TRANSCRIPT: The Midlife Shift #7: Jean Kittson

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[00:02:27] ALEX:You're watching the midlife shift, and in this episode, we go from chaos to comedy with author and comedian Jean Kittson. I'm saying now Jean is hilariously wise, turning tough topics like menopause and looking after your parents into laugh out loud lessons. It's a great thing about your books. They mix cartoons and factual advice to basically help you understand a few things make you a bit wiser, make you a little bit cleverer. I really enjoy them. They're great. First, I want you to tell us about your parents, Elaine and Roy.

[00:03:09] JEAN:Oh, thanks, Alex. It's really nice of you to say all those kind things about me. I try to use humour to talk about difficult topics, so I think it just sort of takes a fear away sometimes. And yes, I hope so too. There's a lot of fear around aging and death and dying and menopause,

ALEX:and ADHD.

JEAN:And ADHD haven't written a book about that yet. Oh, there's got to be one in the works. Yeah, yeah. Well, I know that it took me five years to write my other so that was probably now i, because I've only just, you know, just been diagnosed by a daughter who knows these things, not a doctor, but I've possibly got ADHD, and all my oldest friends are going, Yeah, of course. Why didn't anyone tell me?

[00:03:58] ALEX:Because you're too busy looking after Elaine and Roy, right? Yeah, they were

[00:04:02] JEAN:beautiful parents who their family was everything to them. They sacrificed a lot for their family, so I think I had good role models in how important doing the right thing my family is and staying connected and and, you know, forgiving each other for transgressions, you know, whether we're teenagers or adults or just always being there no matter what. That's what they were like.

[00:04:33] ALEX:now, they sadly passed just last year. Interestingly, you said to me, because I think your mum was 99 Yes, which was a right, good age. And your dad was a little bit younger, but he was her toy boy, right?

JEAN:Yes. Roy, the toy boy.

[00:04:51] ALEX:Roy. And so they had a great innings. And you've actually said that you believe having a good carer is part of having a. Good, rich, long life that they lived longer because you were their advocate in the healthcare and aged care system,

[00:05:07] JEAN:definitely, there were many times when they would never have left the hospital. They would never have recovered if they hadn't had someone like me to be sort of their team leader. Oh, yeah. Be their advocate. Be their voice to ask them what they wanted and if they wanted to get home, get home. I got them home. I got the care they needed at home to help them stay at home. They were living independently in their own home, a retirement village unit, but in their own home till the last two weeks of their life, yeah, okay,

[00:05:41] ALEX:that's, that's nice. But what is, I guess, the moments that you treasure now that they've passed? What is it about the last decade, 15 years, when you've been caring for them, that you actually go, Hmm, that was a good moment.

[00:05:57] JEAN:Oh, every moment, I miss them so much. I really do. You don't know how much you're going to miss your parents till they Yeah, till they die or they pass, but yeah, there are so many moments. They all bubble up all the time. You know, whether it's a moment when we were kids and we first moved down to Sorrento to live, and we all decide to go crabbing, because we live by the beach. But let's go crabbing. And Mum and Dad, I don't know what, they got a torch and a spear, and then we were the kids were all sitting on the beach at night, and they went waving into the water, and then all we hear is screams, because maybe 200 crabs arrived in the torchlight, and one of them just ringed my father's little toe like a can opener, and they're screaming, and my uncle jumped on his back, and, you know, like so I think of moments when I was a kid, and then I think of when I was a young mum, and I asked them to babysit, when so my husband like God for dinner, and We're in the window of a restaurant and relaxing at last. And then we look up and there's this knock on the window, and there's mom and dad pushing out one and a half year old. This is not what we had in life. And then there's just, you know, like sitting with them as they're older, and then sharing stories. So there are so many moments I couldn't they bubble up all the time at about two in the morning, usually.

[00:07:28] ALEX:oh yeah, when you can't get back to sleep. I know that one. And talk to me about how you know when you need to step in to start caring for your parents versus just being a regular old daughter.

[00:07:39] JEAN:You know what - it’s not a moment, it's very gradual. And I look back and the first time I started, the first time I look back in my, you know, on my computer, and all the things I've written, and the first time I actually wrote, I was doing an aged care conference way back 30 years ago. And the first time, oh, maybe sorry, 25 years ago, but, um, and the first time I wrote about worrying about my parents, they would have been in their mid 70s. And now, you know, I'm going to be 70 this year. My husband's already 76 and I think I look at them, I go, that was way too early to be worried about whether they were coping. They were young.

[00:08:19] ALEX:Yeah, they were young.

[00:08:23] JEAN:They had 25 years to go, and so, you know, you don't know, you know, you shouldn't start worrying too early, but you need to talk about it with them. We're just so you can plan, because planning is everything planning gives you, you know, all the freedom, yeah, and prepares you.

[00:08:46] ALEX:And this is because it is a challenging journey, right? Like families can fracture, sibling relationships can get torn apart. You know, different siblings will have different views on the way the caring might need to happen. And you talk about this thing called the all goes to shit kit. Now is the all goes to shit kit a part of the planning that you can open up discussions with first, or do you really need the all goes to shit kit later on?

[00:09:13] JEAN:Oh, well, I wrote the all goes to shit kit when there was, when there's a crisis, or when there's a crisis. No, it all starts with talking honestly and openly with your family, with your parents at the center of the conversation, listening to what they want with your family, if possible. So it'll take a few conversations about what they want, where they see themselves in the future, what they hope for what their fears are, yeah, because a lot of a lot of our elders will refuse help, you know, around the house. So I hear this all the time from their kids going, Oh yeah, my mum won't get any help around the house. And and often it's because, if they think they even, Isk for an hour of help around the house, their family will say, Oh, you're not coping. And then that'll be the thin edge of the wedge, and then they'll end up in a residential aged care. But it's not, you know, as if you can reassure your parents that you are there and the family is there to put all the help in all the services in place and enable them to live the life they want. Yeah, that's what you're there for.

[00:10:25] ALEX:And I guess there is a lot of fear around and, I mean, no one wants to think their kids are going to be helping them survive later in life, right? It's kind of like a reversal of the natural order of things, yeah, but tell me how that moment arrives when you realize there's a crisis like for you, what was it with Elaine and Roy?

[00:10:48] JEAN:Well, the well, there's so many of those points. You know, there's so many of them. They just when, when I started caring for my parents, they wouldn't go to a doctor, even never go to a doctor for a check up. They would not. They wouldn't go to a doctor unless a boa constrictor was around one leg and an arrow was through the other. Not even not a crap, no. But by the end of the time that I was caring for them, they had two between them that had two strokes, broken shoulder, a broken hip, a broken femur, failed kidneys, two heart conditions, coronary occlusion, pulmonary disease, they both lost their sight, and they both had were hearing impaired, and then you know that had skin cancers, you Name it. So it just get it just slowly builds.

