Episode 5: Caregiving Roadblocks

[Man yelling for help]

This is my dad. 

[Man yelling for help]

He has dementia and is currently sundowning. He's spiraling into extreme paranoia and hallucinations, convinced that we're working with some imaginary entity trying to kill him. 

I'm Zuri Parks, and this is chaotic.

[INTRO MUSIC]

Hello caregivers. Welcome to episode five of This is Chaotic. Thank you for joining me. I'm recording from my bed. I know some of you may be thinking, "did I hear that right? She's recording from her bed?" 

Yep. 

One day when I'm a little further, along in this podcast journey, I'll share my recording setup and you probably won't believe it. I don't record in an actual booth or even with any of the fancy mics that are recommended - though I do have one. I'm not in my closet either. I don't use any of that. My setup is very, uh, primitive, if you will; but it works for me so far. So there's that.

But anyway, I'm recording from my bed and I'm not in a good mood. I'm, not in the mood for my father and his shenanigans today, or my sister, or anyone for that matter. Honestly, my dad is already in a mood because last night he apparently hid his sneakers and wallet from himself before he went to bed. And, of course, this morning he can't remember doing that. So he refused to eat breakfast or take his meds until he found his wallet and his sneakers, which of course he thinks we stole.

He always becomes accusatory when he can't find things that he hid himself, which is something I'm sure a lot of you who are caregivers for someone with dementia are familiar with. They misplace things, or purposely hide them in a moment of paranoia; and when they can't find them, they become very accusatory and think that either you stole something from them or hid something from them - or someone did.

So he was already in that kind of mood this morning, and I was already in a mood because of my own life circumstances; and the two are not mixing. So I took myself right back to my room to record, and I don't want to see his face right now. I know that sounds harsh, but that's the way it is sometimes.

Anyway, in today's episode, I want to discuss roadblocks to getting outside help, be it in-home care or a facility. I want to talk about this because I encounter a lot of questions and assumptions (as I'm sure many other caregivers do as well) from people who mean well, but are uninformed about the caregiving experience; as was I before it became my life. So no judgement. But I want to address that. 

But before I get to that, I first want to acknowledge that, yes, I am very late getting this episode out - and I want to share why that is. If you follow me on Instagram, I shared a little bit about this already. Recently, my father had a bad time of it. He had an episode pretty much every day for about five days straight.

Things got a little crazy because I was at work and would suddenly have to leave to run home and help my sister calm him down. Or I was at work functioning off of no sleep, from him keeping me up the night before. It was a mess. Oh, and the culmination of all of this was that the police came to our house. So there's that. 
After that, I didn't have the bandwidth or time to do anything else. So I took some time to recuperate as much as possible. With my father's episodes, we're still not sure why he has such a difficult time. I guess that's the nature of dementia. It's very unpredictable. Though part of me wonders if it had anything to do with the weather.

There's this theory that some people are sensitive to extreme changes in barometric pressure. I, for one, used to get headaches whenever the weather changed drastically; and I've heard of this happening to other migraine suffers like myself. So if it affects the brain, doesn't it stand to reason that maybe it affects those with brain diseases like dementia? I don't know. That's just a random theory of mine, but I don't know that there are any studies on this. So don't quote me. 

Anyway, He was doing okay for a while, but he suddenly started doing things like losing his bladder - which hasn't been a problem before, except for when he was hospitalized about four months ago. When he started to have episodes, he was hospitalized until they could figure out how to control the episodes. While he was there, his mobility and ability to hold his bladder declined significantly. But prior to that, he didn't really have that issue. So I made sure to tell the attending neurologist that information before they sent him home, because a lot of times when your loved ones go into the hospital, they don't know what condition they were in before they got there and they may assume that they were in adult diapers the whole time. All they know is what condition they're in when they arrived. So, suddenly he wasn't very mobile and he couldn't get up to use the bathroom. So I made it clear to the neurologist that he was able to do these things on his own prior to being hospitalized; and if this was a result of the medication they were giving him, they would have to adjust the dosage or the drug, or both before they sent him home. 

Adjustments were made and he was back to normal. Now the other week he was suddenly wetting himself or just completely missing the toilet. So, to be clear, he always misses the toilet somewhat at this point. I think that's also just a part of his age at this point in life. He'll be 80 this year. I'm not saying everyone that age has this problem, but I think at this point in his personal aging journey that has become his issue. So his aim is not great and the Parkinsonism doesn't help with that because he sometimes can't steady his hands too well. So I pretty much have to clean the bathroom floor every single night because there's always some urine on the floor; but he gets most of it in the toilet on a regular day. 

