The Courage to Call, with Daphne Davis

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

The following podcast is provided by pinnacles senior placements LLC and answers for elders radio. Welcome back to answers for elders for our final segment with Daphnee Davis, President of pinnacles senior placement’s Daphnee, we’ve had a great conversation and as we’re wrapping things up here in this final segment, I’d love for you to to talk to me about making that first call, the hesitancy to begin to get the ball rolling, where your people are afraid, they are afraid of interfering. There are for there’s so many different fears that are going in why they don’t make that call, whether it’s for themselves or for our family member. And how would you come in on that? Well, first I’d like to tell just a short story. I met with a family up in the Everett area and mom wanted to stay at home. I think she’s only seventy eight years old, and catastrophic fall. Help happened and she was by herself on the floor for a day and a half and family stepped in and they knew that things weren’t quite right, but mom also was very much wanting to be in her own house. You know, let’s do some in home care, let’s forget this all out, and the family very appropriately wanted to support mom and her independents. As I was hearing their story, and sorry, mom, if you’re listening, I heard that in my own family and so I want to I want you to understand that, even though I’m the professional who’s been doing this for twenty years and, as my siblings say, Daphne, you can just keep everything in a nice little box, I recognize that with my own mother, I was not able to do what I know to do, that I advise other people to do, and that is to just push a little bit harder and open the conversations. That says, these are the things that I’m seeing, mom. What does that mean to you? You know, are you aware of these? Are My am I being over sensitive? But have the conversations. So that’s the first thing. This is not easy for anyone. The professional of twenty years is doing the very thing that every other family does, so avoiding and wanting to be respectful, right, you know. So I totally understand how hard this is, but at the same time, having the courage to open up the door of conversation I think, is the best thing that we could do in terms of working through the fears, because usually they’re unfounded fears. HM, usually they’re societally impressed upon us or they may come from a historic event that happened in your family. But this is about a loved one’s life or your life, and that as we’re aging in place and as we’re embarking on this tsunami of the silver silver tsunami, life is not done. If you have to leave your home, life is not done. If you choose to ask for more support. Life is just taking on a different perspective. It’s a new chapter. It’s no different than when you got married and you adjusted to your spouse, when you had children, when they left the nest, when you retired, when you got a new job, if they’re all different chapters of life, and we morphed through those but in our culture, sadly to say, these chapters of life at the end of our life are not as honored as those other benchmarks in our life. And it’s part of my goal to say let’s break out the party. The party might happen from a wheelchair, but it’s still a party. HMM, the party might happen with support in your home, but it’s still a party. This is life. It’s not done. And so the fear is what stops us from having the quality of life. In my opinion, the fear is what stops us from asking questions, because if I ask questions that I’m admitting something. HMM. If I ask questions that I’m committing to a change. If I ask questions, someone’s going to bug me. If I ask questions that I become, you know, a burden to my family. If I let my daughter or son know that something’s been a challenge, they’re going to worry about me. HMM. If I ask questions of my mom, she’s going to think I’m being disrespectful. If I ask questions of my dad, he’s going to think that I’m trying to take over his life. If I suggest that driving might not be the best thing for them to continue doing, I’m going to get pushed back because my dad is everything about his keys. Right, it’s fear, but if you do ask the question and have the courage to ask it, you might after the initial pushback. We will do that. It will happen, it will be ready. Yeah, you might see the shoulders drop, you might see a relief in their face. You might even see a twinkle come back in their eye when they get excited about thinking about the next chapter of their life rather than the drudgery of what this means. And it’s all in how we we align at, how we think about it, the person, the perspective that we give it. When we think about senior living, we’re changing, but generally it is a negative. Would you agree with them that generally it’s a negative? It’s giving up right, it’s losing I can’t have control of MMM. Not The case. Not The case. When you have an advisor that helps you through this mystery of services and really listens to your story, you will be able to find the quality of life that you’re looking for. You will be able to find the place that you can do your bucket list. Your bucket list, you know, might not be, you know, jumping out of an airplane with a parachute, but it could be reading the Bible for beginning to end that you never did right. It could be learning how to watercolor paint. It could be, you know, deciding that you want to read those magazines that you’ve collected all your life on woodworking and you just never got around to really looking at the patterns. You know, I don’t know what it is. It looks different, but have courage to ask questions. Yeah, definitely is you’re talking I I’m thinking about a friend of mine who you helped place their grandmother, and grandma just passed away recently, and I think about the process that my friend went through and the the beginning struggles that she had and just not knowing what to do, and I got you connected with her and just you helped her navigate through the various phases of providing us a place for grandma to be. And Grandma passed, but my encouragement to her in a note was that you did the right thing. Yes, you did the right thing at the end of the life for that loved one. You gave her dignity, you gave her a presence of yourself, of care, of security and all those things, and you need to be proud of that fact that you did that for them. It’s exactly right and that’s what this kind of business that you’re in. That’s why it’s such a privilege, I’m sure, for you to be a part of those people’s lives so that at the in the final seasons of life that you’re giving that kind of dignity and hope to loved ones who are struggling. Yeah, and it is. It is a journey and it is a struggle. You know, that grandmother lived five, six hours away from her granddaughter, Hmm, and now they got to have some time together. But but the process of making that distance shorten and the process of the family knowing what is the right thing. My job was not to tell them what the right thing is, but my job is to help them navigate the information and be introspective and think about what really matters, what is the most important thing, and once we establish that, then we can kind of have a litmus test. That always goes back to what that highest value is. Does this serve that highest value? I think that gives some clarity to the process versus just being in crisis mode and trying to figure this out because, you know, the insurance is cutting off and they are getting my mom out of the hospital, or you know she fell yesterday, or the police are calling because we’ve had to do well checks too many times and they’re saying, Hey, fix this. Rather than being in that position, have the courage to ask questions and and seek out information that can help you. I encourage all of you listeners. I’ve had some very nice conversations with people that have called through the radio station and all stories are are valid, all stories are unique and will, we will find a solution and I promise that we will listen to what your highest values are. They’re not mine. I’ll share some of mine just to help you think outside of your box, because this is a new world, but they’re yours. It’s your process, it’s your decisionmaking well, and that’s and as I’ve watched you speak with in senior groups and and speak with with with seniors I’ve I’ve I appreciate that about you, is that you’re looking at what their interests are, what their values are and, as best as you can, helping to guide them to that place where that’s going to be of importance to them, not to what your own value use are, right to what their’s are. And that’s a big difference, isn’t it? It’s huge. That’s where I feel like people are informed. You can have an informed decision, make your decision, but but be informed, know what your options are, know what the consequences of this decision and I go back to. Are we going to move multiple times? Are Not. It’s not a bad decision to satisfy a particular highest value at a given time in someone’s journey and have to alter that later. That’s not a bad thing. Just know that they’ll be a consequence to that. Right. You got to have some energy to move again. Yeah, yeah, that’s the bottom line. Bottom line right. Well, one of the things that we want to make sure people understand is the the cost for your service is covered by the the people who who you’re working with. As far as the assistant living that’s right, correct. That’s so family doesn’t have to start a contract with you. Nope, or anything like that. Nothing like that. My services are completely free to a family. I’m paid by communities of care and I work with every community of CARE in the state of Washington. I’m paid one time referral fee. I am an extension of their marketing department and I try to stay as unbiased as possible. Listening again to your story. What are your highest values and what in our community fits your your needs? I just help kind of we lead down your options to the things that work for you. Hm, I do a lot of pro bono work. I love doing pro bono work because, selfishly, I’m just going to tell you all. You all know thirty six other people who might need my services exactly. So I mean you can just make a simple phone call, you know, to our eighth and eighty five five number, check out our website, gather more information. Well, we’ve got one minute, so let’s give that eight hundred and fifty five number and that website. What is the eighth five five number? Day, eight five, five, seven, three, four, one, one, five hundred and the website is pinnacle senior placements, with an s at the endcom. So it’s Pi Inn acle senior PLACEMENTSCOM and you’ve got a very nice website. I’ve was on it today looking through it and looking at some of your staff and some of the folks that work with you, and good company to work with. Thank you. Well, you have been listening to answer for elders and we want to thank you for joining us today. The preceding podcast was provided by pinnacles senior placements LLC and answers for elders radio. To contact pinnacles senior placements, go to Pinnacle Senior Placementscom