Unlearn16: Class is in Session - The One Where Grandma Ruby Meets Me

00:00:00.000 class is in session hey welcome to unlearn 16 classes in session guys today you just get me

00:00:09.120 and i think what i'm going to try to do today if i can if i can push through it is give you the

00:00:15.620 sort of full picture of what grammar ruby has gone through and is going through and where we're at

00:00:22.300 i did a podcast a little bit ago i don't know a few episodes ago about how angry i was at the

00:00:29.760 system, how angry I was at cuts and caretaking and all of those things when it came to

00:00:37.960 geriatric care, hospital care in Ontario. Today, I'm going to give you a bit of a fuller picture

00:00:46.060 so you can see where I'm at. I think talking about this issue is incredibly important because

00:00:52.720 I think a lot of people are going through it. I think more of us are going to go through it

00:00:56.280 as the years progress on, I think it's incredibly important to talk about these things so that we

00:01:04.520 have the ability to reach out, find support when we need it, find fire and, you know, when we need

00:01:13.620 it, find places to be upset when we need it. So let me take you back. All right, my grandma is 97.

00:01:22.460 she is 97 i need you understand about something about grandma ruby she is 97 healthy all right

00:01:30.560 she's lived on sugar cigarettes and coffee and pure stubbornness for 97 years i want to be

00:01:38.340 crystal clear the only thing that's really gotten in my grandma's way in you know over the time and 1.00

00:01:44.840 now not well up until recently is her body she has bad um she's always had arthritis she that

00:01:54.340 increasingly got worse i think that um her body just hurts it hurts to touch a lot of places on

00:02:03.420 her like her arms hurt her shoulders hurt her joints hurt now all of those things hurt and so

00:02:09.940 i think that's really what's gotten in her way but like for my grandma's whole life the only thing

00:02:14.100 she's ever been on is blood pressure medication. Right? She's also wicked stubborn in the sense

00:02:20.080 that anytime she's gotten sick, she just takes to her bed. And I think that mentality got her 0.98

00:02:26.260 through. I mean, guys, she had shingles. She refused to tell anybody. She got a staph infection 0.95

00:02:30.420 because she cut her head, didn't tell anybody, got an infection. Finally, when we figured it out

00:02:34.360 and got her to the hospital, like it was insane what we had to do to get her better then. But

00:02:39.320 she was younger then, right? So your body bounces back better then. At 97, what she's just gone

00:02:47.900 through wasn't just so incredibly horrific, but I think it was enough. And the more nurses I talked

00:02:55.780 to and the more sports staff I talked to, at 97, when you get hit with anything, it's like your

00:03:01.700 body's ability, your mind's ability to bounce back from that is greatly diminished. So a few

00:03:10.100 weeks ago, God, I don't even know. I can't even tell you the time period. Okay. So let's say a

00:03:15.540 month ago, my grandma got really sick. Okay. So she had a stomach, a weird stomach thing. She

00:03:22.940 wouldn't get out of bed because that's how my grandma rolls. Now, before that she was losing 1.00

00:03:27.120 her memory a little bit of course like in and out right but she always remembered sort of the

00:03:33.600 immediate family that's around her all the time she remembered the casino and this was just one

00:03:38.940 of those things and so she wasn't eating she wasn't drinking and she had to go to the hospital

00:03:43.440 I'm not going to go on about that particular scenario I'm going to come back to our medical

00:03:50.160 systems and the funding of medical systems in another episode that's not I don't want I don't

00:03:56.080 want this to be about that for now so she went into the hospital and she stayed there for about

00:04:02.260 a week and in that week they found out like she wasn't eating she wasn't getting out of bed she

00:04:07.140 was a little bit drinking right but she hurt her body hurt which had nothing to do with what's

00:04:12.200 wrong with her but she was getting weaker and weaker and weaker now in retrospect I don't know

00:04:18.480 what would have been the perfect thing to do get her up right away keep her up keep her up keep her

00:04:24.020 up make sure she eats but she was battling what we then found out much later by the way she had a

