"You Can't Rationalize With an Irrational Brain" | Debbie Compton of The Purple Vine

About This Episode

Transcript

Tom Maxwell (00:19)

Well, welcome back to the next version of the Last Visit First Podcast, the Home Health and Hospice Industries leading podcast. Today we have a really special guest that's going to teach us a whole lot of stuff. Debbie Compton is her name, and she is three-time family caregiver whose life changed when she found herself caring for her father with Parkinson's disease, her mother with vascular dementia.

And her mother-in-law with Alzheimer's. So you can imagine we've all talked about the sandwich generation. Debbie's the founder of the Purple Vine, where she helps families families navigate dementia, caregiving stress, burnout, safety, communication, and other difficult decisions that are out there. She's a certified caregiver consultant. Don't know what that is, but I'm excited to learn. A certified caregiver advocate, don't know what that is. I kind of do, but we're gonna learn more about that. And she's also served as a community educator for the Alzheimer's Association.

Other thing about Debbie that we wanna know is she's written a ton of books and so she spends a lot of her time really dealing and focusing in on on these kind of issues in life. Debbie, welcome to the show.

Debbie (01:17)

Thank you so much for having me, Tom. I'm excited to share with you and learn from you too.

Tom Maxwell (01:22)

Yeah, it's it's gonna be really exciting. I I'm I'm more on the technology side in the home health and hospice space and spent most of my career building technologies in different companies around the industry. So we started this podcast just because people pushed me and said, Hey, you need to do a podcast. I said I'm only do if I hire a producer and I hired Cole and here we go. So well, let's hear it. Give give us your background story. So I know you're a professional, you're in the corporate America world and all that, and then life changed and and you had to change what kind of what you were doing and focused on. So give us that story.

Debbie (01:51)

I did. I was I had worked my way up through the ranks, had my plan in place. My plan was to retire with the company that I was at, and I had been there fifteen years, so well on the way to accomplishing that dream. I was traveling coast to coast in this position, and typically I travel a lot of times three days a week, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. And mom was the first one diagnosed with vascular dementia, but she was very high functioning.

And I didn't know enough about the disease to know how bad it was gonna get. I just thought, okay, this is where we are. I put a plan in place. I take care of her pills, you know, arrange her pill boxes every weekend. And I thought, we're good to go. This is it. Life goes on. Did not know enough to know, like I said. so what happened? my dad started getting Parkinson's. And so I'd never even known anyone who had Parkinson's.

So that was an interesting journey. I just had to start doing a lot of studying, a lot of reading, trying to find out what was going on there. And what prompted me to start doing the studying in his behalf and not with mom's is because dad started seeing aliens and I had no idea what to do. And I was just like, my gosh, okay, this is not normal. I don't know what I'm supposed to say. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Is there a way that I can get rid of them?

And I was really disappointed because what I found online was telling me a lot about what's happening in his brain. And to be real honest, when you're a caregiver in the trenches and you're dealing with a bizarre situation like that, I couldn't care less what's happening in his brain. I wanted to know how do I get rid of these aliens? How do I solve this problem? So that was really frustrating for me. I was out on the coast and dad accidentally took mom's pills.

He had low blood pressure, she had high blood pressure. He was nearly comatose and I couldn't rapidly get there. I I live in Oklahoma, by the way, not on either coast. that was upsetting, that was challenging, but I thought, okay, well, maybe this is just a speed bump. Then I'm on the other coast and mom passes out at the Daily Living Center and had to be rushed to the hospital. Again, I couldn't rapidly get there. So then I kind of started tuning in, okay, this is not gonna work because they're getting worse and I can't be gone.

and still take care of them. So I became a full-time caregiver and started really researching more and more on things that I could do and any prevention tips. And there was some information out there, but just not enough. And that's really what prompted me and motivated me to later, not at that point in time, it wasn't even a thought in my mind, but to later form my company.

the purple vine because what I do is fill in those gaps. I have the training that tells you what's happening in the brain and all that, but I don't talk to people about that hardly at all, unless I'm talking to nurses who want to know. Typically I'm talking to family caregivers and I just tell them, here are some things that you can try. A, B, and C. This is you can try this, you can do this. And you always try because everyone's different. So what works with dad wouldn't work with mom.

And what worked with mom wouldn't work with my mother-in-law, who, you know, she developed Parkinson's or sorry, Alzheimer's, late in my dad's journey with with Parkinson's. And so as he was nearing the end of his journey, she started getting worse with Alzheimer's. And that's how so then I became her caregiver. So my mom was the first one diagnosed, the last

one to pass away. Dad's journey was about seven and a half years, my mother-in-law's journey was about eight years, my mom's journey.

Was twenty one years with vascular dementia.

Tom Maxwell (05:39)

Wow.

what age was she when she got diagnosed with that?

Debbie (05:44)

well, she didn't get diagnosed right away. It was you know, you saw the symptoms, you saw the problems, so the diagnosis took quite a bit longer, and really what hers was caused by was uncontrolled high blood pressure. And she just she didn't regularly check it and she knew she was having headaches, so she's just taking Tylenol and ignoring it. And those were warning signs. And so that's a good thing for caregivers to re to recognize.

If you're having a headache, it's a signal that something's wrong. We need to find out what's wrong.

Tom Maxwell (06:16)

What and so they were on your mom and dad, they were living at home by themselves?

Debbie (06:21)

They were. I moved them close to me, two miles from me, because my dad was extremely independent and he was not gonna live with anybody and he was gonna stay in his home. And he is from the generation of the man rules and what I say goes and you don't question it. And so so

Tom Maxwell (06:39)

Yeah. we're going through that too right now. It's dad's my dad's in

memory care and he did not want to go there and it was we almost had to trick him to get him there until we bought him an apartment and has a bunch of and luckily there's a bunch

Debbie (06:50)

Ex exactly.

Tom Maxwell (06:51)

of there's a bunch of veterans there where he's at and dad was a veteran

Debbie (06:53)

that's good.

Tom Maxwell (06:54)

so he loves telling those war stories and but he's not happy. I mean it's and you you feel terrible for it but he's not safe. It he can't be at home. I

Debbie (07:01)

Right.

Tom Maxwell (07:02)

can't be there twenty four hours a day. My sister can't be there twenty four hours a day. He's not safe in his own home. And he's doing stuff like

Debbie (07:04)

Yeah. But that's

Tom Maxwell (07:07)

that, taking the wrong medications and

Debbie (07:08)

yeah, but but that's really good that he's

Tom Maxwell (07:08)

It's terrible.

Debbie (07:11)

got people that he can relate to because then that'll help him settle in and help him feel more comfortable, you know. my mom at the end of her journey, we had to put her into memory care and she was passing out and she outweighed me by thirty five pounds and I'd I was putting her on my shoulder and we'd both go down to the floor. And then her doctor said

You cannot keep doing this. And he said, You're both gonna wind up in the hospital, so you gotta put her in a facility. So I cried and cried and cried. because I took care of dad, I was able to keep him in his home until he passed, which was his wishes. But as you said, we had to trick him towards the end because he would not move in with me. so what we wound up doing, my brother was living in Florida, my younger brother.

And he had planned on moving back up here. And so he and I talked and I was like, Hey, you know, I know you're gonna build a house and everything, but I ca I gotta have help with Dad. He's not listening to me because I'm just the daughter, you know. I'm I'm not a man, you know.

Tom Maxwell (08:15)

I don't know.

