Burnout happens when we’re not able to properly manage and we have prolonged exposure to unmanaged stress, right, which is why caregiving burnout is so common. Oh, it’s not usually just a week in this space, right? It’s prolonged.

Are you caring for others while working and trying to live your own life? Wondering how to find the time for your own health and happiness? Well, you’re in the right place. The Happy Healthy Caregiver podcast, which is part of the whole Care Network, is the show where real family caregivers share how to be happy and healthy while caring for others.

Hello and welcome. I’m your host. Elizabeth Miller. I’m a fellow family caregiver, a care advocate, a professional speaker, author, certified caregiving consultant, and certified senior advisor. If this is your first time listening, thank you for being here. This is a show produced biweekly to help family caregivers integrate self-care and caregiving into their lives. Each episode has an accompanying show notes page. If you’d like more detail about the top. Topics, products, and resources we speak about or you want to see any of the related photos, you’ll find the show notes by going to the website happyhealthy Caregiver.com and underneath the podcast menu, click the image or episode number for today’s show. The link for the show notes will also be in your podcast platform’s episode description. Now, let’s get to it. Let’s jump into this episode.

Before we dive into this episode with Carrie Severson, I want to first share a couple of things with you on my own. First of all, I want to invite you to the Self-care at Sea Cruise that is happening in October of 2025. Me and my daughter are going and several other other influencers and professionals in this space are joining us, and we want to invite you, family caregivers and other professionals and Actually anyone who just enjoys cruising to come and join us.

We are gonna have some specific programming and activities for family caregivers, but you can certainly, you know, explore all that the cruise has to offer and we’d love to interact with you. We are excited about this because this is a great way for caregivers to get the respite that they deserve by having this wonderful time, you know, set aside for them to just be themselves, um, although you, you Certainly bring your, your, your care recipient with you if you choose, um, but perhaps you’re thinking about this as respite for yourself, and then we want you to leave with a community of resources and support once you return back home.

So we’d love for you to check this out, our selfcare at Cruise, and you’ll do that by going to bit. lee/HHCelcarecruise, and you can learn all about it and be sure to reach out if you have any questions. I’d like I’d like to thank our episode sponsor, Crazy Comression. Do you ever feel like your feet and your legs are exhausted by the end of the day, or maybe you’ve noticed a bit of swelling after sitting or standing for too long? Well, I want to introduce you to Crazy compression socks.

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I want to talk about a book that I read recently that I guess is technically in the horror genre. It, the title is, it is also appropriately named for I think for this episode where we’re talking about burnout, but it really doesn’t have anything to do with burnout, but it’s called The Breakdown. And it’s a novel by BA Paris. So late one night, a woman drives by a stranded motorist who is later revealed to have been murdered, and after a series of terrifying events, the woman believes that she is the killer’s next victim.

I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars because it grabbed me definitely in the beginning and certainly at the end and maybe in the middle, I had to, you know, that was what kind of prevented it from a 5-star read for me. Um, but I, I did struggle a little bit with the main character being hard to like sometimes, at least in the book, and several parts of it were a little bit unbelievable, but we’re reading fiction here, so I again I kind of let that go. So, and when I was researching this to put into this podcast, I realized that they also made this book into a movie called Blackwater Lane and it stars Minka Kelly, Dermot Mulrooney, and Maggie Grace.

So, I have added that to my prime, um, so that I can stream that there. I do think it costs money on prime. I also believe it could be on Peacock. um, and you know, by the way, because this book’s called The Breakdown, I want to share with you that a break for caregivers is much better than a breakdown, but we’ll link to this in the show notes. My favorite thing this week that I want to share with you is something called Flav City Electrolytes. So Flav City is the brand, it’s an electrolyte drink drink mix.

Um, I like a lot of the flavors. The one I’ve got here with me today is lemon lime, which is one of my, one of my favorites. When I first, you know, thought about electrolytes, now my husband did used to sell an electrolyte drink, so that kind of made me smarter about electrolytes, but even then I kind of thought, That it was for, you know, athletic type of days or if you’ve been overserved alcohol and you need to rehydrate or for people who are really sick, particularly like during COVID, we were sharing a lot of electrolytes and yes to all of this, but it’s for everyday too.

So I hired a health coach last fall and um Health with Hunter is his name on Instagram. And I, he recommended drinking one of these daily, and this was a brand that he did recommend because it is, you know, clean, it’s gluten-free, it doesn’t have natural flavors and all of that other stuff in it. And the reason why the electrolytes can be great for you is that they do help you with hydration, you know, they help your body absorb water more effectively. They can boost your energy.

I find that when I drink one mid-afternoon, Um, and, you know, we, we as caregivers certainly need that. They can prevent muscle cramps, they can improve mental clarity because it’s got that sodium and potassium, which is good for your brain function, and they can strengthen our immune systems by maintaining a healthy balance of essential minerals which we need because we’re, you know, certainly kind of exposed to a lot of, a lot of different Things. Um, it, you know, has helped me reduce soda intake, you know, and sometimes I just want something besides water.