00:04:29.620 parasite and my grandma and I laugh about this parasite because apparently it's something that 0.94

00:04:35.120 you get from fresh fruits and vegetables my grandma doesn't eat either never has 97 years

00:04:40.040 remember sugar coffee cigarettes stubbornness there's no vegetable fruit component in that

00:04:45.780 mixture. So as she's getting better in the hospital, we realized that her physicality 0.84

00:04:53.060 has declined. Now her physicality had declined before the hospital. This is just what put it

00:04:59.380 over the top. So we realized at that point as a family, we need to have 24 hour care for her,

00:05:06.660 right? Because I've been around her enough at this point to know you at least need two full

00:05:13.580 grown healthy physically fit adults to take care of what she needs at all times and and we just

00:05:20.420 didn't we didn't have that right I go to work I mean um and my mom is you know still recovering

00:05:27.300 it doesn't have that strength anymore and it was just you the 24-hour care so okay so we decided

00:05:33.780 which you all know that I hate as I'm making excuse after excuse about why but we we found

00:05:39.460 an assisted living facility now again i'm not going to get into the cost but holy i don't i 0.98

00:05:44.980 don't understand how people who are in their you know 90s or whatever age you are where you need

00:05:51.940 that kind of care which in my opinion is medical care and we've now privatized so much of it

00:05:58.020 because if you don't go the private one the public one is so understaffed and underfunded you're not

00:06:03.540 getting care and i'm not blaming those facilities i'm blaming the government hands down again i'm

00:06:08.580 I'm going to put that over there for a bit.

00:06:10.820 And I'm going to talk about this private facility that she's in.

00:06:13.680 I'm not going to talk about money because I think that's, you know, in bad taste. 0.84

00:06:18.100 It's insanely expensive.

00:06:20.560 Insanely expensive. 0.91

00:06:22.860 But when you go into this place, and so grandma eventually got healthy enough to go to this facility.

00:06:28.760 So when we go into this place, it's like a beautiful, you know, hotel where they take care of everything. All right. Now, initially, I wasn't sold on it because you know me. I want her like, I'll just take her to school with me and sit her beside me in a chair. I mean, that's ridiculous, but you understand what I'm saying.

00:06:49.640 And when she went in there, the very first night, the very first woman that took care of her, her name is Paula, and another woman, Sam, I mean, my grandma kissed them on the head. 0.77

00:07:03.980 And here's what I want to say about that.

00:07:06.980 When you're dealing with kids, animals, the elderly, I think they go very much by how they feel, by the energy the other person puts out there.

00:07:18.560 and that's what they respond to because their verbal skills and their their understanding

00:07:24.140 and their memory and all of those things for those three groups of of entities um they have

00:07:31.520 to trust their gut and that's why our gut is so powerful and that's when i when i heard that when

00:07:39.780 i saw that when i felt that from the people taking care of my grandmother i saw these these people

00:07:48.200 have a beautiful heart, a beautiful intent. And my grandma feels it. My grandma feels it so much.

00:07:53.400 She gave one a kiss on the head. My grandma's never kissed me on the head. Like that's how

00:07:57.580 much my grandma doesn't rely on that kind of thing. Right? So we get her in there and initially

00:08:02.220 she won't get up and it's a problem, but we have family that goes there every day. Okay. So like

00:08:09.020 her, her kids ran, like they have like sort of a schedule. Everybody sees her every day. I try to

00:08:15.280 go every day as well. Um, just because I, I don't know. I just want to make, I want to see her

00:08:23.480 every day. I also know time's limited. So now her getting better, as soon as she went in there,

00:08:29.800 she didn't want to get up. Right. So she didn't want to get up. She didn't want to get up. And,

00:08:33.480 and my head starts to go to, what have we done? Have we put her somewhere where she's never going

00:08:42.280 to want to get up, where it's not going to be encouraged enough, where she doesn't have,

00:08:46.360 even though we're there every day, like in my head spinning about what was good. And then she gets up

