“Uncovering Joy and Resilience in Caregiving” w/ Darleen Mahoney SeniorLivingGuide.com

The special guest today on Cancer and Comedy is Darleen Mahoney. She is the National Digital Sales Director of seniorlivingguide.com and has the podcast at SeniorLivingGuide.com Podcast. Darleen, welcome to our conversation here today on Cancer and Comedy.

Thank you so much for having me, Brad, I'm really looking forward to sharing and chatting with you on things that would be beneficial to your audience.

Indeed, just love what you're doing there as Senior Living Guide, a great resource will point people towards that on our show notes. But you got the podcast there. And you have several things going on where you really serve the senior, senior community. But I want to before we kind of dive into that I just want to hear something in your life. That kind of put a smile on your face lifted you up made you feel good, something that's happened to you recently, either in the context of your work or perhaps in your home life. What's something that's kind of given you a lift?

it's a strange left because, you know, my mom, I had both my parents have passed away, they passed away very young. You know, my mom was I think 69 My dad was 72. So not like young, young, but young to kind of, in my opinion, lose both my parents, my mom had ovarian cancer for eight years. She went in to have an actually a surgery that was non-surgical to remove some kind of a cyst or something. And they went in and she had a radical hysterectomy and everything that goes with ovarian cancer. And it was shocking for our whole family, for her to have this diagnosis. But my mom was such an incredible person. And for me, what's uplifting about my mom is that I always knew she was but you know, when people are your mom, they're your mom. But since she's passed away, I've learned so much about her that I didn't know when she was living that has really impacted my life as far as I just have so much respect for her and it's made a big impact on my life.

You said you learned what some things from her. What did you learn?

my mom and dad both to be honest, we're I have a journalist, which I did not even know I had no idea. And my mom had my mom actually wrote childhood stories of time with her Nan Aw, and which is, which was my great-grandmother. So, she just shared all these different things. And I just learned so much about AR which I wish I kind of know when some of this when she was alive. But I don't know, to be honest with you. Like it's so busy. I don't know if you appreciate it when they're still living. You know what I mean?

Oh, of course. Yeah. It's like life happens. And then those though, but those stories are so important that we learn them, tell them and retell them. So that is you're now retelling them now, it seems like it seems like there might be a little bit of a story there during the day. But how you even discover this, the journals or so on in the first place? Is there a bit of a story there or something that how this discovery took place for you?

Yeah, well, after my dad was diagnosed with dementia, we had to clean out the house. Okay, which can be so fun. But and then my dad my mom had passed away about a year prior, my dad was starting to show signs of dementia. And so, we had to go in and clean out and it's you know, with dementia patients or seniors, sometimes they start hoarding go to the store, they don't realize they already have something so they buy it again. My dad did that at Costco. So, it was like double the hoarding. Hoarding, it was, you know, more dog food then the little dog could possibly ever eat and in just in cleaning supplies, just so many cleaning supplies. So, it was just like all these like markers, just weird stuff. But anyway, so at when I was starting to clean out the home, my dad did not want to do anything with my mom's belongings after she passed away. And we knew we had to get in there and do it. But he was really struggling with it. But when I went in there and started cleaning all her things out, I found journals like to be straight up with you and her underwear drawer. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. So, she had all these journals. And then I found them in other areas as well. But one of the things that was not just the stories that she had to tell and all these different things, what has really affected my life after she passed away, is that one of her journals was basically her cancer timeline versus you know, the other stuff was, you know, even stories about me growing up things like that, but the cancer timeline. Ovarian cancer is it can it's ravaging like any cancers ravaging but curing cancer, it ravages you in so many different ways. And when she was initially diagnosed, they told her she had probably about five years, because it wasn't curable, unless there was something that came, you know, came up within that timeframe of discovery to cure ovarian cancer, which they still don't have, but she actually lived eight years so she. He was someone that she wasn't going to let it keep her down that woman she was Go Go gadget, she really wanted to envelop life as best as she could. But some of the things in her journal that she talked about were during her chemo timeframe. She didn't do great with chemo; she lost all her hair. She lost, you know, so much weight. She looks so frail. During this chemo time, she had a hard time keeping food down, which is not unusual, even with the medications. But my mom journaled every day during this timeframe. And she would talk about what was just general life things and some of the hard things. But at the end of every single one, she had a gratitude.

Wow, what a gift to you and your family.

Yeah, 100%. And in for me, it was, I had so much respect for my mom and my heart broke for my mom, because then you have retrospect of, I really could have been there more I could have been more involved in participating and some of these things that she was going through, because she didn't really share, you know, deep emotional aspects of it. And I'm sure a lot of that, to be honest with you was to protect myself and my sister from the emotional effects that was taking. That's just not that wasn't her way.

Yeah, it sounds like even now this has been when you talk about it, it's not so much morbid or sad there is that volved with this, because it's a terrible, devastating disease. But you're thinking of war memories of your mom, aren't you thinking of how she is continues in her way to impact him even parent your life even now, is that a fair way?

Yeah, 100%, how she dealt with going what she went through. And it really leads you to believe all these things that we have now things you know, you're not feeling well, or you're uncomfortable, or your shoes hurt, or you've had a long day, or if you're tired, you realize nothing. And you're complaining, and you're grouchy. And you're mean, yeah. And you realize life could be significantly worse. And sometimes for those that have life significantly worse, they're more grateful than we are when we have just uncomfortable pain in the butt day.

I love that you said that she ended up to ended all her journal entries with something to be in gratitude about. So, what's, let me just turn that around. What's something you're in gratitude about today?

the beautiful weather because I do live in Florida. And it's absolutely gorgeous outside, outside. I'm grateful every single day. For my children, my children are grown. But they are so important to me. And even in all honesty, I felt like almost after she passed, they became even more important not that they ever weren't. But really knowing that what my mom went through, I want to be that same beacon of hope and light and those types of things to my kids, as their mother and be more positive. Because we all go through times where we're just nothing makes us happy. And we complain about everything. And I just really realized it's just a lot of it's just stupid. And the other the other thing that I have absolutely kept in my mind, because I've gone through a lot of trials and tribulations in my life. Personally through, divorce and ugly divorce and different things that have gone on in my life and restarting my life after 20 years of marriage with a son, as a single mom, all these things were challenging. And I always tried to keep in the back of my mind, which is something my mom would say to me. And this too shall pass.

This too shall pass. Yeah, if somehow it seems like you've taken Linda, Darlene of this experience with your mom and your dad too. And in terms of influencing your present life, and you've been able to then, you know, use that as an influence upon your own kids in terms of being grateful. And now you're leaving that out context of what you do and serving folks in the senior community. Yeah, how have these things, gratitude, your parents influence what you do and tell us a little bit of what you do then for Senior Living guide.com?

So, I came on board way before the pandemic and I was working remote way before everybody else was working remote role of a national digital sales director. So really just on the revenue side of building a website, working with corporate clients, working with our team, and then also making our website significantly more robust so that seniors or caregivers could go to it and find what they were looking for in any type of assisted housing, home health care, anything like that. But when the pandemic hit, we realized seniors were aging in place. They were at home and they were scared to go to the doctor a lot of them were just super scared and that was completely understandable and we wanted to be able to reach them with information that was pertinent to their everyday lives. So, we created the senior living guide.com podcast, which has been in all honestly, I hope it's been a blessing to those that listen. But it's been a huge blessing to myself because it's taken me on so many journeys that in my own personal life that I can share with our listeners, but also listening to our guests and some different things that they share. You know, the comedy aspect of it, I am a jokester, when, when I get stressed, or anxiety, or something's going on, I have horrible jokes. And it relieves the stress.

Absolutely. I'm a huge believer in that, of course, cancelling comedy podcasts were to leave without laughter, telling a joke. Breaking the pattern of distress is something that we can do. And so, what have you learned about that from either from your experiences or with your guests? And so what are some things you've learned that help the people you serve to deal with, stressed to deal with this, you know, aging in place is one of the ways that you put it or how they can you know, people we know that things such as loneliness and depression are epidemic in society as a whole that particularly among our senior population, what are some of the things you learned from the podcasts or from your role here that you think are can be helpful to people?

Yeah, so going through what I went through with my mom, and then my dad with dementia, I have developed such unexpected unexpectedly, a heart for seniors, I always had a respect for seniors and love them for who they were. But since I've gone through, especially with dementia, which is what my dad had, I, I just, I don't know, I can't explain it really want to be able to help them in every aspect of their lives. So, some of the things we've done on our podcast is, you know, even if your loved one is in hospice, it doesn't have to be doom and gloom, they want to be able to connect with you do the dad joke. So, we talk about that. And then I had a guest that was a survivor of the Cambodia Killing Fields. And she is so incredibly positive. And she tells her journey on how she survived it both mentally and physically. That journey and it, it just really promotes you to really realize that there are so many different stories out there, and different experts, because we also have experts from Alzheimer's Association, and AARP and all of these different places that can provide really good concrete resources for our seniors and their families and their caregivers. And for me, that's the end goal. Because, you know, even though I was working for this company, we didn't have the podcasts, I wasn't making those connections. I really struggled to navigate my dad's dementia; it was I always say is the roller coaster from hell trying to take care of someone with dementia. It's so complex.

Yes. And it certainly has its moments when it can just take you down a rabbit hole of, you know, some really bad places to go mentally and emotionally and even interpersonally. When you deal with people who, whose personalities and their way they express themselves are many times fundamentally different than what you've experienced for their whole life. And that's goes to some bad places there. Tell us about a time when you some story about a person or persons that you felt like either on your podcast or maybe within your work that you saw some transformation happen, where they went from someplace where they were in a dark place to a lighter place, either through some incident happened or through some relationship, or through something that happened. Tell us a story then because the podcast is all about great stories.

Yeah, golly, geez, you caught me off guard. Let me think we've got. We're literally at 70 podcasts right now. So, it's just kind of thinking back. You know, one of them. Our very first podcast that we did were with Parrish Healthcare. And it was the doctor over at the senior consultation center, and then also the caregiver support person. Her name is Janet rocks, and they would join us on the podcast. I think we have like 24 podcasts; I don't really know for sure that are specifically them. And they were absolutely incredible. And I think that Janet rocks, who does the caregiver support, just listening to how this role that she has, has really affected her and her patience and her love and her need to be an incredible resource for seniors really affected me because she was so gentle in the way that she spoke on her podcast and even spoke to me after, you know, because it was shortly we started this podcast, my dad passed away right before COVID And we started the podcast during COVID. So, he wasn't deceased very long, and I was going through a lot of my own stuff. And one thing she said to me that I still to this day, I share it with people that need it. But then I also continue to think about it on my own is that guilt is a gift you give yourself. Because I think as caregivers, we go through so much guilt that we do, we really do it to ourselves, but just working with her and the and the things that she shared with me and the way that I saw how her job working with families, especially families with dementia, taking care of people with dementia really affected her life. I just think it was pretty cool.

And that's a lesson learned and that you can apply to your life. And Joe, do you think there's any common at the what we're talking about here in so many ways is how we can leverage gratitude like you learned for your mom process, like you learned from some of the folks here you mentioned about a woman who went through the Killing Fields. situation, and I'm not a couple of cases have been around people not to that degree, but people who were in bad situations and they came through it with a good attitude. And came out the other side a better person able to influence others. I'm thinking particularly a woman, a vet who went through the Holocaust. And I'm thinking of her cheat her experience. What are some lessons learned? What are I guess? What are some actions? Do you see any commonality of actions juicy into people, either on your podcast or through your inner interaction with people? Is there any commonality is there any common themes or things that they have done in order to navigate bad stuff in their life?

getting back to the Sarah from the Cambodia, Kaeleen Fildes, she shared that she really utilized prayer and faith and love to get her through those tough times. And that's one of the things that she wants to that's her message that she wants people to have that going through their lives and whatever they're going through, whether it be big or small, just to have those basics. So, we really did break it down and talk about all those different things and how they can really change your life and is its attitude and gratitude. So, you know, kind of going back to my mom's gratitude. It, not everybody's going to have that because it is if you don't have the attitude, you're not going to have the gratitude. Because the gratitude my mom would have would be, I didn't get as sick today, as I did yesterday. That affected my perspective, it is all perspective. Yeah. And I think she really that's why she started doing it in order to keep herself elevated from feeling sorry for herself and getting down in the dumps and being negative, because I think she did not want any of those things in her life. And I think that it's really hard when you're going through severe illness or cancer, or you know that your prospects of living very long have had a timeline put on them to be positive, in the best way you can, even when most people would say, well, that sucks. You know, I just would want to crawl in bed not having anything to do with anybody. And I would be mean, I would be grouchy? Yeah. Because in all honesty, that would have been me prior to reading my mom's journals. If I was diagnosed in one day, it might very well happen. But I don't know, I would feel sorry for myself, it would be hard for me to feel grateful for the little things in life, like sunshine on my face.

But sometimes we the tendency and the pressure are oftentimes this kind of don't lean into the negative and poor me and you have the pity party, and so on. But you've also mentioned how none of this attitude of gratitude, but you mentioned now, with a couple people have something to do with connecting with something greater than itself with a higher power, spirituality, something of that nature. Tell me about how that has been a part of either your experience, or the people you've encountered, who have made that a kind of part of their healing journey.

Well, I personally, I have a relationship with Christ. So, I felt like that that makes a difference for me. And it's, it's for my whole life, anything that's happened, even if I was not part of his world, because I was choosing not to be he never forsake me, to be honest with you. And so, I always think back during some of those tough times that I really realized that they could have been tougher. I never went without a meal. My children never went without food. They always had a roof over their head, even when, you know, I didn't know sometimes where the next paycheck was coming from. That has been a part of my life and we never went without. And to for me, that is a game changer. But I've you know; I was raised in a Christian home. Both my parents were Christians, and my mom was a Christian school teacher. So, it's super easy to leave him when life is good. And then when life's not good, suddenly you know, you want him to help you and have a relationship with you and that truly isn't fair. If you think about that, if you know you have a good friend, and the only time you want to text your friend, FaceTime your friend, you know, call them hang out, do whatever is when things are bad, and you need them. And then when things are great, you just ghost them. It's so unfair. But the thing is, is he's like one of those friends that you haven't seen for years. And as soon as you see him, it's like, a moment hasn't changed.

So, the sense of presence is important here that in regards to helping yourself manage, you know, you mentioned having, you know, your, both your mom and dad died early age, you mentioned have a difficult divorce and other life happens, bad things happen, how that their presence had been important thing there that that is awesome. Let's take this, take all this here, Darleen, and let's, let's begin to bring it around to your audience in mind in terms of how we can start to apply these things as some steps moving forward. And so, you know, you are in the world of senior services and of taking it's kind of this world where you have the kind of the emotional and the physical health aspects. And you've got, you know, practical needs, you know, your medical, financial, insurance, all that kind of good stuff. What are some steps that people can take kind of to have the right attitude or to navigate some of these things? And maybe what are some of the things that that are available to people through your website and through your podcasts and maybe help serve people to kind of step, you know, some steps they can take to have a better life if they're seniors or people serving seniors?

Yeah, well, one of the things about our podcast is that we want every podcast to have a resource beyond the podcast. So, if we're talking about something, we want to give them a link, we want to give them a phone number, we want to give them information. So, if you're talking about, you know, diagnosing Alzheimer's, and you think you might have it, or if you are a caregiver of someone with Alzheimer's or dementia, here is where you can go online for caregiver support, and they have virtual, and then they have some maybe locally in your city or whatever the case may be. Or if you would like to age in place, and you don't know if it's something you can afford to do, because it's not covered by Medicare. And it can be quirky to get those services in your home, where you can find it in your area so that you can get more information. If you listen to it, you say this is what I want. I want my sister to take care of me, I want my kids to take care of me. But I need some financial assistance. So where can I get that? So, we want to provide that in the podcast. So that's really the main goal. And then we have blogs as well, that have all kinds of different information because some people don't want to listen, they'd rather just read, although we find that most people don't want to read anything anymore, but it's true. Yeah, yeah. So, it's, it's really just providing them all of I want to say all of the things.

That sounds like you're providing some great resources there. So do you have any stories to tell about anybody who's accessed your resources, and has a kind of a good news story about how what accessing the resources it's Senior Living guide.com, or the pot and or the podcast has been helpful. Tell me a story about somebody's life has been changed.

So, I actually have a friend that's been my friend long before all of this. I started doing the podcast. Well, within that podcast, her mom started showing signs while she called her and couldn't find our way home. That's a huge sign that you have some cognitive impairment going on. And you need to figure out what's going on when they're two miles away from their house, and they can't remember how to get home. That's not good. So, and she's much younger, I don't say much younger than I am. She seems much younger, maybe she's just, I don't know. But she started asking me some questions. But I started sending her podcasts that were around those subjects, and then also sharing my personal story with her as well. And she says it really it changed her life because she had no idea. Any of this she's not in the medical field. She's just it just was something that her dad was not able to help. He was in long term skilled. And then her sister was significantly younger. So, she was just like, I'm just not navigate, I don't know what to do. So, it navigated her not just with that, but also with Medicaid and or Medicare and Social Security and those different types of things because we talk about all those things. So, she listened to a lot of these podcasts and she loved she shared with me how much it has changed her life, literally through tears. And then one area that just happened is she started to need to change her mother as the power attorney and her sister was not agreeing and it became this horrific. Yeah. Fight on text. I don't have a relationship anymore with my sister. Because of what we went through with my AED, which is something I'm finding out is not abnormal. It can absolutely tear families apart. And I wish that it hadn't. And it's something I struggle with on a daily basis. But she started sharing with me what was going on. And I was able to work with her to where she's been able to resolve it by not making some of the same mistakes I made. So, it's avoiding the mistakes Darleen made.

So, you've been able to serve others, basically out of your pain, out of your dilemmas, and you serve others.

Well, and I had her on the podcast, and her podcast is how my mom's dementia, oh, no, it was how my mom's Alzheimer's hurt my relationship with my sister, I believe is the name of the actual podcast. And we just chatted, and she just shared so that if my story can help her our story together, should be able to help other people because it is so prominent that families can get completely torn apart when caregiving or specifically, I think even cognitive impairment, Alzheimer's, dementia, because the person you're taking care of can't make any of their own decisions.

Well, that's a that's a powerful indicator of how complex and dynamic all everything happens regarding tragedies of life that happen, whether it's cancer or dementia, or something else, and how those things can be turned around for something positive. And even when you have the pain of a relationship that has been dramatically impacted. And that is what happened here. You could you be able to take that circumstance and serve some others. And I am a big believer that how we're going to take our situations and find a way to serve others as a part of our healing, and our wholeness. And so, it sounds like you've done that. Well, let me bring it around to this. Darlene just I did and I ask people this question often, if you have something fine. If you don't, that's okay, too. And specifically, this is anything out of your experience, we just kind of start our conversation put a smile on your face as anything out of your experience. Some of this best stuff you've gone through personally, or in the professional life just been a just a just something funny, something stupid or erotic that happened that made you cut a laugh out loud, any experiences like that.

So somewhat. So, this is one reason why when I saw you, and I saw the name of your podcast, I can so relate to it. And as I was mentioning earlier, I in times of stress will make a joke, and it is to lighten to lighten a very tense mood. And also, to give like myself some like mental relief. Yeah, from what we're going through.

Lay it on me. I think you got one load.

I know. Yes. So, when my mom was diagnosed, and she was hospitalized a couple of times she was in the hospital several times, but would be there and I would almost do things too. Because it's just our relationship and the way that that it always was is because my mom was not a jokester. She was a little serious. I was and I would do things that I think she absolutely loved about me and she shared that she did love about me, but I would embarrass her Okay, and when she was the hospital, I would somewhat not embarrass where I was making fun of her but I would just say things that my mom would go oh darling

I know let's hear the tone of voice I can hear that voice

Yes. Because I would just say anything that pops into my mind, I would say it to a doctor or nurse or whatever and just try to keep the situation light while so much as so much heavy stuff is going on. But it would have her laughing and she'd say oh I'm so embarrassed that you did that listen no you're not know I'm not Oh, she knew that's how I was I was the kid that at dinner I would get up and dance I really probably have a DD never medicated but the thing is my I entertained my family when we were growing up. That was my job.

Yeah, there you go. And even to that point, where are you I'm sure with your mom going through some really terrible stuff. You lighten hurt you lighten her load and that's kind of we like to do here in cancer comedy we tell it turn to the grandma grand which is simply to see things with kind of a humorous bent in order to lift people up we call it to call up people listen to our cup, I guess lift her up or it's just kind of as part of your role in life to be the kind of the everybody needs a Darleen in their life. Everybody needs a Darleen to bring a smile and bring a lift to their life. And it was something that you can do and what you do or what I could do to be helpful to that's what we want to do. Well, darling, you've been a delight, tell if people want to reach understand, to get be a part of your world Senior Living Guide How can people get a hold of you? or learn more about Senior Living Guide? How can people be a part of what you're all about?

So, we have SeniorLivingGuide.com Podcast, which is the name of it. It's found anywhere that music or podcasts are consumed. Apple podcast does the best for us. So, I always like looking at that. And then we have seniorlivingguide.com, which is a website. The website itself is primarily to help seniors and their families find homecare, Senior Living solutions, whether it be 55 plus all the way to skilled etc. And then we also have senior resources on there. So, there's a lot of that just on our website. So, if that's something anyone would be interested in, that's what our website was built for. But we do have those senior resources which is at the very top, over the main nav bar, and all kinds of different senior resources that could be helpful.

And that's what we're looking to do to be helpful. She is Darleen Mahoney. She has been our guest here today on Cancer and Comedy. She is a National Digital Sales Director at seniorlivingguide.com And with the SeniorLivingGuide.com Podcast, so delighted to have you with us. Thank you, Darleen, for being our guest today on Cancer and Comedy.