don't even know where her purse is.
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She can't find a lipstick, she don't know what day it is.
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I forget the topic that I'm supposed to say.
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Because I've gotten into now I'm the podcast host.
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Same thing with my mom and caregiving.
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If I'm Zeddy's caregiver, don't they like Jay, can you send me a link to the podcast?
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What podcast?
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When I tell you my brain, my brain goes blank.
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I'm like, who podcast?
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What podcast?
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Oh, my podcast?
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Child, please, hold on.
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So really how I get through doing it all, as I've been asked, is I'm doing one thing at a time, even though all the other pots might be on a low simmer.
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Okay, I talked about the questions that you all have given me over the years.
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Let me tell you something.
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I got questions too.
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I have a bunch of questions, but I narrowed it down to a couple three.
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And a couple three always really means three.
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So if you're not from the deep south in the United States, a couple three always means three.
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And don't ask me why we say a couple in the beginning.
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I don't have anything to do with that.
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I learned this from my elders.
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Here are the questions I have.
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Why don't more people care about caregivers?
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And I mean that with my whole chest.
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Whether the caregiver is hired, you know, professional, definitely they're a family caregiver, and whether the career has cancer or um, you know, renal failure or Parkinson's, does it matter what the disease is?
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The point is, this independent human now needs tremendous assistance from another adult in order to thrive.
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And why don't people care about the freaking caregiver?
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I don't have an answer.
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These are questions that I have that piss me off.
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I'm only talking about questions that kind of irritate me because I don't have the answer.
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My next question: why are there no consumer products made for people with dementia?
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You know what I mean?
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Like where the product was designed for somebody who has cognitive decline.
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It's a whole bunch of stuff for the elderly, for people with vision impairment or hearing impairment.
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What about the thinking impaired?
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My mama just don't think clearly no more.
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So I can't even buy the little things.
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Oh, help me, I fall and I can't get up, that damn thing.
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Because you got to have enough brain about you to press the button to say, oh shit, I failed.
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And I need somebody to come get me.
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Where are the products?
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I don't care if it's a toothbrush, if it's a scale, if it's a chair, a cell phone that actually works for people whose brain is operating in reverse.
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Reverse, reverse, crisscross.
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All right.
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Here's the most pressing question I have.
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Am I going to get Alzheimer's?
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I know nobody can answer it, but that is the one that worries the shit out of me.
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Am I gonna get it?
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Am I predestined for it?
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Like in my DNA or something?
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Is my lifestyle as a caregiver causing too much stress and too many sleepless nights?
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Am I gonna get this fucking disease?
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Mm.
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But it works the shit out of me.
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All right.
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So listen.
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I just shared some stuff.
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I never talked about questions I have.
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And a few of the questions that you all have given me throughout this podcast community.
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But I bet you got more questions now.
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So that's what we want you to send us.
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Get at us in the DMs on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and you can text us.
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Our text community is 404-737-1449.
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It's free.
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When you sign up, it will give you a prompt.
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You fill out everything, and then I'll know what information you want.
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But what I want from you is for you to send me questions that you have about being a caregiver or questions you have about dementia-related diseases.
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I feel that there are likely new themes and trends that we need to get into as a community.
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You know what I'm saying?
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Y'all know what I'm saying.
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The snuggle up.
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Today is concise and it's one.
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There will always be questions.
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So relax.
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Breathe.
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Do not freak out, pairing up community, if you don't know what you're doing.
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If it looks like everybody else has this caregiving thing figured out.
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Or maybe the person they're caring for seems to be thriving and gaining muscle mass and smiling and shit every time you see them.
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Who knows what all is going on with that stuff?
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The point is, we're gonna always have questions.
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As you go about this journey of being a caregiver, you're gonna figure things out.
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And as you figure that out, something new will reveal itself.
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At a minimum, the person you're caring for is gonna change.
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Their needs will change.
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Their deficiencies will change.
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And you know who else is gonna change?
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Your ass.
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You're gonna change what you, maybe what you can mentally do, what you can physically do.
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What if you get older and then you're in a car rack and now your back is broke for six months, now you gotta figure out how to be a caregiver and you're not as healthy.
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So try not to stress so much about when you have more questions than answers.
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Be grateful that you got any answers at all.
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Thank you for tuning in.
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I mean, really, really, really thank you so very much for tuning in.
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Whether you're watching this on YouTube or if you're listening on your favorite podcast audio platform.
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Either way, wherever you are, subscribe.
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Come back.
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That's the way you're gonna know when we do something next.
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Y'all know how it is.
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I'm Jay Smiles.
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I might just drop something hot in the middle of the night.