Debbie (08:18)

So my brother came back and my brother asked Dad if it would be okay if he and his wife lived in their guest room while they built their house. So that totally changed the dynamic. That's dad helping him. That's not him helping dad. So they just l didn't even start building a house. They just lived in the guest room and took care of the night shift then and I took care of the day shift. And it worked so much better because

you know, my little brother is six one and he's a man and so he just you know, he and dad have a different relationship and he'd just tell dad, You are taking a bath, get your butt in there and I'm gonna throw you in there you know? Whereas

Tom Maxwell (09:00)

Right.

Debbie (09:01)

I can tell him all day long and he's just like, No, I'm not doing it

Tom Maxwell (09:05)

Yeah.

And so with the Parkinsons, did he have all the signs and symptoms of normal Parkinson's? So you got kind of like the memory care challenges, but then you also have the shaking, the lack of appetite, all those kind of things. Did he go through all that?

Debbie (09:17)

Yeah, and severe constipation, which is one that people don't really talk about. I didn't even know that that was a symptom of it either. And yeah, there's a lot Parkinson's is really hard for doctors to diagnose because so many of the symptoms of it can also be symptoms of other diseases. So they have a real hard time trying to diagnose it. And it took it took a long time to get dad diagnosed.

Tom Maxwell (09:46)

Wow. And your life completely changed at this point. So was it twenty one years totally that you've been doing being a caregiver? From mom to all the way through it? Wow.

Debbie (09:55)

yeah. Yeah, I

guess twenty one years total, yes, from because mom, you know, first and last.

Tom Maxwell (10:02)

Wow, that's wild. So that that completely

changed your life. I mean, the the plans you had to travel and and continue to work in corporate America and continue to grow and retire and it changed your life. And and a lot of people that are that are my age your age that are that are starting to really go through this. They call us the sandwich generation. We're still taking care of our kids and still taking care of our our parents and and it's it's super, super taxing.

Debbie (10:20)

Yeah.

and people are like, that's you know, they were your kids at home. And I said, No, my kids were grown, and so that was a good thing, you know, that they were out of the house, but I have little grandchildren. And of course I wanted to spend time with my grandchildren, so I had to come up with ways that my parents could interact with the grandkids and so that I could spend time with both. And that's why I started creating coloring books.

Because coloring brings the generations together. And the reason I created the coloring books was because mom doesn't want to color a little kid picture that's degrading, you know, and she can't color one that's actually made for adults that has all the details and things in it. So I created my own, and they have the first two that I did, the first one was Color Me Calm. And I actually made it because mom was coloring at the Daily Living Center, which

By the way, if your folks don't know what the daily living centers are, they're fantastic. They

Tom Maxwell (11:22)

Tell us more.

Debbie (11:23)

they would come and pick up mom and dad at their home, take them to the facility, entertain them, let them visit, and let them do crafts if they want to, do whatever they want to do, feed them lunch, bring them back home in the late afternoon. So in the beginning, I was able to keep working and just had them going to the daily living center.

while I was gone. So it worked out great. It was it was fantastic until, you know, we started having hiccups with that. but I and I really got into it because when my mother in law I still didn't have any plans of forming a business or anything. I'm just surviving at this point, right? I'm just like

Tom Maxwell (12:04)

Trying to survive.

Debbie (12:05)

yes. It's like, my gosh, what is happening now? and so I had

When my dad passed away, and then we moved my mother-in-law in with us, so I had my mom and my mother-in-law, Alzheimer's and vascular dementia, two sweet little ladies, became the very best of friends, became friends against me the enemy sometimes, which was not fun. But

Tom Maxwell (12:29)

Yeah.

Debbie (12:30)

but they just they were the cutest little things, but such a nightmare. D like this one time I was trying I thought I would schedule their optometrist's appointment.

At the same time. Save time, right? Makes sense. We're gonna just go and get you both, and neither one of them liked to go to the doctor, and it was always a fight. So I went to my mother-in-law and I said, Hey, my mom's gotta go to the doctor, but it bothers her. So is it okay if we pretend the appointment is for you? And so she said, okay, yeah, I'll do that. And so then I went to my mom and I said, Hey, Jean really needs to go to the eye doctor, but it makes her nervous and anxious, so can we just pretend that the appointment is for you?

And so she says, yeah, sure, I'll do that for her. So that's how I got them to go, which was fantastic. It worked out great on that. But had mom in the bedroom, got her, I mean the bathroom, got her fully dressed in the bathroom, and just left her brushing her hair, and I went to go get my mother in law dressed in the bedroom. So I'm getting my mother in law dressed. I finally get her all the way dressed. We come out of the bedroom, and there's my mom standing there in her pajamas. And I'm like, what happened?

Pajamas. And which first, you know, you step back and you go, she's got advanced dimension. You're questioning her. Come on, who's the dummy nail?

Tom Maxwell (13:50)

Yeah.

Debbie (13:51)

but she said, Well, I saw my pajamas there, so I figured it must be time to put them on. That's on me. That was my mistake. So,

Tom Maxwell (13:59)

Yep.

Debbie (14:00)

you know, make a little mental note, learn from your mistakes. Next time you get her fully dressed, take the pajamas out of the room so that she won't see them.

Tom Maxwell (14:10)

Ha ha ha.

Debbie (14:10)

So

you just, you know, you learn as you go. You learn. And so I finally, you know, I had to change mom again. So I wound up keeping them both in the living room by the couch. Don't move. Sit here, you know.

Tom Maxwell (14:19)

Yeah. Exactly.

Debbie (14:21)

Get them both fully dressed and get them there. We finally get there and we actually made it on time, which was a miracle. I mean, that was something to behold. And so I'm so excited. And then I glance down and my mom's wearing two different shoes. And I was like, And so

This is what I want to tell caregivers. Don't beat yourself up. Nobody cares. So

Tom Maxwell (14:45)

Yeah.

Debbie (14:46)

what you know what? I got to the appointment on time. That's a win. They both have their glasses on, their bras on. I mean, you know, they're

fully dressed. Take the win. Who cares?

Tom Maxwell (14:55)

hairbrushed. That's right.

So you started writing coloring books to help your mom so she could have something to color and crafts to do, you're drawing or art or whatever. tell me about that. So you drew a whole bunch of different outlines so that they could color in them or how how do you build a coloring book? I I've never I've never written a book. I've I'm I'm honored that you are talking to me because you have and I'm have so much respect for that. But how do

Debbie (16:48)

that's

Tom Maxwell (16:48)

you start how do you write a coloring book?

Debbie (16:50)

well, I what happened was mom had at the Daily Living Center, she colored a little dog blue and this lady got offended and started yelling at her that dogs are not supposed to be blue because you know, vascular dementia, you lose the touch with reality and so and mom didn't know. So I thought, you know what, I can't be there every day to help out, so I gotta do something to make sure this doesn't happen again. So with Color Me Calm, it's just mandalas.

They are patterns that I created on the computer, just different patterns, and they're not super complicated. Some are a little more complicated, some are a little less, depending on the abilities of the individual and which one they want to do. So I created those and gave them to the Daily Living Center and it was fantastic because, like I said, nobody could get onto her and tell her she was doing the wrong color. Everything's right. And then I bought a program and learned how to put words on top of it. So I created Faith Lives Here.

Because my dad was a preacher and the Bible gives us comfort and encouragement. And so I put verses on top to encourage mom or to encourage whoever was coloring. And the funny thing about it is that mom at this point was reading out loud. So while she's coloring a page, she's reading, Jesus loves you. And she's coloring a little bit. Jesus loves you. Jesus loves you.

