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Happy Healthy Caregiver Podcast, Episode 164: A Nomad Caregiving Life of Traveling and Running with Anthony Copeland-Parker

Anthony Copeland-Parker cares for his partner Catherine, who was diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer’s ten years ago. Before becoming a family caregiver for Cat, Anthony, who goes by Tony, was a professional pilot for thirty-seven years, much of his career with United Parcel Service. When he retired, he started writing his blog called Running With Cat. Until recently, they lived as nomads and completed marathons and half marathons while exploring 82 countries across all 7 continents!

In this episode, Tony shares the ups and downs of the nomad caregiving life, where they have found support while traveling, why Tony pushed the envelope and insisted that he and Cat live together in independent senior living, and what special requests he makes of the home care professionals so Cat continues to live a life filled with her personal joys.

Scroll to the bottom of this page to see the full-show transcription.

 

Episode Sponsor – Rare Patient Voice

Do you want to earn cash in exchange for your opinion? Researchers recognize that the true disease experts are those living with a condition and their family caregivers. Rare Patient Voice (or RPV) helps connect researchers with patients and family caregivers for over 700 diseases and conditions. For patients and caregivers, RPV provides the opportunity to voice their opinions to improve medical products and services while earning cash rewards. Rare Patient Voice – helping patients and caregivers share their voices! If you are interested, join the RPV panel at: https://rarepatientvoice.com/happyhealthycaregiver

 

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Words of Encouragement

Each episode starts with a few words of inspiration or motivation pulled from the Happy Healthy Caregiver Jar. Create your own jar by downloading the Caregiver  Jar inserts.  Enhance your jar with the Caregiver Jar refill pack.Caregiver Jar Inserts PDF

‘Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are.’ #CaregiverJar

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Links & Resources Mentioned

 

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Verde, my Ford Bronco and my Happy Healthy Caregiver personalized tire cover

 

 

Running All Over The World: Our Race Against Early Onset Alzheimer's

Photo of Tony with Cat in her

 

Just for you a daily self care journal book cover

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Favorite moments & quotes from the episode

‘That is inbred in me to have a positive attitude on the outcome of whatever the situation is. As we all know, we’re all going to die at some point in time, but I try to look at trying to have the best quality of life during the…

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‘I tell everybody, this woman has run 83 marathons, a marathon in all 50 states and has done all the majors. There’s only 4,000 women who have done all of that, so it’s quite an accomplishment. Yes, she is where she is now, but she…

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‘I aspire to inspire until I expire.’ – @tonyruntheworld #livingwithdementia #nomad #partnercaregiver

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Full Transcription

 