Um, I do enjoy it after a workout or being out in the sun, but I’ve been starting to to just incorporate these into my daily habits. So, I, um, I’m gonna, if you haven’t tried these out before, I’m gonna recommend the variet. pack so that you can kind of try out the different flavors. I will say like when you put them in water and you don’t want to put them in the water with the ice right away, you might also want like a little handheld blender, um, whether it’s a froth or or some types of blender because it can get a little kind of clumpy in your water, um, but that, that does the trick every time.

It’s just a little handheld blender. So, and then throw your ice in afterwards you can make it cold. I’m gonna link to this from this Amazon of the Flav City electrolytes. Let me know what you think about them. Let’s meet today’s caregiver in the spotlight. In this episode of the Happy Healthy caregiver podcast. In this episode of the Happy Healthy Caregiver podcast, we are joined by Carrie Severson. She’s a caregiver to her husband Gavin and a recognized expert in burnout. Carrie shares how her personal caregiving journey inspired her advocacy work, storytelling, and her podcast, I saved you.

Now, do the dishes. We dive into the difference between caregiver burnout and the entrepreneur. burnout that Carrie previously experienced and has spoken about. She also recounts a shocking experience with a disruptive healthcare professional and how she successfully had them removed from her care team. Plus, Carrie reveals some of her go to self-care practices, including cold therapy, box breathing, and using music as a powerful healing tool. Enjoy the show.

Hello, Carrie. Welcome to the Happy Healthy Caregiver podcast. Thanks for having me. I’m excited, excited to have a great conversation with you today.

We do always kind of kick off the show by, you know, inspiration, motivation, whatever, um, from this very rustic looking happy healthy caregiver jar. So I’d love to get your thoughts on this, um, quote from today. OK, sounds great. It says, oops, it wants me to pull 3. Let’s pull 1. it says what you deny or ignore you delay. What you accept and face, you conquer. Any thoughts on that? The first thought that came to my mind is that’s pretty much what most burnouts deal with, like we’re in a space where We just keep going, we just keep fighting, we just keep thinking, if I just get this one more thing, something will change, right?

versus accept the fact that We can’t do it all right now. We have to sort of surrender to something and lean into the places that we’re probably being intuitively guided towards, but um. We’ve got so much adrenaline, we’ve got so much fight or flight, so much ramped up that it’s really hard to hear that. And so we just keep shoving that down. It’s so true. I, it took me a minute to figure that out as well and You know, but one of the mantras that I used to say or that I kind of clung to was you can have it all just not all at once, and I get it.

Like I, I’m a recovering like productivity ninja sometimes like feeling like your worth is based on how much you’re getting done in the day and yeah, that’s not sustainable, right? Absolutely. So very in and pulling 3 versus 1, that’s very typical for. like for this like let’s just do them all. We can do it all. Yeah, we can just read the whole jar. It’s very that’s true. That’s for me. Yeah, I love that. Well, I’d love to hear, you know, a little bit and introduce yourself to the caregiving community here that hasn’t met you yet, but share your story about how you became a caregiver, you know, how did it begin and what’s it been like for you and your family?

So my, um my husband and I met in 2018. We um have a very, you know, new age kind of modern story. We met on Bumble and he was married previously, so we had kind of like a, a rough start where he has kids and we were, you know, consolidating houses and everything. We were supposed to get married a couple of um 23 days before the original COVID shutdown happened and that sort of put a huge. Backle and our plans, um, but eventually we were one of those couples that got married on Zoom and then had a really hard time finding a house in the housing market and so we finally found this beautiful place I’m sitting in in September of 2023 and six weeks later in a brand new place trying to start our life together, he wakes up and he’s got this golf ball size lump on the side of his neck, and he comes out of the bedroom and he has his hand cupped over his neck and he’s like, Honey, does my neck look big to you?

And I, I’m like, ha ha, you know, there’s gonna be some things you’re gonna have, yeah, something, there’s gonna be something there. And he’s like, no, seriously, look at, look at me. And I’m, you know, brand, brand new home. There’s all these kids running around, it’s a Saturday, my My stepkids have made friends really quickly. There’s like 10 5 year olds running around, and I’m scooping mac and cheese into bowls and um he, the way he said my name made my stomach just like tighten up and sure enough, there’s this la.

And um that was October 28th and by November he was diagnosed with cancer November 28th. By January 22nd, he was in um radiation and chemo. He had had a neck cancer. um it was quite severe and I went from being an entrepreneur, uh author, speaker, traveling the country, leading people through burnout recovery retreats and seminars to. All of that stopped and my full-time job was him. He was on so much medication he couldn’t drive himself. He would literally stand asleep. He would fall asleep standing up. It was very severe and um.

