Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Death is inevitable. Nobody's getting out of here alive.
So whatever we can do to make our remaining years more comfortable, for financial reasons, emotional reasons, spiritual reasons, do it now. And don't wait until you're in a cris.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: Welcome to the Age of Aging, a podcast about living well with an aging brain, produced by the Penn Memory Center. I'm Jake Johnson.
[00:00:40] Speaker C: And I'm Terrence Casey. Hey, Jake.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: Hey, Terrence.
[00:00:43] Speaker C: How are you doing today?
[00:00:45] Speaker B: Pretty good.
[00:00:46] Speaker C: Yeah, you mentioned. We actually both shortly before recording, both came in from runs out in our respective neighborhoods today. How was yours?
[00:00:55] Speaker B: Mine was good. I find it hard to motivate when it's cloudy out, but then as I'm running, I'm like, right. This is actually the prime running weather because I, I stay cool throughout the entire time. I went on a trip recently to Puerto Rico and I tried going running there and I just remembered how horrible it is to run when it's hot and humid outside. And that's what's going to be like when we hit summertime in Philly. So I'm trying to get it in now. What about you? How was your run?
[00:01:24] Speaker C: That was nice. A little. Also training for some spring races. We've got the Broad street run in Philadelphia. It's a, you know, for those who aren't Familiar with it, 10 miles within, a slight downhill the whole time. It is just, I think, a perfect race and a perfect way to, to see the city of Philadelphia. And it's nice time of year too. But it's, it's funny. We, you know, we've talked in previous episodes about how working at an Alzheimer's disease research center has helped shape our workout habits and general healthy living based on the recommendations that we, we hear and that we share ourselves time and time again.
And I was thinking about it just even better motivation earlier today when I came across a New York Times article and the headline is 10 Small Things Neurologists wish you'd do for your brain. It's a bit of a, it's a bit of a clickbait type headline. Sometimes I roll my eyes when we see sort of the listicle type pieces. But, you know, I took a look at it and I was pleasantly surprised at the variety of the content that was in here. I think it goes not in opposition to, but it sort of adds on to our typical recommendations of, you know, eat a heart, healthy diet and maintain a circle of friends and get your exercise in. Do you happen to see this piece?
[00:02:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I did. I thought it was really interesting. There were some that I thought were ones that I would expect. And then there was other ones that I was like, wow, I wouldn't. I actually hadn't considered that as being something that you can do for your brain.
[00:02:52] Speaker C: What were you thinking? But like, what. What kind of ones surprised you swap.
[00:02:56] Speaker B: Your chair for a stool? Well, it says take a walk and swap your chair for a stool. So it talks about standing up and walking and getting exercise, which is something that we've talked about a lot. But then it also says that if.
[00:03:09] Speaker D: You use a seat that doesn't have.
[00:03:11] Speaker B: A back, it engages your core, which is just better for your body overall, but also just better for your brain.
[00:03:18] Speaker C: I noticed you sat up a little straighter while you.
[00:03:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm like. I was like.
[00:03:21] Speaker D: I was trying.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: When I read it, I was like, what?
There's also a few that relate to vision and. And hearing, like wearing hearing protection and getting your eyes checked, which I didn't expect to be related to the brain or to dementia. But they said that there are studies that show links between hearing loss and vision loss and developing dementia, which I thought was really fascinating.
[00:03:49] Speaker C: Yeah. I think the full list is based off of a lot of research that we've talked about internally. But I think everything was packaged in a creative way, really practical tips that people, whether you're in your 20s or your 30s or your 50s or 60s could be doing to maintain that brain health. I encourage people to go check out on the New York Times if you just search 10 Small Things Neurologists wish you do for your brain. But I'm sure we'll put it in the show notes as well. But I'll just kind of run through the list here.
Number one is wear a helmet.
Number two is put in earplugs when you're mowing the lawn.
Three, get your eyes checked.
Four, take a walk and swap your chair for a stool.
Five, manage your cholesterol.
Six, floss every day.
Seven, join a book club.
Eight, wear a mask on smoggy or smoky days.
Nine, watch your neck, which is a bit brief of a summary, but it says avoid neck injuries or deep tissue massages, which I thought was interesting.