This is the whole care network helping you tell your story. One podcast at a time content presented in the following podcast is for information purposes, only views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those in the post and guests and may not represent the views and opinions of the whole care network. Always consult with your physician for any medical advice and always consult with your attorney for any legal advice. And thank you for listening to the health care network. So that is inbred in me to have a positive attitude of the outcome of whatever the situation is. So as we all know, we’re, we’re all going to die at some point in time. But I try to look at trying to have the best quality of life during the period of time that we have together caring for aging parents or other loved ones while working, raising Children and trying to live your own life, wondering how to find the time for your personal health and happiness. Well, you’re in the right place. Welcome to the Happy Healthy Caregiver podcast to show where real family caregivers share how to be happy and healthy while caring for others. Now, here’s your host, Family Caregiver and certified Caregiving consultant, Elizabeth Miller. Hello, everyone. Thanks for tuning in to the Happy Healthy Caregiver podcast, which is part of the whole care network. If this is your first time listening, welcome. This is a show produced biweekly to help family caregivers integrate self care and caregiving into their lives. Episode has an accompanying show notes page. So if you would like more details about the topics, products and resources we speak about or you want to see the related photos, you’ll find the show notes by going on the website happy healthy caregiver dot com. And underneath the podcast menu, click the image or episode number for today’s show. If you’re listening to the podcast from your favorite podcast platform, the link for the show knows is in your podcast episodes, description. Do you have a favorite social media platform? I do. Mine’s Instagram. I like the photos and the videos and I find it easy to use and to be able to mark my favorite accounts. Happy healthy caregiver consistently post to Instagram on weekdays and I enjoy sharing caregiving and self care tips with the Instagram reels. Have you seen my Tom Tuesday posts? If you’re on Instagram, I invite you to follow Happy healthy caregiver and save us to your favorites. If you like what you see, consider sharing a post to your story. This helps connect the podcasts and other helpful resources to family caregivers who may not yet know about us. Go to Instagram dot com forward slash happy healthy caregiver for today’s segment of what I’m reading. I’m reading a book that was nominated on good reads for best fiction last year. It’s called Demon Copperhead by Barbara King Solver. So far, it’s like reading a train wreck that you can’t help but continue to watch. The setting is in the mountains of Southern Appalachia. It’s a story of a boy born to a teenage, single mother in a single wide trailer with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and his copper colored hair, his wit and a fierce talent for survival. The plot never pauses just when you think it can’t get any worse. It does. There’s so many perils of things that this young boy has to endure. Title Demon Copperhead May strike you because it’s based on David Copperfield by Charles Dickens and his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and the damages to Children in this society. So many of these problems have yet to be solved in our current society. So Dickens provided the inspiration for Barbara Kingsolver to write this book. So I’m just hoping and praying at this point that demon gets connected with good and caring people. It does make me a little bit anxious. Um So if you’re not looking for a book like that, then this one is not for you. The hardback unusually is less expensive than the paperback. So I’m going to link to that in the show notes. My favorite thing right now is my Ford Bronco, my four door Ford Bronco, an eruption green color. And her name is Verda. This was supposed to be my husband, Jason’s SUV. We’ve had it for not quite a year. We got it last September. So I really, this is my first like spring into early summer with my convertible Bronco. We ordered it before COVID, but it took two years to come in. Jason got tired of waiting. So he got himself a Jeep Wrangler and said that we’d keep the Bronco or we’d certainly be able to sell it if we didn’t like driving it. Well, I can tell you, I love driving it. I can easily flip the first half of the top above my driver seat in the passenger seat by myself and I do it very often. There’s nothing like soaking up the sun wind in my face. Tunes on the stereo. I really honestly think this convertible vibe is making me happier. We’ve had the loveliest spring, early summer. I can remember enjoying Georgia. It’s not as humid or as hot yet as it typically is. And I’m hoping that my core ab muscles are getting stronger too. I’m 5 ft two and I have to do this little 12 jump to get in another car and I, well, I basically just slide out of the car frankly. So again, her name is Verda because of her beautiful green color. And I think that my husband was secretly hoping that I would trade him my car for his Jeep, but I am not doing that. In fact, I have branded my car with a personalized happy, healthy caregiver tire cover and I found this tire cover on Etsy. So I’ll link to that. It was only like 103 and 50 bucks and it’s fabulous. And that way if you have something with a tire cover in the back, you can advertise your business or your mantra. Before we get into today’s caregiver spotlight episode. I want to first shine the light on our episode. Sponsor Rare Patient Voice. Do you want to earn cash in exchange for your opinion? Researchers recognize that the true disease experts are those living with a condition and their family caregivers, rare patient voice or R PV helps connect researchers with patients and family caregivers for over 700 diseases and conditions for patients and caregivers. R PV provides the opportunity to voice their opinions and improve medical products and services while you’re earning cash rewards, rare patient voice, helping patients and caregivers share their voices if you’re interested. Join the R PV panel at rare patient voice dot com forward slash happy healthy caregiver. Let’s meet today’s caregiver in the spotlight. Anthony Copeland Parker, Anthony Copeland Parker cares for his partner, Catherine who was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s 10 years ago before becoming a family caregiver for cat Anthony who goes by Tony was a professional pilot for about 37 years or so. And much of his career with United Parcel Service. When he retired, he started writing his blog called Running with Cat. Up until recently they lived as nomads and completed marathons and half marathons while exploring 82 countries across all seven continents. This all happened while Tony was caregiving in this episode, Tony shares the ups and downs of the nomad caregiving life where they have found support while traveling together. Why Tony pushed the envelope and insisted that he and Kat live together in independent senior living. And what special requests he makes of the home care professionals. So, Kat continues to live a life filled with her personal joys. Enjoy the show. Hello, Tony, welcome to the Happy Healthy Caregiver Podcast. And how are you doing this fabulous day? I’ve been looking forward to talking to you for a very long time. Ah, well, good. I’m glad we finally got to connect. I’m doing well. Uh We were talking before. We both are, we’re morning people, I think. And so we’re on top of the day. I did my strength training. You got