RV travel has been put on hold as George and Lisa navigate some tough roads with aging parents and growing kids! Sometimes life gets in the way. Come listen to George and Lisa as they tell us about taking care of parents, college kids and buying a house got in the way of putting out a podcast.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Hi, welcome back to Rview podcast. I'm going to tell you all about why we haven't had a podcast since June 14. What's been going on in our crazy lives, the ups and downs and aging parents and kids in college and everything in between. So stay tuned.
intro
Welcome to Rview with your hosts George and Lisa Hernandez. Each week listening as George and Lisa talk about their RV and travel adventures all around the world. GEORGE And Lisa travel in their 40 foot Class A tip and motorcoach and tow their Jeep Wrangler, always looking for fun and adventure.
RV travel has been put on hold as George and Lisa navigate some tough roads with aging parents and growing kids! Sometimes life gets in the way. Come listen to George and Lisa as they tell us about taking care of parents, college kids and buying a house got in the way of putting out a podcast.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Hi, welcome back to Rview podcast. I'm going to tell you all about why we haven't had a podcast since June 14. What's been going on in our crazy lives, the ups and downs and aging parents and kids in college and everything in between. So stay tuned.
intro
Welcome to Rview with your hosts George and Lisa Hernandez. Each week listening as George and Lisa talk about their RV and travel adventures all around the world. GEORGE And Lisa travel in their 40 foot Class A tip and motorcoach and tow their Jeep Wrangler, always looking for fun and adventure.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Hi, welcome back to Rview podcast. I'm going to tell you all about why we haven't had a podcast since June 14. What's been going on in our crazy lives, the ups and downs and aging parents and kids in college and everything in between. So stay tuned.
intro
Welcome to Rview with your hosts George and Lisa Hernandez. Each week listening as George and Lisa talk about their RV and travel adventures all around the world. GEORGE And Lisa travel in their 40 foot Class A tip and motorcoach and tow their Jeep Wrangler, always looking for fun and adventure.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Hi, welcome back to Rview podcast. I'm Lisa RichartHernandez.
George
And I'm George Hernandez.
Lisa RichartHernandez
And today we are going to tell you all about everything we've had going on. Normally we plan to try to do our travel podcast once a week. And well, we haven't had one since June 14, and it is now August 18. So we've had a little bit of a break in there. And we just kind of wanted to go over sort of update our listeners on everything that's been happening in our lives. And, you know, maybe this is good information for people that you know, you make plans. And I guess you have to be prepared to also change those plans as well. Right?
George
Yeah, you can't continue to live live on a scheduled tight schedule. We've had to be flexible this this past month. And that's why we unfortunately neglected our podcast. But we're back and we're going to tell you all about our craziness.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah. So since June, we've had some kind of major things happen. The last trip we took in our RV was a trip to up to Virginia to see our friends, which was fabulous time they had a they had a redneck party at their house. So I say, I said to my friend that lives in Virginia, and I am going to Virginia for a redneck party. And I said, Wait, let me clarify. We're actually going to a party. That's a redneck theme not to our friends who are rednecks in Virginia. So she got a kick out of that. But we had a great time
George
we had a blast.
Lisa RichartHernandez
And that was the last time our RV was on the road. I know that's which was which was the beginning of June. So it's been about two months. We also in that time, closed on a house in Columbia, South Carolina for our kids in college, which most of you know that I'm a real estate agent, I own my own brokerage and we'd been searching for a home for my daughter. But, you know, we were paying over $600 a month rent for each child to rent a place. And we found a home in Columbia that we could purchase, put 10% downs of about $25,000 down. And now my daughter is basically living for free because her roommates are paying my mortgage for me. So it's a win win. It's a win win for everyone. And hopefully the home will appreciate it. My daughter's also learning the pros and cons to homeownership. So that's, that's fun and exciting for all of us. If you don't know my daughter, Lauren, she has a real estate license. She's 20 years old. So that's exciting. I know I had my first house that we're on the same age and you get excited when you get a vacuum cleaner that you never thought you'd be so happy for it. So that's one of the first signs of adulthood.
George
Yes, we had by pretty much everything for the house. And it's nice because they're all excited because everything in the house, the person that we purchased it from kind of flipped it. And they did a fantastic job with it. We're very happy with it. The house is beautiful. It's all renovated, all renovated
Lisa RichartHernandez
hardwood floors, new roof, new windows. It's great.