Yeah, I, you know, I’ve known a ton of people who’ve had cancer. My father-in-law was a caregiver, and I really didn’t anticipate what it would be like or how hard it would be so I’m in the thick of it and I’m like, how do people do anything else but this. And you’re a smart savvy lady that, you know, is is teaching about burnout recovery and then here you are kind of like yeah, it was bad. Do you think you experienced caregiver burnout? Oh, for sure, absolutely. And um did you the signs or were you like, yeah, OK. I knew I was back in it when I was in it and I kept I kept saying that I’m like, OK, so.

I need to practice what I’m preaching. I need my tools. I would do all the things that I need to do. But it, the difference between entrepreneurship burnout and caregiving burnout is legitimate life or death. Like if I stopped. Doing the things I needed to do for him, and he had to come first. Because his literal life was on the line. Um, yeah, I say that a lot. There’s coming out of caregiving burnout was, is so much harder. And I was recently actually just triggered. Somebody else really close to me was diagnosed with cancer.

And I was immediately went back into like navigating and practical tools and advocating. And I found myself like walking my dog at twice the pace that we normally walk and pacing and I’m like, oh yeah, here we go, this is it like there was another layer. It was very easy for me to slip back into that because there wasn’t enough space between what had just happened, um, and I’m still healing like I’m still this morning I started my day doing the tools I know how to do cold therapy, box breathing, I’m standing outside.

I’m very aware of this is a A journey. This isn’t like a quick fix. No, no, and it’s like a daily thing too. It’s like, you know, doing something here and there and like you said, kind of like, you know what your tools are and sometimes they don’t work and you’ve got to kind of like adapt and pivot. Yeah, yeah, you’ve got like a checklist of uh what’s gonna work today, what’s gonna work in this moment, and you just keep going on the checklist until you find something that does.

It’s like trying on clothes. That’s how I kind of describe self-care strategies. It’s like you’re trying on clothes and it’s like, well, how does this make me look? How does it make me look today, you know, it’s, it is, it is so different. I, I find it fascinating. That, um, well, first of all, this, you know, the trauma for sure about caregiving is, is real and. Um, You know, in some ways, you’re a super gift to this space, for sure, because you’ve had these years of expertise on entrepreneurial burnout, and now being able to apply it to the caregiver space.

And I just gotta ask you, Carrie, like, is burnout a blessing for you? You know, actually it’s so fascinating because this morning I was talking to my therapist and um she’s like, you know, uh my, the trigger that I just had and realizing I needed more time to heal. I wanted to start this year like this is my year, it’s not the cancer show I can do these things. I wanna get this out and then it’s almost like the universe went wait. You’re, you’re still not fully healed, um, so in that sense, yes, I’m given the opportunity to slow down.

Um, work on myself, do the inner work first, and that’s really in order to come out of it, there’s a lot of inner work that has to happen. So in that sense it’s absolutely. And it’s, you know, I’m, I’m grateful that I’m an entrepreneur as a support caregiver for my brother now, like, and if, if you need to lean into things, you know, we, we can kind of adjust our schedule, but at the same time, we still got to like make a living. And so there’s still, still some stress stress factors there.

Well, what are some of your like go to strategies for the things that you, that work for you in particular? Um, cold therapy, it, uh, so I’ve, I first experienced burnout as an entrepreneur in 2012 before burnout was a buzzword. And what did that look like? Like maybe we should stop pause there because like maybe people are burned out or slightly charred, I call it, and they don’t even know it. So burnout is a nervous system issue. It is literally defined by having unmanaged chronic stress, and so everyone is stressed, everyone has a ton of things to do during the day.

Burnout happens when we’re not able to properly manage and we have prolonged exposure to unmanaged stress, right, which is why caregiving burnout is so common. We, um, it’s not usually just a week in this space, right, or It’s prolonged, um, and I had a nonprofit that sort of caught on fire overnight, um. In the mid 2000s, so I burned out pretty quickly, um, ran at a pace I was not prepared for. And nobody was really talking about it, so I had a piecemeal my own recovery, and I would do things that would make me feel better that sort of caught me by surprise.

And so this one day my, I got pushed into a pool that was super duper cold and I came out and I felt I was like, wow, that’s refreshing. I’m, I’m not, you know, my body’s freezing but my my insides feel calm. So, um, cold therapy has always been something I’ve turned to, uh, as a caregiver, what does that look like for people if they want to try that on like, so, um. My favorite thing is using ice rollers, you know, people use them for like aestheticians use them on your face, yeah, I get really big ones.

I get ones that are used for like athletes. I started on Amazon for like $7. I’m gonna link two of those, yeah, and I stick them in my freezer and I legitimately start my day with them. And so we have this nerve that runs up and down the sides of our neck called the vagus nerve, and I rub an ice roller up and down both sides of my neck. For like 23 seconds while I’m You know, just breathing, taking deep breaths, eventually I will feel my body start to settle and I’ll start to sway, and that’s my internal sign that I’ve turned off my fight or flight and I’m in a state of relaxation, but cold therapy is my number one go to.

