S.O.S: When to ask for help with Phil Hill

In this episode of The Caregiver Café with Roz Jones, Roz continues her conversation with security expert and former family caregiver Phil Hill about the emotional weight of caregiving, knowing when to ask for help, and what happens when caregivers try to carry too much for too long.

Phil reflects on the years he spent caring for his father while he and his wife were also helping care for her parents. He shares how managing several caregiving situations at once affected his family, his business, his relationships, and his emotional well-being.

Although Phil had access to a long-term care insurance policy and other resources, he waited to use them because he believed he might need them later. Roz reminds caregivers that the time to ask for help is often much earlier than they realize. When a loved one moves into the home, the family should begin identifying gaps in care, exploring available benefits, and creating a support plan before exhaustion and crisis take over.

Roz and Phil also discuss caregiver guilt and the belief that no one else can care for a loved one as well as the primary caregiver. Trying to become a full-time caregiver without adequate support can leave a person stressed, overwhelmed, exhausted, and unable to care for themselves.

This conversation reminds caregivers that support is needed during the caregiving journey and after it ends. Grief counseling, faith leaders, family members, professional caregivers, healthcare providers, and community resources can all become part of the caregiver’s support system.

Thank you for listening. If this episode encouraged you, supported you, or gave you something to think about as a caregiver, be sure to stay connected with Roz Jones.

Visit Roz online for caregiver resources, blogs, books, speaking information, and support for families navigating the caregiving journey.

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Because caregiving is not meant to be carried alone.

Transcript

Intro 0:05

Is your aging loved one home alone? Forgetting to take medicine or pay bills, the caregiver cafe with Ross Jones has a menu of resources to serve your caregiver needs. As the caregiver, Ross understands your daily challenges. This podcast focuses on the unique and dynamic issues of caregiving.

Roz Jones 0:24

And welcome back to the Caregiver Cafe. I am so blessed to have a dear friend of mine. Phil Hill talk about the journey that he had with his father. And so uh part two, I want to talk about the mindset, the emotional piece. Um I I can't even imagine what your father was going through as he was fighting for his memory, but I want to talk about what you were going through as the son as you realized that you had to start letting go.

Phil Hill 0:54

Yeah. Um I it the letting go part was later towards the the last year and the bladder polyps and medical issues that anesthesia from the removing a day patient polyp surgery. Every time a person with memory issues goes under anesthesia, it takes years off their life. It does. Every time a person that that had that that has memory issues or Alzheimer's dementia issues has a fall, which my dad did not have a fall for four years in my home, until that last year when after one of the procedures, he went to a short-term rehab and fell three times in the first weekend. Then it just takes a lot out of them. You get them home and they're not the same. But those early years is just getting getting the team around, you know, having the ability to adjust your life. I'm an entrepreneur now, 16 years, scoring on 17, and I had the freedom that a business entrepreneurship offers you to work from home before work from home, work from home is popular with the COVID, um, you know, to take care of dad. Um and I probably didn't tell you, but at the same time we're taking care of my dad, my wife and I are also taking care of her parents at various stages of their life with with knee and hip knee replacements and uh and and and my father's fall shortly after recovery and passing away. And then my mother-in-law, they're all living 20 minutes in town um with um leukemia and then and then therapy, chemotherapy, and then um uh some home hospice in passing. So we were we were basically doing this times three. Um that took uh a heavy weight to carry. Um but again, I think the key the key caregiver that is the responsible one needs to have a team of someone, whether they be family or hired, that is your doctors, your specialists, the caregivers of your team, your family, and the hired Razas of the world to help with the SOS, right?

Roz Jones 3:29

Yes.

Phil Hill 3:30

That is what I probably wish I had done more of. Um because you don't have a lot, sometimes you don't you don't talk it out. You you don't you don't really pull the trigger and do the things you need to do when you need to do them to get the respite helper, to get the to call someone in to consult and be real with you, like you would if you came to if you had come to my home and I called you.