00:08:50.520 and then I go in a few times and she's feeling better. And she, you know, she's talking and

00:08:56.000 she remembers everything. We talk about the casino, we talk about this and we talk about that

00:09:00.420 and she's feeling better. And I'm like, okay, okay. So if we can get her better gradually

00:09:06.280 and the nursing staff there was like, you know, she's making, she's making progress. This is a

00:09:11.720 like she's making progress she's gonna get evaluated again this coming week but she's

00:09:16.900 making progress and then you get days where she won't get out of bed she won't get out of bed

00:09:24.740 again she's just she's she hurts and she's tired my problem is is that she hurts and she's tired

00:09:32.040 so she doesn't get up and eat she doesn't get up and eat and she hurts and she's tired and it's

00:09:35.740 this horrible cycle, but you can't, she has to want to break that cycle. She has to, you know,

00:09:41.380 and I, and I get her, I'm bringing her in all of these different foods for her to eat. She doesn't 0.85

00:09:45.240 want to eat. Everything tastes bad to her. Everything tastes like crap. Bacon, she likes,

00:09:49.260 but she won't start swallowing. Not a lot of swallowing going on, which we have a therapist

00:09:54.280 coming in to deal with that. And, you know, different times she remembers different people.

00:10:00.060 um i try to get her up she gets up but she's so so tired when she's in the wheelchair and i'm

00:10:09.280 pushing her around that she falls asleep literally sitting up and her legs ache and

00:10:14.140 she's not on any other medication and you don't know it's so hard when you're dealing with somebody

00:10:22.520 it's just like dealing with a kid you you really don't know you can't grasp the thing that hurts

00:10:28.240 them the most or how to handle it because they're not incredibly capable of being articulated enough

00:10:34.980 to tell you what's wrong. And if they can't tell you what's wrong in a clear way, how do you know

00:10:41.040 what to do and how to fix it? We did find out she had this parasite. So that took a long time. And 0.97

00:10:47.320 then she was on antibiotics. You got to know she was on antibiotics for a long time. Well,

00:10:51.220 what the week, but she wasn't eating anything. So you also got to know the antibiotics were

00:10:54.640 heart in her stomach. So it's like a catch 22. It was fixing something that needed to be fixed,

00:10:59.080 but she wasn't eating enough to sort of balance out how that was going through her system.

00:11:04.060 So all of this stuff is going on and you go in there and, you know, some days she'll look at you

00:11:12.820 and she'll say, and I know a lot of you guys have had this experience. She'll look at you,

00:11:17.420 you know, your mom, your grandparent, your whatever, she'll look at, she'll look at me

00:11:21.840 and she'll say, when am I going to get better? Am I getting better? Am I getting better enough?

00:11:29.880 You know, and those are the hard times that, and I'm talking to people going through it right now.

00:11:37.440 I don't even know who, I don't even know my target audience at this point, but you look at her,

00:11:42.880 she's 97 and she is, I said, grandma, you are getting better because last week or two weeks

00:11:50.240 ago you wouldn't even get out of bed she's like really because she doesn't have that memory so

00:11:55.080 when she doesn't have that memory of what it was what it felt like before she just knows it feels

00:12:02.060 crappy today not as crappy as it was before but still crappy today and that's all that she can go

00:12:06.760 on because she she only has that kind of tunnel vision because she has no memory so i said grandma

00:12:12.320 so i explained to her all the time but you're getting better because you used to not get out

00:12:16.080 to bed she's like really i'm like yeah you were so you didn't eat nothing she's like oh i said so

00:12:21.440 you're getting better okay so she feels people need hope for crying out loud they need to think

00:12:26.960 they need to understand that they're on somewhat of a trajectory i don't care how old you are

00:12:31.760 if it feels like you're never getting any better and if you're just like consistently

00:12:37.280 where's the hope you need hope yeah and which is why i take her outside and there's ducks at this

00:12:43.120 establishment. And there's different music things that go on. And I always used to think my grandma

00:12:48.660 wouldn't have liked them because she's not much of a joiner. But now I see that those are things