And number 10, probably the one that is hurting me the most here is sleep well.
I really like that list. I strongly encourage people to go and check it out. Link to it will be in the show notes. But I was thinking about this in particular because for this episode, we were also talking about sort of the practical steps that people should be taking. Why don't you tell me a little bit about what you were working on for it.
[00:05:18] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:05:19] Speaker B: So as we were thinking about the season, I knew that with aging, there are a lot of topics that may be hard to talk about, but they're very relevant to everybody's lives.
[00:05:32] Speaker D: So one of these was end of life planning.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: So this is a general look at what it means to start to think about your own death and the years, days and weeks that lead up to your death, how to prepare yourself and your family after you pass in the best possible way to make sure that they are spared from as much stress as possible and are put in the best position that they can be. Marie from the podcast team, she introduced to me at least this idea of a death doula. So she had heard about this at a conference and brought it back to us. And I thought it was an interesting. I'd never heard of that. So I talked to a death doula and she explained to me what it's all about. The emotional support, the advocating that they do for their clients, and the overall planning for people's end of life.
And then I was able to talk to somebody that actually used a death doula and went through this process with a loved one who was diagnosed with a form of aphasia. So I really enjoyed this episode. It was something that we wanted to handle carefully because we know that it's a touchy subject for a lot of people. But I think that it's really important and I learned a lot about end of life planning and how to even begin to start thinking about that.
[00:06:59] Speaker C: So now I. Obviously, when people think about end of life planning, they're thinking about estate planning or getting their will in order, maybe a living will and so on. I assume the death doula that you spoke to and others probably had some recommendations beyond that. And if so, we don't have to get into what they are now. We won't spoil it. But is it things that people would expect, or are there some other items that people may not expect in the interviews ahead?
[00:07:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think that there's a few things that you can expect.
You know, making sure you have a will is probably the most well known.
[00:07:37] Speaker D: Way to prepare yourself.
[00:07:38] Speaker B: But I think one of the things I learned from this is how complicated the legal system is and the medical system is. There's so many different aspects to it that having somebody that you can consult about that as you're approaching this stage of life or even before, I think really could help. The person that I talked to who used a death doula was like, I thought I was prepared and I really, I wasn't prepared. So that was really eye opening for me. And I think the concept of a death duel is going to be really interesting for people that haven't heard of it before because it's not the kind of legal or medical decisions that you're thinking about in terms of end of life. Usually it's a lot more about your comfort and emotional support for you and your loved ones as you approach this time period.
[00:08:31] Speaker C: I look forward to it. I too, had not ever heard of a death doula before Marie brought it to our team's attention. And so I think this is an opportunity for us all to learn a little bit.
Why don't we take it away?
[00:08:44] Speaker D: All right.
There are few things people want to talk or think about less than their own death.
It's cliche to say, but at some point we will all ultimately reach the end of our life.
Those working in end of life care and end of life planning have dedicated their lives to making sure people's last days are as comfortable as possible and that the loved ones of those that have passed are spared from as much further stress and anxiety as they can be. Unfortunately, it's these negative feelings we have about death and the stigma attached to talking about it that can lead to more hardships for the person dying and those closest to them.
[00:09:29] Speaker E: We as Americans have a very hard time with death, talking about it and acknowledging it as a part of life.
[00:09:35] Speaker D: Chelsea Duckers is a care coordinator for the Rothkopf Law Group in Philadelphia and a certified end of life doula, otherwise known as a death doula.
[00:09:45] Speaker E: I think it's a softer way to say it, an end of life doula versus a death doula. But really, to me, I prefer to use death doula because we are. We're working with death and we're working at the end of life. And a big thing that I'm trying to do within the firm and just within my role as a social worker is normalized. Talking about death and how it's a part of life.
And I think that even just starts with the terminology that we use surrounding it.
[00:10:13] Speaker D: If you haven't heard of a death doula before, you're not alone. As it's a relatively new role in end of life care, you may be more familiar with the concept of a birthing doula. This is someone meant to assist you throughout the course of a pregnancy up to the eventual birth. Their role is not medical, but rather emotional support, planning, and advocating for you.
Chelsea said to think of a death doula as the other side of the same coin, where a birthing doula helps bring life into the world. A death doula is one that helps guide a life out.