And so the ladies were laughing at the Daily Living Center. They said it's really helping everybody because your mom is just spreading the word.

Tom Maxwell (18:21)

And

she didn't even know. And they thought she was just making up words, but she was just reading out loud. That's awesome. That's great. That's great. Okay, so those

Debbie (18:26)

Yeah, so just reading.

Tom Maxwell (18:29)

are your first two books. Then what was follows through the rest of the books. So what else have you written about?

Debbie (18:33)

Okay, well actually that's not the first two books. The first one the first one that I did came about because my mother-in-law was passing away in in our guest room and I had hospice come in and they saw some of the things that my husband and I had created really just to survive because she was a fantastic wanderer. She in the middle of the night she is out and gone. And we tried to come up with different ways to keep her safe and keep her within the house, and she just

was really smart and so the things that they tell you to do, like put a lock up high on the door, you know, slide a deadbolt up high on the door, she just pushed a chair over and climbed up on the chair and unlocked it. And so it's like this is way more dangerous, you know?

So

Tom Maxwell (19:18)

Sure.

Debbie (19:18)

so we came up with our own things, a lot of different things. And so when she's passing in in there and I had hospice come in much too late because I didn't know any better. Hospice is incredible. I love hospice.

They're such a big help and people so often wait way too late to bring them in. Bring hospice in. If you think that it's too soon, bring them in, they'll tell you. And a lot of times it's not. My mom was on hospice for two years and it was wonderful. It was a huge help. My mother-in-law, on the other hand, just a couple of weeks because I brought them in too late. But the nurse came in, she saw some of the things we created. She said, Where did you read about that? And I started laughing. I'm like, I didn't read about it anywhere. I couldn't.

The stuff on the market didn't work, so I had to make something that did. And she said the words that changed the trajectory of my life. She said, other caregivers need to know about this. This would really help them. And I was just floored. I couldn't believe it because I thought, I'm the only one who does not have this figured out. I'm the only one who's out here struggling. Everybody else knows what they're doing. It's just me.

And a lot of caregivers feel that, and that is so not true. You are not alone, and other people are struggling just like you. But caregiving is so isolating, you're separated from the support that you need. And when you try to talk to family members about it, quite often, they look at you like you're crazy because it doesn't make any sense. A lot of it doesn't make sense at all. But that's the thing, dementia is not rational.

And you're not dealing with a rational brain, you're dealing with irrational, with emotions, with all these different things. So it doesn't make sense. And that's the biggest challenge, or well, one of the biggest challenges as a caregiver, in the beginning, especially when you try to make sense of everything and you try to why would he do that? You know, why would he go and do this? He doesn't know. There is no rational answer. And so

You have to just you have to let it go and you have to learn to separate your loved one from the disease. My mother-in-law said things to me that she would never have said to me. She loved me, I loved her. Alzheimer's caused her to tell me things like, I'd sell you, but nobody would pay money for you. And so I but you I just laughed. I just laughed.

Tom Maxwell (21:45)

It's terrible. And you have to deal with that, right? You but you have to deal with it as

an emotion, right? You have to figure out like how do I how do I wipe that clean? And you gotta understand that it's not her, right? We've we've gone through that a little bit.

Debbie (21:52)

Yeah. Yeah, it's not her.

So I'm so I'm just like, well, sorry, you know, I'll try better. And he just laughed because she's very frustrated that she's unable to do things that she used to be able to do. And this is what happens so often is that that person that you're caring for, the person closest to them, you mentioned that your sister's caring for your dad, she's gonna get she's gonna be the target. She is gonna

Tom Maxwell (22:17)

yeah.

Debbie (22:18)

take the brunt of the hateful comments, the

All the things, and they don't mean it. That's the disease that is not, and that's that's what I challenge her to do. The disease is over here, dad's over here. Those horrible things that were said, that's the disease. Still keep loving dad because dad loves you. Dad's not in control. So, yeah.

Tom Maxwell (22:41)

I'll I'll tell you a funny story. He so

dad dad got in a car and he was driving from Washington to Texas to see us and got pulled over in California at two thirty in the morning. I thought it was two thirty in the afternoon. He was going the wrong way on a one way, but you know, we're going real slow. cops pulled him over, they called me, they said, Hey, are you you know, we got two options. He's either going to jail or you're going to the hospital. Which one do you want? So I convinced him to put him in a hotel and they got him a hotel and long story short, he called me and he's like, I'm starving. He was in

A better shape than it is now. And he's like, I'm starving. And I'm Okay, Dad, I'll Door Dash you a pizza. He's like, What is DoorDash? And fine, I'll take a pepperoni pizza.

Debbie (23:15)

Yeah. How's that gonna work?

Tom Maxwell (23:17)

So I, you know, of course me, I'm gonna get him the biggest pizza because I don't know if he's gonna be there for, you know, we're trying to get him back to Washington. So I don't know if he's gonna be there, you know, two hours or ten hours. So I get him the biggest pizza I could find him, right? And DoorDash comes and I call him and I'm like, Dad, go meet the guy at the front desk. He's gonna drop your pizza off. Totally confused. So he gets a big pizza. Next morning.

he or that no, I'm sorry, that evening he calls my sister and he's lost. He's walking around this town that he doesn't know what I don't even know the name of the town he's in, but he's in the hotel. And she's like, What are you doing? He's like, Well, I'm going looking for some scissors. She's like, Well, why do you need scissors? And he's like, Well, the pizza box is too big to fit in my little refrigerator. So he wanted to cut the box up so he could save the pizza. Got lost. So he's wandering around this town, you know, no car. He's mad because they took his keys away from him. The cops were gonna arrest him, he didn't understand it.

Thinks it's 2

Debbie (24:06)

Yeah.

Tom Maxwell (24:07)

30 in the in the afternoon. It's 2 30 in the morning. Thinks he's in Washington. He's in California. I mean, just it's just a mess. Like that was the beginning of, you know, okay, we got a real problem here. And and

Debbie (24:12)

my goodness. Yeah. Yeah.

Tom Maxwell (24:16)

and so and then last week he me my sister's going through right now. He's like, he didn't recognize her and it really upset her. And she's like, I come here every day. I spend six or eight hours with you every day in your in your house, and you don't know who I am. And she's like, And I'm Tyra, that's normal. Like you gotta, you gotta understand

Debbie (24:33)

Mm-hmm.

Tom Maxwell (24:33)

that he's not gonna remember us all.

And then he and then he thought her she was his girlfriend and he's like she's like, I'm

Debbie (24:35)

That's

Tom Maxwell (24:38)

not your girlfriend, I'm your daughter Yeah, it was just

Debbie (24:40)

Ha ha.

Tom Maxwell (24:41)

weird. Like those things are happening and Tyres she's adjusting to it and figuring it out. And but these are things that people don't realize and don't understand.

Debbie (24:47)

It's so hard. That is the one that just rips your heart out when they don't know who you are anymore. And it's okay to step in the other room and cry. That's fine. They that what I always tell people is that they still love you in their heart and they know that they still care for you, like in your dad's case when he thought that she was the girlfriend, because you care for your girlfriend. He cares for your sister.

He just got confused on the relationship, on where the relationship is at. And we we had that same thing. My when my mother-in-law was living with us, she thought my husband was her husband, who had died, you know, twenty, thirty years before. But she wanted him to go to bed. And it's hilarious because my husband, who always has something to say, had n he was just dumbstruck.