Roz Jones 3:54

Right.

Phil Hill 3:55

Um for for for the stress, you know, the the the being the overwhelmed and and the safety, right? Right. Um and we have resources sometime, and we we don't understand how to balance and use those resources. If I had called the Rod, you would say, Phil, you have a United States Postal Service long-term care policy that is some of the best in the world of X amount of dollars over X amount of years to do this now, do this later, and that this will hold you through hospice or or the day. You know, and yet you I held that policy. It had huge value. It had a three-year window time, but it had a 30-day kind of a waiting period once you're right.

Roz Jones 4:41

Yeah, once you once you start it, you have to wait 30 days, and then after 30 days, then they start the reimbursement. Yeah, right.

Phil Hill 4:48

So I held it in my pocket where I probably should have pulled it out and began to implement it from day one extra care in light narload, right? But I held it because I thought I was gonna need it as I measured the numbers and visited nursing homes for the day. So when I keep saying the day, the day was when we, me and my wife and my kids, could not take care of my dad anymore at home permanently, if that day ever came.

Roz Jones 5:13

But you know what, don't feel when the day really came, when he moved in. That was the day. That was really the day. That was really the day. That was the day. And sometimes we think the day is when they go into the nursing home. The day is when you say yes.

Phil Hill 5:28

So there were there were three, there would have been, I guess, three days in my life. The first day was when my oldest daughter and I met with our lawyer, family lawyer, at his dining room table, and we finalized the legal documents. All the multiple medical, financial power attorneys, the wills, everything. We wrapped it up that day, and then we, as she walked out the door and drove back to Chicago, my daughter left back, went back to school. I had to take that down the street to the doctor's appointment because he was having these falls in his condo. We were in his condo and he was having these falls. And and and I don't know, folks that don't know that when when your loved one's having falls, they can do blood tests to determine if somewhere in the release in the blood, they can tell that they've been having falls.

Roz Jones 6:16

Absolutely.

Phil Hill 6:18

Folks don't know that. Well, it took my dad down and he went from the doctor's office walk-in to we're moving them straight over to the emergency room to get some immediate tests, and then emergency room to a regular room. And from the regular room, and several days that your dad needs some rehab help, and then into rehab, and from rehab into my home. He never went back to that condo that day for the rest of his life. That was the day. But the prior day that was the day I took his license away, because that whole year was a whole thing in itself. And the next day I was waiting for four years through that four years was the day that we could not do it anymore at home. But I should have kicked in the resources we had to make our four years easier and better for him and for us.

Roz Jones 7:06

Exactly.

Phil Hill 7:07

Not worrying about that day, because I never did kick that policy in.

Roz Jones 7:12

And see, that's the piece, that's the piece I'm I'm gonna get you hold hold for a second. That's the piece I want people to understand is that when you have the person move in, it doesn't mean that you are supposed to become a full-time caregiver. That's the time when you sit down and say, hey, I'm still working. We have a gap in coverage. We have a gap between me leaving and coming home. So we got to implement either Medicare or, like you said, long-term care insurance from the post office. You know, that would have been, like you said, the time. And as I listen to this, I want people to understand where what Phil is letting us know is that we may not think it's the right time to ask for the help, but that is the time to ask for help and to get that help in the house because what, and let's just say, what if you did have that time? Maybe it would have been less stressful, he could have snuck away for some more respite. If you had someone there, hey, instead of you coming Monday through Friday, can you spend the weekend with him so I can get away? So there were, you know, there were opportunities sometimes, and we missed it because, and and not to say this happened to Phil, but sometimes there's a caregiver guilt. I don't want to leave him. Nobody else can take better care of them than I can. There's that that that feeling sometimes that no one else can do it better than me. And that's that's that's not the mindset to have. The mindset is I need help so I can take care of me. And as you listen to Phil, I want Phil's experiences to help you. And and that's why I have him on, is because I know his story, I hear his heart, and even as I hear him talk now, I tear up. I'm tearing up from the emotional side because I know the emotional toll that it will take when you try to be a superhero and wear the badge of honor. You will not look, whether you put them in a nursing home or not, it's not gonna put you in a heaven or hell. It's not. It's not. It's not. So I I I I wanted to say that, but Phil, I wanted you, I really wanted you to talk and and you and you haven't gotten there yet. So I'm gonna push your button a little bit. I I want you to talk about the emotional piece. The just I don't want you to go in too deep if you don't want to, but I just want you to talk about the emotional part as you were going through this year after year, day after day.