[00:10:44] Speaker E: A birthing doula creates a relationship with someone who's pregnant, helps them kind of work through feelings that come up around pregnancy, prepare them for what that's going to look like, helps prepare the space, helps come up with a birthing plan, and then typically they help with some postpartum care. Deaf Tool is doing very similar things just on the other end of the spectrum. They create a relationship with a person who has a terminal diagnosis, helps them work through some of those emotions that come up. Acceptance, fear. Helps them create that plan of what they want to happen when they are actively dying, helps create the space again, may be there depending on what they and their loved ones want.
And then help loved ones with some bereavement and reprocessing after the person has passed away.
[00:11:36] Speaker D: One of the most important things a death doula will do with a client is craft what's called a vigil plan, which is essentially an overview of what a person wants their death to look like. As Chelsea explained, these details can get very specific depending on the individual.
[00:11:51] Speaker E: The vigil plan is an actual written plan that when that person starts to show signs and symptoms of active dying, that's when that starts. It usually involves where the person wants to be, what they want the space to look like.
It also is based on where they are, because if somebody's in a nursing home, you can't be burning candles. So how can the person adjust the plan to still meet regulations? So maybe candle warmers, if they're allowed, or essential oils, Any specific music that they might want for education purposes. When I'm presenting about an end of life doula, I've come up with my own vigil plan. But even something that I've put on mine is a big, like, Burt's Bees person. So if I'm at end of life and my mouth is dry because a lot of times people stop eating and drinking during active dying process, I would want my family to put, you know, Burt's Bees on, because I'm never without one.
So it could be something as specific as that.
[00:12:51] Speaker D: Ultimately, the role of death doula is not medical and would ideally work in tandem with hospice care to assist the individual through death, Chelsea said. However, end of life doulas usually get involved much earlier than when a patient is admitted to hospice.
[00:13:06] Speaker E: So hospice has to follow Medicare guidelines. So typically, for somebody to qualify for hospice, you have to have A terminal diagnosis with 6 months or less to live and you have to generally have some kind of decline for Medicare to pay for it. And end of life, well, you don't necessarily need those things because typically it's under a private pay window or if somebody is just volunteering their time to do that type of work. So the goal really for us is to get involved as early as possible. Usually we say when somebody has received a terminal diagnosis and and wants to start thinking about what their options are.
[00:13:44] Speaker D: Another difference between hospice care and using.
[00:13:46] Speaker B: A death doula is that you do.
[00:13:48] Speaker D: Not necessarily have to stop treatment. If you use a death doula in order for Medicare to cover hospice, you are expected to discontinue treatment unless it's for comfort. A death doula will instead discuss with you the pros and cons of stopping treatment. A death doula might also discuss utilizing a type of specialized care called palliative care, which differs from hospice in that it doesn't require a person to have a terminal diagnosis or to stop treatment.
Palliative care focuses on comfort and pain relief both for patients and the caregivers of those patients. It's often used by people with long term chronic illnesses to help improve their quality of life.
I want to rewind now from a person's final days to the earliest stages of preparing for end of life.
According to Jerry Rothkoff, managing attorney for Rothkoff Law Group, something you can do at any part of life to plan for death is get your legal documents in order.
[00:14:45] Speaker F: The obvious question is, do you have a will?
Do you have a financial and healthcare power of attorney? It's not necessarily for dying, it's for living. To allow a third party, be it a spouse, be it a child, to handle your financial affairs. If you're unable to and make healthcare decisions for you, I also would recommend that you review your beneficiary designations.
Some people have not updated their beneficiary designations. For life insurance, for an annuity, for retirement benefits like an IRA or a 401k. Do they meet your needs?
[00:15:18] Speaker D: Jerry said that some of these will be specific to the individual and the best thing you can do is to consult an expert. They will help you set up a plan for your particular situation.
The next thing to think about is your digital footprint, like your passwords, social media, online banking, insurance, access to photos, etc. Think of anything that's important to you that you'd like someone you trust to be in charge of.
The final part of starting to plan for end of life is often the hardest. As Chelsea said, but is incredibly important.
Have a conversation with your loved ones about your death, whether that be your family, friends, or just people you trust.