George
Yeah. And the girls are loving it nice big backyard.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, thank God, they can park back there. So that's what we've been doing. So that took several weeks of our time just getting her moved in and getting the house ready. And of course, even though it was all renovated, there's all kinds of little things that need to be done. We probably could have done a whole entire podcast about those weeds in the backyard that are like the kudzu. The kudzu is like, Oh, is it possible to get rid of we had to actually hire someone to get rid of all the kudzu that was in the backyard when there was
George
either hire somebody or buy goats. That's what our research
Lisa RichartHernandez
that I figured that goes would be way too much trouble to keep up with.
George
Yeah, it's hard enough to keep up but apparently it's in college.
Lisa RichartHernandez
kudzu grows like a foot a day, which is incredible. So anyways, he's got to go back every month, every two weeks and keep spraying until it's finally completely dead, I guess.
George
Yes. And that takes took a lot of our time because Columbia's two hours from our house. So having to travel up there and stay up there and come back and then go back up for something else. It just cut into our time.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, so right around that same time. It was actually near our wedding anniversary, which is June 25. We got a call from George's dad that his mom was going into the hospital. And long story short, George ended up spending about two weeks down there longer than expected down in Pembroke Pines, Florida where his parents are. And we came to find out, kind of, I think they may have known this for longer but never really shared the information with us. But I'm his mother has Parkinson's disease, and she's really in the late and final stages of Parkinson's. And so she's no longer able to stand unassisted. She's no longer able to use the restroom herself. She's no longer able. Now to theater herself. She's a choking hazard. So she's on soft foods. So it's been quite a transition. And we're going to go into more detail about that and a little bit, after we kind of give you that sort of an overview of where we've been, so we ended up dealing with that. And then we sent our one child Tyler off to Arizona for two weeks, our youngest son to stay with his uncle. And so he enjoyed his time out there. And then we went down to hell no, we did make it down to Hilton Head Island motorcoach resort for the July 4 weekend, which was a little bit of a getaway for us, which is good because Georgia just kind of gotten back from Florida on taking care of his parents. And so we
George
I was a little stressed out from my trip. Yeah, it's nice to go there and relax. And yeah,
Lisa RichartHernandez
I mean, it was the initial shock of all of it and sort of the anxiety of everything is is overwhelming. And so we got to have a little relaxation time for Fourth of July down an outlet. We could probably do a podcast about Fourth of July in Hilton Head to that could have been a whole podcast, probably
George
probably we just we just haven't had the time and our schedules have been conflicting with me having to travel and then you're traveling and your mom, I'm sure you're going to the details of Lisa's mom. So our parents have been keeping us very busy. We call them our new children.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Just as we thought we're gonna be empty nesters. We have two kids that just had their first day of their senior year in high school today. Our youngest children Lauren and Tyler started at Wando High School today, Lindsay and Tom I'm sorry Leslie. Remember
George
your kids
Lisa RichartHernandez
anymore? My kids now. Okay, so Lindsay, the youngest and Tyler the youngest started today, their senior years of high school. When we went down to Hilton Head, we we enjoyed that time.
George
That was nice. So it's always great to get away to Hilton Head and we always say we're going to go relax and then we get together with our friends and just
Lisa RichartHernandez
we did we had some cookouts too much we met some new friends and we visited with with them and we went to see the fireworks at one of the places that has fireworks shipwreck ship.
George
Ship ship. We'll get you the name in a minute.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, it'll be in the show notes. Anyways, the fireworks weren't fabulous. They were just average at best, but it was good to get out and and watch them so we did that. And then I also stayed for a week down in Hilton Head covering for Tracy who's my salesperson down there. So Tracy sold a ton of lots down in Hilton Head Island motorcoach resort and she's been busy down there but sort of the end of July and August things slow down a bit. We get in the resort you'll find a lot of people that are vacationing, not necessarily buyers and owners. A lot of the owners at Hilton an island motorcoach resort, go back to what we call sort of like snowbirds. So they go back up north or do their traveling in the summertime. Well, the resort is full with you know, guests and people that are visiting the resort.
George
Yes. And also with Canada still being closed. We we have a lot of owners that are from Canada that just haven't been around.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, yeah. Very interesting. So we haven't had a we were full up over the holidays. But then the last couple of weeks in Hilton Head Island motorcoach resort has been fairly slower empty.
George
And we went to shelter Cove for fireworks. So close. Shelter Co. Let's go.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yes. So my friends from Michigan were coming into town and I plan for that I was really excited and the day I want to go pick them up from the airport. My mother had a fall at the house and she broke her ankle in two places. So I came home to that and long story short, she ended up having to have surgery. We're going on week two of that. But she will be no weight bearing for six weeks, which means that she is going to be in a wheelchair because she was already a fall risk, which hence she fell and broke her ankle. Now, she cannot like be on crutches. She doesn't have the balance for that. And I did get her knee Walker, that she's still just not quite balanced enough for that either.
