Caring for Parents | Julie Wilson | EP 104

So anytime that I would feel that I was being fearful, I would step back and ask God, why am I not trusting you in this? God didn't take stripes on his back just for physical healing. That's for emotional healing. Maybe the answers could be found just in being heard and being seen and finding someone else that understands. I was seeing God's hand in the prayers that I was praying for other people. When you are not focused on yourself, it frees you to actually be part of a miracle in somebody else's life. Welcome to iRefresh, where we talk about the power of prayer and God's Word. Three, two, one. Welcome to iRefresh. I'm Veronica Scott, and this is my friend Julie Wilson. She has been on with us before doing a podcast. We have her back today. And today we're gonna be talking about how to navigate when your parent goes through a major illness or maybe even end of life. So Julie, I know you've just experienced this with your mom. So I wanted to talk with you today to help our viewers to navigate what you learned through this process when you were thrown into it without any pre-planning. Well, and I can tell you just... it was nothing that I ever anticipated. My parents were young when they had us, and my mom was a very vibrant person. And when she started doing some things that were a little different, at first we began to question what could this be? The thought of my mother having Alzheimer's disease was never in the back of my mind because we had no family history of it. But we started looking at medications she was on to make those choices and decisions. And when that didn't seem to make a difference, more and more things started happening. And I noticed it before my dad did. My dad was, he kept saying, your mom's always been like that. And so like little things like we would be watching a football game and she would say, why do they keep running the same play over and over? And I said, Mom, that's instant replay. And I was looking at my dad like, Dad, and he's like, she's always been like this. Well, little by little, things got worse. And eventually, my dad understood what was going on. And that happened because they were driving back from Florida. And my mom started asking my dad how he was going to get home. And he said, well, I'm driving us. And she said, well, Well, aren't your parents going to be worried? And she thought my dad was my nephew. And so as he was driving back to Tulsa, he called me and said, Julie, I think I understand what you've been telling me. And so I sat down with my mom in a family picture and I pointed to each person and I said, who is this? And she knew who everybody was. But when I pointed to my dad, she said, that's our dad. And I said, what do you mean our dad? And she said, well, that's our dad. Like we were sisters. And so I said, Dad, we need to go in and get her checked out. So little by little, we did find out she did have Alzheimer's disease. And the process began. And I remember immediately inviting God into it. Because when things start to happen, that's the thing I've learned in life, is God is a gentleman. He will not interfere. He will not intervene in our situation unless he's asked. And I knew we were about to enter a roller coaster, one that I didn't want to be on. And I'm not the type of person that likes to be out of control. This was way out of my control. And so I knew I'd invite God in. And how did you do that? I mean, at what point did you, what was the next step? Well, I think the first thing that I decided was that I was going to ask God, what can I do practically? Because there are things you can do from a practical standpoint. You don't have to sit back and just wait on everything. So I began to seek counsel. My husband and I are both CPAs. So we began to think about the legal side of things, things that we needed to do immediately. And one of those things was to get my mom to sign certain documents while she could. Um, because a lot of things like that, they want the person to be in the room with just attorneys. And if you wait too late, they aren't able to do that. So it's important that you get ahead of things immediately. And so we made appointments with attorneys and we, um, transferred some things to my dad's name. Um, we had her sign a new will. Uh, there were several things like that. Power of attorney, healthcare power of attorney. Um. Um, and then we got some home health care to come in to help my dad because my dad, I was concerned I was going to lose my parent, both my parents, because my dad would be willing to exhaust himself. And so we did those kinds of things. And then, um, we kind of did some research so that if we needed it, we would have that information. So those are the things we did. Now, those are also things that, um, were not prompted by fear. Um, Right. Because anytime you're led by fear, you're not going to make a good decision. So anytime that I would feel that I was being fearful, I would step back and ask God, why am I not trusting you in this? I heard somebody say the other day, and I thought this was so good. The thing you want to control the most in life are the things that you trust God the least with. So if you're trying to control something, you need to step back and figure out why am I not able to trust God with this? That's powerful. Can you say that again? So when you look at your life, anything you are trying to control is an area that you are trusting God the least. Wow. So I like to have everything in order and everything under control, and that was definitely something I could not control. You can look at statistics. I mean, with a cancer patient, it's somewhat like that. You can say, well, normally this is what happens. Alzheimer's, it is a totally different ballgame. You might wake up one morning and she's one way. I'm going to say, Somebody described it one time to me as if you took a vacuum cleaner, ran it over