Tom Maxwell (25:39)

Well this

Debbie (25:41)

he's like

and then he's looking at me and he's like, You gotta help me.

Tom Maxwell (25:48)

We laugh about it but it's it's scary. I understand it. And there's a lot of people going through

Debbie (25:51)

it is. It's

Tom Maxwell (25:52)

it.

Debbie (25:53)

it's so upsetting and it's so hard. And but I took her to the bedroom. I said, well, let's just go ahead and get our pajamas on and stuff and then we'll let him come in. And so I just sent him off to the bedroom. Because if you wait a minute or two, then things go by. And what I would say too for your sister though, try this because music therapy is real. It actually works. find a couple of songs that your dad liked from back in his day. For my mom, it was Ring of Fire, Johnny Cash.

She loved that. I went to visit her in the memory care towards the end of her journey. I had to put her in memory care and I went to see her and she didn't know who I was. And she just thought she told people that we went to high school together, which okay, you know. Yeah, yeah. And so I just

Tom Maxwell (26:35)

This age me really bad.

Debbie (26:38)

started laughing. I'm like, I don't know, sure, I'm not sure how that math works, but okay. Because don't argue with them. Don't argue with them. You cannot rationalize with an irrational brain. You're the one who has the ability to change.

They cannot. So I just said, okay, you know, just agree. Just go on. It doesn't matter. But then I played Johnny Cash, Ring of Fire, and we started singing and she started singing some of the words to it and stuff. And she starts, you know, we made up these silly motions. We used to just dance to it all over the place. And we don't dance, but we danced, you know. And so we just had a really good time. And by the end of that song, then she turned to me and she said, Debbie, I'm so glad you're here. And I just started bawling.

It

Tom Maxwell (27:19)

Sure.

Debbie (27:19)

just music therapy works. Use it. Bring it helps

Tom Maxwell (27:26)

Yeah we

Debbie (27:26)

activate different parts of the brain than what is normally activated and it can bring back precious moments to you. It doesn't last forever, but hey, couple of minutes, it's good.

Tom Maxwell (27:37)

Yeah, we have we're investors in a couple of hospices and they have an amazing music therapy program and a lady comes in with a guitar and sings to all the the residents at the facilities and it's it's amazing. The

Debbie (27:47)

Yeah.

Tom Maxwell (27:48)

the letters that and pet therapy. Pet therapy works so good too where people bring their dogs

Debbie (27:51)

Yeah. When

Tom Maxwell (27:52)

into the facilities and let go and let hang out with 'cause everybody has a dog or loves a dog. I mean, most people have if you don't, something's wrong.

Debbie (27:57)

Yeah, it's great. Well,

when my mom couldn't even form a sentence anymore, she could still sing hymns, church hymns, gospel hymns, and she would

Tom Maxwell (28:04)

Wow. That's awesome.

Debbie (28:07)

sing most of the words of the hymn when she couldn't put a sentence together. And so that

Tom Maxwell (28:11)

Wow.

Debbie (28:11)

really blessed my heart and everybody else too. We're just like, that's fantastic. But anyway, I I sidetracked again. I'm so sorry. So when that

Tom Maxwell (28:18)

No.

Debbie (28:19)

hospice nurse went back to the hospice nurse and she said those words, okay, so then I I prayed about it, I went to bed.

And when I woke up the next morning, I knew this is why I went through what I've gone through. That's why I went through caregiving for three different loved ones, three different diseases, three different living arrangements, so that I could help other people. And so I wrote my first book, which is Caregiving, How to Hold On While Letting Go. And it's right there. And so that's me and my mother-in-law in the backyard. And what I shared in that are things that I learned along the way because

You know, forget not having the answers. You don't even know which questions to ask. When you're suddenly thrown into being a caregiver, you don't have a clue what's going on. So I tell them in there, these are the questions to ask. If you're considering whether you need to call a hospice or not, ask these questions. You know, make sure you ask them, make sure you make a spreadsheet, compare. I give you all the details. And then I tell you things too, like my mom, we called it the loop-de-loop.

Where she's just stuck in a continual loop, you know, of asking the same question over and over. Starts off where they ask the same question one day and the next, then the same the next day, and then it gets to the same day, and then it gets to, you know, several times that day, and then it gets to, you know, every hour, and eventually it gets to you just finished saying the answer and they're asking the same question again. Can be extremely frustrating, and but people handle it different ways.

And I always tried to be respectful and tried to give her honest answers and stuff. And my older brother was like, Why are you doing that? And I said, Because I mean, she asked me and he goes, It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what you say. She's not gonna remember it. It doesn't make any difference. He goes, You're just stressing yourself out for no reason. And he said, All you need to do is you need yes, no, huh, and well. That's all you need. And so I was like, What?

And so then I watched him interacting with mom. He's sitting there watching TV. Mom's over here chitty chatting away. And every now and then my brother would say, Well, huh. wow. You know, he's not listening to a word she's saying, but she thinks they're having the most fantastic conversation. I was just blown away. And so then my younger brother buys mom an ice cream cone. Eat your ice cream, mom, your ice cream's gonna melt. So that way she can't keep asking him the questions.

Because she's gonna eat her ice cream.

Tom Maxwell (30:50)

Distract through the ice cream. It's awesome.

Debbie (30:53)

She gained some weight, but hey, it worked.

Tom Maxwell (33:06)

All right. Talk to me about this certified caregiver consultant. What is that? And a certified caregiver advocate. What are the what are the differences between the two and what are they? I'm interested in them.

Debbie (33:15)

Well, I

I got some training after two of my loved ones passed away because I thought, okay, nobody's gonna listen to me. I'm just a family caregiver, I don't know anything, you know, all this negative talk that caregivers quite often do to ourselves. And so I went and trained and learned about the brain, learned about what's happening in the brain, learned a lot of tools that would have been super helpful had I known sooner, but I didn't.

And so a consultant as a certified caregiving consultant, what I do, I do one-on-one Zoom consultations with caregivers. So I do Zoom on purpose because first off, you can be anywhere in the world. Secondly, I know how hard it is to get your loved one dressed and out and to a place, and then you're taking them to a place they're not familiar with, so they're uncomfortable, they're getting into things or whatever, you're worried about them, you can't think about what it is you wanted to talk about in the first place. It's not good for anybody.

So I schedule Zoom consultations that the caregiver schedules at a time that works for them. That's usually if your loved one takes a nap at the same time each day, or you have someone come over and sit with them and watch a movie with them or something like that. And that way they can talk to me and I can give them ideas, suggestions, things that they can do to make their life safer, easier, healthier, whatever. Or sometimes they just need to rant. They just need to call and

rant to someone who understands because I've been there. I get it. And that was a frustrating thing as a caregiver is that you know other people don't understand. Well they don't understand because it's not normal. It's not something that they've experienced, but I have experienced it and I have been there and I doubt that you're going through anything that I didn't with the three of them. So you know and then with the training.

So as an as a certified caregiving consultant, I offer science-backed information and tools and things that I learned there. And then I also share from my life, from my experience, because quite often the experience is gonna be more helpful.

Tom Maxwell (35:34)

Sure. You've gone

through it. You've you've solved that problem. You understand the emotions around that problem for sure. That's awesome.

Debbie (35:38)

Yeah. Yes.

Tom Maxwell (35:41)

So what's the difference between that and an advocate?