Um, I like that because it’s accessible to people. It’s like, yeah, you don’t have to, you know, dive into a pool or the ocean or even take a cold shower, like, go to your freezer. And you know they stay, they stay for a long time and so I would grab it on the way to the hospital and I would use it and um it doesn’t have to be like. you know, 30 degrees if you’re using something between 50 and 65 degrees, technically it’s cold therapy, so I would even grab ice cubes from like, you know, the cafeteria and stick me in a napkin, and I would use it there.

So I have never tried it, so I’m intrigued. I’m gonna try it. You’ve inspired me. My dad has been facing some anxiety issues and uh I just sent him an ice roller, and he took it to um he took it to his doctor and his doctor’s like, I approve you should do this. And so I, yeah, I, I give them out whenever I have like speaking gigs, at least I used to. I haven’t had a speaking gig in, well, yeah, last year, so it’s only February, but um, I would, I give them out as little instead of giving my books out, I give ice rollers out.

I love that, love that. What else, what else works for you? So the Navy SEALs do a breathing technique called box breathing, and if it’s good enough for those guys, it’s good enough for us. Uh, box breathing is just a really easy exhale for 228 counts, hold for 23 counts, inhale for 250 counts, hold for 24 counts, and I typically do that as I’m running the ice thing up and down my neck or I’m standing outside letting my body just sort of get used to, you know, stretching. Box breathing is my number one, it’s my go to breathing technique.

Let’s try it. OK, let’s do it. OK, walk us through. All right, so we’re gonna exhale for 25 for 22 counts first, and you can go as fast as you want. So exhale 23, hold 22, inhale 22, hold 210. Exhale, 234, hold 23. 4, inhale 234, hold 234, exhale 234. So just I, yeah, it’s very accessible again like these this is what I love. These are little micro acts that people can do, you know. At a moment’s notice, you know, while you’re sitting in a traffic light, like, you know, anywhere, it’s, you’ve got your breath with you all the time.

So speaking of the traffic light, um, really easy things that we’d forget about singing. Laughing really big belly laughs, yawning. These are all things that are going to Uh, stimulate the vagus nerve to tell our brains that we’re, we’re not being chased by a tiger. So that’s the whole purpose of our, our nervous system has to, you know, we have an on off switch, right? If we’re in a state of relaxation, we’re in one. Side of our nervous system, if we’re in fight or flight, we’re in the opposite and laughing, yawning, singing, those things tell our bodies that we’re safe.

So red lights, turn on the music, belt out whatever’s on. Um, force yourself to yawn. I that music is a is a serious mood shifter. I have something that I’ll reshare in the notes. Um, I call it a, a caregiver anthem playlist, like things that just remind me of caregiving and so it’s a Spotify playlist that like, you know, songs that have encouraged me and some of them, they, you know, they’re all over the place a little bit. Some are slower, some are faster, but um, yeah, I’ll, I’ll share that because I do think music can be a Uh, a, a mood shifter, and sometimes I call those my happiness 23 songs where it’s like, and sometimes you need to feel the feels, right?

Like the, the intention is not always to like really go straight to happiness, but it’s like, no, I need to sit in this moment and feel this feeling, um, and so sometimes music can help with that too, for sure, absolutely, and, um, it allows us to express. The things that are kind of pent up and um that’s what helps us move out of fight or flight into a state of calm. And then um my favorite, my favorite favorite ever since I was a kid, I used to get in trouble for laughing.

That was always my like defense, you know, like I’m 7 years old and somebody gets hurt. I was so freaked out I would laugh. It’s not because I thought it was funny, but that was my Sort of defense I guess laughter is like one of the best things we can do and so. Uh, and it’s really hard to find anything funny in those really serious scenarios, right? So I would give myself permission to, and the house is quiet, he’s passed out. There’s nobody around. I’m depressed. I would turn on an old movie from the 80s, um, Steve Martin, can’t, you know, like, um.

Chevy Chase, those types of things, or Caddyshack, yes, or things that I knew would make me laugh or I would turn on a stand-up comedy show, um, and I’d access laughter and again that signifies your vagus nerve that you’re OK, you’re safe and you start to process. Such a such great, great tips for, for us, accessible things that we can do. Um, yeah, Seinfeld, The Office, like these little shows that are, you know, 20 minutes on stream. Uh, amazing. What I’m curious, like, you know, your husband’s, um, how is he now, by the way?

He’s, um, you know, he’s healing. They don’t have, they don’t find any cancer cells in his body. They don’t say cancer-free or remission, but they see no cancer cells and um. You know, uh, I never use the word fine afterwards cause it’s like how, right, how do you do what just happened and then So he’s finding his, he’s finding himself, he’s exploring what he wants and where he wants to go next. He’s on a healing journey. I’m on a healing journey. And that was kind of my, my next question is like, he’s been through this burnout with you before or was he not in the picture when it happened?