your run in. And I always feel like if we pay our health first in the morning, that the day kind of goes a little bit more smoothly. Absolutely. And also if you have a, a positive attitude, then it makes things even better. Well, that’s just, I’m lucky that that’s just part of my DNA, I think, although there were times where I lost it, it, it got muted but that’s part of what the happy, healthy caregiver is all about is like, how do we spark and how do we ignite that pieces of it. Well, I’ve been looking forward to talking to you too because there’s no story in caregiving. Uh, that I’ve come across that is like your story. And we all have unique stories, but this one I think will kind of shock people. Um And so let’s do it, let’s shock people. Uh 1st, 1st we kick off though, Tony, I do a little bit of a kickoff on the podcast with the words of inspiration, you know, again, setting it out with a, with a positive note and I made this for my sister when we transition, care for my mom and people can make one for themselves. I’ve got the download available and Happy Healthy caregiver. I’ve got inserts. So when I used to go visit my sister, I would stuff it full of more um stuff so she could pull one out every day. So here’s what you’re saying. Thank you too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are. What do you think about that? Well, it’s very interesting because I listen to a meditation while I run, you know, some meditations, you have to be in this special trance and all that. But I have one that you can do any time and the one I was listening to today was I am uh a complete and I have everything that I need and I just repleting that. And another one that I like to listen to is that I’m doing the best that I can. Those are the two that are my favorite and I can see what you’re saying is you, you know, you have what you have and it’s, it’s the best that you have and, and take that move on. Yeah. What we focus on grows. So if we’re focusing on all that yucky stuff, that’s what, what that’s what’s gonna grow. I love that you have these meditations. Is this something that’s accessible to other caregivers that they could use? Yes. Yes, it is. And uh what I’ll do is I’ll send you the link and then I’ll put it in the show notes. I love that. OK. I’ll make a note so that we can get that from you. Well, very cool, Tony. Well, let’s dive into your caregiving story. Tell us, give us kind of like um a synopsis of what it was like for you. Your, your partner, Katherine developed early onset Alzheimer’s diagnosis and you had a life before that diagnosis and you’ve had a life since that uh and you’ve had some health things on, on your own. So give us a little bit of a ground us where we are, where we were and how we got here. Ok. So I’m gonna take you back to 2013, which is 10 years ago when I first noticed that there was a problem, uh, with Katherine, uh, she was working, she had a nice job. Uh, however I could not convince her that there was a problem. Uh, fortunately, or unfortunately, which way I, the way want to look at it. Her unemployment started noticing the problem also. So when I was able to bring that to her attention and that she might lose her job and I was able to get her to go see a doctor neurologist and figure out exactly what was going on. Uh Luckily for her, she had a government job. So when the diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s was established, she was able to retire uh under a disability with the government. So that helped out a whole lot. So 203 is when she retired around the same time. Surprisingly enough, I was a commercial pilot with United Parcel Service and I have a routine physical and I found out that I had a leaky aortic valve and I needed to get that replaced. So June, just nine years ago, I had open heart surgery and I had my leaking or valve replaced with the mechanical valve. So here we are, she’s retired. Uh We know that she has early onset. I have no, no idea what I’m up. Against what we’re facing. I got my valve replaced. I’m 27 years at up, si got a good career going. I could, you know, still do, uh, about five or six more years there. But I decided that I wanted to take this uh diagnosis as a team effort. I wanted to be around. I wanted to see the changes and I wanted to be able to respond to them right away. So what we both did, what she was already retired. I retired. Uh we were uh endurance athletes at the time, we were both running marathons and we had some trips scheduled. And so we sold our home, uh backed everything up and we went on the road and we became nomads running marathons and half marathons all over the world. For the past eight years, we have visited 82 different countries and have run at least a half marathon and 35 of them, it’s been a fabulous journey even though during her decline, there was certain things that she was not able to do from time to time and as we progressed, but at the same time, we were together all the time, we were able to find joy and everything that we were able to accomplish. And during that period of time, I was also writing to a blog and I decided to take all those writings and I made a book out of uh our trips. So an adventure, an elevated adventure um touring all those countries and caring for someone as their primary caregiver. I know there’s people listening, Tony that are like, what in the world? Like, what did your support team? What did your health care, your family, your extended family? What, what kind of response did you get when you said, hey, this is our plan. Well, we had two different responses. One was from her family side was we want her around, you know, you know, because they thought that it was only gonna be a matter of years, you know, months or years and from my family standpoint, it was, well, he was a commercial pilot. He, you know, I knew him traveling all over the world. So, yeah, I could see him, you know, backing up and uh hitting the road. Uh, they knew that we both love to travel, that we both loved uh, to do races and we loved each other. So why not spend the time? And I did go ahead and make a commitment to come back and visit everybody about every three months. So we were, you know, going back and seeing her family, seeing my family just about every three months, we would take time and, and do that. So during that period of time and also me writing, they were able to follow along with us as to what, where we were and what we were doing or what we just did. So, uh I had a lot of pictures and stories to share when we got back. So overall, I think everybody realized that it was a, a very good decision for us. But what it to your point like you are already used to this endurance life, this traveling life. So it wasn’t like you were introducing a whole new um way of life for Catherine and yourself. But I imagine like I’ve, I’ve never, never met anybody who’s had a nomad kind of caregiving life. What does that look like? Like, what does that look like for you as the primary caregiver? What additional responsibilities? What preparations did you have to, to take? Well, what I tried to do is through my research, I found that some of the things that are beneficial for folks with Alzheimer’s was the fact that you needed to have exercise as part of your program. You needed to socialize as part of your program. You needed to see new and exciting things that would go into a part of your brain that would last a little bit longer than just a short term memory. And so what we did was a lot of our trips were group trips. We would meet up with folks, uh 50 100 of us, we would tour the cities that we were visiting. We would do the race, we would have dinners together. So we had all that socialization, we would do some cruises and we got to know people. And then as we would travel around, we were