George
But she suffers Vertigo, right? or vertigo type symptoms, which is very unstable on her feet. Yeah, that's been part of the problem
Lisa RichartHernandez
symptoms like that. But it has to do with some nerado neurological problem that we actually don't have a diagnosis for, which is strangely frustrating. And we've bent about seven different neurologists over the past three and a half years. If I happen to have a listener who actually is anybody that has similar type symptoms, basically what will happen is, she'll be perfectly fine. And then all of a sudden, she'll just start slurring her words, and she can't balance and it's almost like she's drunk all the sudden, but she's not. And then usually she can sit down for a few minutes, and I may go away. And this just happens periodically through the day, it's gotten worse, the longer.
George
And so far, there's like no rhyme or reason why it happens. A lot of the times, it happens more in the morning, right? Well,
Lisa RichartHernandez
it used to start only in the mornings. And then now it's gotten to be sort of all throughout the day. And I've kept food journals, I thought maybe it was, you know, sugar, sodium, caffeine, I've kept her blood pressure is maybe her blood pressure is high, maybe your blood pressure is low, maybe it's this, maybe it's that none of those things. I do have a friend that has MS. And the symptoms are most similar to that. But the neurologist said that there was no lesions on her brain that showed a mouse. So it wasn't that I've researched every obscure type of disease from manures disease, thinking that maybe it has something to do with our inner ear. That was we went to the auntie and they said, No, that's not it. So there really isn't any diagnosis or any diagnosis. It's very frustrating. It's been like that for three years. So now when the new new physical therapy people come in, or whatever I explained to them the situation so that they don't call 911 in the middle of her just being fine. And then the next minute, slurring her words of they don't think she's having a stroke. But it's almost similar to having like a Tia. But it's so consistent and so frequent, that they're not Tia, they wouldn't be happening every single day for three years. So
George
really, consistently? I mean, no, I don't think we've gone even three days without her having one.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Oh, not even one day. All right. No,
George
yeah, it's been forever.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah. So of course, when I first started happening a few years ago, we you know, we were constantly taking her to the emergency room, and I was freaking out, like he was having strokes. And like I said, after all the different neurologists from Tampa, Florida, to Boston Medical, and all the hospitals in Charleston, South Carolina, she still has no diagnosis. So that's frustrating, but we're dealing with that. And that's part of what we want to talk to you about today is just all of that in general, and aging parents and planning, and what we've learned. And one thing I say is, you know, I'm 50 years old, or is 5657, holding a
George
seventh anniversary of my 50th birthday.
Lisa RichartHernandez
But you know, when when you're younger people and you get married or whatever, and people say, Oh, you're gonna have babies and your life is gonna change. And oh, it's so exciting. And all these Oh, get your sleep. Now I can remember when I was pregnant. You know, if my first child people say, oh, get your sleep now. And then they would say after the baby was born, you got to sleep when the baby sleeps? Well, you don't realize that. No one ever says, oh, you're in your 50s your parents are going to start getting old sleep now you can get ready for the next phase of life. They really don't.
George
As I said earlier, we have two new kids now. And my dad may become the third kid if he doesn't take care of himself. It's It's sad.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, so we keep my mom at our house in Charleston. And fortunately, we have a full bedroom and bathroom on the first floor, in addition to our master bedroom being downstairs. So she kind of can have full run of the house, in the wheelchair. And normally when she's not on a wheelchair, so it's very convenient for us to be able to accommodate her. And she still wants to be independent. And she this past year, we said she couldn't be alone. So she had a friend come down and stay with her down in in Clearwater where her condo was. And it was just peace of mind for me knowing that someone was there to help cook her meals, take her driver to the doctor's offices and things like that. So that's really important, but we talked about it ahead of time. And my mom has always, my father passed away about 25 years ago, I guess now so he My mom has always had she has her funeral arrangements pre paid she has a folder for with her living will and her trust and all of her things and reminds my brother and I were everything. Is and she's been very diligent about being very prepared. Always talks to us about what her what she wants what her wants Archie never, you know, she doesn't want to be on a feeding tube or anything that's assisting her to live she's, as she's, you know, looks forward to the day when she can go meet the Lord and get a lot of answers to the questions that she's been wondering. And see my dad so she's, you know, we've had these conversations regularly with my mother, at least I have in my brother has. And that's really, really important as we found out when,
George
because my parents are the complete opposite. And nothing prepared. And this has been the most eye opening experience for me having to deal with this situation. We tried to get my dad to do and my parents to do a their living wills, their wills, power of attorneys get everything set up so that God forbid, if anything happens, we've got everything in place. My dad kind of you didn't go. I mean, he just kept coming up with excuses why he couldn't go down, we flew down, my brother and I flew down to specifically go talk to an attorney and get these paperwork done. And we're talking about two, three years ago, no, this
Lisa RichartHernandez
is six months ago.