an electrical cord. All right. And it's frayed. So it might connect perfectly or it might be fuzzy or it's completely disconnected. And that can happen in one day. So you don't know what you're getting. Okay. So anyhow, that was basically how I decided to, I would do the things that I felt like I could do that God had given me direction on. I prepared as much as I could, but then I had to trust God with what I didn't know. Now let's talk about, because I know for the beginning of this diagnosis, your mom stayed home. Yes, she did. And your father was her caregiver. Yes. But I know that you came into a point where he could no longer, for his own health, continue to be the caregiver. Right. So how did you approach that stage? Well, that was a very, very difficult stage because my dad was not understanding as much why, like my mom, he kept thinking my mom was the same person. So they would go to the grocery store and he would leave her in the car with the car running and go in and say, I'll be right back. And a few minutes later, she's walking in the door and the car is still out in the parking lot running. And I said, dad, she doesn't remember what you told her. So there were a lot of safety issues. Yes. But I did not want to force any my parents hand in anything. I wanted it to be my dad's decision. And so I just asked God to let whatever needed to happen for their own safety. If if they needed an incident or something like that, that would cause them to make a decision that. I would rather have that than to have something where my mom was running outside and got hit by a car or something more tragic. Okay. And as it turns out, my mom did have an episode, and they ended up in the hospital. And while they were there, I was able to talk to some social workers, and my dad and I talked to them, and they said, you know, this is not going to be sustainable. Okay. And you need to consider putting her in a long-term care facility. And so fortunately in Tulsa, we have many great places, but we ended up putting her at Trinity Woods and it was the best decision. And the thing that was so neat is God went before us, Veronica. Every case we were in the right place. unit, the nurses became like family to us. And what was really neat, I was worried because my dad, he is the notebook on steroids. So he would literally be there when she would wake up in the morning and stay till she went to sleep at night. And then he would drive home. And I kept being concerned that he was going to be wearing himself out. And so I tried to talk to him on moving into the area because they had some independent living services. apartments. And I thought, well, that would be a great thing because he could be close to her. And when I suggested it, he was like, nope, I don't want to do that. I don't want to give up my house. And so again, I just prayed and I said, God, you know what's going to be best for him. So what do we need? Well, it wasn't too long after that, that unfortunately, my dad had an episode that he ended up in the hospital. And during that 10 days, God worked on him. And he said, I think you're right. I think I do need to be closer to her. I need to be in an apartment and I'm ready to sell the house. So the thing we didn't know was what God knew. And that was at 2020 was about to happen. So in November of 2019, my dad moved into an independent living apartment, didn't know. that in March they would lock down the facility. My dad would have had no access to my mom for over a year. But because he was in there, they locked down that entire area for quite a while. So he was able to be with my mom. And so God knew that. And again, when we trust God, he knows the timing. He knows what's coming. And he can plan things so much better than we can. But I did wait for my dad to make that decision because it's important for him. And that's what I'm hearing. And that's the part that I want you to elaborate on a little bit is because I know... when we're faced with these situations, we want to solve them. But a lot of times when we're dealing with family members, parents, it's hard not to make them do what we know is right. So how did you pray and how did God show you how to wait for your dad to come to his own conclusion? Well, I think the thing is I respect my parents so much and I want, I'm modeling for my children how I want to be treated. So what we do for our parents, we are showing our children what we want. So if I was in that same position, I would want my children to respect me enough to let me make the decision. And so I remember telling my dad, can we pray about this? Can we take this to God? Can we ask him for what's best? And the Holy Spirit does a much better job than we do. Yeah. Um, very rarely do we, are we good controlling people? I mean, we really think we can control things, but we really can't. So, so I remember just thinking, I want to treat him the way I want my children to treat me. And so that was, that was my guy. And it really does turn out so much better when everybody's on the same page and, And we got to see God work together and to celebrate those things together and to rejoice together as he opened doors that only he could open. The day that my dad, this is interesting. So the day my dad got released from the hospital, he had to go into just skilled nursing for a couple of days. But then it was time for him to move into the apartment. They had one apartment open. And it had just opened up. And so, you know, it's pretty obvious when God's leading. Right. That's what happens. But, you know, and that's only God is with us. He doesn't force us. You're right. He puts things in front of us and he's there to give us advice. But then he lets us decide. So I feel like we should treat our parents that way, too. I agree. Now tell me, you touched on a little bit, but I'd like to know more about how did you model for your children how to navigate such a difficult family crisis? And