However, with these episodes, we would find him where he had an accident on the floor; and he was aware that he had an accident, and he was embarrassed. So he'll try to hide it or cover it up, or just become very apologetic.

He'll say, "Oh no, I made a mistake," or something to that effect. Or he would try to hide it. And then I saw that his pants were wet. So yeah, he just completely went on the floor and on himself. I don't know if it's that maybe he couldn't get his pants down fast enough. Maybe that was it. I don't know. But on top of that, I had to fight him to get the wet pants off to wash them, which is another isue. Because of his decline in executive function. He can't sometimes process something as simple as, I wet my pants, so I need to take them off. I had to repeatedly explain to him that I needed him to take the pants off, and he wouldn't cooperate. So ultimately I wound up struggling with him to pull the pants off and he probably, unfortunately, felt violated; but I had no choice. And then I guess he figured he'd better take his underwear off before I took them off for him. So he was able to manage that. This happened a couple of times during that week, but this time it happened just as I was getting ready to leave for work.

So I finally make it into work and my sister was home with my dad, as usual. I'm in a meeting and I see that she's calling me repeatedly. So I already know she's calling about my dad. And I haven't really talked about this yet, but my sister is an extremely anxious person. I mean, I'm grateful that she's there all day with our dad, but she has some issues of her own, which in some ways, make this process even more difficult. Basically, I believe she has clinical anxiety - debilitating anxiety to the point where she's uncomfortable doing most things independently, which is part of the reason I believe she still lives with my father and she was still living with both my parents before my mother passed. My sister has this extreme anxiety where she can hardly go to the gas station or the grocery store - just to do basic things independently.

She always has to ask someone to go with her, and she's pretty much kind of afraid of her own shadow. So because of her anxiety, she sometimes is not as functional or as helpful as you would think someone who lives as a full-time caregiver would be. That's not to take away from her or what she does, but she oftentimes leaves the difficult situations for me to handle because she's sort of frozen in terror at every bump in the road - like a deer in the headlights. And quite frankly, that in itself is draining in addition to dealing with our father's situation. I can only deal with my issues and his issues. I can't deal with someone else's. So sometimes I need her to take charge and not lean on me as much. Case in point, on the day I got to work late and had to turn around and leave early, it was because she led me to believe that he was having one of his episodes. And again, when I say an episode it's basically in a psychotic episode where he is hallucinating so much that he tries to run out of the house because he has visual or auditory hallucinations where, you know, he's seeing or hearing something threatening. Understandably, he tries to escape; but then he also looks at us like we're in cahoots with whoever or whatever it is that he's seeing, and he'll do anything to get out of the house.

It takes both of us to kind of restrain him when he gets this way. So she tells me he's having an episode and she said he's closed up in a room downstairs and all she could hear was banging. So again, my sister - because of her anxiety - is quite skittish. So she's afraid to go to the room to see what he's doing. Meanwhile, I'm in a meeting when she's calling and texting me about this and then immediately following my meeting, I have to leave. So I get to the house, and indeed I do hear him banging downstairs. I mean, it was quiet when I first walked in and then he starts up again, and I start to go down the stairs. And my sister says, "you're going down there?? Oh my God!" 
She's freaking out. And I asked her, "you didn't go down there to at least see what was going on??" 
I thought she at least went to the door when she heard the noises initially, or maybe knocked on to see if he responded; but no, she didn't do any of that. She said, "I was scared. He might have a weapon." 

On one level, I get it. That is a real concern because there are some people with dementia who do get agitated. Again, that doesn't happen to everyone, but those who do - especially those like my father who suffer from auditory and visual hallucinations - they can become violent and they have hurt their caregivers or family or professionals who are watching over them. A friend of mine, her father actually bit his nurse. Likewise, my father has tried to bite us, scratch, hit us, punch us, fight us, and things like that when he's agitated. So it is a real part of dementia, or a real symptom of dementia, for some people. However, I don't want to characterize all people suffering from dementia as violent. But some people can be. So I get that it's a reasonable fear that maybe he had a weapon or something. But again, in my sister's case this is a very extreme reaction a lot of time. She didn't even go down and knock on the door to see what was going on! She just immediately called me away from my job and said that he was having an episode, and I ran off from work.