Debbie (35:43)

I okay, an advocate is more a certified caregiving advocate is when if you need help, you need to understand how to talk to a doctor, how to get a doctor's attention, how or how am I supposed to talk to them when my loved one's right here with me, you know, and so I give you tools and suggestions and ideas, or I come be with you to go to the doctor's appointment if that's what you need. I can, you know, I can talk and support, I can tell you the questions that you need to be asking, that sort of thing.

And so it's advocating on your behalf. It's teaching the caregiver how to have more of a voice, because you do have a voice and you have to be heard, and you are the one who knows your loved one better than the doctor. So what you have observed makes more difference. And and quite often, you know, we think, well, that's unrelated, so I'm not gonna mention that. Well, actually it is related. You know, it does tie together. So you have to just

Put everything down.

Tom Maxwell (36:43)

Sure. Diet, sleep, appetite, pain, no pain, news. Yeah, for sure. For sure.

Debbie (36:45)

News, if they watched the news and it scared them. Yeah. Weather. Weather. The wind was blowing really

hard and had a tree branch that kept scratching on mom and dad's window. So mom and dad kept calling the police because they thought somebody was trying to break into their home. And then the police are telling me, you know, we're gonna start charging you big bucks if you don't stop this.

Tom Maxwell (37:06)

Wow.

Debbie (37:07)

So I had to figure out what was causing it. Cause they didn't know.

Tom Maxwell (37:09)

And it was a tree branch.

Debbie (37:11)

The police didn't figure it out either. They're just like, nobody's here, no.

Tom Maxwell (37:15)

Wow. But they would hear it and it's scare Yeah, of course. Yeah. the hallucinations is what is a crazy one too. We've seen snakes, we've seen all kinds of stuff, spiders, all that. Those those are tough and and they go into panic and and that's that's wild.

Debbie (37:30)

Yeah, my mother in law

had a little dog that she would pet. She'd sit in a chair and pet and I was cooking supper and she's in the next room and she's laughing. Just like that's what really freaked me out is just the laughter that comes from nowhere with no one around, nobody said anything, and all of a sudden she's really laughing. It's like But she's like, look, look at the tricks he's doing and I'm like, Yeah, that's cute. That's so funny. Just agree with him. She can see it.

Tom Maxwell (37:56)

Yeah.

Debbie (37:59)

So why who am I to tell her it's not there? She can see it. So

Tom Maxwell (38:03)

For sure.

Debbie (38:04)

don't argue with them. When you argue with them, you stress them out. When they get stressed, the disease progresses faster. So you're actually making them worse by arguing with them. Don't argue. Find a way around it.

Tom Maxwell (38:15)

No, interesting.

Yeah. Even if you're right, you you gotta I mean if you're they're completely wrong in what they're saying, you still gotta figure out how to just get to the next subject, right? Good. Yeah,

Debbie (38:26)

Mm-hmm.

Tom Maxwell (38:26)

we had Doctor Shadi on here. She works for the key and she's done a ton of dementia research and she's a professor in college and all those kind of things. She writ she's written some really good books and we talked to her quite a bit about it and similar stories, like you just y you gotta figure out like how do I get you to eat, right? It's you know you gotta make a game

Debbie (38:43)

Mm-hmm.

Tom Maxwell (38:43)

out of eating 'cause they

For some reason these diseases decide they don't want to eat anymore. They lose their appetite. I mean, dad hates all the food in there, but he'll eat a you know you take him to

Debbie (38:51)

Yeah.

Tom Maxwell (38:51)

KFC, he'll eat a you know, a twelve piece chicken, but he but he won't eat the food in the cafeteria that they feed him 'cause it doesn't have enough salt or it has too much salt or you know, all those different kind of things. It's it's pretty well

Debbie (39:00)

Right. But you

find out what they do like. You know, my mom just loved ice cream, it was her comfort food. So I started taking her a shake all the time. I mean I take her a shake probably three or four times a week. And one of the nurses said, Aren't you worried about diabetes? And I just looked her straight in the face and said, No, really not.

Tom Maxwell (39:18)

Not Yeah.

It's like why are you taking a multivitamin? Well you know. all right. So you you you made a couple of comments. I wanna get into kind of like you had to put your mom into the memory care center. That that's a tough decision. It was really tough for us too and

and we didn't want to do it at all and and

Debbie (39:32)

Ugh hard. Yeah.

Tom Maxwell (39:35)

we felt you know, you feel guilty about it and all that. How do you as your books and and some of your experience, how do you how do you talk to somebody about that kind of a scenario or when you gotta make that decision that you really don't want to make? They're not safe in their own home.

more. They can't live with you, you don't have the capabilities or the house is

Debbie (39:50)

Yeah.

Tom Maxwell (39:50)

not set up right and you gotta put in a place where they can get care twenty four hours a day.

Debbie (39:54)

Well, it's the hardest thing ever. I mean, I toured tons and tons of facilities and when I was having to put mom into a facility, it was in the middle of COVID. So they'd

Tom Maxwell (40:04)

Mm.

Debbie (40:04)

have shutdowns and I'd make an appointment to go tour a facility. And by the time I got there's they found someone who had COVID and couldn't tour. So it was a nightmare. And then I found this other facility who said, okay, just drop her and her belongings here in this entryway and we'll go set her up in the room. And I'm like, she's not luggage.

I'm not gonna just drop her off. No.

Tom Maxwell (40:26)

Yeah.

Debbie (40:27)

So it just it was a mess. But I finally found a real nice, very small facility where it had family working there. An aunt was working there, and another one's grandmother was in the facility and different things like this. And I got a real good feeling from them. It was surprising because from my perspective, I'm looking at the aesthetics of the place. I'm looking at some place that looks really fancy and because mom loves fancy, you know.

That it's fancy, it's pretty, it's all these kind of things. But then the staff there was not friendly and wasn't interacting with the people. Well, that's not what's most important. What's most important to me is that my mom is loved when I'm not there. And so I found this facility that is nothing to look at, not fancy at all. And I thought, I don't know how mom's gonna do with this, but the people are great. The people are wonderful. So I sat in the parking lot and cried.

over having to take her there. But I went in and decorated the room and fixed it all up, put all her belongings there first and so that it would feel like her place. And then put a big balloon bouquet and a bouquet of roses and stuff for her new apartment. We never called it a facility, we never called it a nursing home. I told everyone this is mom's apartment. And so that's the way we always referred to it. And I was shocked because

I was looking at it from my perspective, not from mom's. Mom blossomed. She had tons of new friends. Now she didn't immediately. At first she cried to go home with me and I bawled my eyes out and it was just terrible. But you gotta get through that. But then she had lots of friends. I go with her, go with her, take her to activities, help her to get to know people, do all the things.

And she loved it because she just she loved people. She always did. She always loved being around people. And they had activities and things to do and stuff going on. She became the official door greeter, you know, the unofficial door greeter. Because anytime anybody came through the door, she would be, how are you? Because she thought she knew everybody. And so she'd give them a hug, and these people are standing there like, Who is this lady? What's happening? Yeah.

Tom Maxwell (42:39)

It's awesome though. Gave her a purpose.

Debbie (42:41)

It was great.

And what really helped is that it let me be her daughter again. I didn't have to be that mean person that was making her take a bath, that was making her, you know, eat her food, that was making her take her pills. I didn't have to be the one that was making her do all these things. I got to be the fun daughter again. I got to bring her ice cream and take her out for ice cream. We go to even when she couldn't walk anymore, then I'd take her to Sonic Drive-thru because you don't have to get out. You just pull up and get your ice cream right there.