running to it again and then they became our support as we move forward. You know, a lot of the group, uh coordinators knew of our situation and were there to help. The other thing that I realized is that they travel industry is there to help all types of disabilities. They’re trained in that area and when they see us coming and they understand the situation, they bend over backwards to help us. So, um it would give us an example of that because I know sometimes I hear the opposite, you know that they’re rough on the wheelchairs and some of the equipment and you know, they’re making strides. But what is, what is the way that you saw the travel agent agencies and industry really help you. Well, I’ll give you one example. We were going to Saint Kitts and we were going to be spending about six weeks there. So I was taking quite a bit of stuff with us. Usually we’re just two bags, two backpacks and also Catherine was struggling at the time and I have what is known as the Cat Mobile, which is an adult sized stroller, which I still can run. She can’t. So I put her in that uh and run and then she gets out and walks up and then we go back and do that. So I have all this equipment, I show up at curbside and the Delta guy looks at me and he could right away, you know, tell that I needed help. He gets on his, you know, walkie talkie, he also wheelchair, he takes my bags, we go to the front line, he takes them stroll it to the oversize, you know, and then the lady shows up and wheels us right through uh the gate agent, you know, made sure that we had plenty of time to get our seats, you know, brought some snacks out and made sure that, you know, she was settled in and I am not seeing the other side that you’re talking about, but at the same time, I’m used to being in that environment. So maybe that is because of that fact that I, I know how to transverse it. Uh like for example, ts A, some of the TS A agents, we were traveling every 3 to 4 days. So they got to know us as we were coming through the line, they would make sure they, you didn’t have to queue up and you know, and go through. So, uh you know, we had plenty of examples like that where people, well, good. I hope that gives people the confidence and hope to really um try and I’ve seen where the, you know, they’re doing a lot with the seats on some of the airlines. Um and, and they give you the extra time. I’d love to find out more about that cat Mobile while you’re sending us the link for meditation. Um If that’s something that people could get because I think you getting, getting outside and you know, while their mobility changes that give you freedom um to really keep doing what, what you’re doing. So, so, so important. Well, I can tell Tony that you’re kind of born with this um can do attitude but many people unfortunately view dementia as some form of a, a death sentence and you clearly do not. You and Catherine have a thirst for joy. You’re committed to infusing that and, and doing that. Did you always feel that way? Well, I wanna go all the way back to my 37 years of flying airplanes and as a pilot, you’re going to get the airplane to destinations safely. There’s no other choice in the matter. So that is inbred in me to have a positive attitude of the outcome of whatever the situation is. So as we all know, we’re, we’re all going to die at some point in time. But, um, I try to look at trying to have the best quality of life during the period of time that we have together. Now you made a statement about the death sentence and it’s interesting because I, I normally say that it’s not a death sentence. It’s a life lesson and you learn every single day something new. And if you take it upon yourself to research and to learn and to talk to others that in a similar situation. You’ll find out a lot about what you could do to help your partner along the way people talk about. Well, you have to have a routine, you know, as soon as you, you know, make sure they have breakfast at the same time and they’re, you know, get up on the same side of the bed and all that. Well, it turned out that travel was our routine, you know, on travel days. That was the best day for her because she knew she was going someplace new and was gonna see somebody new and was gonna do something different. So, for us and it, and it became a joke because you’re like, where’s the bathroom? Well, you know, it’s someplace different. Yes, that is a true statement. But she knows that it’s going to be someplace different and it’s not going to be the same place and right now I have to help her. So it doesn’t really make any difference at all. Yeah, it doesn’t when, during the pandemic, did it, did your life have AAA different twist? Well, we had a couple of different situations happen during the pandemic. We came off a cruise in Saint Martin. We went over to Saint Kitts, which is an island that we had visited many times. We were going to be there for two weeks and then the pandemic hit and they closed the island. Uh, folks sit there, nobody coming in, nobody going out and we were stuck there for a month. So it was just me, Catherine looking at the two of us. And unfortunately, that was right about the same time she started having some delusions. So I was really faced with a, a lot of problems at that point, the isolation she was used to being around people. All the restaurants were closed, you know, it was just the two of us in a, in a condo. So I said, we gotta get out of here and me and about 20 other folks chartered airplane got off the island. I thought going back to her family in Indiana would be the best thing that for us to do. But when we got back, he was like, oh no, you’ve been traveling, you know, you can’t be anywhere near us. So we quarantined for two weeks and then he said, no, that’s not good enough. We quarantined for a month. He uh did come out of the delusions. That was a phase that she went through and uh came out of that. And then I looked at it and I said, you know, air fares are really cheap. There’s nobody on the airplanes. Hotels are really cheap. There’s nobody in the hotels. So we might as well just go back and get back on the road. So we only stayed off the road for about a month and we went back on the road. And actually for those two years during that period of time was probably the cheapest of our travel experience. Rental cars were dirt cheap, you know, hotels were empty and we, we worked around it. We said, ok, we like to run. So we just got out of the hotel and went for a run outside. You know, there’s nobody out there. Everything’s fine. We did grub hub, you know, delivery of our food. Uh, we walked the halls of the hotel, you know, to get our exercise and we worked around it. And since I was a pilot for so long, I knew that I was pretty, feel pretty safe on the airplane itself. We did wear a mask. At first we got our vaccine, vaccines, you know, right away. But I felt, you know, rather comfortable being in the airplane the way the filtration works. So, so much resiliency Tony and you’ve mentioned so many different self-care strategies and, and the categories, you know, intellectual, self-care, social, self-care, physical self care, obviously. Um so many different strategies that you have infused into your life. It’s, uh it’s, it’s remarkable frankly, I love your, I love your story. Now, you’re like, you’re 673 minutes from me. So I’m in Marietta Georgia. I found out you’re in Ross. I said, where are you today? You said Ross? Well, Georgia and started to explain it to me and I was like, oh, no, I know Roswell, I was married in Roswell 27 years ago and I went to North Springs high school, which is in Sandy uh Sandy Springs uh and grew up in, in the Dunwoody area. So you’re in my turf, Tony. So what, what brings you to Roswell? Why are you here? Like, how are you and