George
I know. But twice, twice. This is the second time and for whatever reason he I still to this day, not sure why he backed out, but he never did it. So now we are in scramble mode. And yeah, we can get it done. There's some stuff that they hired an attorney to help us. And he said, you know, some of this paperwork, it's too late it, you know, this should have been done five years ago. But we can take this route, it's just going to take longer, and it's going to take more work because these things haven't been done. So I've been able to get a power of attorney for my dad, the next step is we're going to get their wills in order. I know what their wishes are, but we got to get it on paper and set up a trust, set up a trust. There's just a lot of stuff that I would recommend to anybody listening. If you have elderly parents, please make sure that they've done this. And do it for yourself so that you don't do that to
Lisa RichartHernandez
your kids. Right, exactly. Like, I know, from this experience. And like, even when I went through my divorce, the very first thing I did was establish a will and trust for myself. So that everything would be taken care of, you know, when my kids were younger, especially. But as we age, you know, we maybe we just don't want to talk about death, or we have a fear of that. Or it's just something that it's not a it's not a pleasant conversation to have. And I think that's why your parents didn't do what they needed to do, because they didn't want to make those decisions.
George
I know. But it's weird, because I had those conversations with them. I know what they want. I know what but when you say, Well, have you done it? No, I just I haven't done the will yet. Well, you need to do a will I know what you want. But without that piece of paper, you know, it means nothing.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah. And it can become, you know, I'm looking at it from real estate standpoint, it can become a very difficult situation where if you don't have that done properly, your assets can be stuck in probate for years and your family fighting over it. And maybe people that you don't want to have your things or that you don't even know your Uncle Joe, or whatever. Having say in your personal things that just really isn't. So it's so important
George
to talk slowly.
Lisa RichartHernandez
And now because it's never
George
too late. Find out now
Lisa RichartHernandez
and don't hide things from your family and your children. For example, if you have Parkinson's disease, we know that this is a degenerative disease that's going to you know, you're not going to get better. We should have had things in place for her knowing that with Parkinson's dementia and the things that can happen now she's not really necessarily able
George
to run on her own Parkinson's is hereditary. It would be real nice for me to know that my mom had Parkinson's to find out that, you know, that is Yeah,
Lisa RichartHernandez
yeah. So I don't know why people feel that they need to maybe they were worried about their children ordering or whatever. Or there's some sort of shame or embarrassment, which there shouldn't be. But it's worse to find out later.
George
Yeah. And also, in my dad's case, he's come out a couple times and said, I just don't want to be a burden. I don't want to be a burden to you. I want you to live your life and I can take care of myself. Well, yes, but you're not a burden. That's what your kids, your kids, take care of you. You took care of me for 50 years of my life. You know, I'm gonna take care of you. I'm Make sure you're okay.