Tom Maxwell (43:12)

Yeah, that's good.

Debbie (43:12)

And so

it was great. It was really good for our relationship. It let us have fun again instead of it being so stressful. So

Tom Maxwell (43:21)

And not not everybody on this call or on this podcast knows what a sonic is. It's those of us from the south.

I'm from Amarella originally, so a Sonic's like a dairy queen. Yeah, I know what a Sonic is. I spent my whole life at Sonic.

Debbie (43:28)

you know Yeah, sorry, I didn't think about that.

Tom Maxwell (43:32)

No, yeah, it's funny though. It's I always think about that. There's no there's no Sonics in

Debbie (43:38)

They're missing out.

Tom Maxwell (43:39)

Yeah.

That's right. It was

Debbie (43:44)

Exactly. Everybody does.

Tom Maxwell (43:46)

the only place to eat in Kwanta, Texas. When I I I was a wheat whacker, they used to call us when we went wheat harvest, and it was the only place you could

Debbie (43:52)

yeah.

Tom Maxwell (43:52)

eat. So I think I ate Sonic every day for six months. You know, we'd do drive through Sonic. Yeah, it was I know. That's

Debbie (43:57)

Wow. Don't do it now. It's okay when you're young.

Tom Maxwell (44:01)

right. that's right, that's for sure. so you said you called hospice too late, and so at that

you know, we're in the hospice businesses and I I wrote technology for hospice, multiple companies. It's one of the things that we're trying to overcome in our industry is so many people choose hospice too late. And, you know, they that the hospice benefit is a Medicare benefit that you get once you and even if you're on Medicare Advantage or any other program, once you elect hospice, you go back to your traditional Medicare benefit. It's something you earned and you paid for in your whole life while you worked. But most

Debbie (44:31)

Mm.

Tom Maxwell (44:32)

people don't want to s they don't want to give up, right? They don't want to say, Hey, it's it's time to

you know, to go into hospice. And by the way, hospice pays for all your DME, it pays for all your medical supplies, most of your medications, nursing, chaplains, social workers, aides, sometimes therapies, the music therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, physical therapy, all those therapies

Debbie (44:50)

Mm-hmm. Physical therapy. Speech. Yep.

Tom Maxwell (44:54)

come in to keep me out, moving, all those things. It's all covered by the hospice. It's all paid for to do that benefit. Help me as you know, as as somebody in this industry, how do we convince people to put nana on hospice sooner?

We call Nana 'cause that was my nana. You can see the picture of Nana back there in the that was my nana. She died on hospice

Debbie (45:11)

sweet.

Tom Maxwell (45:12)

and so I keep that picture with me all the time in in both my offices.

Debbie (45:14)

Yeah.

Tom Maxwell (45:15)

Well one in Minnesota, one in Sostello. But how do how do you convince someone to go to I mean, how do we train caregivers to say, Hey, it's time, you need this help, it's a benefit, it's not it's not a r you know, decidence or whatever you want to call it.

Debbie (45:28)

I think it's I think it's the perception because I know that what I grew up with was when someone went on hospice they had like two weeks to live and you didn't put anybody on hospice until they were like at the end of life. And that's just not true because there's you know, as as you know, a hospice can help someone live a lot longer. They helped my mother, she was on hospice for two years.

And she went, you know, off and on different times and stuff because she was losing so much weight and they helped her gain the weight. So then they put her off the program and then, you know, you go back and forth. But hospice brings in extra eyes on your loved one, extra support for your loved one, help, but the tools like you talked about. I mean, I got an airbed for mom and dad both towards the end, which an airbed helps then reduce bed sores.

And so that helps them to be more comfortable. So hospice just they does they do so many great things, but I think that people need to not look at it like we're giving up, look at it like we're extending their life. Things are things are getting rough. We need extra help. And that's what hospice is. And they'll help with the bathing and to help when you when you're fighting and trying to get

you know, whoever it is, your loved one to take a shower and they're fighting with you every other day, and every other day is a battle. It's a drain on both of you. Well guess what? Hospice will come in and do that. They will come in and give and and your loved one typically doesn't fight with them like they do with you. So why keep going through that? Call hospice and let them let fight some of your battles.

Tom Maxwell (47:11)

Right. And then it

yeah, the other side of it's a social worker. So a hospice is a requirement

Debbie (47:15)

Mm-hmm.

Tom Maxwell (47:16)

to have a social worker. And social workers are, you know, preparing. What are we gonna do with Dana's dog? What are we gonna do with all of our stuff? What, you know, who gets what? Do we a will? Do we have evidence directives? Do we are we gonna continue to do CPR or not CPR? All those kind of things that we need to think about and and then plus preparing the family. I mean, I hear all the time that, you know, from patients that we take care of is, you know, the the social worker and aid were the two most important people. Not that the nurses aren't super important, but the social worker who's

Debbie (47:40)

Mm-hmm.

Tom Maxwell (47:41)

you

know, t explaining the grieving process, explaining what's going on with Nana as she's, you know, beginning to decline, how she's gonna, you know, change in her appetite. She's gonna start sleeping a lot more. You you think

Debbie (47:51)

Mm-hmm.

Tom Maxwell (47:51)

that's bad. You try to keep waking her up. She needs to sleep, but they they just get tired. They wanna sleep. And so having someone that's gone through that and it can help explain it to you is really important. And it it's the most

Debbie (48:00)

It is.

Tom Maxwell (48:01)

bizarre thing. Most people think hospice is that patient. They went to the hospital and they discharged them to hospice and they moved in another room down the hall and they pass away there. It's not what it is

Debbie (48:09)

Mm

Tom Maxwell (48:10)

at all. And

Debbie (48:10)

No. Yes, yeah.

Tom Maxwell (48:11)

Jimmy Carter was a great one for it. President Carter was on hospice like,

you know, almost of three hundred and something days. the hospice benefit

Debbie (48:18)

And

Tom Maxwell (48:18)

was designed to be a hundred and eighty days, but you know, you can stay longer if you need to. Absolutely.

Debbie (48:22)

And the chaplain was great too, because the the

chaplain to pray with you and talk with you and talk with your loved one and it's just it's a it's a big help because like you said, they've been there done that and they've seen it enough times that they know the patterns, they know what's going on, and they can explain because there are so many misconceptions around dying. And even amongst trained professionals, because I know when mom was passing in the facility, a nurse

you know, registered nurse and she's trying to feed mom. Mom did not need food. She wasn't swallowing. She wasn't able to swallow. The food's just sitting in her mouth, which then you've got the choking hazard and all this kind of stuff. They don't, they come to a point where they don't need food at the end. And so it's just, it's a comfort having people there who've been there before and can help you through it.

Tom Maxwell (49:13)

Yeah, they're angels. I I don't know if you saw the you know, Guy Fieri is the diners, drive ins and dives.

He was on the Joe

Debbie (49:19)

Mm-hmm.

Tom Maxwell (49:19)

Rogan show and he and somebody sent me the clip where he was just talking about hospice of the the greatest angels in the world and they took care of his family member. I think it was his father, but I can't remember. But they

Debbie (49:28)

Yeah. Yep.

Tom Maxwell (49:30)

they were just like this this is it's the most I mean, these people are really are angels and they they help so much with as you know, as you're going through that process. All right, back to your books. So you I'm I'm still amazed you wrote this many books. I I

I'm like honored that you're sitting here talking to me and you can write this many books. I I've started an outline of a few books and I'm like and I'm not finishing that thing. I I don't have time for that. But

Debbie (49:50)

Well, most

of the books that I wrote are because of family. So see, that changes it. My motivator is different. And that's why the the first one was it's for all caregivers, the caregiving how to hold on while letting go. because I wanted to help other people because here too, that was the hardest job I've ever done. I mean, I led teams nationwide. I've worked for major corporations and done a lot of hard work and caregiving for those three.

was harder. So

Tom Maxwell (50:20)

I'm sure.

Debbie (50:20)

so that's why, and it's like, and there was no training for it. I had training in the other jobs. Nobody trained you to be a caregiver. So that's my mission. I am helping trained caregivers. And that's what I'm here to do. And I love it because I am walking in my calling. So anyway, that's where I started doing that. And then these three, the Caregivers Advocate series, I'm super proud of, didn't start off to be a series, you know, nothing

I can't see down the road. I just go where I'm told to go. And so that's what I try to be is a good follower. So Laura DeFranco is the owner of Brave Healer Productions. She reached out to me, she found me on LinkedIn and she said, I just realized I've never written a book about caregiving. Would you like to be lead author on a caregiving book? And so I'm like, sure, I don't know what that is, but why not? And so

So I gathered 23 people who had been caregivers before. There were LinkedIn connections, and so it's people, and I thought, you know what, this is not just a problem in the US, this is an international problem because it's an international epidemic. So I gathered friends from Canada, the UK, the US. I think that might be all for the first book.

And in Israel and Israel as well. So gathered authors from those four countries and had each of them write something that they wish they would have known at the beginning of the caregiving journey and share action steps. This is my big thing. I don't deal in fluff. I don't I hate it when you spend so much time reading a book that's told you it's gonna promise X, Y, and Z, and you get to the end and you still don't know X, Y, and Z.

But you read all this blue blah blah blah blah to get there, you know? That's a technical term. so what I do is I say, I cut right to the chase. Here you go. Here's the problem, here are some solutions. One, two, three. And so in my first book, I typically offer four different solutions because I have three siblings and we all do things differently. So I tell them my way and I tell their ways. So you can pick whichever one you want, whichever one fits your personality, your

Person, your relationship, all the stuff, and use it. So, what I did in this book is I said, tell a little bit about the story, give a little bit of a story example of what you're going to be sharing, and then share strategies. This is what you can do: action steps that caregivers can use today. So that's what we did. My goal was to hit number one in at least one category in the US. I was stunned. We hit number one in all six US categories.

Number one in Canada, number one in Australia, top

Tom Maxwell (53:10)

Wow.

Debbie (53:11)

50 in the UK. And I was like, Whoa, this is fantastic. People are really receptive to this. All five-star reviews. And then I had friends reaching out to me and saying, Why didn't you write about this? Why didn't you write about that? And I'm like, because it's one book. I can't put everything in there. So quickly discovered, okay, we need to do volume two.

So, volume two, I brought back a few of the same authors and then recruited more authors from different countries and with experience as well. I mean, we've got people that are elder law attorneys, financial experts, RNs, social workers, family caregivers, death doula, I mean, you name it. They're all all across the board, all walks of life, all different personalities, all different living situations, sandwich generation.

Spousal caregiving, parental caregiving, child with a terminal disease. so all these people, and we did volume two and shared different topics that we didn't cover in volume one. And at the end of that I had people reaching out to me saying, Why didn't you ask me to write a chapter?

Tom Maxwell (54:22)

True. Now now you you got a following.

Debbie (54:26)

I know. So I'm like, well, you know, because I got over 11,000 followers on LinkedIn, and you know, only had so many spots.

Tom Maxwell (54:33)

For sure.

Debbie (54:34)

So I so we did volume three. And volume three, I had a gentleman from Nigeria join us. And so we had let's see, Nigeria, Canada, the US, the UK, so all these different countries, and in Israel, again, different person in Israel. And so they all came together and

It did the same thing. All three books are international bestsellers. All three books went to number one in all six categories of the US. And number one, all three went to number one in Canada. And then it varies if they went to number one in the UK or Australia or wherever on the other countries. But it just goes to show that there is such a need for actionable, useful information, and that's all I deal with.

I just I don't have time and caregivers do not have time for all the fluff and all the backstory and all the patamo you know, you only have a limited amount of time that you can spare in the first place. So cut to the chase. Give me the information that I need. Tell me what I need to know right now, skip all the hype and all the stuff around it, and that's what I do.

Tom Maxwell (55:46)

Congratulations. That's cool to have a that many number one categories, number one books. That's awesome. Yeah,

Debbie (55:50)

Thank you. Yeah, I did not see it comin'.

Tom Maxwell (55:55)

for sure. All right. So you started a company called the Purple Vine. Explain that.

Debbie (55:59)

I did.

Tom Maxwell (55:59)

Where'd you where'd you get the name and explain that for us?

Debbie (56:02)

I did because the purple vine, I started writing that when my let's see, my mom was still alive. I think my mother my mother-in-law was still alive too, I got I got purple is the color for Alzheimer's awareness. And it's also my favorite color, so it works on two levels. And then vine because I was used to training and development where a process is very linear and dementia is not that way.

It twists and curves and goes back on itself and changes direction like a vine. And I'm a gardener,

Tom Maxwell (56:33)

That's right.

Debbie (56:34)

so vine related to me. And also because I'm a Christian, I am the vine, you are the branches. He that abideth in me bears much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing. And so that's why I created the purple vine. And I just started the blog and started writing, you know, some of the crazy things you know, and I say crazy things that offends some people. I don't mean to offend anybody.

But I mean, if you think it's normal there's something wrong. I mean

Tom Maxwell (57:02)

I like that. That's that's awesome. Cause it's not, it's for sure not normal. And you have to you have to laugh with it. I mean, you it it makes you sad, but you also have to laugh 'cause it it it is.

Debbie (57:08)

Yes. Laughter,

laughter's how you survive. Laughter is the best medicine. You c it's so stressful, it's so depressing, it's so hard. You can't keep focusing on the problem and keep focusing on all the negativity. You have to focus on the blessings that you still have. You have to remember your loved one's still here. That's a blessing. They may not know who you are today, but they're still breathing and they're still able to eat. That's a blessing.

So what you focus on grows. So that's why I teach caregivers every day, write down three things that you're thankful for. Every day. Because I had a I had a lady who was early in the journey. Her mom was early with dementia, lived in her own house still, and the lady was crying doing a consultation with me on video and saying, I just can't deal with it. I mean, she calls me five times a day. It's just driving me crazy.

And I'm sitting here thinking, sweetheart, you are never gonna get through this if you don't toughen up.

Tom Maxwell (58:13)

Well and and and on the other side of that is, you know, I I talked to Nana every day when she was for the last, you know, eight years. Every day we talked. And if I didn't call her, she would get real upset. And I gotta tell you right now, I I would

Debbie (58:23)

that's wonderful. That's so good that you did that.

Tom Maxwell (58:26)

do anything to t to talk to her again, you know. So it's she used to play

Debbie (58:29)

Yes, yeah.

Tom Maxwell (58:30)

Skip with my my aunt Clita, who's a great aunt, lived next door to her is Nana's brother's wife. So it'd be her sister in law.

Debbie (58:37)

Mm-hmm.