Catherine? What, what, what are you up to like in current life? Well, this is a great story because uh as she progressed, we had to start looking at uh can we continue doing our international nomad lifestyle? And it became more difficult uh last year in October. And then a year ago January, we did make two more trips overseas. But then I realized that it was, would be too difficult for her. Unfortunately, for her to April of last year, uh she started having seizures, which is about 25% of the subset of the groups that have Alzheimer’s do also uh have to have, don’t have to have but have seizures. So that became a, a complication. Uh So I said, well, you know, let’s look at what the alternatives are and as you know, and I’ll, you know, talk to your, your listeners about we have what is, you know, the three tiers of care if you’re out looking for it and uh independent living, assisted living and then uh memory care. And uh for folks with Alzheimer’s, that’s what normally where folks end up in a memory care facility, the spouse lives somewhere nearby, maybe they live in the assisted living in the adjacent building and they come visit and when we were looking around for a facility, uh it turned out that most folks were saying, OK, let me show you your memory care. And I’m like, no, we’re gonna be together, you know, this is, you know, something, you know, I’m only 67 years old. You know, I can, I do everything for her. I need an environment where she will be safe. I need an environment where I can get some extra help, but I don’t need an environment where, you know, we’re uh 24 by seven type of care. So what a gift you are for the staff for people would do that. It’s like, you know, you have this consistency, she knows you, she, you have your systems of how you like. Hopefully you found the place for you that works for you both. Yes. And what we did was we took about three months to look into this. You know, we said, you know, what you’ll see is that a lot of people live near a relative when they go into this type of situation. So, uh I have a daughter here in Atlanta, I have a son and Virginia and I have another son in San Diego. She has a door in Bloomington, Indiana. So I basically went through the process of looking for facilities in those, those places. And uh it turned out that the Atlanta area downtown was not and I started looking out to the north and I found, uh, this, this facility called Brookdale Senior Living Solutions. It’s a unusual, um, sit, uh, building here, uh, complex as I call it because it had everything that I needed. It has, uh, it’s back off from the major streets. It has a half mile walk path around the facility which is greed and manicured and beautiful flowers and pool and, you know, wreck area and exercise room and then there’s about 300 people under a roof. So there’s three levels. It is huge complex and it has about two miles of carpeted core doors indoors. So we can walk out the door and just walk around. You know, we got pictures on the walls, we got chairs to take a rest, we got flowers in the corridors, you got people coming and going that, you know, that she can get hugs from. So it just turned out to be a, a perfect situation. I did have to convince the folks here though. I will say that, uh, that we could live independently. Of course, their, their first thoughts were, you know, we’re gonna put Catherine into memory care. You could stay independent and I didn’t see the, the need to, first of all, just from the, uh, cost, you know, $10,000 for memory care, another 3000 for an independent living, whereas we can live together. Um, the other thing is a lot of facilities, what they do is they have in-house, uh, care so you could pay by the hour to have somebody come in and, and help out. And as, as you know, and I’ll, you know, make sure your listeners understand you do need to take care of yourself as ever. And so what I did was I reached out and I have, uh, a number of folks that come in a couple hours a day and that was a, a kind of funny situation because as I was interviewing them, I said, you’re gonna be walking two miles an hour for four hours, Kaine is gonna take a break for a few minutes, take some, you know, get some hydration in, but she’s gonna get back up and go back out walking. She can’t run anymore, but still she’s an endurance athlete and yes, she puts in 6 to 773 miles every single day. Wow, that’s a happy place. And her Batmobile or her walker. No, no, she walks, you know, with the, the, with the folks that come in and, and then with me also in the afternoon and then when I want to go for a run. Yeah, I, I’m still doing, uh, races five Ks and 10 Ks and half marathons and, and we did one the other day and she had her feet sticking out on the side and they were just going at it like she was running alongside and she was cheering everybody on and, you know, she had a little, we had a little sign on her, on her, uh, on her stroller, you know, team cat. So, people were calling out her name and, and all, yeah, you’ve got to be famous in the circles of the, um, of the running world. It’s a, it’s a fabulous. I love that. You’re in my neighborhood, you’re motivating me. I thought my five K, 10-K, let’s see. What have I done a three day walk and, um, some of the Marine Corps mudd runs and stuff, but I’m more of a walker these days. So, yeah. Yeah, that’s a very good exercise. I totally agree. But I miss the efficiency of running. Like, it’s just like so efficient. Um, such a, such a great story and I’m glad that you were able to, to really work with your assisted living community to find a solution that works for everybody. Um, and it’s, you know, it, it just shows that you have to be, continue to be an advocate, um, for your loved one for yourself because this is your life and I encourage others that are, you know, might be in a similar situation, age wise. I’ve talked to some folks that have had situations. They’re a little bit older, a woman had her husband, you know, he was a bit aggressive so he couldn’t handle or handle him anymore. I understand those type of situations. But, you know, if there’s folks out there and are looking for, what am I going to do next? You know, to maybe they’re living at home and you know, we get two meals a day, you know, they, you know, the food is really good if the people here, they got activities all day long, that one was out dancing yesterday. And uh, so, you know, this is something to look for and also push the envelope, you know, just like I did, you know, in terms of travel, this is another envelope to push in terms of changing the norm of OK, your spouse is gonna go here and then you’re gonna go there. No, you can be together and you can be. And I’ve talked to some others that have been in similar situations where they’re still living uh in an independent situation with their, with their loved one. I mean, even finding a place for a couple is challenging because I know I had went through that with my folks when my, when my parents were still alive, we were moving them from Florida to the Atlanta area and to find a place that was large enough for a couple was really limited at the time. Maybe it’s gotten better with some of the newer communities. Um We ended up, we had to pivot, my dad had passed while in Florida and we had to just, you know, focus on mom at that point. But it’s uh I, I think it would, I always wished that my dad and my mom had moved into a place together, um, because he clearly would have been the mayor of that community and, like, known everybody’s professional history and sharing the stories. And I imagine that you probably are the mayor of Brookdale. Well, it’s interesting because what I did was, uh, I, I gave out a number of books here. They have a library. Our book is in a library and then they’re passing it