00:12:54.200 that really start to occupy and engage her mind in a way that I feel like the casino or whatever

00:13:03.000 we used to do with her would engage her mind on a regular basis. So now she's starting to do those

00:13:08.580 things but we're having still having a really hard time getting her to eat so do we get the 0.58

00:13:15.500 insurers and the milkshakes and trying to sneak it in this way and sneak it in that way and get the

00:13:20.360 get the speech pathologist and their job is to you know figure out how to start making her swallow

00:13:27.200 again because sometimes that's a thing there's a name for it aphasia maybe not that's not her name

00:13:32.080 I've been watching too much house there's something there's something where older people

00:13:36.000 like swallowing food is difficult so we can get somebody in to try to figure that out because I 1.00

00:13:42.220 really think this is the vicious cycle um now when I went there and the reason why I'm making

00:13:48.120 this particular podcast I'm trying to give you guys a a lot of you guys ask for her to be on

00:13:53.200 video you know when she's gonna go to the casino when she's gonna do it look I want to do all of

00:13:57.140 it I want to have her on video but I want her to be healthy enough and aware enough to know that

00:14:02.280 she's on it and it not to feel like I'm just taking a video of her in a very weak state my 0.67

00:14:07.840 grandma is wicked prideful I took her yesterday I was there yesterday and she said am I dressed

00:14:13.580 nicely I said yeah grandma you're dressed nice she goes good good good make sure I'm always

00:14:17.440 dressed nicely like that's still who my grandma is she wants to make sure that she looks good

00:14:23.560 she wants she's still prideful in a lot of that um I spent some of the time taking she has a few

00:14:30.440 you know let's say whiskers i said grandma you want me to cut these for you she goes well i can't

00:14:35.560 see them i said okay well you don't want me to she goes no no no could you do that for me i said of

00:14:40.680 course i could so we sat outside and you know i i helped her i helped her look good so i can tell

00:14:48.960 her you know and i showed her videos on tiktok of her and i together she's like i look good i said

00:14:53.860 i know you look good grandma you know yesterday uh i took her out it was beautiful beautiful

00:15:00.080 outside yesterday and we sat down and um i took her to the park so she could have a cigarette

00:15:07.360 and it was the first time she looked at me and said who are you

00:15:15.680 guys for anyone that's gone through that with a parent with a loved one

00:15:20.480 that was a hard that was a hard thing to hear and i know that's just about me because i i looked at

00:15:30.960 her and i didn't i didn't cry i didn't make a big deal of it but it was like this huge lump in my

00:15:36.540 throat and i just needed to swallow hard so i could talk to her about who i was and where she

00:15:42.980 because she didn't know where she was and why she was there and so i could talk her through that

00:15:47.980 and i didn't want to make her feel afraid or upset or uncomfortable that somehow she didn't

00:15:56.080 know who i was and in about 10 minutes we just continued she said what do you do she asked me

00:16:01.640 what i did for a job she asked me if i was married she asked me if i had kids she just wanted to get

00:16:08.740 to know who i was which i find quite lovely so i try to talk to her about that and in about 10 or

00:16:15.240 15 minutes of being outside, you saw it click for her. And all of a sudden she was back. She said,

00:16:21.920 Joe, you came to see me again. You come to see me all the time. And she was back. And so I had

00:16:28.060 to quickly shift gears and forget about that other part and forget about my feelings, not about me,

00:16:34.420 just to know that she feels taken care of. And she said, you always come and take care of me.

00:16:40.660 And then she would go off for the rest of the day. I felt like for hours, she would go off and talk

00:16:44.940 about how good her kids are. They all come see her and take care of her. And then she kept asking

00:16:50.240 me what I honestly believe a lot of older people think. She kept saying things like, am I a bother?

00:16:58.220 Am I too much work? You can't keep coming here. This is too much for you. Am I too much?

00:17:04.820 And guys, you know, that's how she feels. And for my grandma, fine, she has her pride. But it's also the feeling of I don't want her to ever feel like she is a burden. She is a bother. She is too much work.