[00:11:43] ALEX:cascades, or slowly cascades.

[00:11:47] JEAN:but yeah, it just sort of increases. It's unlike kids, because your kids get more and more independent with with your parents, this is a marathon, and you just keep guessing what your role is, if you want them to be as well as possible and living the best life they can with purpose and meaning, is to keep on top of their health. Yeah. So even something like a scratch is not a scratch, it's a wound. So my kids will never look at my phone. You know, what have you been taking pictures? What's that? That's your grandmother's toes. You've got to keep an eye on everything. Keep on top of that. Go to the doctors. In the end, they would go to the beginning. They go the doctors by themselves. And then in the end, I realized, and GPs have said that to me. They've said that the elders who have an advocate with them, who have someone who accompanies them to the doctor doesn't speak for them, but takes notes and make sure they mention all the things that have been going on and follows up. They are more engaged with their patient.

ALEX:Ah, okay, yeah, Doctor pays more attention with that,

[00:13:01] JEAN:because they know that the elders aren't going to go home and forget to have the blood test or mix up their meds. And you know, maybe I was surprised that GPs would admit that this is only a couple of who said that, but I guess psychologically, they see so many people when they know they go, right, this person has got a team behind them, and what I suggest for their treatment is going to be followed through and and when they say, change the change the bandage after two days, the bandage will get changed. After two days, you know, bring a physio in for your shoulder. The physio will come. And Mum and Dad had great care and and they were, they had no aches or pains. And I went through that list, but they, they were really, well, they just had sort of medical events, yeah? Well, not like an award, like.

[00:13:55] ALEX:yeah, not the kind of awards night you want to go to. All of us can face medical events in our lives. It's not just when you're old that you face them, it's just when you get old, the incidence is higher, right? It's natural,

[00:14:06] JEAN:and going into hospital, it's really essential that they have someone there to speak for them, because often they're so mum and dad, in the end, were often taken to a hospital without their hearing aids or their or their glasses, and they the staff would think they had dementia or cognitively there, and because that, they just couldn't hear them. Yeah, so you have to be their voice, their advocate. The world is impatient with older people.

[00:14:32] ALEX:Yeah, very much. So I think that's a very sad truth, and something all of us worry about, right? Yeah, it's a fear that sits with all of us. And if we start to see our parents getting older and needing more help, some of us don't even know how to navigate that, right? Like some people don't know how to have an open and frank sort of conversation.

[00:14:50] JEAN:No, because, you know, you probably don't want to talk about it's like talking about end of life. It's very difficult, but it actually helps so much.

[00:14:59] ALEX:So what would be an easy way for people who do have that fear. What might some opening lines be to, I guess, have the conversation that might feel awkward and really difficult but needs to be.

[00:15:10] JEAN:maybe, maybe, if you're watching a movie and someone gets sick, oh, look, someone's sick. Oh, of that person's getting old, use something as a springboard. Maybe be looking at something else. Some people don't like the sit down that’s face to face. So maybe bring up the conversation as part of something more pleasant. Talk about the need that talking about this will give them more autonomy, more power. It only empowers them, like emphasize that and then And nowadays,

ALEX:I think all older people don't You don't want someone to think you're not coping.

JEAN:That's right. So undermining, that's exactly right. So undermining, and you just feel sick and you think, Oh, next thing you know, they're going to take away my licence or my house, you know, yeah, frightening. They're very vulnerable. So the they've got a voice. Listen to them. Always listen. Listen to them, yeah.

[00:16:21] ALEX:and there's a whole lot of detail the all goes to shit kit. There's a whole lot of pieces to that kit, right, that you talk about, yeah, describe them.

[00:16:32] JEAN:Well, there's like, you know, one of them was, like, just having make sure there's a key somewhere near their house. So if you can't get onto them and you live an hour away, like I did, can bring someone neighbor? Can you just let yourself in? Because they're not answering the phone and I'm not sure they're okay, and the key is, you know, under the mat, whatever, no, but, you know, put it somewhere. Have a spare key somewhere. When mum and dad were in a retirement village, that wasn't an issue. But then there's the if something happens, they have a stroke or something. And you know, mum had a stroke at one point, and she looked she came back from it, except she was on a frame. But what if she'd lost the power of speech, or what if she'd be cognitively impaired? Make sure, you know, you have all the legal and financial papers in place. So when it happens, you know where they are.

[00:17:22] ALEX:let's talk about those legal and financial papers, right? Because it's, it is kind of a list. There's obviously a Will which everyone to understand, yeah, and make

[00:17:31] JEAN:sure you get a solicitor who doesn't do, you know, real estate conveyancing, blah, blah, you know wills. Make sure you get someone who knows about wills okay, because wills you can you don't leave a bomb in your will to cause your whole family to implode when you die. You want a will that's drawn up properly with everyone considered, even though even them vulnerable to the family, yeah, at least mention them, otherwise, if you open a can of worms.

ALEX:no, this is very true. So have a good solicitor for a will, but then we've got Enduring Power journey.

[00:18:06] JEAN:That means, when you want someone else to take over, not necessarily making the decisions, but for instance, when their mobility got very difficult and they lost their sight, I could go to the bank and I could take their Passbook, they still had passbookls. I would take their passbook and I would empty their account, and I would I would take money out for them.

[00:18:33] ALEX:Elder abuse is a real concern, right?

JEAN:So when you get your enduring power of attorney. In fact, I found out that the way that mum and dad gave me during a power of attorney was actually elder abuse. Oh, because I knew they had to choose their own solicitor. I couldn't choose it. So they chose their own solicitor. But when I went there with them, that solicitor didn't ask me to leave the room just I sat in the room with them, and she said, Oh, here's the thing. Can you sign this? You're giving Jean, and I'm sitting there now I could have been the, you know, the bad daughter and I, and I could have been coercing them, and they could have been frightened of me, and I was sitting there, and they had no chance at all to say, we're not sure whether this is the right thing. So, so that was, that's elder abuse. I shouldn't have been in the room. I didn't know it till later. I shouldn't have been in the room. And yes, because it's a

[00:19:34] ALEX:conflict, right? It's Oh, yeah. And you want your parents to be empowered, not disempowered?

[00:19:41] JEAN:Yeah, exactly, frightening.

[00:19:45] ALEX:And then there's other things,

[00:19:49] JEAN:directives, yes, advance directive is good to have it legally, because then it makes you discuss,

[00:19:56] ALEX:you know what you talk about, what an advance directive is for people who don't know,

[00:20:02] JEAN:it's scary too. Well, well, confronting.