As it turns out it was not an episode. It was just a typical dementia thing. I went downstairs to check and tried to turn the doorknob; and I could tell that it was locked. So I knocked on the door and he said, "please help me." and he sounded very weak. I could barely understand that's what he was saying until he repeated it.

Apparently he went in the room and locked the door behind him. Purposely or not, I'm not sure. And then you couldn't get out. So the banging that she heard was my father banging on the door for someone to come and let him out because he didn't realize that he could unlock the door. Because again, part of dementia is a decline in executive function, or basic things like remembering how to unlock the door. So he managed to lock himself in, but couldn't get out; and he was banging on the door for someone to help him this whole time. She could have just let him out, and maybe I didn't have to leave work. But anyway, he sounded very weak from the other side of the door and he said, "I'm locked out. I'm locked out."

That's the other thing, a lot of times he can't tell that he's in his own home, or whether or not he's indoors or outdoors. So I explained to him that he was in his office and locked himself in; and I had to walk him through unlocking the door - just like you would with a child who has mistakenly locked themselves in a room. The next day, I walked past the room and I see that he had put three of his sneakers in a shredder bin. The top part with the actual shredding mechanism was already removed by my sister some time ago for safety reasons. So it was just the empty bin. When I saw the shoes in there, I thought nothing of it because he often puts things in odd places. So I just reached in and pulled out two shoes. Then I grabbed the third one and realized it was soaking wet. And then, I smell it. Apparently when he locked himself in the room, he peed in the bin and then threw his sneakers into it. So now this sneaker was soaked with urine. I had to clean and sanitize the bin and replace his shoes. It was just a mess. 

So this is a type of behavior we have been dealing with for five days straight at this point. Fast forward to that weekend, he had an episode early in the morning, around 8:00 AM on Saturday. This was the earliest it has ever happened. I was actually still asleep when I heard sounds of a struggle like crashing and breaking, and my sister was calling my name. This is how I woke up. I was snatched out of my sleep by this. I run upstairs to find her and my dad struggling to get him to sit down and calm down. So that was our Saturday - totally shot to hell because he was pretty much agitated all day. I had plans to go to brunch. This is exactly why I don't make plans anymore. It was hard. 

The next day, Sunday, it was unseasonably warm again and beautiful out; but I had not been outside all day - partly because I feared he would snap while I was gone, and partly because my sister is afraid to be left alone with him. But by late afternoon he had been calm all day, for once; so I figured it was safe for me to go out and enjoy the last bit of sunshine and warm weather. I decided to go grab something to eat. At this point it's about three o'clock or so and I notice as I'm getting ready, that he seems to be getting riled up. He's getting jumpy and accusatory, and he's pacing frequently. All the signs are there. Most often his episodes happen very suddenly - quite suddenly actually; but sometimes they do come on gradually, and this was one of those times when I could tell that he was ramping up. Sometimes I feel like maybe he's triggered when he knows that I'm leaving the house. So a lot of times I don't tell him. I just go. So I eased out and figured I would hurry up and get something to eat and come back. 

By the time I returned, he was looking paranoid and pacing while clutching the house phone. At one point, I saw him talking into the phone as well and honestly, I couldn't tell whether or not he had actually called someone or if he was hallucinating that he was speaking with someone - which happens when he's having an episode. He hallucinates that he's on the phone with the police when he's actually talking into his fist most of the time, or maybe the remote control. So I couldn't tell if he actually called someone or if he was imagining that he was, and to be perfectly honest, I was too tired to care. At that point, I was tired. I was hungry. And I said, you know what? If he is on the phone with the police or someone else for that matter, too bad. And I sat down at the table to eat. As I'm eating, he's pacing.
And that usually precipitates an episode as well. He'll constantly circle and stop at the doors and windows. And whenever he passes us or either of us move, he flinches. We don't have to be anywhere near him at all; but if we get up to move or we move at all - which of course I was doing, because I'm in the kitchen eating - he flinches like we're going to hit him or something even though we never have; because in his mind we're trying to attack him.