this is so critical. I think our kids need to eavesdrop in on our lives and we need to be open enough to share things. what we're dealing with. And I remember I verbally would tell my boys, this is what my choice is, this is what I really want, but this is what I'm choosing to do. And I'm gonna trust God with this. And I let them be a part of it so that they could see, this is how our family handles this kind of situation. And to be a part of being with, Grant, we call him Paul, be with Paul to honor my mom. Yes. And it was really helpful for them to watch us, my husband and I, and how we prayed about everything and didn't fret about it. I think one thing, too, is I've learned to live one day at a time. You know, anytime it's, it's interesting because God was talking to me about worry. And that was the last podcast I think I did was talking about worry, but God gives us grace for today. Yes. He doesn't give us grace for all the stuff we're worried about in the future. He knows what's going to happen, but he doesn't give us grace for that. It's like we're out there by ourselves. And a lot of times when we worry, we project the future without God. We don't realize that God will be there with us when we get there. So we don't have to worry about that. He's here now. Let's handle what's today. And then we'll move forward with him in the future. We don't have to worry about that because he already knows. That's wonderful. That's wonderful. Well, I know your story and I know how God moved for you and your family. I also wanted you to touch a little bit about what was it like to go through this process and have something like a pandemic? Oh, my goodness. It was, you know, another thing I will tell you, this is so important. Caregivers. You need to treat those caregivers like the joy and the treasure that they are. Okay. When they know that you care about them, they will take a bullet for you. Wow. And that's what we had. Those women took care of my mother like that was their mother. Oh, my God. They went over and above. They did FaceTime with us. They arranged so many things for us that I could never have done. But because we were kind to them and we encouraged them, we brought them cookies. We took care of them because they were taking care of her. So it's so important. I know when you're stressed, if you're in the hospital and the nurse doesn't get there right on time, instead of, being short with them, be kind. And kindness goes so far. So anyhow, that's something that's so important, I think, as people are going through this. That's such a great point. And that reminds me of the Bible tells us we are to be His witness in the earth. And what a great example of His kindness when you... in your stressful situation, looked beyond your situation and acknowledged them. Right. And know that they were going through a lot. I mean, I wouldn't want their job. Right. But another thing that I think is so important too, is when you're going through a difficult situation to realize that there's more to it than just you. God may have you in a situation where Like while we were in Trinity Woods, there were people there that didn't know Jesus. They didn't have a personal relationship, but maybe their mom was in there with dementia. And so because we were there, we were taking the light of Jesus into that situation. We could understand what they were going through, and we could be a light to them and let them eavesdrop in on how we did this. Right. And so, and pray with them. I mean, people are so willing to have you pray with them when they're going through a difficult time. But it takes you opening your eyes and looking around and saying, there's more than just our family going through this. That's a very good point. That is a very good point. So in a recap, what would you suggest for our viewers that are either beginning this process or they know that it's a possibility in their future? What would your recommendation be for them to start preparing as best they can? So I would say to you, don't panic. Number one, God has not fallen off the throne just because our world gets rocked. he is still fully in control he has a plan we just have to follow his plan so i would invite god into the situation with you that's number one and that's the most important thing take one day at a time and as you get ideas of things god will give you ideas do the practical things that you can do Consult attorneys, consult accountants, find people that can help you navigate through this process. Then keep an eye on the caregiving parent. It's so important. They will sacrifice themselves for the spouse. They are the one you really need to watch and be careful to take care of. Number three, I would say, is watch how you model this for your children and invite your children into the situation. So I know you guys have people that watch that are younger. If you're watching your parent try to navigate this with your grandparents, you can be such a support to them because you can pray for them. You can encourage them. You can keep your eye on the ball and what God's called you to do. But just know that God is going before you. You will do the right thing because you're trusting him. You're following him. And don't let the enemy try to tell you you're not enough. You're not doing a good enough job. He's always a liar. And that's the good news. If you hear something that's negative, it's not coming from God. God will always encourage you and give you the strength, the grace, everything you need. He'll give us everything. So that would be my advice. I think that is awesome. And I thank you for sharing. And I thank you for your resource. You're such an awesome resource. Somebody who's gone through it, somebody who learned along the way. And the fact that you're willing to share that with us and our viewers is just amazing. And I thank you so much for doing that. I love doing it. Thank you for inviting me. Bye.