ALEX:All of them are confronting. They are because they make you face the very big D word of death, yeah, which not many of us are comfortable with, no but having the paperwork in place actually should be something we aspire to do, because it makes it safe for everybody?

[00:20:21] JEAN:Well, yes, and it means that you've thought about it, and we know what your wishes are. That's right, we know what they are. So an Advanced Directive is the legal document that you feeling to say, you, what you what you want to happen and maybe, and some of them are very detailed, and they'll say they might ask you, do you want antibiotics? And their mum goes, no, no, I don't want antibiotics. Just let me go and I go. But what if you've got a UTI mum, and you can get home in, like, three days? Oh, okay, I'll have antibiotics. So you've got to talk. It's infected the toe,

[00:21:01] ALEX:that's right, and you didn't take the photo

[00:21:07] JEAN:I know.

[00:21:08] ALEX:So, so the advanced care directive, who do you make that with? Like, you

[00:21:13] JEAN:should make it with a GP, but a GP doesn't have time. You've got to book in a long time, so you've got to be prepared for all these pieces of paper, yeah, but then their GP, and so I did a really complicated one with my husband, and I did one with our lawyer, and then my GP says, but if you put it with your will, because the lawyer had suggested, and she said, what's an Advanced Directive? Good, if it's with your will. And oh, I looked at your will to laugh and dead, that's right. Oh, yeah. And she said, What would he know about, you know, medical issues? Yeah, of course. So Mum and Dad, it's a you do it with a GP. Mum and dad's GP gave a very, very good advanced directive, and mainly what it is, what, what you what you really want at the end of life is palliative care specialists or palliative care nurses. And then they will know how to manage all your symptoms and what, that's what you say, I want palliative care. And they will manage my symptoms. And they will know, you know, they'll say, and you'll say, you know, I don't, you know, want to a transplant when I'm 99 or something, but, but there's, but there's also, which is just as important, is an advanced care plan, which is the sort of thing you talk about with your family. And you know, I want to be home. I want to be in my bed. I want you to, if I lose the power of speech, I want you to come and read to me. I want you to play some music. I want you to live your life all around me. I want some champagne breakfast, you know. I want you to read me the news, or not, or not the news, but, you know, some poetry. And that's the sort of thing. What, you know, I'd like to be near a window. I'd like to see the beach, you know. So if you can't express yourself, you know the sort of life, things that many people want, yeah? So the advance directive is medical.

[00:23:10] ALEX:So the Advance Care Directive is medical, but the advanced care plan, yeah, do you make that with you make that with your family. So that's just something between you, your kids, your loved ones, yeah, they write it down. You write it down, okay? And then you probably should, you know, include a funeral on that, because we're not, funerals are mixed, right?

[00:23:29] ALEX:Funerals, yeah, because next to the living people left behind, they're not really for the person, but people have wishes, right?

[00:23:39] JEAN:Yeah, but we hadn't, even though in my book I said, discuss all this, write it down. I never wrote it down what they wanted so, so there was, we really didn't have music, we hadn't planned anything. We didn't and then I didn't read. I thought Dad wanted to be cremated. My sister wasn't sure whether he wanted to be cremated or not, because he grew up a Catholic, and my mum was non believing. And then, then we thought their wishes was mum, she was been talking about dying since she was about 40, which I now realize, and she would say, and she'd sentence a kid, just in case I don't die, but I lie there like a vegetable. And I really think I will. I want you to promise me you'll just turn it off the machine. Just turn it off the machine. And first of all, I had no idea what machine she had in mind. Possibly the iron could have been the iron. She liked ironing.

[00:24:34] ALEX:Well she didn't like it.

JEAN:She did it. And then And then, and then she said, When I die, I want my ashes scattered at sea, accompanied by a lone Piper, who apparently then had to swim back to shore. And then my dad, he he his wishes. When we all sorted out, he wanted to be cremated, because Mum was cremated, he wanted to be with mum, but he didn't want to be scattered at sea. Well, it didn't work then so they're in the bottom of my wardrobe.

[00:25:05] ALEX:Are they at least in a nice container.

[00:25:07] JEAN:Well, yeah, they came in the containers from the funeral.

[00:25:11] ALEX:Now this is the sad part about your parents death, because they died within four weeks of each other, right? Which has been a terrible, terrible thing for you, being left behind. But had you, like, had you already organized? Because I think it was your father that passed first, right? Yeah, had his funeral been done and dusted by the time your mother passed? Or did you actually kind of have to do

[00:25:35] JEAN:So, yeah, we had his and and even though it's with a with a caring responsibility, I think what I'm left with is just this, because neither of their deaths were very good, even though I thought I planned everything, even though I've written a book about it, I felt like I fell at the last hurdle, and I feel like they're just what a good and they're sick carer, their primary care, and I felt like I just let them down and I failed them.

[00:26:11] ALEX:Sure you didn't, but I'm sure that's what we we all beat ourselves up, right? And it's a terrible experience going through the death of a loved one. I mean, I myself, had to identify my father's body. He was going out to get a pack of ciggies, and died getting his ciggies

JEAN:No, yeah, he did.

ALEX:And I had a toddler at home, and the police knocked on my door, you know, literally the hole, and was like, I can't, I can't come until the toddler is in bed. And I had to, yeah, and I was the only one there dealing with it, and it was very startling at the time. Yeah, I didn't know what to do, and you're just so shocked, right? Yeah, I'm sure everyone feels that with the passing, no matter how well prepared you might be, right? I'm sure it's still a sudden shock.

[00:26:57] JEAN:Well, I think there's a difference between grief and loss and trauma. Okay, so I think you can be and I spoke to people for my book who are traumatized by their parents death because they've been so horrible, and they lived with that for years, and even 15 years later, they would cry about their feeling of powerlessness to help their parents at the end of their life. So that was one of the, you know, the driving forces of my my motivation to write this book was to help people talk about it and plan it and deal with it. And then, even then, there were things that went wrong, and mum didn't have palliative care. And I've been a patron of palliative care nurses Australia for like, 10 years. I'm a big advocate for palliative care. I thought we could get it, but we, not everyone, can access it.

[00:27:59] ALEX:And let's talk about palliative care, which is end of life care, it's the care you get as you literally exit this world.

[00:28:05] JEAN:No, no, it's not. No, your palliative care should come in whenever you need it. It actually palliative care can come in, say, if you were diagnosed with Parkinson's, you could talk to a palliative care nurse straight away about what the whole journey might look like. So when you get symptoms, palliative care are not only they are the people who manage the symptoms of your end of life or your terminal illness. So they manage them from whenever they happen, and they also help the family and the person manage the them, their their known the fact that they're going to die from whatever they go, whether it's age or life, limiting illness, as they call it, now, with their emotional and psychological and existential and spiritual because these nurses and specialists, that's what they're trained to do. They can do all of that. You're not alone. They help the family actually accept what's going on and manage their own emotions and help the person dying with their emotions. They're incredible. And dad had a palliative care nurse from maybe six months before he died because he had coronary inclusion pulmonary disease, which is, you get it from like asbestos and smoking and it's and you get breathless. And he would often, in his 90s, have to call the ambulance because he was losing he would get breathless. He would be suffocating, he'd panic. And so I got him a palliative care nurse, and she just gave him a couple of really good tips. One, sleep with the fan on, because just that gentle pushing of the air up your nose, you know how everyone exactly that that actually helps him breathe. And also, she prescribes. IPM or Dean, which is hard to get now, but it's really, really important for people managing their anxiety and symptoms of of mortality. So when he was starting to panic, if he was starting to panic, he took just ordained is a sort of morphine. So he just took a syringe, one milligram, and it relaxes you and opens your airways. Now I had to, I left them by his bed. He never used them because I think he thought I was knocking him off.

[00:30:31] ALEX:He thought that elder abuse, yeah.

[00:30:39] JEAN:luckily, the GP came, who would do home visits to them. And he went, Oh, that's really good to have that there, Roy, that's really good if you panic. Take that and so and that. He never called, called the ambulance again for breathlessness, because he felt he His breathing was improved by the fans, and he held a little hand fan during the day if he needed it, and he knew that the ordean was there if he was starting to panic.

[00:31:09] ALEX:That's so interesting. And so palliative care. I mean, I really did believe, because I've been in palliative care units of hospitals, yeah, you know, their people live their last days in the palliative Yeah, many hospitals, but I have absolutely heard that there's a drastic shortage of that type of care in Australia. And I think we do know that there's limitations on our aged care, our health care, our residential aged care system, all those little bits that sort of are supposed to come together, which I definitely want us to talk to, because not everyone fully understands how our system works. We either think it's you're living at home or happy and independent one day, and then you're in a residential aged care, or what we would call a nursing home the next. And it's not really like that anymore, but maybe you could talk about it, because Australia's aged care system is going through a lot of changes right now, and I believe it all starts with the ACAT assessment. Can you talk? Talk to us about what that is

[00:32:11] JEAN:well, at the moment, what it is well, let me just say, on the first in November, all the new rules and regulations are coming in, and that will change a lot, of it, then you will still need to be assessed. And I cannot emphasize how important it is to get into the system that's right, as soon as possible. Like, I'm going to ring up and get there. I'm going to be, yeah, it'll take me two years to get on a level. One, the waiting lists are huge. So if you're in your 80s, so so many people in their 80s, and they're not even thinking about me, please just get assessed, and what will happen is why? Emily, my parents, is, first of all, you're reading My Aged Care, and then mum and dad could never hear anybody on the phone for My Aged Care ring at eight o'clock in the morning. Yeah. Get stuck on hold. So get on hold, because you're on hold, on hold, on hold. 25 minutes on hold, and then it drops out, and then you try to ring back, and you're blocked. So like, yeah, so ring at eight o'clock in the morning. Get

[00:33:18] ALEX:yourself a book,

[00:33:19] JEAN:some chocolate ring, talk to someone, then they'll say. What happened with me? Was it? I said, I need my parents want to be registered for My Aged Care. Well, well, can you put them on, please? Oh, yes, Dad, I want you to talk to My Aged Care. Who My Aged Care? Because they were the ones who are going to then send out someone, you know. You'll get some help, you know. Alright, so he gets on. And then the woman says, So what's your name? What did you say? What's your I'm sorry. What did she say? She said, What's your name? My name is Roy Kitson. And then, and then she said, No, what's your date of birth? What was that? What's your date of birth? And then you hear it say, I'm sorry. You've got to leave the room where, like, well, I get authority to talk to you. You can't be in the room like the injury car attorney. So I go out of the room, and then I hear and say, What's your pension card? Now he's going, what? What's your because hearing impaired is in volume. It's separating the words, and people don't get trained to do that. What's your picture card number? And then he said, Oh, I can't then he gets it out. And then, then he said, Jane, what's my picture? I can't come in there. Roy, yeah, oh, she's like, you're not supposed to be listening in such a this terrible. I It's crazy,

[00:34:43] ALEX:but you've got, you've got to go through this to get in the system right. So you get given a reference number.

[00:34:47] JEAN:Write that reference number down, tattoo that reference number on your forehead, name your dog after that reference number, because next time you ring Centrelink, you say, This is my reference number, but this is who it's. Book to this is. And then when they say, get a form, ask them the number of the form, because it could be alien forms that are exactly the same, except they're slightly different. So, so you do that, and then they say, well, we'll send someone out to assess your All right, they're going to send someone out to assess you when they ring up and make a time tell me when they're coming. And of course, you know, weeks and weeks go by, and then I get a phone call. Oh, hello Jean. Oh, hello mum. Oh, we had the assessment today. She said, I think we did really well.

[00:35:38] ALEX:They think it's like a driving test, you've just got to pass it when, actually you need the assessment to be accurate so you can get the help.

[00:35:45] JEAN:Yes, exactly, really well, you know, I can just imagine them doing chain knowledge, you know, making paddle overs. And luckily, the assessment team could see through it. And, yes, and, but then neighbors had were on a level one, and they were on a level one for many years, and I'd go and see them when I saw Mom and Dad and and I'd say, you've got to use and that's I said, Are you on you know, you got your honor Home Care Package? Yeah, but we don't use it. Please use it. Please use it. We don't need an hour a week, but I'm going, but if you don't use it, you won't go to a level two, and then around the corner you might need a level four. You haven't, you know, like, just use it for anything, anything, drive, drive you to the races, anything. Just use that hour. And with a co payment. Mum and Dad were pensioners, so their whole financial system set up was pretty easy, because they didn't need to be assessed and already done it for the pension. But their neighbors, you know, they had to do a co payment. We don't want to pay $17 for an hour of work, which we don't now just pay, because you just want to be in your system. You want to be in the system. You want to be using it. Because when you do need it, and it comes suddenly it

[00:37:08] ALEX:does. And that's the, that's the hard part to deal with, with the system, right? Is you need to sort of level up. And there's a waiting list, and if you haven't been using it, there's no urgency to level you up.

[00:37:20] JEAN:Oh, that's a, that's a absolutely shameful thing about the system is that waiting times people die, waiting for exactly people die, waiting for a level four so that they can stay at home or die at home. You know, I know the waiting lists are really long. The complexity does your head in and this new system, instead of four levels, there are now going to be eight levels, eight levels,

[00:37:44] ALEX:oh, that's to the power of eight now, instead of the power of four.

[00:37:47] JEAN:So, yeah, I like when you're doing this, this is very much more complexity, yeah, looping in there, which kind of means, you know, especially because women do do the majority of caring, right? Like, I know men do their fair share occasionally, but generally. Of course, if the caring burden falls to women, and so just as your kids might be getting off your hands, you may well not only be looking after your own elderly parents, you may also be looking after your in laws or other people or other people you have relationships with that you like and care. That's right, yeah. And so everyone needs to understand the system to kind of navigate it.

ALEX:Yes, it's there's no GPS, right? No, yeah.

[00:38:32] JEAN:Reference Number, the form number, the health, so many decisions, yes, cannot do this as an elder, especially if you're visual hearing impaired, like I just use where you can't see the forms. Oh, and that on there, if all goes to shit list, it's not only the legal forms and knowing what their finances are, but please nowadays, if something happened to Patrick and I, my kids would need to know our pin numbers in our past, your password. That's really important. And I in my if All Goes To Shit List, I had a wing person. But really, you can, can't really hand over the reins. It's you. It's you who about what you need. You know, we all know it takes a village to raise a child. It also takes a village to make sure your elders reach safe harbour at the end of their lives with as much purpose and meaning and love and pleasure as possible and as well as possible. And you're the sort of one that pulls that team together. You're like a multi disciplinary team, so all the head, you know.

[00:39:33] ALEX:So, so my mother's crafted something called her demise document.

JEAN:Oh, great.

ALEX:We're on version 7.2 at the moment. So she's changed. She resends t Yes, she loves changing punctuation. And we don't know the good ones get laminated and left behind, right? So it's brilliant. She was an executive secretary and she control was her thing. I know she's very rare. It is, it is, oh yes, no one. Really wants to. My dad, who, you know, died, going to get his like, literally just outside the ciggie shop. You know, he had nothing organized, and I'd been nagging him because my grandmother had sadly passed just six weeks before he died.

JEAN:I'm sorry and

[00:40:16] ALEX:and I was like, when are we having grandma's funeral? And he was the only child not couldn't face it, and so I had to clean up my father's house, because that's the other awful thing about death, is there's all these practicalities afterwards, yeah, like, Yeah, another house, and making sure everything's sort of sorted in some way, shape or form. And there I'm cleaning out the spare bedroom, and I find grandma's ashes in a sports bag, which is why I asked your question about the funeral, because I then had to do an internment of both of them, because my father was obsessed with being buried at Waverley cemetery, obsessed.

[00:40:56] JEAN:Oh, that's good. You knew I knew this, because

[00:40:59] ALEX:that's where he used to take us on our every second Saturday, daddy daughter visits to the cemetery so he could show me Henry Lawson's grave and all these other terribly exciting things at seven year olds.

[00:41:10] JEAN:Oht that's interesting. Maybe he was sort of helping prepare you, like opening your eyes. This is a reality, because he's a good dad, right? My parents never talked about death.

[00:41:20] ALEX:and, well, I think my own father's father died when my dad was only a three month old baby. So he had this kind of, I don't know, longed for thing with the cemetery, and he lived around the corner from where, he said, as a child, and obviously used to play there, and wanted me to have the same fond relationship with graves and monuments. But he hadn't done anything so practical as organize a plot, or any of that. So I had to go into the records myself. This very helpful man helped me find where our family had been buried there, and then you have to renew the plot, because there's a shortage of burial plots. And he wasn't being buried. He was cremated, but we interred the ashes in the plot, in the plot, and I had to, yeah, I had to renew it for 50 years or whatever.

[00:42:04] JEAN:So it was like he'd done nothing,

ALEX:no, no, nothing, whereas my mother's on version 7.2 of the demise document.

[00:42:13] JEAN:And what's in the demise document?

ALEX:Oh, her passwords. What we do when we unpack the china cabinet? Here's the precious things from her parents. And here's all the stuff we can get rid of. Here's where you'll find. X, yes, here's a dealer who will buy my antique cabinet for you.

JEAN:Oh, like she's researched everything that is brilliant. It

[00:42:35] ALEX:is. She's, she's kind of useful. So you might have the all goes to shit kit but that a demise document is super handy, because no one really wants, and I've had this experience happen. You know, when friends have passed, no one wants their Facebook profile to still keep staring them in the face, like they're alive and well, you know

[00:42:52] JEAN:how to get in, yeah. And you want to be able to, man say to people, you know, very sad news.

[00:42:54] ALEX:You know, if you're a friend of this person, they have sadly passed, and we're going to have a celebration at this time on this date. I'm sure anyone who'd like to come might come, because ringing people for the funeral, that's actually really hard work too, right?

JEAN:Oh, that's terribly hard work. Yeah, you just get upset,

[00:43:17] ALEX:yeah, and people want to talk. Are You monster? Ring everyone for the few, I've got a list of 200 to get

JEAN:Yeah, please. Yeah. I know you're sorry. Bye.

ALEX:Oh yeah.

[00:43:32] JEAN:And dealing with other people's grief, because they're they're in shock, probably. And then yes, and siblings, I think it's especially difficult for the sibling relationship, when a parent has gone, you know that things shift and change, right? It's just challenging all around so, you know, between your reference number for My Aged Care and Demise documents and paperwork, you know, there's a lot to consider, right?

[00:43:57] ALEX:Yes, and you're either in it and you sort of understand it, or you're kind of out of it and going, I don't want to go there,

JEAN:I don't want to walk in. I don't want to open that door. Yeah, you kind of have to if you want the full circle of life to work for everyone.

[00:44:12] ALEX:Well, if you don't want to leave a mess, and if you don't want to leave people trying to grapple with it and sort everything. And I have a room that I call the sorting room, which is full of my parents stuff that I couldn't let go. I'm a bit of a hoarder, and my husband calls it the skip, and it's just this nightmare. It's just every time it's one of the bedrooms, because the kids have moved out, they only breathe out. But, um, and then, so what was bedroom is just now, this room past story ceiling with staff,

[00:44:49] ALEX:so you need my mother to come and sort that out, because she has already told me that on my next visit to her, I have to take away a whole photos, because she she knows I don't want to sort out for. Face when she's gone.

[00:45:01] JEAN:Well, you know, those photos I got there, I had to go into the sorting room and there was a whole little, you know, like a bag from my parents house where I put all the photos and sit on top of those two. They were the photos when they were at a we were at a macular disease foundation do because Mum had, and I'm an ambassador, and mum had macular disease, and then dad got macular disease too. So later and but I got them from mum and dad's the skip room,

[00:45:36] ALEX:It's not a sorting room like Harry Potter sorting hat, is it? It's just,

[00:45:40] JEAN:it's a Room of Requirement. I didn't have photos of mom and dad and I went in, and there I was, yeah, so it's a rule of require.

[00:45:50] ALEX:And so let's just talk a bit more about the aged care system. Lots of changes happening, but essentially it's the same thing, right? There's care, there's levels of care you can get, and it's more complex and slightly different all the time, because that's what bureaucracies do, right? That's just how they make it happen. But essentially, Australia is not going to get more places for nursing home or residential aged care. More of us are going to age in our own homes in some way, shape or form. That's a fair assessment to make.

[00:46:19] JEAN:Well, it's, well, the government wants us to aging in like we always call we've talked about aging in place, but we never talked about dying in place. And not many could, because it's expensive if you need 24/7 care. But often you don't. Often families can do that. So you have a palliative care nurse that comes in and says, look to it, because it's, it's symptom, the symptom of dying, management at the end. So you're right about palliative care in hospitals, and that's always the end of life, but you can it's sense of management of so although it's not treatment for what you have anymore, it's a treatment. It's managing your symptoms so you can still be getting treatment for whatever you know is ailing you, but you have palliative care coming in and helping your symptoms and the symptoms of knowing you're going to die. You know, that's really hardcore, isn't it? Yeah, so we always had aging in place, and then you'd have a level four, which was probably maybe 12 hours a week, or something like that. That's all and then, and then in the end, you'd have to go into residential aged care or hospital to die. That's why, unless, unless you had money. But now with the new system, they want you to die in place as well. They want you to die at home if you want to, because, not because they care about you being around your knickknacks that. But it's cheaper. You know, it's a lot less expensive than paying for beds in hospitals or residential aged care. So they've got, now got a palliative care level, I'm not sure how that's going to work. So you've got level eight, right up to level eight, and then if the doctor says that you've got 16 weeks to live, you can access palliative care, okay? But if you live longer than 16 weeks, no one's yet told me,

[00:48:20] ALEX:explaining will make you run an Iron Man race right now. Yeah, good. Now.

[00:48:29] JEAN:The system is changing because they want to give vulnerable our vulnerable elders, who are often pushed around and disempowered and disregarded and treated badly, more control and more protection. Okay, so they're trying. So I was at a conference for aged care, quality and safety commission, and then modus operandi, they are really, they really want to help protect our elders. How it works? I'm not sure they there's more regulation with residential aged care, there's more oversight, there's more channels for complaint and more support if you want to complain. There's more regulation of providers, so they don't take 50% of your package in admin fees and trust fees and all that. So because, just like the NDIS, you've got people who are, you know, bucks, yeah, that's right. And, and the people who they send to, you can't cook, can't clean, yeah, you can't care, they're not trained. And, yeah, and, and, yeah, it's very different. So they want to improve that, which is all this is very honorable, whether it works or not, or how it works. I think it'll take quite a few years to settle in and but we need to learn the system that's right.

[00:49:53] ALEX:And if you don't embrace the complexity of the system, you'll just be a victim of it, right? And. And so will the person that you love, yes, yeah. And I think that point you made that your parents lived such a great, long life because you were there, because you'd had a relationship with doctor, because you'd been on the phone to My Aged Care several times,

[00:50:13] JEAN:because when they went to hospital, I was in there like a shot.

[00:50:18] ALEX:And you also mentioned to me, having a geriatrician care with your parents talk about that, because not many people even understand what a geriatrician even is.

[00:50:28] JEAN:Yeah, well, a geriatrician is someone who is specialized in older people and their and their ailments and their syndromes and what it's like to age and what it might be like physically and psychologically, okay, you know, and meant in their mental health and their physical health. So mom and dad had a wonderful geriatrician who looked after them and would say things like, well, let's worry, Roy. Why don't you see a hematologist and maybe just have a blood transfusion? Your your and she looked at all that, you know, your iron might be a bit low, or something like that. And let's have a look at your medications. Well, you know, you're in your late 90s. I don't need think you need preventative colic, acid, this or or this, this supplement for Eye Health anymore, thinking something, all the preventative things they want. Mom was on about nine meds, and she would cut it down to about six, and that made mum feel better. I'm getting better, and so and a geriatrician really importantly, there's a lot about our elders capacity, because that's where elder abuse can come in. Capacity is whether you can still make your own decisions or not. Basically, whether you feel GPS should not be judging capacity. You should have a geriatrician, because a geriatrician knows that capacity is very nuanced. Like an older may not be able to decide what they want for dinner, but that doesn't mean they can't decide where they want to live.

[00:52:03] ALEX:That's right. That's That's exactly right. And I think that's the important thing to know if you're a carer as well, right? Is when to step in and know that other people aren't doing their job well enough for what your loved one might want. Because this is the hard this is, this is the navigation and the complexity you dance in and out, and it's very, very challenging. The other piece I really wanted to talk to is as you're navigating this, and you know, your parents might be leading towards the end of their life. You know, how hard is anticipatory grief when you're on the caring journey, versus the real grief when it actually happens?

[00:52:41] JEAN:Oh yes. Well, I just wish that I had expressed my grief, that we were always, you know, doing everything we're doing lot of doing not enough, sitting and being not enough, that that's my main regret.

ALEX:Oh, really, yeah,

JEAN:my main regret is just spending so much time about looking after their care and their needs and filling in this form or checking their mail or seeing them and anything, if anything, was alive in the fridge, you know, like that. I didn't sit with them and I didn't grieve with them. We should have, I should have told them how much I'd miss them, because I just, I actually didn't realize probably how much I'd miss them. And I remember one day, dad saying, I'm going to really miss you when I'm gone, and which was really sad. And I go, then he laughed, and I laughed, and I knew it was sad, but that would have been the time when I could have said, I, you know, like, I'm gonna really miss you both, yeah and, and we could have all had a cry, yeah, but I never did that, because we're too busy sort of being in denial At 99 still in denial, but, still being positive, but, but I regret that, and probably I actually didn't realize how overwhelming the grief would be, you know, I still miss them terribly, you know, terribly, but I wish I'd expressed it and said to them, I, you know, and all that while they were still alive, yeah. And then, of course, at the funeral, everyone's weeping and saying beautiful things, and why don't we have the funeral while they're alive?

ALEX:That's a big new trend, right? Is you have a living wake so, you know, you're towards the end of your life. You do have that. You say, I want the funeral to be with me there, very sad, obviously, but also potentially quite happy. And I guess, you know, Nick Cave, who, you know, sings the saddest of sad. You know, sadly he lost his son, and he's written quite a lot about grief. And he says, you know, grief is just. Terrible reminder of the deaths of your love. And I don't think any of us, none of us, get out of here alive, right? So you know someone is going to die or be lost to you at some in your life, yet we don't talk about it. And you know, for good reason, we don't want to think about death while we're alive, but at the same time, it's part of life.

[00:55:24] JEAN:Oh, grief is, you know, the wonderful thing about grief is that you've had people you've loved, that's right, and who have loved you and you've cared for deeply. So grief can be other, you know, positive. I think trauma is long, lasting and not great, but grief you can live with, and you can have a you know, and you can miss people deeply, and you probably don't get over it. But I think we're all when I was brought up, my parents had gone through the Great Depression World War Two, when people came from, back from their their era, when they came back from the Second World War, they were told not to talk about it, not to talk about the people who died, not to talk about the people they lost. You know that it was like that death was a theme apart. So when I was growing up, we never talked about death. I only went to the funeral of one of my grandparents, because we were protected.

[00:56:23] ALEX:Children weren't meant to be seen funerals, right? Oh, they were never meant to go.

[00:56:27] JEAN:So my era, we never went to funerals, and we never, you know. So we were told that happiness is, you know, a successful life is a happy life. But I think we mentioned Harry Potter earlier. I think Harry Potter was one of those first books that ever made grief and loss a central theme, and to know that it was something, in some ways positive, that led to, you know, led it was a great motivation for humanity. That's right, yeah. And so I think talking about it is, and for kids, you know, young people, to know that it's a part of life is grief and not everything is happy.

[00:57:07] ALEX:You know what? It's not. And I mean, the thing about my dad's obsession with cemeteries was I got his cemetery book collection because he collected. He was quite into them. And in the Victorian era, you couldn't escape death, because, literally, children died all the time diphtheria. And you know, people died in childbirth. You know death was everywhere in the Victorian era, which is when the funeral fetishism with horses wearing feathers and stuff all came in. And I'm sure my dad was because of the loss of his own father, who desperately wanted me to somehow carry on the obsession? Yeah, but funerals are a celebration of life.

[00:57:44] ALEX:Definitely, the person who's passed can't usually attend the funeral because they're dead, yeah, but they are there to help people carry forward, right?

JEAN:Yes, and grief will catch people at odd moments.

ALEX:Yes, like, it doesn't go away after a funeral.

JEAN:No, no, it will catch you all the time.

ALEX:And I think that other great philosopher, Keanu, Reeves, he said grief just changes shape and doesn't end.

JEAN:That's actually quite profound. Keanu, yeah, matrix, yeah. He was in Bill and Ted's Excellent, but yeah, you know it's, it's grief is a part of life, right? Yes, that we don't want to talk about.

[00:58:29] JEAN:And there are different forms of grief. And I'm sure people who lose children have a different form of grief people who lose parents. And I saw that at my parents funeral, what their grandchildren had to say about them was incredibly moving and profound. And if there's one thing that then, you know, having a really long life did was meant that they had a really long relationship with their grandchildren, and how important that relationship was, and how different it was to my relationship with them and they grieved them in they still grieve them in a very different way. My eldest daughter had a birthday recently, and we both sat on the couch and just cried about Mom and Dad.

[00:59:15] ALEX:Did you

JEAN:Yes?

[00:59:16] ALEX:So what do you think Elaine would say about that?

[00:59:18] JEAN:What about that role? There. What about Roy? He'd start crying. Oh, you would have had a cry too, definitely. And then we would have had a laugh about something. Look, there's a puppy. We would have distracted ourselves, changed the subject.

[00:59:35] ALEX:Yeah, everyone's very good at that, especially around death. All right, we might move into what I call my two choices phase as we wrap this conversation. So what I do is I give you two choices, and you just immediately say the one that you would choose. Okay, so I want to know what's worse, guilt or grief,

JEAN:trauma.

ALEX:Ha. Trust you. They're okay, though, but I do agree that trauma compounds both of those terrible things, right? Like, it's very hard to untangle them, okay? What about binge eat or binge watch?

[01:00:15] JEAN:Oh, I don't know whether binge watches or watching disorder, I would say, did you say worse or better?

[01:00:26] ALEX:Yeah, watching. What's your binge watch?

JEAN:Oh, crime shows too.

[01:00:33] ALEX:Scandies with their crime.

[01:00:35] JEAN:Yeah. Love the scandies We've been watching. We just saw something called Ludwig, or something funny by the that really funny guy, David Mitchell, the English medium, he's brilliant, and he's in it. And that woman who's really good,

[01:00:56] ALEX:so crime every SBS on demand, is my top.

[01:00:59] JEAN:Oh yeah. What did you watch recently? I watched the bridge, which I've seen both, I think I've seen the scandal and now, and, yeah, and there's a

[01:01:11] ALEX:German version of the bridge as well. I just watched called Da Pass, which that track translated to pagans peak, or something, or pagans pass. So it's a German version where they're on the Austrian German border, and they exploit them, right?

[01:01:23] JEAN:Anyway. So my husband wouldn't watch any show which started with the death of a woman. Oh, yeah, because they nearly always do. He said, It's just pushing buttons and, you know, like, you know, manipulating the us all. And I went, That's really, you know, like, no, let's not watch anything that starts with death of war, and that cut out 5% of shows. It makes you really aware of it in the fact that they're that they tell me that there's always some horrible death, but there's some that that don't we've just started watching Bosch, oh

[01:01:58] ALEX:yes, yeah, it's quite good. Actually. Yeah, he's good writer, the guy that created season.

[01:02:06] JEAN:We don't have to go, what are we going? Yeah, but our being, she's like, I'll go to bed at nine o'clock because I know I'm going to wake up at one o'clock to sleep.

ALEX:What is that? Is that it just like a menopause of life? Yeah, I think, I think if you wait between one and 3am yeah, that's it, you're awake for hours,

[01:02:27] JEAN:yeah, yeah. And then you either, you know, like, go and get a cup of milk and some chocolate

[01:02:34] ALEX:All right, let's go back to my two my chioices, okay, home care or residential care.

[01:02:40] JEAN:Home care, okay, where possible, yeah, residential care, if necessary. Good, residential care. Residential Care is excellent, excellent.

[01:02:50] ALEX:Now, respite or push through. So we've talked about respite care, which is where you just go for a few weeks, right? Yeah?

[01:02:58] JEAN:But well, respite for a carer like, you take it into it's up to the individual carer, like, take a respite when you can. Like, my respite would be the hour drive home from seeing mum and dad and and just talking it out with friends and family. That was enough for me, so I pushed through. But I know where I knew how to get my own respite, and it wasn't. I didn't, have a holiday for eight years. Yeah, because I kept thinking, this is my parents last Christmas,

[01:03:26] ALEX:and it wasn't until it is, right,

[01:03:29] JEAN:until it is, and I don't regret that, but, yeah, take your respite where you can. But I wouldn't say, Oh, you gotta, you know, you gotta do this. And you lose a lot of your friends because you let them down so much, you know, like, you know, people say, stand you know, make sure you go out with your friends, that your friends get sick of you canceling on them, but just find it where you can. You can make up that friendship, those friendships again. Don't worry about it,

[01:03:51] ALEX:okay, prevention versus cure. So do you still prevent with folic acid, or do you attempt to cure? How do you make the decision?