Phil Hill 9:43

It's stressful. Um fortunately, I had business customers of mine and family and everyone that were patient with me. I mentioned patience earlier. Patience if I weren't performing as well as I should as father, husband, and business owner for my customers. I mean that meant I had some really caring, compassionate customers as well, business clients. But it was tough. Um because changes, they just aren't themselves. They will say things and they can't do the things they used to do. And yet I wish I'd have asked for help sooner for from someone like yourself. And there may be some of those in every given city around to just help think through the next plans and the things. So you're stuck and you think you're doing the best you can, but you're wearing yourself out. Um and at some point it can come to a head. I know it's timing-wise, we want to say, but there we saw recently an entertainer that his life and his emotions and things came to a head. And he probably didn't handle the situation the best way he could. Um my emotional part probably came to a head then after my dad's several bladder procedures and then a short rehab and uh eight days of hospice and his passing and his burial in in April. And I was I was emotionally and kind of a rep till August. I wasn't myself. I had the potential to snap, as I just mentioned about I I and I did snap on a lot of folk between this passing in April till August. I was angry. I was um I was tired, and I'd snap on the donut person, I'd snap on the gas station attendant. I'm saying these because these were specific folks that snap on a family member, snap on I'd snap. I I'd be so far out of character. You ain't never seen in my 50s-some years. It wasn't me. But the help of the Lord, I was able to recognize, forgive the folks I felt that kind of led me down that path of snapping and get back to a better place. Um and went back to many of those folks and asked them, I'm sorry. Out of the blue. Some of them was like, Yeah, I remember that day. Yeah, I'm sorry. I remember exactly what I said or did to you.

Roz Jones 12:46

Because how important was it for you to go back and ask for forgiveness? How did that help you?

Phil Hill 12:53

Okay. Very important. Each one was a healing point. Part of the reason that happened, there was a there were a few traumatic experiences towards the end that led up to this. Uh, as I shared, my father went through a few procedures, splatter issues, and then into uh another one more stint of rehab, supposedly, nursing home. It wasn't my first choice of nursing home. I won't name names, but I in I brought him in the intake and gave him gave them exactly where he's at, who he is, and what he kind of care he needs. Thought I had laid it all out and that four years in my home he had never had a fall. Um I got a call late that night after two o'clock checking in the afternoon. I got a call probably around midnight that your father had a fall. His head on the nightstand. And that it's like they didn't hear any of the what stage of things he was at, that he had a fall, it had a gash on his head, and I met him at the emergency room when they transported him there. Um over the next, that was like a Friday. That Sunday he had two more falls that they didn't even tell me about. I just kind of because I was always in the nursing homes and the rehab centers, two, three times a day, just middle of the day, middle of the morning. I'd be in all any given time. Yeah, they thought I was the detective. I wear I wear black a lot. And they said, Oh, that that's that's that's his that's his son, he's the detective, but still they just I felt were so neglectful. And and he had two more falls. And I finally got him out of there, and um, from there he ended up going to hospice, but um, one more nursing home and then hospice. But I was angry for that to say I I I should have got caregivers in the home and just kept them at home. That maybe wouldn't have solved everything, but um the experience never sued anyone, never cussed anybody out.

Roz Jones 15:10

Um it sounded like you kept a lot of this internal.

Phil Hill 15:16

Yeah, yeah. But after his passing, you know, a little while later, um I started letting it out. I would let it out on anybody. Totally out of my character. Um, but the Lord and my family kind of helped me pull it back in and and then reaching out to the people that I directly, if as many as I could to to kind of get it right. I think we were back in a better place. But it this is what caregiving and grief will do if you don't ask for help. I my my funeral home director, my pastor, I think were good parts of my counseling as well. And but you need help in real-time caregiving, and you need help in in the after of grief counseling.

Roz Jones 16:04

Right, right. Phil, I wanna I wanna thank you so much. Um, you have been a great supporter, not only to me, but to my clients and to the people of Wisconsin.

Phil Hill 16:18

Thank you.

Roz Jones 16:19

And I know that everybody that you come in contact with has been blessed because I know I have been blessed by just coming in contact with you. As we wrap this up, I want you guys to remember some of the stuff that Phil said. I just want to bring these jewels back to you. He talked about the three things that were important for him as he, you know, um took care of his father, which was prayer, patience, and love. Then he talked about forgiveness after his father passed. How he had to forgive himself and forgive the way that he was treating others because while he was healing, they didn't understand what his healing process was, his grieving process. And then building a team. Um and then if you're in doubt, shout it out and ask for help. You know, if you're in doubt, and and I always say stop looking, listen, you know, when when you get that feeling, stop looking, listen, and know that you may need to reach out for help. Is there one last thing that you want to say that maybe I did not cover that that you would think would help people?

Phil Hill 17:26

Um just um I think I just uh a few of my notes is make sure you ask for help. Make sure you take care of yourself. Don't forget about the weight that your wife or children or siblings are also carrying with you. Um they're going through the same emotionals and things that you're going through. And um you can make it. But but you it it's it's you gotta plan and execute and do the things you need to do and ask for help because help is out there.

Roz Jones 18:05

It is.

Phil Hill 18:05

Don't be cheap on any money. We weren't, we would, you know, just if you have it, if you don't have it, that's what that's what Medicaid and things are for. But get get the help your parents and loved ones need, and remember, even though you think that they may be at a point in life where they don't know what time of day it is, you don't know. So be kind, be loving, be caring, be respectful, but handle business. If I could say too to loved ones I have going through family, other cousins and family going through something, then that is be decisive to know when to make the changes, know when to tell mom and dad, today is the day I have to take over your driving, today is the day I have to take over your finance, today is the day that you need to move from your home to my home. Today is the day you gotta be decisive. Our parents will try to run their own lives in your life well beyond the point that they should, but in love and in prayer and patience, knowing that you have to take over. That's what the legal stuff is for. Right. And your doctor will give you support in making those decisions. Um, do it when it needs to be done. Don't prolong it. Um, prayer, patience, and love will get you through.

Roz Jones 19:37

Once again, we want to thank Phil Hill for coming uh into the cafe and telling what was brewing in his cup when it came to caregiving. Once again, my name is Roz Jones. I am the CEO and owner of Jacksonville's Best Caregivers, where we help expand the life of your loved one. Why do we do it? We do it to help the caregiver to reduce that SOS on their journey, which is being stress, overwhelm, and providing safety and security. When you can't do it all, you give us a call. We look forward to seeing you on the next episode of the Caregiver Cafe.

Outro 20:09

Until your next visit to the Caregiver Cafe, connect with Roz on YouTube, LinkedIn, and her blog at thecaregivercafe.net. Caregiver Cafe Pumpkin specializes in serving those who provide care and support to a sick or aging loved one. I'm the voice guy, but I'm one of you. So when Roz has on experts or frontline workers, I'm listening. We hope you've enjoyed the show. In the meantime, don't forget to connect with Roz on YouTube, LinkedIn, or at the blog at the CaregiverCafe.net.