around and, you know, we walk down the hall. So I, I got the book from Sherry and, you know, I’m reading it. Oh, my goodness. You know, and they go through, you know, the, the stories that I, that I told during the book. So, uh, it’s kind of interesting. And also, yeah, she Catherine is very famous because this says, I tell everybody, you know, she, this woman has run 83 marathons, a marathon in all 288 states and, uh, has done all the majors and there’s probably only, I think there’s one in that only 230 women have done, you know, done all that. So that’s a quite an accomplishment. Yes, she is where she is now. But now she had a fulfilling life and still is enjoying life to the, and you’re in my neck of the woods. Well, I have no doubt that some, some day our, our path will be, um, crossing and I’m, you know, it sounds like you have really accepted, it had to have been hard for you to also be grounded or do you find that you, um, are still able to travel and get some respite? Yes, we still travel, uh, about every other week. We will go somewhere local, Buford. Uh, we were over in Cummings, uh, you know, Gainesville the other day. We’re, you know, we, we still go visit her folks every three months. So we’ll go back to the Indiana area. I got it. My son just moved to Cincinnati. So in, in July we’re gonna go up there and see him. Um, and, uh, we, you know, we’re, we, I have to travel, I’m sorry, you know, if I got, if I got, you know, strap her into a wheelchair, you know, we’re, we’re still gonna be on the road and as long as we can. So that’s the way, yeah, it’s essential for your spirit and your self care. Uh, and, you know, is there, you know, back to all these countries and all these things. Like, is there like a certain memory that sticks out for you? Yes, there is. Uh, we started our, uh, international marathoning back in 200. We, we went to, uh, Athens Greece and it turned out that in 210 220 BC Philips ran from marathon to Athens. And that’s the mileage between the two, which is 267 miles. And that’s how, yeah, that’s how the marathon mileage and the whole thing started So we started back in 803, 280, 226.2 BC and now is 2100. So 2500 years later, they’re putting together this, uh the Athens Marathon. So everybody, every single country was, was represented, everybody was dressed up. It was a really big deal. And, uh we were out there doing our marathon thing and at that, about that time, we were starting to slow down. So it was gonna be one of those times where we were our first time. We might be over five hours doing a marathon. And Katherine is very competitive. You know, even today, you know, she sees somebody walk by or she’s, she’ll speed up to, to keep up with them. And, you know, I told her that I said, you know, if we don’t speed up, it’s gonna be a over five hour. Oh, no. So she started speeding up. I started speeding up. So we cross the finish line and we are one of the things we do is we cross hand in hand, even if she’s in a stroller, I’m, I’m holding her hand and that’s been, you know, one of the things that we’ve always done. So we’re hand in hand going across the finish line and we’re in the colosseum, uh famous Coliseum and everybody’s cheering us on. There’s a picture taken of us and overhead is four minutes, you know, four hours and 49 minutes and some change and she’s completely airborne. And she’s slightly behind me. It looks like I’m pulling a rag doll across the finish line because I’m over a foot taller than she is. So it is, it is the, you didn’t want to face the wrath of if you hit over 55 hours. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So we had a great time and then we got the bug of international. So that was where it really got, you know, every time we were like, ok, let’s go to Paris. Let’s go to London, let’s go to Stockholm. Let’s go, you know, I could just, you know, nail them off of all the different places that we went and we ran and, you know, like I said, it was mostly groups. So it was a couple of different groups that we use and the people knew us and, you know, have, uh, have been really supportive us over the years. So she started the group groups that you use. Like, are there any that if someone’s listening and, and, and we’re like, oh, I’d like to do that. Absolutely. Uh, marathon tours and travel. They’re in, uh, Boston area. Uh, they’ve been in business forever. A really nice, uh, group of folks and they do, uh, tours. They’ll set you up for the marathon, they’ll get you a race entry. Uh, we just went back with them in October to go back to Berlin. Short story about that. I had my open surgery in June. I had a race in September in Berlin. And my doctor said we can make this happen. So my surgeon opened me up, replaced the valve, closed me back up. And uh uh three months later, I was in Berlin doing the uh the marathon there. So we went back uh and uh had a little bit, we didn’t do the marathon. We just went back with the group and then there’s another one called marathon expeditions and what they do if they go uh somewhere and they’re not looking at doing a whole marathon. But we were just with them last January in Costa Rica and they’ll put on small races. They’ll get this, the, the locals to get out and, and chart a course for a five K or a 10-K and then they’ll do some touring and all. Yeah. There you go. It is. It is. And so we, we do that and we have another trip scheduled with them and God willing in January uh to go to Aruba, which is one of our favorite places. We went there with them to Aruba. We did it with a cruise ship, got off the cruise, they picked us up on buses, they had a police, you know, escort to the start of the race. It was just, it was uh the, we’re backwards uh over the top. So those are the two groups that we usually use. Uh Yes, the travel bug is a real thing like we you know, my kids were in high school. We started, I backpacked after college at Penn State. I went to 13 countries within nine weeks with two girlfriends long before internet and cell phones and all of that. So, you know, one of the proudest that, you know, accomplishments, um, but I wanted my kids to kind of have that same kind of thing. So when they got old enough that they really didn’t need anything for holidays, we started doing trips as the four of us and families and we’ve had a blast, you know, really just, and it has instilled in them. The travel bug. My daughter graduated from college, she did the backpacking thing much differently where you can book hostels in advance and all of this. But I was, you know, I think it’s such a to get out of our own places and really experience um some other things and group, group events are a nice way for people to really get a taste of that. Um One of the things that we’ve used as a family is and I’ll link to this in the show notes. It’s travelzoo zoo travelzoo dot com has different packages of events. And so we’ve gone to, you know, a 10 day trip in Italy where we’ve gone to Rome Florence and Venice and they take care of all the connections we’ve done Barcelona and Paris. We’ve done an Ireland trip. So, um yeah, we’re, we’re a travel, we’re a travel family. Um and we’re itching to go somewhere. No, nowhere international. This year we’re going to San Diego and um in August, I’ve never been. My kids have never been. My husband has been so we’re my, my son lives in San Diego. We go visit him quite often and we love it out there. So, yeah, a year 26.23 with us. Um we’re excited to kind of do that in August. But then next year we’re definitely like we need to get out of this country. Yeah, we, we’re, we’re itching, we’re itching hard. So you mentioned your book briefly running all over the World. Our Race against early onset Alzheimer’s. I’m gonna link to it in the show notes. I know people are gonna want to learn