Tom Maxwell (58:37)

And they live

next door to each other and they'd they'd play skip bow every day. And I'd call Nana and they'd be playing skip bow and they'd be yelling at each other. And I'm like, Nana, why because yeah, Aunt Clita cheated or Nana cheated and they, you know, forgot

Debbie (58:48)

yeah.

Tom Maxwell (58:48)

and and skip bow is so hard to cheat on. And anyway, they'd be fighting

Debbie (58:51)

Yeah.

Tom Maxwell (58:51)

and yelling at each other. I'm like, Nana, why do do that every day? You're like, it's brings so much stress to you. And she goes, I'd love to play skip bow with Aunt Clita again. You know, just it's that was their thing. It was their the it's how they were, you know. Two ladies playing skip bow in their house coats.

Debbie (58:58)

Yeah, because she loves it. Yeah. My grandma played dominoes.

She she played dominoes, I mean, in the nursing home, and she would still, she was sharp with the dominoes, couldn't do other stuff, but she could add up those numbers and play dominoes, and it's like

Tom Maxwell (59:16)

Yeah.

Debbie (59:17)

it's bizarre, you know. And then you got mom, and you're just trying to match dots. How many dots on there? Forget making it make any sense, you know.

Tom Maxwell (59:25)

That's right.

That's right. But I mean you gotta do something.

Debbie (59:27)

It's different. It

Tom Maxwell (59:28)

Well, if people wanna reach out to you and and and wanna get one one to buy your books, because I got a whole bunch of people are gonna want to buy your books from this podcast. I know that and especially if they're number one bestseller and we all have something to learn

Debbie (59:35)

Hopefully. Yes.

Tom Maxwell (59:39)

and we're all gonna have older parents or you know, or

Debbie (59:41)

Yes.

Tom Maxwell (59:41)

situations where we're gonna have to deal with this at some point. You're gonna be a caregiver, whether it's a long distance caregiver or you know, the person's living with you in your home or you know, you're buying

Debbie (59:49)

Mm-hmm.

Tom Maxwell (59:49)

home health or hospital. I mean, this is what we deal with every day in in our lives. If they want to get a hold of you, how

Debbie (59:53)

Mm-hmm.

Tom Maxwell (59:53)

do they get a hold of you, Debbie?

Debbie (59:55)

The Purplevine.com. You can buy my books there. You can also buy them on Amazon. But if you buy them from The Purple Vine, I will sign the book for you and mail it out to you. So you'll get that in an extra little something I usually tuck inside. So that's where I appreciate. My books are listed there. The purple vine dot com.

I also do books like Boost Your Brain Power because when you're caring for someone with dementia, you start worrying that you're getting dementia and you start worrying that you're forgetting things and what can you do. So I wrote this little tiny book, Boost Your Brain Power, to help because I wanted to know the information. And I thought, you know, I'm just gonna gather it up for myself and to help me. And then I thought, well, might as well put it in a book because other people might want it. Great to have. When you're having a really rough day and a really bad day, I wrote Sunshine for the Soul. I didn't write it.

For caregivers, all honesty, I mean, I wrote it for my mom because I wanted to keep my mom reading and I wanted to keep her engaged with the words. Reading helps keep the connection between reality. So if you're caring for someone with any form of dementia, encourage reading. It gets to be a challenge because their eyesight gets worse. It's becomes a challenge because they can't follow a plot. It was starting to make me crazy having to tr explain to mom.

who the main characters were and why they were doing this and what they were doing, and it was stressing me out. But I wanted her to keep reading. So I prayed and prayed about it. And then my dad passed away. And I mentioned earlier he was a he was a pastor. And so I found his old briefcase. And the funny thing is he pastored small country churches. And so when there's a job in a small country church that no one wants to do, the pastor's wife gets to do it. And so so my mom became the bulletin maker.

The order of service, whatever you want to call it. She did this in the days of the typewriter. No spell check, no autocorrect, no proofreader, four teenagers running around the house. You know, I can only imagine. You get towards the bottom of the page and you make a mistake. Who cares? They'll figure it out, you know. So she puts it on. Well, my dad had kept a ton of these bulletins. And so I open it up and I'm reading them and I'm just dying, laughing. I'm like, this is hilarious. These are great. This is what I can use. So Sunshine for the Soul.

Is a book with no plot, large font. It has an encouraging Bible scripture, and then it has some encouraging quotes from everybody from Dr. Seuss to Billy Graham to Judges, whatever. And then it has funny stories from my life, a lot of which are bulletin bloopers, is what I call them. And so

Tom Maxwell (1:02:36)

Yeah.

Debbie (1:02:37)

it's just hilarious. And that pattern just keeps repeating over and over and over.

So you can start at the beginning or the middle or the end. It doesn't matter. There's no plot to explain, but yet it brightens your day and it makes you laugh and it makes you smile. And I give it to nurses and people who would do extra things for mom. I'd give them copies of the book and stuff. And so it became a game to see who could get their copy of free copy of the book. So it's just a small little book that will brighten your day. And my favorite one in there is that she just left a G out, is all she did. Every letter has value.

You have value. Every person has value. She left out a G and it changed the sentence to, if you enjoy sinning, join the choir.

So

Tom Maxwell (1:03:25)

Got a is a lot of church, it's probably real. That's funny. That's awesome. So, Debbie,

Debbie (1:03:26)

Too funny. Yep. Yep.

Tom Maxwell (1:03:29)

you're a gardener, you're an author, you're a coloring book writer, you've written multiple number one books, you're a caregiver three times over. Man, I bet you were amazing in corporate life. I bet you were like the employee everybody wanted. You are. Holy cow.

Debbie (1:03:41)

Organized, very organized, you have to be.

Tom Maxwell (1:03:44)

You you've done a lot in your life. And and it and you still look young, you still look great.

Debbie (1:03:49)

thank you.

Tom Maxwell (1:03:49)

Sounds your

husband your husband's gonna have be in great hands if you ever need him there to take care of him. Hopefully, it's coming someday, right? It's gonna happen to all of us. I

Debbie (1:03:54)

It's coming. It's coming.

Tom Maxwell (1:03:58)

I just I I'm I'm so so impressed with your background and what you've done and thank you for coming

Debbie (1:04:02)

Thank you.

Tom Maxwell (1:04:02)

on the show and sharing with us. And Cole, our producer, will absolutely post a link to your website and then for all the listeners out

Debbie (1:04:10)

Thank you.

Tom Maxwell (1:04:10)

there, please go out and and grab our books and you're all gonna go through it. I promise you at some point you're gonna have to care for a loved one of some herb friend or family member and

And just a little bit of extra tips and things you can get through to help you understand it and and know that everybody else has done it. I do have one question for you. This is the last visit first podcast. So what does that mean to you as a as a as you hear the the term the last visit first podcast?

Debbie (1:04:33)

Last visit first. Well, I think it's important that you say the things, don't leave things left unsaid. It's it's important to let people know that you love them and your loved one that you're caring for, even when the words are gone, you can still have laughter. Because even when my mom couldn't speak anymore, I would get down in front of her and wait until her eyes found me and wait until she saw me, and you can see that recognition.

And then I'd make funny faces and we would laugh together. So joyful times can be had. You just have to look a little harder to find them sometimes. And if you need help finding those, that's why I'm here. Just reach out.

Tom Maxwell (1:05:14)

So awesome. Thank you for what you're doing. It's really cool. Thank you for being on the show today.

Debbie (1:05:17)

Thank you.

Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. It's been a joy.

Tom Maxwell (1:05:21)

You bet.