So he's circling, he's flinching, and he's glaring at me; and I know a real episode is coming. The next thing you know, he opens the door and begins to yell for help. This isn't unusual when he has an episode. What we normally try to do is intervene before he gets to this point because - number one, we don't want him to run outside.
Number two, we don't want him to raise a false alarm to neighbors because obviously no one is actually trying to hurt him. The thing is, most of the time he can't get out anyway because we have security bars on the doors which he installed years ago when we were kids. None of us particularly liked the bars, especially given that he insisted they stay locked 24/7 due to the fact that he was a very paranoid person in general, even before the dementia. But the bars where his choice. So now it's almost like, I guess he feels like he's in a prison of his own making because he'll open the door to run off into the street and he can't because the gate is locked. Meanwhile, the keys haven't been moved and he could easily get to them and unlock the gate. But because of the dementia, he can't remember how to do that.
And of course, we're not going to go and open the door when he's trying to run out into the street, imagining that someone or something is chasing him trying to harm him. So there is an upside to the bars because it's safer as it prevents him from running outside. 

Normally we're in the room when he starts to have these episodes, but God forbid he has an episode when we're both indisposed, because he really could have run out of the house and gotten hurt plenty of times by now. Anyway, he'll open the door only to encounter the gate, which is locked. So he starts to yank on the gate and yell for help. He'll say, they're trying to kill me or they're trying to rob me; because, When he's hallucinating - I don't know what these threatening voices or visions are saying to him, but clearly he's terrified. So we usually try to intervene before this happens for the aforementioned reasons. One of which being that we don't want anyone to think we're actually trying to harm him. Obviously strangers don't know that he's experiencing psychosis and we are in fact not hurting him. In fact, my sister was in her room resting and I was eating; so neither one of us was actually near him when this started. But someone on the outside doesn't know that. So normally, we would intervene and try to get him from even opening the door and yelling for help when he's like this to begin with - because he generally starts yelling for help before he even gets to the door, so we know it's coming. It's very bizarre. But I was famished and beat at this point so I guess you could say I had reached my breaking point. I don't really know, but I'm sitting at the table eating my food and he's yelling for help at the door. And I just say, "Dad, no one is trying to hurt you," but I also refuse to get up and intervene because I'm tired. So I just continued to eat.

As an aside, I actually have a friend who believes that you should not intervene in these situations because it only exacerbates their paranoid state. Instead she said that we should let him go and just follow him until he returns to his senses. The rationale being that he'll snap out of it faster once he becomes disoriented and realizes he's lost; and she's telling us this because this worked in her father's case. Honestly, I'm not that opposed to the idea, even though it does seem like a very real safety risk. My sister, on the other hand, is very much opposed; so we just continue on the path that we have so far. 

Anyway, he's at a door yelling for help, swearing up and down that someone has hurt him and is trying to kill him; and he caught the attention of someone coming out of a neighbor's house. Whoever it was, came to the door to hear him out; and I'm not sure if he called the police or if it was my father - because whoever it was that came to the door is aware he has dementia. I was sitting right there and overheard the entire conversation. Also, our neighbor is aware that he has dementia. So whoever this was even said to him, "You have dementia, right?" They understood. However, what I've come to realize is that the average person only knows dementia from what they may have seen or experienced with someone they know. And everyone suffering from dementia is not the same, and will not have the same symptoms. There are so many different types of dementia with their own unique symptoms. Even if that person has known someone with dementia, maybe they had a type that doesn't result in hallucinations. So when someone swears that their caregiver is trying to kill or otherwise harm them, they believe it. Even doctors and nurses in the ER were looking at us like - what the hell?? - when they actually witnessed one of my dad's episodes; and they work in an emergency room. They've seen some things, and still they were stunned. I'm sure there are caregivers or former caregivers listening right now who are like, "That never happened to us." And this is exactly my point. With dementia, each case is different because it depends on what type of dementia they have. With Lewy body dementia, hallucinations are not uncommon. And so, about 30 minutes later, we've gotten our dead settled onto the couch in the living room (though he is still agitated). When I see a car pull up and shine bright lights into the house - and I immediately knew it was the police. 

By this time, we're so over it that my sister just opened the front door before they were even out of the cruiser and waved them in. She's like, "Just come on." Now I wouldn't recommend anyone do this for safety reasons, obviously. And they absolutely hesitated to get out and approach because who knows what they were told. Luckily, I will say that most of the police in our part of the county live amongst us, go to church with us, and they look like us. I cannot stress how important this is.

So they come to the door and ask to see my father, who is now yelling for help again. They have their body cams on and everything. It's a whole thing. As soon as the second officer sees us, he recognizes us from some months back when we broke down and called the paramedics for the first time. When the paramedics come, the police accompany them. I don't know if it's that way everywhere. So the officer looks at us, he looks at the house, and he immediately says, "I think I've been here before." And when I see him and recognize him, I say, "yep, you were here a couple of months ago. Come on in." It's one of those things where it's funny, but it's not. 