[00:15:57] Speaker F: Have a meaningful conversation. What happens if you need 247 care? Where do you want to be cared for if it's a terminal situation? What does your funeral look like if.
[00:16:08] Speaker D: You don't have family or friends you feel close enough to have this conversation with?
[00:16:12] Speaker B: Jerry said.
[00:16:13] Speaker D: It's important to find someone you trust to give this information to.
For Diane Cordell, a retired county detective living in Berlin, New Jersey, conversations about legal documents involving death were nothing new.
She and her partner Juanita have been together for 40 years, long before it was legal for same sex couples to get married in New Jersey. And they're now coming up on their 14th wedding anniversary.
[00:16:40] Speaker A: Juanita was a parole officer for the Department of Corrections in the state of New Jersey, and I was a county detective with the prosecutor's office in Camden County, New Jersey. And we met because of the unit that I was assigned to at the time, was very involved in working with parole officers to focus on hardcore criminals. And then friendship evolved and then love evolved and later marriage evolved. And we've been, we're getting ready to celebrate 40 years in July.
[00:17:17] Speaker D: Diane said that for several years she noticed Juanita suddenly stopped breathing while she was sleeping. And then around 2022, Juanita began to have trouble saying words and sentences. It wasn't until a friend insisted Juanita see a doctor that she finally went in to get diagnosed.
[00:17:34] Speaker A: She was in the hospital for three days, two nights, just constant testing, and she became very relieved that there was a diagnosis. When neurology put a name to it, they called it expressive aphasia. And then things got just more defined as we progressed through the medical system and getting ourselves over to PenMed. And they told us that it was non fluent variant primary progressive aphasia, which falls under the big umbrella of ftd.
[00:18:03] Speaker D: While her cognition still seems relatively strong, Diane said that Juanita struggles the most verbally.
Sentences will often come out backwards or jumbled, or she will try and remember a word but say a different word in the same category, like truck instead of car.
After being diagnosed, Juanita began seeing Dr. Irwin at the Penn Memory Center. Her and Diane eventually began consulting a lawyer and seeing a death doula.
[00:18:30] Speaker A: Jill well, the first thing that they talked to us about was just getting our healthcare directives, powers of attorney, and getting our assets better protected.
Changing the deed on our house from both of our names to just my name, that was, that was hard because this house has been in the Tweed family since the early forties.
So that was. That was really hard for me. So there's been the emotional roller coaster of all of this, but really just getting our legal affairs in order, wills, healthcare directives, durable powers of attorney. We have named two people to be our powers of attorney, putting a lot of our assets into a living, irrevocable trust.
[00:19:17] Speaker D: Diane said as much as she felt she was prepared to talk about death, their first discussion with the death doula was eye opening.
[00:19:25] Speaker A: She was able to ask us better questions to make us think a little bit differently about how we wanted to view. If I collapsed on the floor and Juanita calls the EMT people and they come and do I want them pounding on my chest to do cpr, those kinds of things. And for as much as you think you know what you want for your end of life, it was really educational and interesting to have the conversation kind of be a give and take. And so for whatever answer we gave, another question would come up. Death is inevitable. Nobody's getting out of here alive. So whatever we can do to make our remaining years more comfortable, for financial reasons, emotional reasons, spiritual reasons, do it now. And don't wait until you're in a crisis.
And that's what I found most beneficial from Juanita's diagnosis. Even though we were already kind of prepared, we weren't prepared. And if you can find someone to help you with these legal affairs and these emotional decisions, the better.
It's just relieving and liberating so that you can just say it, put it out there, and then get on with living instead of thinking and obsessing about dying is get on with living.
[00:21:06] Speaker C: That quote from Diane at the end, I think, really summed up this entire episode for me. She said, even though we were kind of prepared, we weren't prepared. And it wasn't just her words, but really the tone of her voice when she said that. You could tell that she'd been thinking about this for a long time.
You can, on paper, know what all the steps are ahead of end of life, but you don't fully understand what all will be involved, as each case is unique, and you certainly don't understand how your emotions will impact these logical decisions. And to help us navigate all of that, we thought it would be a good opportunity to bring in an expert from our own center here, particularly from our social work team. And we're thrilled today to have Alison Lin, the Penn Memory center director of social work. Alison, thanks for joining us today.