more about your, your story. Has anyone offered to do a documentary for you of y’all? Uh It’s an interesting story and I’ll, I’m gonna send you the link and you can put that in your show notes. I actually have a 15 minute professionally done video of Catherine and I uh doing the Mesa Arizona uh 10-K. And what ended up happening is uh I’m not gonna mention the, the outlet, but they were looking at doing a, a series on couples facing uh tough situations. Uh Unfortunately, they did our edited, it, had it ready and then the other ones didn’t work out quite well. So they decided not to do it, but they gave it to me. And, uh, yeah, it is. Yes, I would love to see it. Now, I will say this, you gotta have some tissues because every time I watch it I start crying and, um, it’s, it’s, it’s very touching. They did a fabulous job. But yeah, listen, sometimes we need a good cry. Tony. Like a good cathartic cry is I leak often on this. Um, when I’m interviewing folks because we’re human. That’s so great. I, I’m gonna mention one of the things for your, for your folks that they might want to think about. And I found out about this is this uh item called a fire stick. Some folks might know about it. You plug it into your TV. And through Amazon, you can download your pictures. So every morning while we’re having breakfast, I have some music playing which as you all know, music is, is very good therapeutic for folks at this, uh, stage. And, uh, I have our picture, I could tell it to show pictures of 2014. I could tell it the, you know, current pictures and, you know, she doesn’t sit there and stare at it, but, you know, every solar office she’ll look at a picture and she’ll see it and she’ll smile and comforting. It makes her feel like she’s still traveling and doing these things when you all are, um, back at home, home base. Well, I will definitely share that. That was a great gift. Idea too is, you know, we’re always looking for different, different things. Um, I want to switch scares and we’ve been talking about self-care really the whole time. But, um, you know, and you, you’ve talked about how you’ve gotten breaks. Um, I did have a question. Is your book also part of the s authors community? Ok. Well, we have that in common. Those folks are fabulous. They have, I, I worked with them for quite a while to get them to, to, to look at my book. They were like, oh, you’re just money, you’re just traveling. And I said, yeah, but if you, you know, really, you know, take a good look at it, you’ll see the gyms that are in there, uh about how beneficial, you know, I say travel is our medicine. Uh And uh they, they came on board and they’ve been very, very supportive of, of us and, uh I, I really enjoy those ladies. They, they do a job. I actually put up a collection of books, uh, that they had selected and I, it’s in our library here. Uh Yeah. Yeah, it works out good. And I’m not the traditional all author either because I’ve got this journal. It’s, and it was written with caregivers in mind. It’s a prompted journal because journaling was such a big part of my healing as a caregiver and people can be overwhelmed by writing. And I don’t know, did you likely found writing to be therapeutic or you wouldn’t know it, journaling, you know, and I just turned it into a book. So it was the same thing and it was very, very, you know, therapeutic for me. And I still write, I still write to my blog. I, I just produced one, just the other day called If I Get dementia. And, uh, it was one, you know, talking about, you know, what you should do for your loved one when, if, and when they get dementia and then I was adding to it, you know, my personal experience and what I would do, what I would want someone to do if I, what would you want someone to do? I’m curious. Oh, it’s, it’s very long. It’s, uh, but I will, you know, I will, you know, pull out, I’ll, yeah, I’ll pull out some gems which are, you know, play some music for me. Make sure I have some nourishing snacks, uh, nearby, uh, leave out things that I can move around that won’t get broken and you won’t worry about, you know, that I can play with and then I’ll put them back for you. Uh, and, uh, you know, things like that. Uh, make sure I get plenty of sleep. Uh, don’t give me a bunch of drugs, uh, you know, try to find, uh, supplements that will help me and, and, and all, and be there for me. Uh, and also, uh, take care of yourself as your caregiver, take care of yourself because then you can take care of me better by being rested and all. So I, you know, like, for example, this morning, you know, nine o’clock, someone showed up, I went up for a run, you know, they’re out walking the halls or outside and I’m talking to you and then they’ll, they’ll leave at noon and I’ll, I’ll pick up the, pick up what you gonna do. We’ll do it. I had a tag team yesterday. So, you know, it works out good and she, she loves the people. You know, they come in, she gives them a big hug, you know, and they go out and laugh and play music and talk and walk and, and whatever, it’s a win, win, win. I think it’s like, it gives people a chance to be compassionate and be the caregiver whether it’s family or, or hired, it gives you a break and it gives Catherine a change of scenery and pays, uh, and, you know, someone’s listening and really reluctant to get in home care. Uh, I always think like my mom was probably sick of us. She probably wanted, you know, someone else to and you know, someone else to share her stories with. And it’s, it’s, it’s definitely powerful. I know sometimes it can be hard though to have a stranger coming into your space. One of the tips that I give folks Tony is to, like, get them maybe first to come in and help with laundry or cooking or something that’s less personal to kind of get the person acclimated to it. Yes, Catherine, she’s used to having people around. So that was not a problem with her. She’s, you know, she’s used to having, you know, your person. You’re the expert in Catherine’s care and in what you need also. Uh, so let’s go. I’m gonna do a lightning round with you of the, the selfcare journal. So we’re gonna pick out some prompts. And what are two of your go to healthy snacks? Oh, and we put them together at about 88 30 every night. Sliced apples and peanut butter. Yum. What kind of app? What’s your apple of choice? 00 my. I, you know, it’s interesting because I, every time I go in I pick a different one. And is this like a surprise for us? I think that I just went to the store yesterday and it was granny apples was what I picked. But we, we’re a big apple country here when it turns September, you and Catherine can go check out the, the apple orchards in North Georgia are a lot of fun. Apple butter, apple pies, yummy, yummy, yummy. Those aren’t healthy snacks though, by the way. Um Let’s see. Where do you find your inspiration to be healthy? That, that was weird because as soon as you said that I started to tear up and I don’t know why that hit a note, you know, as strong as it did. But, well, actually I do know because I have to be here for her. Yeah. And this is not, you know, it’s, we’ve been at this for 10 years and the average is eight years and, you know, people can survive for 20 years. Yeah. You know, I’m 67 years old so I gotta, I gotta make it to, you know, 77 you know, 80 years old. So I have to take care of myself so I can be there for her. That’s how I look at it. That’s my inspiration. Yes. When you were talking there and of course, you’ve got me choked up because one of the thing, if I see someone choked up then, oh, I’m the same. But I uh the, the whole phrase, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. It really has special meaning. In your case, I’m laughing out loud because that’s my next blog entry. I’m working on right now called It’s, it’s a