Lisa RichartHernandez
But but to add to that your said your dad doesn't want to be a burden. But at the same time, if you don't want to be a burden, then take care of the things that need to be taken. So you're not a burden to your children, like my mother did. She has her funeral setup, she's got it paid for, she has all of her paperwork taken care of, she has every bit of every information that I would need, if she dies in a file folder. And I know exactly what her wishes are, she has taken a whole bunch of stress off of my plate, because I know exactly what she wants, and she's taking care of it. So she's not a burden, right. And that's when that's what you need to think about whether either position that you're in, if you haven't had that hard conversation with your parents. Tell them the story about this podcast that you listen to about these people that are going through this, on both sides of the story and how stressful it is. and hours and hours of time that you've spent with the attorney, getting the proper paperwork in place. Oh my god, keep your passwords people. Anybody that is over the age of, I don't care how old you are. If you don't let somebody know, or do not have 52 pages of books of passwords, to get into your bank accounts and all of this stuff, whether you think you're being safe or not people, somebody needs to be able to have access to this stuff. Help you
George
it's an age thing, because your mom has a bunch of passwords too. And I don't know why they feel like they need to change it every single time because
Lisa RichartHernandez
they forget what the password is. So they change it and they don't write it down anywhere or do anything and they think they're going to remember and they don't
George
know, but they and they never use the same password. My dad has 99 million different passwords in three books of password, right? That's been a nightmare also, but
Lisa RichartHernandez
no, they got to take an idea if you haven't already thought of it. Or if you don't do it is to have a Word document or spreadsheet that you just save in a place on your computer. Maybe you don't call it passwords, maybe you call it something else that you can remember. And you update everything on that document and everybody knows that document, everyone that you trust, knows where that document is with your updated passwords, it would be so much easier, especially if it was like on a Google Sheet where you could share it with your loved ones. Anyways, maybe that's too advanced for some people that don't know how to use the computer. But I'd be happy to walk you through it
George
or Google it, take it from me, if you have elderly parents wrong computers, just help them out and get their passwords straight. Because when you need to finally go into their computers and get information. For example, I had to get a ton of information for the attorney that we hired for to help us with the paperwork trying to get my mom on Medicaid. And thank God, my dad at least is very good at keeping documents and all the documents were there. But when I had to access his computer, it was a nightmare with all these passwords, and then he couldn't remember. And then some of them, we had to reset passwords. And it's just save yourself that nightmare. Take it from me.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yes, absolutely. And so it kind of prompted me to do a little bit of research about you know, what are some tips and information just in general about what to do when you have aging parents, and you just kind of don't know what needs to be done. But there's things that you need to think about what is your family support? is their home safety? What are their medic medical needs? What is their cognitive health? Are they are they losing their memory dementia, any of those things? What's their ability? Can they take care of themselves? Can they make their own meals? And are they having social interaction, which is really important? And have they planned,
George
right? If they have a plan in place, then help them execute the plan. But what at some point, they get to a point where they just it becomes a physical thing. And that's where we are with Lisa's mom and with my mom right now, my mom will probably never return home should probably go to a home which is sad. But my dad is 84 years old and he can he could barely take care of her and himself when when she was helpful. And now she's just unfortunately getting old and can't help him help her.
Lisa RichartHernandez
And you know what that brings up a point another thing that I would really like to address that I hadn't really thought of and I'm going to be very honest here. When George's mom first went to the hospital. Literally he said, we said Why did you take her to the hospital? And his mom said, he said, because she had diarrhea. And I said, Why are you taking her to the hospital? Because she has diarrhea? That doesn't make any sense? Right? Well, as it turns out, what he really meant was, he was having trouble getting her to and from the potty by himself and couldn't get her in and out of bed. And so that's when they had to take her to the hospital. And the initial thing was, oh, we'll get someone home to take care of her and my thoughts were Oh God, we don't want to send her to a nursing home. It's worse. could happen. And it's sort of your initial feelings. And then when you sit back and you start to really assess what is needed, what the capabilities are of what is needed. And you realize that you have to make this tough decision that the best place for them to receive care is either in assisted living or nursing home. And for example, Medicaid has five things that they they assess on whether or not you need assisted living or nursing home. And I think it's being able to feed yourself dressed yourself, bathe yourself, go to the bathroom yourself. And I think
George
I can't remember what the last. The last one cognitive,
Lisa RichartHernandez
I'm
George
not sure I don't. Well, my mom has for the five that she can't, that she can't get through. So she qualifies. So she qualifies
Lisa RichartHernandez
for the Medicaid. And she also qualifies for the full on nursing assistant, not just the assisted living but nursing home. And so qualified nursing facility qualified nursing facility. So, but as father doesn't need a nursing home or assisted living, he's fine on his own. Well, that's a whole nother conversation. But that, so when you're when you're going to assess this and then so what's happening is then as we say to his dad, hey, you need to get out. Well, your mom right now has George's mom is in a rehab place. And we haven't moved her to these the nursing home. Yeah, so physical therapy, physical therapy facility. And so of course, now George, George's dad goes to say Domino's and his friend say, oh, how's Elise doing? And he says, Yeah, she's okay. So one thing, he's probably not really sharing exactly how bad she is. Because it's sort of I don't know why, for some reason, people just don't share the full information about how really bad things are. And so he says, she's okay, whatever. And then whenever he says, you know, she's in a home, or we're gonna think you have to put her in a home, the first thing they say is, Oh, no, no, no, we can help you, we can do this, we can do that. And I realized that everyone that's telling him, this is just making him feel bad about a really hard decision that he already had to make,
George
right. But he's not giving them the full scope of her
Lisa RichartHernandez
and he may not be so it's a little bit his fault. But it's also like, well, meaning people, right? And I've always, and I'm guilty of it, that's why I'm bringing this to attention. So like, if you're in our age group, which a lot of RV people are, they're probably dealing with the same similar situations. Like if someone says, You know, I think it's time to put my mom in a nursing home, the thing to say is, wow, that must be a really hard decision for you. What can I do to help and support you? Can we go visit them? What are you know, what are, you know, what can we do to help you? Because I think that the, the answer for his dad would be Oh, you know, go visit Elise, bring, you know, bring her something that's her favorite, whatever. Because it's that social interaction that they're missing, or bring a meal to the other spouse, like, you know, bring a meal to his dad bring, prepare a meal for that person, because George's mom did most of the cooking and all of that. And then, you know, I think with the last year with COVID, so many senior citizens are really suffering because they had lost all of their social interaction. The things that they did physical health, I mean, her her. Her condition rapidly declined over the past year, because they weren't able to do anything like they normally did keeping busy. And
George
yeah, I mean, they've been stuck in the house for a year and a half, close to two years now. And at their age, they they need exercise, they need to move around. They need social,
Lisa RichartHernandez
every age. Yes. Yeah.