[01:04:04] JEAN:Oh, well, you always start with prevention, and then when you get something, you try to cure.

ALEX:Okay, okay, fair enough. Now, what about early bird or night owl? What are you?

[01:04:13] JEAN:Oh, Night Owl, okay, yeah, apart from that early bird, one till three in the morning,

[01:04:21] ALEX:grandparenting or parenting, what's that?

[01:04:23] JEAN:Oh, well, parenting is more important. Like grandparenting. I've only been a grandparent for eight months, but it's sort of like, you know, part time parent casual. It's not your career. It's just a casual day.

JEAN:Yeah, yeah. It's not as important. You know, parenting, I think is the most important?

[01:04:42] ALEX:Yeah, okay, interesting, interesting,

[01:04:44] JEAN:having said that, but then I just said about how important mum and dad were to their grandchildren, and how important that relationship was, because they just were with them. They just sat, they just listened. They looked them in the eye. They heard them. Yeah, they didn't charge. They think. Encouraged them quietly and just accepted them, which you can't do as a parent,

[01:05:10] ALEX:Now we're going to move to your choice of Tim tams or mint slice.

JEAN:Oh, Tim tams.

ALEX:Finally, I asked this question. So many people love a mint slicee. Oh, who wants toothpaste in a chocolate

[01:05:26] JEAN:Exactly. It tastes like toothpaste revolting. I don't I can't even drink peppermint tea though. Oh, really, no. It tastes like warm toothpaste.

ALEX:So mint isn't your thing at all.

[01:05:36] JEAN:I like mint in salads and things real. Ah, yes, yeah. Mint sauce on a roast lamb. Mum and dad, used to make their own mint sauce.

ALEX:Yeah. Okay, interesting. What's more important? Money or laughter? That really stopped you did that? Money or laughter. What's more important?

[01:06:02] JEAN:Well, I don't think if you didn't have any money, there wouldn't be a lot of laughter. Everything needs money, okay? Everything, everything you need for your healthy well being, your food, your shelter.

[01:06:16] ALEX:One of the questions that I did really want to dig into was having a financial advisor through the late stages of your parents life, because financial advice can be really important as you go into these end last legs,

[01:06:33] JEAN:Oh, and it's essential, because every decision you make has a financial component, and mum and dad's was simple, because there are pensioners, but so many people I talk to, and it changes all the time. Say, you say, say you went into residential aged care in your head, yeah. And you didn't qualify for any any help at all, because your assets, assets and income were too high. But then you had to pay a RAD, or rather, you know, residential accommodations, was it? Yeah. And then, and then you had the daily fees and the basic fees, suddenly you've got less income and assets and you're qualified for the pension, yeah. So you've got to keep your eye on everything. And the best thing is to get a financial advisor. The person I spoke to for my book, his name is Brendan Ryan, with later life, I'm giving him a plug, because so many people came up to come up to me when I do conferences, and then they say, Oh, we got some advice. It cost us $7,000 you could it can cost you $800 just to get an overview, he specializes in looking at your assets and income, and says, This is what you this is your situation. This is what you qualify for. So I'm just giving you that you can cut it out later. I don't know me giving someone a plug, but anyway, but get someone who does later life advice, who knows all the rules and the regulations. Don't ask your normal financial planner who does superannuation for you things, right?

[01:08:00] ALEX:Always know. They always know. And the rules change all the time, and they always know the ins and outs of qualifying, and know and know that when, if you go into a retirement village, they're not regulated. You have to negotiate. Look at the fine print.

[01:08:16] JEAN:There's just so many to do. All right,

[01:08:20] ALEX:we're going to going to wrap this now, and it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you. I'd love to know what Roy Elaine might have said about this conversation. What do you think they would have liked to have contributed?

[01:08:34] JEAN:Mum would have gone. Oh, Roy would have gone. You. Great Love. Oh, yeah, no, mum would have been. They both would. They're both very proud that I've written books. Mom was before she lost her sight, she was an avid book reader. And they know why I'm why I wrote this book, yeah, because our journey was so difficult and when, and because we made so many mistakes when we were late in getting to things. So Mum and Dad were always proud of me, even no matter what I did.

[01:09:08] ALEX:Yeah, it's good to know that.

[01:09:11] JEAN:Yeah. I mean, I'm sure mum would just roll a rise at some of the things I do, not necessarily,

[01:09:17] ALEX:not necessarily,

[01:09:20] JEAN:but, but she's a but they were both really loving people and and mum would tell you her honest opinion, I don't know what she would have thought of this. Maybe don't imagine she'll be blaming you when you wake up.

[01:09:42] ALEX:Why didn't you mention this all anyway, this is a wrap. It's been an absolute pleasure. Books are fantastic, and thank you that there is a resource. Now I do believe you do have a new upcoming book.

[01:09:57] JEAN:Oh, would you like to start writing it?

[01:09:59] ALEX:Yeah, don't tell. Went,

[01:10:04] JEAN:I signed the contract like six months ago. This is right at the end. No one listens. It's just a short book. I feel like I need to write about how to die well. So that's what it's going to be about, just how to put everything in place, because planning is everything, so you're prepared for a crisis or a gradual unraveling. And I thought I because I'd written the book before mom and dad had died, I thought that death was going to follow a certain path, and I thought I would be able to control it, and now I realize there was a whole lot more work I had to do to make sure they got the deaths they wanted and and I'm just going to write something short, so that people know, right? This is what I need, you know, these are the phone numbers I need. This is the people I need to connect with. This is, you know, like your your my 7.2

[01:11:00] ALEX:will it be laminated?

JEAN:That's I'll laminate it in the honor of your mum.

[01:11:07] ALEX:She would love that. Yeah, I will laminate this page. I have a tear out page that everyone can laminate, which is not a bad idea.

[01:11:16] JEAN:Actually stick it on the fridge. You know. Laminate. You can wipe it clean if it gets sprayed by the roast. That's really

[01:11:21] ALEX:whatever you choose. That's right, that's right. So many people, they have all these important documents, and no one knows where to find, I know, or you find them in the sports bag with grandma's ashes, yeah?

[01:11:30] ALEX:Oh, that would have been, was a shock, yeah? A shock. Or Grandma, that's right, you know, that's where she was gonna wait. Oh yeah, no, I've gotta, I've got a sort, yeah, you don't want to have the skip still. No. Anyway, that is a wrap.

[01:11:57] JEAN:Thank you so much for your time. Thank you, Alex. It's really great pleasure.

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