marathon, not a sprint, but in actuality in the body of it, I want to explain to people. It’s actually a triathlon. A triathlon has swimming. You have to transition to the bike and then you transition when you’re all beat up and done, then you gotta run 26.2 miles. And that’s how we, you know where we are right now. We’re in the, the running portion of it and she’s in stage six right now as, you know, you know, pretty much I have to do everything for her. Uh, luckily we’re still able, we’re still mobile. Um, and, but I, you know, I feed her, change her, you know, do anything else for her. So we’re in the, my legs are tired. She’s tired. We, yeah, we’re, we, it’s, you know, late in the day we’ve been at this all, you know, for a long time and we’re still trying to get to the finish line and get the medal. So that’s how, but it’s, it’s so funny that you said that, yeah, we were on this late today. But I, you know, when you’re saying that like I have this visual that used to come to me uh when I was feeling this way as, you know, the caregiving, taking care of kids and working full time and caring for my mom and, and all of that I would sandwich. Yes, I would call it a Rocky Rocky corner moment was kind of what I called it where the Rocky Balboa movies, you know, he’s all beat up and battered and the coach is like massaging the squirting the water in and they’re like, you got this Rocky, you can go out and do this. So I feel like you’re in your Rocky Rocky corner moments right now, Tony. Yeah, you, you actually statistically you’re in the toughest spot, you know, being in the middle of, of all that because uh, you know, surprisingly enough, there’s a lot of cases where the caregiver does not survive the person they’re caring for. And that’s because they just put on too much and, and don’t realize it. I mean, I think honestly that’s what happened to my dad. I mean, my dad was my mom’s caregiver and she, and he can also, I have a brother that is neuro divergency as it was born with a developmental and intellectual disability. So my dad had everything right. He had the home, he had the mom, he had my, my so and we were six hours away, which is why it’s so nice to be, you know, to still have that family support somewhat nearby. And we tried for years Tony to get them to move back to the Atlanta area. Uh, and then the, my dad was the stronger of the two like health wise, like it no more healthy, you know, nobody was healthy but it was, you know, if I was a betting person, I would have bet on my dad, you know, outliving my mom and that was not the case. So, uh and then we were in kind of the worst case scenario frankly. Um, but it makes us who we are here. We are. Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, ok, one more thing, let’s see, here’s a good one. Let’s finish on this one. What’s a life lesson that you believe needs to be taught in school? So I live by and I got this from my mother. The, the golden rule, you know, do onto others as you want them to do unto you. You know, I, I say this to people like, oh, well, you don’t know what the other person wants. They might not want that blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Ok. But I’m at least going to try to do onto others and it is proven to be so beneficial to me, you know, right off the bat. People can tell this guy is really going to have, you know, be looking after me, be thinking about me, be thinking about, you know, what he can do for me. And so I can’t turn him down, you know, if I come back and ask absolutely what do you need. And so it, it works out really great and the other one, my mother gave to me when she was in a, in a facility and I took care of her for nine years, which was she, I would go visit. She would say. So, what did you do for somebody today? You know, I’ve done it like my mom would say, right, I’ve done this for, you know, for Marjorie and I’ve done this for carry whatever. And so it is so cool being here, you know, I’m a youngster here, you know, I, you know, it’s, it’s hilarious but, but also it’s very inspirational to me because I’m seeing these folks in their, you know, eighties and nineties and there’s a lady right down the hall, 100 and two years old, you know, that’s still, you know, doing, you know, doing everything but her laundry and she has somebody come in and do that. But the thing is, is that I have plenty of opportunities to do something for someone else every single day. So that’s something, those two things should be taught in school. You know? What did you, you know, try to figure out what you could do for somebody else, you know, open up the door, pick up their bag, you know, help them figure out something they’re, you know, too short, you know, get something off the top shelf, say hello, I’m thinking. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, those are fabulous. Anything else, Tony before we wrap up our call that, you know, parting words of wisdom for caregivers and I’m gonna put all the links of how people stay in touch with you. We’ll put running with cat dot com is your blog. I’ve got your Facebook, your Instagram, your Twitter that I’ll also link to and of course your link to your book. But how do you want to wrap this up today? What I would like to stress more than anything else is the fact that everybody’s journey is going to be unique. You know, I gave you some stats on, you know, how long and, and whatever, but we don’t know, I took the tack of spending as much time with Catherine as possible, you know, instead of me going out and continuing working and I was in a position where I didn’t have to do that, but, you know, don’t go off and have her play bridge and then you go play golf, find something that you enjoy doing together and do it and do it as long as you feasibly can and you will enrich both girls’ lives uh throughout. So those are, that’s what I want to leave. All your listeners. Definitely noted in my book. You have been a pleasure to talk to what you, what you can tell your mama uh up in heaven that you, what you did for someone is you touched a lot of lives today. Yes, I, I have a, a tagline which I, I know it is really weird. I, I try to inspire others. This is a long hill, you know, so I expire to inspire till I expire. I love that. Thank you, Tony. You’re quite welcome. I hope our paths cross. We’re gonna have to make a date, I think. Yes, I, I love that. Thank you so much for blessing us with your story and your wisdom and the tips and your authentic voice. I’m very appreciative of our time together today. Glad we were able to connect. Thank you very much. Enjoyed it. Thanks for joining us today on the Happy Healthy Caregiver podcast on the whole care network. As always show notes that a company today’s episode can be found on my website happy healthy caregiver dot com. Just look under the podcast menu for today’s episode image and that will take you to the page with the links and information we spoke about today. You’ll also find other resources on the website along with links to purchase the just for you daily self care journal. When you purchase from my website, you’ll get a signed copy and for a limited time free shipping. If you’ve enjoyed what you heard today, consider subscribing to the show on your podcast platform, it really helps other family caregivers find the podcast and you’ll automatically receive our biweekly shows in your podcast listening queue. Maybe while you’re subscribing, consider leaving a five star rating and review or just simply talk it up on your social channels. Let’s stay connected. I’m on Instagram and Facebook as happy healthy caregiver. And until we meet again, please take care of you. This is the whole care network helping you tell your story, one podcast at a time.

 

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