George
And it's just it's it's terrible. sad to see this, this rapid decline in my mom.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah. So you know, all that being said, you may be guilty of it too. And it may not be something that you thought of before, but definitely, if somebody tells you that, it keep in mind that it's never an easy decision for anyone, I don't think to say, hey, let's put this
George
person in a nursing home. Nobody ever wants to do that. But my parents situation like Lisa was alluding to, if my dad's not telling everybody the scope of her situation, then they think Oh, just bring her home, you'll be fine. We can deal with this will help you. But he just can't do it. My brother and I flew down. Before she had to go to physical therapy and we said, okay, let's see what because at that point, when she was home, she could barely help them. So I said, Okay, let me see what we can do. Maybe we can pull this off. But when I realized that the three of us could barely move my mom and she only weighs 90 pounds. That's when I realized, okay, there's no way that he's doing this by himself, he's going to hurt himself or they're both going to get hurt. And then then we've got even bigger problems. So we had to make the tough decision. And the initial thought was, let's put her in physical therapy and see if that helps. And maybe they can strengthen her up, and maybe she can come home. And unfortunately, we realized in the month that she's been in physical therapy, that that's just not happening. So now we're just trying to find a nice facility for her where she can be comfortable, where my dad can visit her and give her the best quality of life that we can at this stage in her life.
Lisa RichartHernandez
That's right. That's right. And, you know, it's really difficult. One of the things on this advice for caregivers thing was include your parents in the process. And, like, for example, one last year, when I told my mom, I said, Listen, like, we're not, nobody's comfortable with us dying alone, we need to come up with a solution, I want you to be able to do that, I don't want you to lose your independence, but you're going to need to find a friend that's gonna stay with you, or we're gonna have to do something that's going to give us all level of comfort that, that you're comfortable with, too. And so she called her friend, Charlie, and, sure enough, Shirley, was happy to stay with her for free and get out of the cold, miserable north. And, and she turns out, she really likes to cook and my mom would clean up and surely got the free car to drive around. And my mom, you know, in return would take my mom to all of our appointments. So my mom still has a, you know, a saying that. And I think George's mom, she's, she hasn't come out and said it, but she's like, I want to go to a nicer place. You know?
George
Yeah. And it's and part of that is, I feel like you have to walk a fine line. With my mom's situation, she worked in a nursing home 100 years ago, she had a bad experience when her mom was in nursing homes, so she doesn't have the greatest love for nursing home, not that anybody does. So we kind of walk on eggshells around that. And what I've been telling her is that we're taking her to a new, better place for her physical therapy. And I just keep telling her, I don't know how long you're going to have to stay there. And, you know, you just got to keep trying, and we'll see. But you know, just be prepared that this could be a long haul thing. I think, in my heart that she's reading between the lines, and she's cooperating, and she's she knows, she knows my dad can't take care of her in the situation in the condition that she's in now. So she's trying to be strong for him, and for herself. And every once in a while, she does ask, When am I going to go home, I miss my home and my dad and I kind of just tell her to just keep keep going with your therapy, keep being strong, keep doing whatever you can. But I know that eventually we have to tell her that the truth, and it, it scares me because then she can just shut down. And if she shuts down, then we're just counting time.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah. And that's difficult for everyone. And I think that's, you know, so here's mom is the one that's in the rehab. But now we go down and are worried about his dad because his dad lost 25 pounds, and he's not eating right. And he's stressed out and he's not taking care of himself. And
George
so and his mental state has just been all over the place. And it's understandable together
Lisa RichartHernandez
for 60 years.