OK, and then he gets this diagnosis for you know, of cancer. How was he with like, because I think we as caregivers, we feel guilty, right, that we can’t also, I do feel like when when a care recipient gets a diagnosis, we also get a diagnosis. It’s a very different type of thing, but life has uprooted and changed for us. How was he with like, no, this isn’t about you, you know, Carrie, you don’t get to feel burned out, um, you know, it’s not like um. Yeah, actually, so that, you know, I, I, I wrote, I wrote throughout the entire experience and that that was very much like I have to process, I have to write, yeah, and, um, towards the end of it we were trying to find our Uh, the rhythm and the balance again, right, cause the equilibrium gets so far off.

Um, it wasn’t. Um, a pretty picture, right? Like there’s a lot of, I do have a say in this, and that’s why everything I put out right now is called I saved you do the dishes because we have to, I podcast. I love that name. I met her too, and yeah, I saved you say it again. I saved you do the dishes. Yeah, so brilliant. So it is, and that is a common thing where caregivers, we do feel like. We’re sort of Um, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I, I mean, and that’s, you know, part of marriage is like, you know, I married 28 years, married my prom date, you know, we’ve, we’ve had our caregiving years, we’ve had our ups and downs of, you know, job losses and, and random things, but yeah, every now and then it’s just like that communication has to Come out where you’re like, OK, like I literally just said to him recently, like, I don’t want to own meal planning and prep and cooking, like, you didn’t marry that woman.

That’s not me. So like, you’re gonna have to, I know you’re busy like working 3 different consulting jobs right now and I’m busy too, but like we’re gonna have to figure this out. It’s not sustainable. Yeah, so in the spaces where I was like, this is what I need, I, you know, I said that the other day I was, you know, like I need this from you, and he’s very, you know, he understands he’s very agreeable. There were things about his treatment that he didn’t want me to have an opinion on, but um.

Again, I, I’m like, well, we’re in this together and so I’m gonna, yeah, I’m gonna say what I’m gonna say. I’m gonna give you my, I’m gonna give you my opinion whether or not you take it is up to you, but yeah, so it is hard. I mean. Family caregiving is definitely hard when you’re married to the person that you’re caregiving for and you’re living in the same space. It’s um it’s messy and yeah, very relatable, right? So. Yes, um, well, actually my husband teases me it kind of tongue in cheek way that I’m not that I’m not gonna be a very good care giver for him, which I find hilarious, but I’m like, I’m, I’m a tough love kind of caregiver.

I’m gonna push back and make you kind of, you know, do as much as you can do, be a part of your own own care team, but every now and then he’ll he’ll say that to me and I was like, listen, I’m a better cheerleader for caregivers than I am a hands-on caregiver. That’s just who I am. So, um. But yeah, hopefully, hopefully we don’t, we don’t get to explore that. But I do, um, and I, you know, you’re gonna be part of kind of this partner, caregiver, spousal caregiver stuff like curated content on happy healthy caregivers.

So people, because I know that every kind of caregiving situation has its own nuances, whether you’re young, you know, male, sandwich generation or whatever, so kind of tapping into what, what makes sense there, um. You know, I’ve, I’ve also stalked you a little bit Kerry, where you’re a fabulous writer, by the way. I haven’t read your books, but I’ve read your Huffington Post and I’m, I’m, I’m pulled in. And you know, you’ve had a couple really at least a couple, I should say we, we all kind of have those, but um the you found out about his diagnosis through voicemail.

That was one post and then tell us a little bit about this physician assistant. Yeah, that was pretty rough, um, so. Yeah, so We went to, um, you know, we, Gavin and I talk about this all the time that I feel like the entire situation was so messed up giving us the opportunity to share what we’ve learned and I mean I advocacy was something I did not expect to have to do to the point where I’m literally fighting the hospital to save his life and that’s, that’s what we were done, right?

So his um. The original PA that was assigned to his case, um, a very egotistical woman who needed to be heard and um unfortunately, I don’t believe that she should have been in a patient facing position and um She really did not like my husband and uh and he you know he fought hard, he didn’t want, he was 50 years old when he when we went through this and he wanted to walk into every meeting and he didn’t want to use wheelchairs. He, he, um, really struggled, yeah, he was, he was, he had a hard time accepting the fact that he was gonna be in as much pain as um.

They said, and even when the doctors were like, you’re gonna experience some pain, you’ll wanna take these drugs and wanna take these nerve ending things and my husband was like, I’ll be fine, I’ll be fine. He wasn’t, um. So week after week, we have to meet with this woman and you know she’s commenting on his weight loss and um saying that, you know, how are you eating? Are you keeping up your calories and I was like Johnny on the spot when it came to calories. If he could eat, I’m loading up, you know, cheese and butter and I’m counting, I’m counting calories and butter, you know, and.

So come week 4, week 5, it’s recommended that he get a feeding tube and he and I get into an argument. And um he’s like, I don’t want a feeding tube. I wanna fight this. I want to do this. I wanna do this, and he’s really sick. He’s really weak. I’m like, uh we need this and you’re like. I, I want you to have to like, you’re gonna die without this. We need that. So, um, I, I say have the GI team call me and Gavin’s like, I don’t want one.

So he’s asleep and, uh, the GI team calls a couple of days later and I’m like, um, well, he’s not really ready for a feeding tube, but talk to me what is this like? And the GI department says, well, we can’t see him for at least 2 months and I’m like, he needs a feeding tube now. I’m ready to drive him to the hospital now. Yeah, like he’s not gonna live 2 months, right, um. And so it goes into our record that I denied the consult because 2 months doesn’t matter 2 months he’ll he’ll be dead.

So we show back up for the next week’s meeting, which is just a couple days later and we’re, we sit back down with this PA and she rips into Gavin. He’s, I mean, he hasn’t ate in days, he hasn’t drank in days. We’re literally on this bench. He’s passed out of my lap. She walks in, we don’t say anything to him, to her because he’s. He can’t speak, um, and at this point Gavin had developed these, um, he had developed a side effect of radiation where he had second degree burns all around his neck and inside his mouth.

It hurt to speak. Um, but he had ropes of mucus and so he would literally pull out. Ropes some yes and he’s spitting blood everywhere and. Oh my God, it was awful. I’m so sorry Carrie, like it’s really, it was awful and it was awful. She walks in and she immediately starts ridiculing Gavin about, um, you know, her, yeah, I didn’t even get a chance to say. The two month thing she was like, um, you know, you missed your opportunity to get a feeding tube and you make my job hard.

This is your fault blamed him and so my husband who’s practically passed out, he can’t see out of both of his eyes. Only one eye opens a little bit. Um, he is apologizing to this woman and I couldn’t, I couldn’t let him do that. I couldn’t take it. So I leaned into her and I got as close to her as. I probably a little bit too close, but I was pissed. And I’m like, you know what, your job is to work with him, and what you’re doing is, uh, unappreciative.

I need you to do your job. And I said, you took an oath to do no harm and what you’re doing is harmful. And what you’re saying is harmful. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t blink. She just stared at me and my husband’s like a robot. It was the tension in that room was really high. And um he grabs my hand and he kisses it and he’s like it’ll be OK and I’m like, it’s not gonna be OK. You’re gonna be, you’re gonna die. We need, you need a feeding tube.

So this woman was like, You better pray to your lucky stars. I can work some magic. So I just stood him up and we left that room. And then um he went to, he actually did have radiation and he, we did have, he had an infusion so we had some, some liquid in his body and um It was like we went home for wait for him to die like we didn’t know what to do. Couple hours later his actual radiologist called and said, I’m get him to the ER where we’ve already notified a team.

They’re expecting them, they’re gonna admit them and we’re gonna work in the schedule somehow like it was. It was a nightmare like I mean like why make this so much? Why make things harder for caregivers and and all of that. I didn’t know, you know, I mean, when you’re in the moment, you’re just running on pure adrenaline and everything’s on fire and you’re drowning and you’re tired, you’re all of that. And so you did an important step though to like I want people to take from this too is that You got it removed from the team.

How did, how did you do that? So a couple of days later where he’s admitted to the long-term cancer wing. He’s practically, he’s almost dead by the time we admitted him, and she kept showing up into his room and um ridiculing him for not having the strength to do radiation, and at some point he’s abuse. Yeah, at some point, um, so he, he was inaudible. I was speaking on his behalf, but they gave him a suction tube to remove the mucus, and she walks into the room and he grabs the tube off the wall and she’s giving him a hard time for not having the strength to do radiation, and he gets the mucus out of his mouth and he goes, I want an anti-anxiety drug, clear as day, and she’s like, um, that’ll be too hard for me to get.

Why can’t you just You know, muscle up and do radiation, and he does it again and he’s like, I need you to treat me. And she started laughing at him. Um, at that point. I had her, I told her to leave the room. I wasn’t, I wasn’t nice about it. Gavin wasn’t nice about it, and she went out into the hallway and started talking trash about him to the nurse in the nurse’s bay. And um I walked over to the patient advocate department and had her removed, filed a complaint against her.

You know that that existed like everybody has these, right? I didn’t know he had cancer and we had had issues with her throughout the entire like. She was mean to him. She should not have been in, she shouldn’t be. She shouldn’t have a medical license. She shouldn’t be in patient facing positions, and people kept saying, Well, if you need to say something, say something. There’s this department you can go to, um, but yeah, I had her removed. I filed a complaint against her, filed a complaint against the nurse.

I made it so where, um, nobody could speak to Gavin before speaking to me. I mean, he was, he was on so many drugs, yeah, so fragile, like everybody, and you know, just a horrible experience, but I’m hoping. That people can take away and I’m glad that you got the help that you both needed, um, and that she was removed from your situation and maybe she’ll be removed from that position and somebody else won’t have to um endure all of that because it’s abuse, it’s abuse, for sure, for sure.