The difference now is previously we called them, but this time they're on the defensive because they showed up thinking a crime was in progress. Anyway, they come in and ask us some questions. I offer to show them documentation proving that my father has dementia and hallucinates, but the officer who recognized us said, "It's okay, I know what's going on. It's fine." And they both proceed to get my father to relax and take his evening dose of medication. So they both handled the situation really well, and ultimately they were very helpful; but it's still traumatic to have the cops called on you when you've done nothing wrong. That whole week was just a nightmare and that was the finale, I guess. 

One night he didn't snap until pretty late, like after 10:00 PM or so. And my sister just looked at me defeated and said, "I can't do this anymore. He has to go somewhere. We can't do this. I can't take this anymore." Which brings me to the issue of why we don't have outside help or have not explored putting him in a facility as of yet. 

Issue number one: His health insurance does not cover in-home care. Shocker, right? I was shocked too. At the most, they may send someone for 30 minutes at a time a few days a week, which is nowhere near the level of assistance we need. It's really insane to me that his HMO doesn't cover care for dementia patients - at least not at his payment plan level; or tiers as they call them. This is something I talked to my parents about multiple times before either one of them got sick - which is paying more for a different healthcare plan within their HMO. But I think they fell into the trap of choosing the cheapest option under the assumption that you'll receive the same level of care. And the fact of the matter is healthcare is a business in this country, and you get what you pay for. So his health insurance does not cover in-home care or care in a facility, or anything like that. 

The second issue is, as I've mentioned before, we don't have power of attorney. My father never designated a power of attorney as far as we know, which means our hands are tied in so many more ways than you would think. Does he possibly have long-term care or long-term disability via his pension that we could be using? Possibly. Would they give me this information when I called to inquire? Nope. Why? Because I don't have power of attorney. They wouldn't even simply tell me, yes or no, he has long-term disability coverage. They said, unless you can send us proof that you have power of attorney, we can't talk to you. Similarly, he receives a pension check that could cover some of the costs of paying for a caregiver out-of-pocket. However, he receives too much to receive Medicare or Medicaid. I always get the two confused, so that's not an option. And the days and hours when he's lucid enough to sign a check have become shorter and increasingly sporadic. So the other issue is he also doesn't have credit cards or an ATM card, so he would have to pay via check, which he can't consistently sign on a regular basis due to the dementia and Parkinsonism. When he briefly, for example, had occupational and physical therapists coming in, most of the time we had to sign for him. At the end of their visit, they have to have someone sign them out, basically. And then there were those days when he was able to sign his name with ease. It's unpredictable. But you know what can't be unpredictable? Payment to caregivers. So here we are. And if we write checks for him, that's considered fraud and obviously it's illegal. I'm sure people do it because that's what they have to do, but technically it is illegal and I would rather not take my chances. So that, to me, isn't an option either. 

Which leads me to issue number three. We could pay out of pocket. But "we" would mean solely me because my sister hasn't worked in years and has no income or savings - which is a topic for another day. And I don't make nearly enough to cover the cost of a caregiver or facility. To say nothing of the fact that I don't think we can even make the decision to put him in a facility without power of attorney. Anyway, I'm still in the process of getting pricing and particulars from different caregiver services. On average, in-home care starts at approximately $24 an hour. Also most services require that you retain them for a minimum number of days and hours to make it worth their time. One can't simply say, oh, we just need someone twice a week for seven hours because these services won't work with you. If you don't need, at least, say, four days or X number of hours. So let's say we need someone for seven hours in the evenings, four or five days a week. That's $840 a week. In short, it ain't cheap, and I don't make enough to cover the costs by myself. So these are the roadblocks that we're encountering right now to getting outside help, which is what leaves us stuck. If we could, believe you me, we would. But as of right now, our hands are tied. So as it stands, I'm trying to cobble together an in-home care plan as best I can by reaching out to various services that provide in-home care for a few hours here and there, and hope that covers the days and hours we need until we have the guardianship hearing and are, hopefully, granted guardianship so that we can legally access the information and funds we need to provide adequate care for my father.