George
They've been together for 60 years, every single day. They've done everything together. I don't honestly think they've ever been apart from each other for more than a week. Yeah, you're gone for a week, just the past week and I had anxiety and we've only been married five years. I can't even imagine after 60 years. I know and it's sad. It breaks my heart.
Lisa RichartHernandez
So you know, providing support for the person who isn't in the rehab and stuff like that is very important. Taking care of home safety basics way ahead of time installing rails, I think you did a lot of those things before your mom when they were getting older grab thinking ahead of time. You know, we've one thing I did get from my mom one of the things that is on this list is make sure communication is simple and accessible. And a few years ago before we told my mom She couldn't live on her own anymore. We all had to have an intervention. Again, my mom is so independent. It's, it's crazy. But we she got a life alert. And it's a little necklace that she wears, and it's that help I fallen and I can't get up. And it's really given our family a peace of mind, but everyone a peace of mind. And for her safety. It was great. Even when she lost her cell phone, she called the life alert and said, please call my son and tell him that I don't have my phone because I know we'll be trying to call me and he'll be worried about me not being able to get ahold me for a couple hours. So
George
but with all that, I'll add this note, if you're going to get a life alert, which is a little necklace, you need to wear your little necklace. Because when Betty fell she did not have her necklace. I
Lisa RichartHernandez
left it down in Florida.
George
No sitting on her nightstand. There she
Lisa RichartHernandez
has two things. One's a necklace and the other ones like a little pager that clips on to like her purse or whatever. She only brought her there. She didn't bring her necklace.
George
And so we want either case, you should have it with you because she fell and couldn't alert anybody.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yes. Yep. So that's, that's our tips and information on aging parents. And we, we could talk about it for hours on end, unfortunately, unfortunately consumed our lives at this point. One of the things that we've been doing to keep ourselves busy and get a good laugh every now and then, is we've started our Tick Tock page. And so you can now visit us at our view podcast, it's our V w pod kit, ca s t is our screen name for Tick Tock. And you may think what in the world is Tick Tock and why are they listening to that? Well, you know, I'm a real estate agent. And it's really important for me and my social media and I have a lot of followers on my Facebook, which is sort of my age, but the younger people and the younger generation is there's the instagramers and then there's snapchatters and now Tick tock tick tock is grown so much, it is unbelievable how fast it's grown in relation to the different things. Just to give you a quick summary of Tick Tock statistics. This is from 2021 Tick Tock has 689 million monthly active users worldwide. It's been downloaded over 2 billion times on the App Store and Google Play. It's ranked as the top most downloaded app and Apple's iOS operating system. 62% of Tiktok users in the US are between the ages of 10 and 29. And that age is consistently growing older. tik tok has been downloaded 611 million times in India, which is around 30% of the app's total global downloads. When it comes to daily time spent on Tick Tock users spend an average average of 52 minutes a day on the app. That is a lot. And I think time
George
that's probably low.
Lisa RichartHernandez
When I look at my kids screen time is way more than that. And it's scary.
George
But I'm an old guy and I spend more time than that. Oh, he shouldn't be God. I
Lisa RichartHernandez
wonder not getting anything done. It's crazy. It's addicting market research, right? So tiktoks available in 155 countries in 75 languages. 90% of tik tok users access the app on a daily basis. In less than 18 months, the number of us adult Tick Tock users has grown 5.5% 5.5 times. So if it was 1 million is five and a half million. That's more than that. And there was an average number of more than 1 million videos viewed every day for a whole year. So Tick Tock is now the new words app kind of a thing. So I'm going to try to embrace it in my old age. And we started an RV podcast Tick Tock which is like 15 to 30 to 62nd video clips then usually there's music to it or whatever and you kind of scroll through them with pictures and stories and it's really easy to use. I like it
George
you can make a video real quick. It'll edit it for you put the music you can add hatter's little stickers. It's really fun to use and
Lisa RichartHernandez
it's it's gone crazy.
George
It has completely exploded.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yes, a lot of dance little things people do and stuff like that. So I had to get some training from my teenage teenagers on how to get started on Tick Tock and the for you page and all the things you need to do but if you happen to be a tick tock or already, please check us out at RV podcast and we're going to work on our tic tocs there and what else our kids are back to school
George
started high school today and are the ones who are up in college. And we thought we were getting so close to being empty nesters and we're now picking up Now we've
Lisa RichartHernandez
got the end now we've got the aging parents to deal with. So we'd appreciate any of your prayers and help or advice. If you have any on that you can reach us on our website at rv podcast.com. You can send us a message. There are questions or comments. We love getting that and share a podcast please with your friends so that more people will listen. And we promise we won't be two months until we have another one. Although we don't have any big RV travel plans, because of my mom, we do have tailgating coming up in the fall, which we're super excited about. I'm starting to get a little bit nervous because of the high rise of COVID cases that we've had.