[00:21:56] Speaker G: Thank you for having me.
[00:21:57] Speaker C: Now, we know that here as well as anywhere else, job titles rarely reflect exactly what people do. So why don't you tell us, what exactly do you do here?
[00:22:09] Speaker G: I supervise a team of social workers, and together our role is to help support folks living with dementia and their family caregivers in learning how to have their best quality of life, how to plan for the future, how to handle issues that arise in terms of symptom management when they're living with dementia, and anything that they might encounter over their progression of disease in between their doctor's visits at the Penn Memory Center. So that might include meeting one on one with patients and family caregivers.
It involves running support groups for family caregivers, running classes for family caregivers, running recreational and therapeutic programming for folks with dementia who might not have other opportunities to interact with people experiencing the same thing that they're experiencing, providing psychotherapy to patients and caregivers.
So pretty much everything that someone would need, that's a non medical service after they receive a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease or a related dementia.
[00:23:14] Speaker C: And at the Penn Memory center, all of our patients who are diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease or another dementia causing disease are living with a progressive incurable disease at this time. And so there are tremendous benefits to all of the work that you and your team are doing in terms of improving the quality of life for both patients and caregivers and families around them. But ultimately, the issue of preparing for end of life is vital to every patient case that comes across our center. First of all, before we even get into the work of this and the lessons of this episode, how does your team deal with that? Personally, that feels like it could be a tremendous burden for a staff.
[00:24:03] Speaker G: Well, I think as social workers, we're trained to learn how to recognize our own emotional reactions to the work that we're doing and to the situations that we're being exposed to.
A, to make sure that those emotional reactions that are based on our past experiences don't get in the way of us providing, providing good care to patients and family members who might have vastly different experiences than we do, to make sure we're not kind of projecting our own experiences onto them, but B, to recognize when we might start feeling overwhelmed, when we might start feeling grief, when we might start feeling vicarious trauma or the effects of vicarious trauma, and to make sure to get whatever support we need to deal with that. So for some of us, that looks like movement. For some of us, that looks like like meditation. For some of us, that looks like getting Our own therapy. We're also a really close knit team and we meet frequently and talk about difficult situations that we have to work with in clinic just to make sure that everyone feels supported. And we all have a dark sense of humor.
[00:25:08] Speaker C: Yes. We've heard some of the jokes coming from social work in the past. So Jake and I had both heard of different best practices for end of life preparedness, but up to this moment, we'd never heard of a death doula before. Getting into the work, preparing for this episode. Is that a term that the social work team uses? Are you familiar with their work or is this just sort of a rebranding of what people have been doing?
[00:25:33] Speaker A: No.
[00:25:34] Speaker G: Well, I don't know the history of the death doula movement, but we're certainly aware of it and we refer to death doulas. I will say that it's only been in the past, maybe year, maybe two at most, that patients have been coming in asking for referrals to death doulas. That is brand new. So I think perhaps the word is out now more among the general public, whereas it used to seem maybe like a little bit more of a niche service.
[00:26:01] Speaker C: Jake, anything before we move on?
[00:26:03] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:26:03] Speaker B: I thought that that was such an interesting part about the death doula. Was that the difference between using a death doula and something like hospice, which is obviously so different, but there's so many kind of guidelines that you need to meet in order to qualify for hospice. Whereas a death doula seems like something you can kind of take on at any point in your life, but usually when you have a terminal illness and it's very suited to your personal situation and needs.
[00:26:34] Speaker G: I just want to make sure that we're not kind of like pitting these two things against each other, because really what they are are complementary services that fill different needs.
There's a lot of things that hospice does that a death doula cannot do, and there's things that a death doula can do that hospice cannot do.
So neither is better or worse than the other. It is true that there are more restrictions on hospice, but that's because it's a Medicare benefit. And one thing that I don't know how you would highlight this without seeming critical, because I don't mean it as a criticism, but it is important, is that most death doulas are completely private pay. They don't accept insurance.
[00:27:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:14] Speaker G: So a death doula is a resource for a wealthy individual unless they find someone who will offer services on a sliding scale basis or a volunteer. And in my Mind, an ideal situation would be someone's enrolled in hospice and has a death doula and those teams are working together to support the patient together.
[00:27:34] Speaker C: I think we can talk openly without being offensive that, you know, in American health care and end of life care, all developments have to start as business opportunities. And it's not ideal, but that's how the system is set up. And that death doulas, based on what we've been hearing from the interviews and from you, it are sort of a vital service that are not covered by health insurance or for Medicare. But that's not to say that down the road these things might not be implemented in insurance policies or Medicare.
[00:28:11] Speaker G: I think they should be.
[00:28:12] Speaker C: Love that you heard the recommendations both on the legal side from Rothkoff Law and from the death doula at the beginning of the episode. Were there any recommendations that. Obviously this isn't meant to be fully comprehensive, but were there any general recommendations that we didn't cover in the episode that you would want to make sure people are aware of?
[00:28:33] Speaker G: I think my main recommendation would be we live in a very death phobic culture, which Chelsea touched on.
And if it feels hard to just bring this up or just start talking about it, this is a great conversation to have facilitated by a mental health professional or by a death doula. But I would not bring that on someone without a discussion beforehand.
So in other words, even if it feels hard to have the actual discussion without someone moderating that discussion, you still want to give kind of fire a warning shot. Like, are you open to talking about something that feels that might feel really hard or really scary today?
Are you open to talking to someone who's going to be talking openly about death?
[00:29:27] Speaker C: Yeah. I love the quote near the end of the episode where they said this is not really about death as it is about being able to get on with living and sort of preparing yourself so that you don't stress about it, so that you're not panicked in an emotional time to try to make these decisions, but rather everything's been planned out before you get to that point.
[00:29:50] Speaker G: And yeah, philosophically I very much agree with that. I will say it's human nature to avoid talking about things that are hard until we're forced to.
So often when I work with people in therapy, I'll think to myself, what are we not talking about? Or what are we avoiding talking about? Because it's usually exactly what we should be talking about.
Often people will come in and talk about anything except what's really most painful to them.
And that's not to criticize our patients and our clients. Again, it's human nature. We kind of compartmentalize and we use our defense mechanisms to push away what we're not ready to deal with yet.
And same goes for discussions of death and end of life care.
A lot of us will avoid them, even though actually tackling them and talking about them and addressing them head on will make us feel better.
[00:30:43] Speaker C: So before we let you go, one thing we have introduced this season are the beautiful questions from Ann Basting. And for some people, I think this is a foreign concept, but I think you're pretty familiar with Anne Basting and the work of the beautiful questions, right?
[00:30:58] Speaker G: Yes. Big fan.
[00:31:00] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:31:01] Speaker B: So thank you, everyone that submitted beautiful questions from last episode. The question was, what is something that.
[00:31:08] Speaker D: You would like to learn?
[00:31:09] Speaker B: And we got a lot of great.
[00:31:10] Speaker D: Responses that I will play for us right now.
[00:31:15] Speaker H: My name is Ethan. I'm calling from Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. And the thing that I would like to learn more about is how to do my taxes.
[00:31:23] Speaker B: It's something that people often just throw to someone they hire and don't really.
[00:31:28] Speaker H: Know how to navigate themselves.
[00:31:30] Speaker B: But I feel like as I'm entering.
[00:31:32] Speaker H: Adulthood, that's something I need to learn more of.
Hello, I'm Pat Treat. I am from Boothman, Pennsylvania, which is a little closer to Wilmington, Delaware than it is to Philadelphia. My answer to the what do I want to learn? Is to read lips because I'm losing my hearing and I can't afford a hearing aid. Thank you. Bye bye.
Hello, everyone. Kyle Mabe calling out of Whalen, Massachusetts. And one thing I would like to learn is how to cook. More specifically, how to cook a good steak because it seems easy, but it really isn't.
Also, I'm a very bad cook overall and would love to get into cooking as when I do cook, it's very relaxing.
Hey, this is Rafi. I'm calling from Philly by way of Brookville, Maryland, today. And what is one thing that I would like to learn? I would like to learn the guitar.
Any other takers for this question?
Let's see. I'd like to learn how to fix a car motor. What is your name? My name is George. Okay, dad, anything you would like to learn today?
[00:32:37] Speaker C: My name is Dan. I don't.
[00:32:41] Speaker H: Dad doesn't want to learn anything today. He's just having a good time. And mom, is there anything you would like to learn today?
She would like to learn to smile today.
And I think that's all we have for you today. Thank you so Much for the opportunity to share this with your question line. Bye bye.
Hi, this is Kayla calling from Venice Beach, California.
And one thing I would love to learn is how to crochet and, or how to like wake surf. I think that would be really cool.
Hi, my name is Sophia. I'm calling from Berkeley, California.
And something that I want to learn is how to speak Spanish fluently so that when I travel to Spanish speaking countries, I can communicate better. Thank you.
[00:33:32] Speaker C: So, Jake, what do we have for this week's beautiful question for our listeners? And we'll start with for Alison.
[00:33:41] Speaker B: For this week, our beautiful question is what is something you are proud of in your life?
[00:33:49] Speaker G: Some listeners might know that I recently had my first baby back in June of 2024. So he's about nine and a half months now.
And I think that going through a very difficult labor with him and living through a very difficult infancy with him, he was extremely colicky. And coming out on the other side is probably the thing that I'm most proudest of in my life. And I, I should say me and my husband, it wasn't just me.
I feel proud of the teamwork that we, that we established to survive this time.
And I'm proud of the little boy our son is becoming. And I'm proud of myself for figuring out a way to balance a really emotionally demanding job with the needs of a growing child, which obviously requires a lot of, a lot of emotional resources.
[00:34:48] Speaker C: I love that. I obviously, as a parent of three, I feel you, I hear where you're coming from and you should feel very proud of that and certainly your husband should as well. Jake, you want to follow that app?
[00:35:00] Speaker B: I don't think I'm going to be able to, not sure I'm going to.
[00:35:03] Speaker D: Be able to follow that.
[00:35:05] Speaker B: I recently moved to a city that I'd never been to before with my girlfriend where I didn't know anybody. So that was a huge accomplishment for me because I, I grew up in New York, even if it was only an hour and a half away. Basically what I'll say for my answer.
[00:35:22] Speaker C: To the beautiful question is probably my ongoing commitment to volunteerism in my community.
That's always been important to me. And when our first child was born, I took a big step back from it to focus on family and work. But I would say in the last five years I've really gotten back into it and am now a very proud suburban dad stereotype where I have been a Cub Scout leader and a T ball coach and have been involved in local civic organizations and some of the creek cleanups and things like that. And these are all smaller things, smaller allocations of time than perhaps I had done in previous years.
But it's still part of my maybe not daily, but at least weekly life. And I hope that that is something that I continue for the remainder of my life.
[00:36:15] Speaker B: I really appreciate your guys response. Those were really great and definitely awesome things to be proud of.
And if you want to answer this question, you can call 571-449-6474 and answer the question, what is something in your life that you're proud of?
[00:36:36] Speaker C: And I think we just asked people to tell us their name and where they're calling from.
[00:36:40] Speaker E: Right.
[00:36:40] Speaker C: And we're, we're pleased that we're getting more responses now and we can't get all of them into the episode. And so if you, if you're not in, please, please do continue calling in and hopefully we can get you in a future episode as well.
[00:36:53] Speaker B: Yes, definitely. All right, thank you, Allison.
[00:36:56] Speaker G: Sure. Thank you for having me.
[00:37:01] Speaker D: Thanks for listening to this episode of.
[00:37:02] Speaker B: The Age of Aging. The Age of Aging podcast is supported.
[00:37:05] Speaker D: By supported by the Penn Memory center.
[00:37:07] Speaker B: The University of Pennsylvania Alzheimer's Disease Research center, the Institute on Aging and the Penn FTD Center.
[00:37:14] Speaker C: Contributors include myself and Jake Johnson, as well as Nicolette Calcavecchia, Dalia Elsai, Marie Ingegneri, Jason Karlewish, Emily Lagent, Meg McCarthy and Megan Sharp.
[00:37:29] Speaker D: More information on the stories you heard.
[00:37:30] Speaker B: Today can be found in our show.
[00:37:32] Speaker D: Notes and on our website, penmemorycenter.
[00:37:35] Speaker B: Org.