In the meantime, we're struggling. Worse yet, because my job does not provide telework options as of yet, whenever I have to take off to watch my dad I have to use my leave. Once that runs out, on those days I would have to take leave without pay; which leaves me at an even greater disadvantage where affording care for my dad is concerned. So these are all the reasons we can't hire a caregiver or put my father in a facility where he can get 'round-the-clock care at this point. These are just some things to think about when you're wondering why maybe some caregivers are doing it all by themselves. And I do realize that there are resources out there, but I'm trying to figure out what those resources are. You know, a lot of times when I'm in chat groups - for example, on Facebook or Reddit - with other caregivers, someone will inevitably chime in and say, there are resources, but if you're saying there are resources and you're not pointing out specifically what those resources are, that's not helpful. So are there resources out there? So I hear. Do I know what they are? No. And I'm trying to figure that out; because if I don't get a break soon, a vacation soon, or if she doesn't, I'm going to lose it or we are going to wind up fighting each other - because we're both basically at the end of our ropes. So I'm looking into what resources are available as far as in-home care or at a facility or something that we can afford until we find out whether or not we can get guardianship. 

With all that said, I also want to say this is something to think about for everyone who is healthy right now, down the road, especially if you have a spouse or children - you have to think about them. Because if you get ill, all of this falls on them. So you really have to prepare if not for your sake, for their sake. And I will say this. As much as I love my father and I'm concerned about his wellbeing, I know that there are limits and I'm only going to put my health and safety at risk or in jeopardy but so much. As caregivers, we have a tendency to take on this burden of blame, but the reality is that we're here now struggling with this issue because of provisions my father chose not to make when he was well. For whatever reasons, and I can only assume as to what those were, he chose not to declare a power of attorney or create a trust or something to protect his assets. And that is why we're in this position now - a position where, as my coworker put it, we're trying to protect the assets that he and my mother worked so hard for. So really this is all to help him. We're pursuing guardianship to help him so that he doesn't lose everything. 

Would I be devastated for him if he lost everything? Absolutely. Would I be okay financially? Yes. So really this is all for him. At the same time, sometimes I do get upset with him because I think, you know, if you had only taken the necessary precautions, you wouldn't be in this position now; or we wouldn't be in this position now where we're trying to protect you from losing everything. And at the end of the day, would I be devastated to lose our childhood home or see my dad wind up in a subpar facility? Yeah. But I won't do it to my own detriment - to a point. Obviously my life and my personal life, my work life has suffered to a point so far; but I will only let things go so far before I say, you know what? I'm just going to have to let the chips fall where they may. I don't know if that's selfish, because so many caregivers get sick and pass away before the person they're caring for. And this is exactly why. We never take a step back to check in with ourselves and make sure that we are not suffering physically or emotionally or mentally because of a situation that someone else created in a sense. Obviously he didn't cause the illness. I'm not saying that. But everyone knows that if you live a certain amount of time, something's going to happen. That's just life. You don't live forever. We are not immortal. So you need to prepare. He didn't prepare, and that's why we are in this position right now. I'm mindful of that. And I try to remind myself when I take on too much, that I just need to step back and realize that while I'm helping with my father's problem, it isn't my problem. So that's just something to think about. And that's where I am at this point. 

I guess that was my wellness tip for this episode. Sorry. I got up on my soap box there for a minute, but yeah. Think about your boundaries. I am not in any way advising you to abandon your loved one, but you have to strike a balance somehow and understand that what is happening is not your fault. Do not feel like you've done something wrong or you're doing something wrong when these, you know - maybe you're dealing with some legal issues like we are, and something goes wrong. Because at the end of the day, it's not your estate. It's theirs. And had they taken steps to prepare adequately for the future, this would not be happening now; and that is not your fault. And you can only do so much to help them. 

So that's it for this episode, I thank you all for joining me. And, um, spoiler alert: I am thinking of changing to bi-weekly. So every other week; just because the way life is set up right now, that is how it has been playing out. I think it was a little ambitious of me to think I could do this weekly when I am working and I'm a caregiver, and dementia is highly unpredictable. So this might become a biweekly thing. I will keep you all posted on that. Until then, if there's anything you would like to share with other caregivers and listeners, please leave a recorded voice message to be played on the show at thisischaotic.com. Just click on the mic icon in the bottom right corner, and you can record a message to be aired on the show. Or you could click on contact, and leave a written message via the contact form, and I can read that on the show. Please spread the word and subscribe for future episodes wherever you listen to podcasts. Until next time, remember we're all doing our best. Take care and thank you for listening.