00:17:29.540 you know so i say all the things to her i say all of those things to her i said but grandma 0.52

00:17:34.040 listen because i know my grandma likes to have agency i say you you also pay money to be here

00:17:40.460 so all of these people work for you that's kind of how i shape it because i know

00:17:45.380 that's important to her right it's important to her that

00:17:49.100 and i said sounds silly but it's important for her to feel like she has control a little bit

00:17:56.320 of the situation I said I come here just to hang out with you I don't come here because I have to

00:18:01.600 I don't come here because I have to make you food or or do things for you that's all taken care of

00:18:09.120 I come here to hang out with you right like and then I say like I I like the ducks we go sit by

00:18:16.340 the pool we go do all of these different things and again she doesn't have a lot of memory of it

00:18:20.700 and I said but what I really need you to do is start to eat so that I can take you out of here

00:18:25.180 We can go to the casino. You say the casino to my grandma. Every memory is triggered about that place. She, she smiles big and she wants to go. You know, I tell her I'm getting married every time I'm there, which is a lovely surprise for her. 0.83

00:18:41.640 and we just we try to talk and then eventually she starts falling asleep and and you know there

00:18:50.580 there's that sort of wave to the day but I that I I realize and just because it was the first time

00:19:00.900 it happened to me it happens to everybody in my family right it was the first time it happened to

00:19:05.140 me where she didn't know. And I realized that it's okay if she didn't know me because I still

00:19:14.420 think she felt me. I know that sounds weird, but if she could kiss a nurse on her head 0.67

00:19:22.020 the first time she met her because she could feel the fact that that person cared about her enough

00:19:31.460 and really empathized and and wanted to take care of her and that was genuine if my grandma could

00:19:38.520 feel that about a stranger she's never met she sure as hell can feel that about me and my intent

00:19:45.540 in coming there even if she doesn't remember that i'm her granddaughter

00:19:49.240 so she doesn't remember that's okay i just want to make sure that she feels that i love her

00:20:01.020 that she feels like she matters, that she feels like she knows that her stories matter to me,

00:20:08.340 and then getting to know each other. Frank, I'll get to know her every day for as long as she's

00:20:13.980 here again and again and again and again. I take pictures. I show her video. When she does remember

00:20:21.300 me, I'll show her video of the two of us because I don't... I guess what I've come to in a very,

00:20:27.340 unfortunately a little bit of a painful way is the idea that if she forgets me that's okay

00:20:33.740 i don't need to prove to her who i am i just need her to know that she's loved

00:20:40.060 so that me being in that space isn't about well i'm your granddaughter let me show you pictures

00:20:45.100 look grandma this is who we were and we did all these things no no no no i don't need to do any

00:20:49.740 of that. None of that. I think I just need to sit down with her when she's in that space

00:20:57.420 and get to know her all over again so she can get to know me all over again. I will tell her stories

00:21:06.400 the way that I tell strangers stories that want to know who I am. I will try to listen to anything

00:21:12.820 she remembers about herself and ask her questions about herself so in a way I can get to know her

00:21:19.340 again in that back and forth. And if at some point in the conversation, that spark goes off

00:21:24.560 and she remembers who I am, amazing. Then I'll show her videos of us and we'll laugh and we'll

00:21:28.800 talk about it and, and all of those things. But if she doesn't, you know, cause I have to brace

00:21:35.380 myself for if she doesn't, then we will sit together and we will get to know each other again.

00:21:44.740 and for the men and women who work in these establishments who work in these care facilities

00:21:52.800 I need to say I have so much respect and gratitude for the job you do and for the love you lead with

00:22:03.280 because these people don't don't know you but they feel your intent and I and I've been there

00:22:10.920 Every day since my grandma's been there

00:22:12.720 And I watch

00:22:13.380 I watch other people

00:22:14.800 I watch them with other people

00:22:16.440 I feel

00:22:18.740 You know, you feel what it's like in that place

00:22:22.060 And

00:22:23.420 I am blown away

00:22:26.940 At the love you show

00:22:28.660 And the care and the empathy

00:22:31.160 That you lead with

00:22:32.740 I really, really am

00:22:34.500 And people that choose to go into that work

00:22:37.280 You amaze me

00:22:38.960 And I thank you for it

00:22:40.920 Because, I mean, I take care of my grandma that way, but she's my grandma.

00:22:44.300 You take care of everybody's grandparents that way.

00:22:48.020 And it astounds me.

00:22:50.560 You know, I was sitting with her a couple days ago.

00:22:54.920 And when, you know, she does and doesn't remember and fluctuates in and out of what she remembers.

00:23:01.700 But every once in a while, she'll have a very clear cognizant memory.

00:23:06.300 and I'll be able to pull up videos instantaneously,

00:23:10.560 which sort of draws her back into that time and space.

00:23:15.480 You know, like I can show her videos and pictures from Christmases

00:23:18.400 or vacations and stuff like that.

00:23:20.940 And I think that's incredibly important because it kind of,

00:23:24.060 it focuses her, right?

00:23:26.080 And it focuses her in that time, whatever she's triggered,

00:23:29.900 in that time that she remembers.

00:23:32.600 So I think that's incredibly important.

00:23:34.640 I think what I need to learn how to do better because I'm just getting used to it is shifting

00:23:40.940 shifting between the granddaughter she's known for 47 years and a stranger who she feels

00:23:49.840 comfortable and safe with because I know she feels that she feels comfortable and safe with

00:23:56.100 but doesn't really know and as sad as that is it's still kind of this beautiful thing that

00:24:06.900 shows you that memories and conversations and and awareness of who you are and what you mean

00:24:18.360 to each other because of family because of history because of all of those things

00:24:22.220 there is something deeper that she feels comfortable with and it's not about blood

00:24:31.900 it is about family but when I see her with those nurses it's not about family because

00:24:39.200 we've been together forever it's about family because she can feel intent and she can feel

00:24:47.260 you know what the good you want for her and the good you want to do for her yeah and then at some

00:24:55.600 point she says get my purse I mean let's be honest that's how every as soon as my grandma's really

00:24:59.740 cognizant that's what she's saying get my purse get some money Joe you need some money I don't

00:25:03.920 need any money oh Joe you go I don't need any of that money my grandma says you go spend no no no

00:25:08.980 grandma's fine eventually you just say of course grandma I'll I'll go buy something don't worry

00:25:12.980 about a thing. So every day is going to be something different. She's 97. This is the

00:25:22.160 hard part. I'm trying to resign myself to the fact that she's 97. She may bounce back

00:25:28.540 in increments, but at some point I have to make space for her feeling safe enough and

00:25:37.760 loved enough to do what she needs to do in this life and that's really really really hard

00:25:44.640 because it's not about the other person when you don't want them to go

00:25:48.440 that's about you and that's that's really i don't mean selfish in this horrible way it's just very

00:25:58.700 much about you i don't want her to go i don't want i want to be able to walk in there and she smiles

00:26:04.420 because she knows I was going to come see her that day you know you want that to stay forever

00:26:09.540 but the job that we have to do at a certain point in people's life is understand that what they need

00:26:18.820 and what they want and what they makes them feel safe and loved is what we're going to give

00:26:25.180 for as long as we can give it as long as they are with us

00:26:29.900 and i don't think i've ever had to learn a harder lesson and i don't know if i can teach it and i

00:26:38.760 don't know if i've learned it well but i will keep learning it and i will try my best to share it with

00:26:45.440 you so that we can better understand how to deal with the times and the frustrations and the

00:26:52.240 selfishness and the, all of those things that go into this part of life.

00:26:59.760 So on that note, guys, thank you for sharing this time with me. I really appreciate it.

00:27:06.900 And you know, I will see you next Tuesday, same bat time, same bat station. Have a great day.

00:27:15.120 Dismissed.

Unlearn16: Class is in Session - June 20, 2023

The One Where Grandma Ruby Meets Me

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