So, so horrible, um. And I, you know, I, I’m gonna link to your podcast. I’m gonna link to the Huffington Post articles that you wrote about that and about the, the voicemail so people can learn about that. I wanna kind of also because you’re, you’re the burnout expert, which is amazing, um, but you know, we hear this term compassion fatigue. Is that the same as burnout? No, compassion fatigue is something that, um, it, it’s compassion fatigue happens when Caregivers or healthcare professionals come in feeling as if they’re gonna make the difference and they’re going to, they take on so much of the pain of the patients and um it gets to the point where maybe they have several patients that they’re doing this with or several cases that they’re doing this but it gets to the point where they just don’t have anything left to give and so they’re, they’re apathetic, they’re almost feeling hopeless.

It’s more of a place of deep depression. Then, uh, as a burnout is, you know, it’s anxiety, it’s fight or flight, we’re, we’re in this rat race. I caregiving fatigue is more of a state of hopelessness. Yeah, thank you for explaining those differences. They’re both, you know, we’re both at risk for both of them, frankly, um, for sure. I know you have a product too that you have called the Burnout recovery Affirmation cards. Talk us, talk to us about those. Yeah, when I was sitting in the hospital, um, sometimes I would literally just sit on the floor and I would feel the coldness on the floor and I would stretch my body.

And there I couldn’t, I would do everything I could while I was in radiation to just be present, but that was really hard and I felt like if I had a focal point or something pretty to look at, right, um, so sometimes I would turn on something on my phone, um, pretty music or uh pretty image, and I would focus on it while I was stretching and when I got out of His treatments and I could put more energy into me. I was like, you know, somebody should have these everyone’s doing car decks, somebody should do something for burnouts, um, and self-care, but I couldn’t find anything, so I made those.

So it’s a really pretty deck, um, focused on very simple, very simple burnout recovery techniques and tools, very simple practical self-care tools that we sometimes forget. Um, a lot to do with all the things we discussed, the laughter, the sighing, the breathing techniques. Yeah, try it on, see if it works for you. So on one side, the beautiful setting, and on the other side, the tipper technique. That’s so nice. Well, we’ll, we’ll link to those. I know that they’re out on Amazon, so we’ll certainly link to those in the in the show notes.

Are you ready, Kerry, for the, um, the lightning round? Look at you, yeah. Yeah, um, well, this, yeah, I’m gonna ask you a couple of the prompts from the just for your daily self-care journal like you, writing was really therapeutic for me, um, and it helped me kind of process, like you said, you use that same word, like there’s so much going on, you have to sit and be present and kind of process it through and it’s very therapeutic. Uh, but I, you know, journaling is not for everybody, so I wanted a way for people to kind of try it on to see if it, if it worked for them.

So, picked out a couple, couple things here. Let’s see. Um, first question, and there, you know, putting some focus back on yourself, what celebrity would you choose to spend the day with and why? Oh my goodness, that’s a good one. Hmm. Man, I don’t have, OK, let me think. Um, I’m being so mindful right now of not choosing like a really hot guy because my husband is in the house and I know I’ll hear about it later. Yeah, um, uh, I would say, um, You know, I, I’ve always really been a fan of, uh, Julia Roberts from the, I think she’s had a really interesting career, um, you know, she stepped away from Hollywood to be a mom.

She, you know, um, she, yeah, I’ve always been a fan of hers. I would love to sit and chat with her and Find out more about her life. Yeah, and she’s got an infectious laugh. Yes, so that there’ll probably be some humor involved, but yeah, Mystic Pizza, like Pretty Woman, she’s got great, great, um, great stuff to, to enjoy there. Um, which, how do you unwind before bedtime? Um, I, I’m a big shower, you know, like bath, uh, you’re a water person, like the product, the lotion, all that stuff, and so I do, I look at it as like, uh, I start my day with it, I close my day with it.

It’s sort of my internal signal. Uh, OK, now we’re moving into something else. Um, so I will close the day with a shower and then, you know, lotion, lavender, things like that. My husband and I typically, um, spend time together and I’ll usually ask him to rub my feet. Does he do it? Oh, nice. I got a foot massager for my son for Christmas, like one of those, you just stick your feet in it. Um, I’m the only one who can use it without socks. Everyone else has to wear socks if they use it.

I think it’s like gross, but Um, yeah, so it’s I’ve seen, um, advertising advertisements for that. I’ve always wondered if they work. Yeah, I play pickleball too, and my feet always kind of feel like I have issues. I feel like maybe if I like worked at it a little bit. I can, you know, we only get two pair of feet. We only get one pair of feet, I guess I should say. Um. Um, who do you lean on for support? Uh, I’m really close to my family and so my I will.

My husband and I are, you know, really good friends, and so I will tell him what’s going on, what I need. We’re very open communication that way. He’ll ask me what he, what I need from him. Um, I have really good relationships with my sister, with my parents, with my brother. Um, nice. Do they live near you? Yep, nice. And then, uh, some really good girlfriends, um, they’ve all been very supportive, very helpful, tap in. And I’m very truthful about, you know, how I feel when I’m going through.

Um, I don’t try to hide anything, so I’m, I’m super grateful. I do actually have a really nice support group. Yeah. Have you always been that way? or did you have to work at it? Um, I’ve always been that way. I feel like I knew I was supposed to be a writer very early on in my life and sharing has always been a very natural thing for me, um, so. I don’t really close that off when I’m having personal conversations. If anything, people are like, you share too much.

Yeah, it’s, um, you know, at first I tried to kind of, you know, keep it all inside and like, oh, you know, you, you think you can kind of muscle through it and, and all of that, but I did find that the more transparent and vulnerable I was, the more I saw myself more clearly and the more help that that came out there, um. You know, it’s hard at first, but you get, you get good at it, like anything, you just like practice, practice it, yeah, it’s, it’s a lot, um.

OK, question rate, this is a good question for our topic today. It says, currently your life feels balanced or unbalanced because. Today I would say balanced. For me it’s literally like a day to day thing, um. Yeah, we have had, you know, an additional health scare in the family and so earlier this week, I would, I would have said otherwise because it was a very, you know, very tense couple of days with meetings and consults and stuff, but today recognizing Um, that I can put space between meetings and that is something I have to practice.

I have to remind myself, I have to go with the flow. I have to be in flow, um, and how do, how am I gonna put that into play today. And so today I’m balanced. I love that. I love that. Anything that you would, you know, you want to share that we did not cover today that you feel like, oh yeah, we can’t end this without, without talking about this or any other um You know, anything you want to say to family caregiver community. Yeah. Well, um.

It’s so, you know, it’s so challenging, making sure that you are vocal, that you do have a support group that you are utilizing the tools. If um if you need help finding, there’s so many resources for us that You actually have to go out and seek because it’s not like doctors and hospital networks and social workers are handing these things out. Wouldn’t that be amazing if they said here, this looks like a lot for you. So there are, um, you know, there there are house cleaning services that will offer support.

There are organizations. Oh, Lasagna Love is a great organization. It’s a national organization. They, they deliver sheep hands of lasagna. Yes, so there’s tons of organizations like this out here, but we don’t hear of them. Um, you just have to do a little bit of research. So that’s why you know, following people like you and I and other people in this space, like, I know we’re fast tracking people to that information like what. You know, what we went through, helping somebody that doesn’t have to go kind of go through a similar journey, um, and learning every day, like, right?

Like it’s I’ve been in this space for 10 years and I’ve never heard of lasagna Love, you know, it’s just learning every day and caregivers have the best, best. Where do people go. That was a fun day like showing, opening up my front door and there’s a man standing there. Hi, I’m with lasagna Love Someone nominated you for a lasagna, and you know, it’s so beautiful, it’s a vegetable lasagna. It had a heart in the middle of it. And um my husband had had, you know, had a neck cancer he can’t eat and so.

Um, this was about halfway through his journey and I felt I had this whole sheep pen to of lasagna all to myself, so it was a beautiful day actually like my whole family came out and he was sleeping like the whole day, so we It was like we had a, we had a normal day. With some self-care, some physical self-care, someone went through the um the process of nominating you for that, which that, that feels good. So what an amazing thing. How do, how do people connect with you, Carrie, like, where should they be following you?

Where’s the best, best place to kind of learn more about you? Yeah, so I’m on social media with author Carri Sison. Instagram, TikTok, the website Carrierson. com, you can always find me there and contact me there. I love it and check out the podcast. We’ll link to the books. There’s a lot of good information out there. Delighted to have met you. I’m, I’m grateful for your vulnerability that you’ve been, you know, blessed with. And, and again, like I said, that you’ve got this expertise and burnout that now you can, you know, push through a, a caregiving filter.

So just thank you, thank you for everything that you offer. You’re welcome. Bye everyone.

Do you enjoy listening to podcasts? So do I. And I’m always up to support a fellow care printer. Whose podcasts I value. Nicole Will, host of Navigating the world with your aging loved one, explores the world of aging and care. As a former guest, I can tell you that Nicole’s podcast has an ideal mix of practical tools and resources and messages of hope and encouragement. You can find Nicole wherever you download your favorite podcast or go to her website, we’llather.com.

Thanks for listening. To the Happy Healthy caregiver podcast on the whole Care Network. I hope this episode provided encouragement and practical tips to infuse into your life. You’ll find the show notes and all the resources mentioned at Hahealthy caregiver.com. I also invite you to check out previous episodes of the podcast that you may have missed. If you enjoyed the show, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. ratings and Reviews also help others discover the podcast, and sharing with a fellow caregiver is a great way to spread support.

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