George
Yeah, if they shut down tailgating again this year.
Lisa RichartHernandez
I know it's like one thing we really look forward to. And I'm even been like figuring out how we're going to get my mom to Columbia so we can go and enjoy our weekends and get her in and out of the RV those those steps and stuff. But I've been practicing looking up new tailgating recipes and all kinds of fun things. We've got new tents and everything universities out Carolina Gamecocks we may not win a lot of games, but we definitely know how to tailgate. And I think it's a southern thing. And if you haven't been to a southern tailgate like that, you really got to check it out. So fun. Yeah,
George
we know how to party.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, so we'll probably talk and have tailgating tips in the fall for when we do our tailgating. And
George
then I do some, some podcasts right from our tailgate. Oh, that'd
Lisa RichartHernandez
be a great idea. I
George
look forward to look, look us up on TikTok. We'll do a lot of videos from there. My recipes
Lisa RichartHernandez
on there.
George
Yeah, show your Mac daddy tent with the blow up furniture and chandelier is and now
Lisa RichartHernandez
we are actually we did plan a trip. The first week in September. Right after Labor Day, we're going to go to the Hard Rock resort in Los Cabos Mexico. So the in Cabo for a week with some friends. And I've got all the babysitter's lined up to keep an eye on my mom while we're gone, and super excited to just have some downtime for the both of us to just get away and an all inclusive resort. And that Cabo resort is brand new. So we'll be able to give you feedback on that. We also have a 30% off discount for our friends. So you can always hit us up with that if you're interested in going for a week you get 30% off the lowest advertised web rate, and we can help you with that.
George
So that's a message if you're interested. Yeah.
Lisa RichartHernandez
If you're interested in that as the message we've gone to the hardrock resort in Punta Cana, many times our children love it there. Our son went to the Hard Rock resort in Cancun this past spring after he graduated or sorry, after after school got out, I guess it was spring break. Or summer vacation, whatever. And he liked the one in Cancun, it was smaller than
George
than the one that you like the one in Cancun, but he definitely likes the one in Dominican Republic much better.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yep. So our first home game is Labor Day weekend and the University of South Carolina we play Eastern Illinois. Fingers crossed, you can actually win that game. And then we had to Cabo. And well, there'll be a few away games. I have a real estate conference in Dallas in September 18 through the 22nd, and then we've got back to back home games and tailgating, fantasy fast. And then yeah, and then we'll be the end of October. We have fantasy fest down in Key West Florida planned. So we have that to look forward to I'm sure we'll have some interesting podcasts to do from there. Interesting. Maybe what happens at fantasy fest days and fantasy Fest, but we can probably give you some good tips and advice and stuff like that there. And then we come right back into owner's week at Hilton that island motorcoach resort, which was the first week in November, then we've got two more home games at USC and Thanksgiving. We'll be tailgating from Clemson, Carolina, big rival game. And so that takes up our whole November and the next thing you know will be your birthday time. So
George
but the good thing is with all those things that we have planned, we will be back on schedule with our podcasts and we will have some fun things to talk about besides our aging parents.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah. So unless they cancelled tailgating, in which case,
George
there's a lot to talk about. No, that will just get me angry people, right.
Lisa RichartHernandez
And last year, when we when everything got canceled, we did our 45 day cross country trip and unfortunately, we won't be able to do that unless I can take my mom with us. But
George
yeah, we'll have to figure something out. But I'm staying confident and positive and I'm going to think positive that they're not going to cancel tailgating and they're just not going to we're going to get through This one and it's going to be a blast.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, I hope so. Well thank you all for listening. If you again would like to reach out to us his RViewpodcast.com our new TikTok is at RViewpodcast. And you can always catch us on our social media anywhere Instagram or Facebook also. Yep, share this podcast with your friends. Give us a rating. And we hope to hear from you again soon.
George
All right, bye. Bye. Thank you for sticking with us.
intro
Thanks for listening to another episode of Rview. Don't forget to drop us a line at Rviewpodcast.com that's the letter R view podcast.com and like, subscribe and follow us so you don't miss out on our next adventure.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai