Caregivers, let MORE go!

INTRO - J Smiles:  0:01  
It was December 25. Quiet. Morning. I'm getting Zetty ready for breakfast. First thing is, you gotta get that baby easy. You can't sneak up on Zetty. That is not how you want to start her day. You gotta come at Zetty a little bit like a burglar approaches a house: quiet and calm and sneaky. But with love, the kindest burglar to ever exist. So, we have breakfast, it goes very well, smooth. I'm so happy. The caregivers are off because it's Christmas. And whether they observe it or not, I don't get into their business, but I give them the day off. A little time passes, I smell something. It is not a pleasant aroma. I say, "Hey, Zetty, you feel okay?" "Huh? Yeah, Baby, you okay?" "I'm okay." I get closer. I'm a little bit of a Grinch with this because my nose, even though I have bad allergies and sinuses, I can tell this smell is from down under. It's little bit of stench. Like, "Okay, Zetty, we got to get up. It's time to go." "Unh uh!" "Yes, Zetty, we gotta go. It's time to go." "Unh un." "Zetty, get up. We gotta go. Hey, Momma." This is me rubbing her back. "Hey, Baby love. Hey, Baby love." After I realized that urgency in my voice was not helping things. "Hey, Momma, we gotta go." "Come on, Baby, let's just go over here." Y'all, I'm trying to get her to the bathroom before you know what comes out you know where. "Let's go, Zetty!"

INTRO - J Smiles:  2:23  
Parenting Up, Caregiving Adventures with comedian J Smiles. It is the intense journey of unexpectedly being fully responsible for the well being of my momma. For almost a decade, I've been chipping away at the unknown, advocating for her, and pushing Alzheimer's awareness on anyone and anything with a heartbeat. Spoiler Alert- I started comedy because this stuff is so heavy. Be ready for the jokes! Caregiver newbies, OGs, village members trying to just prop up a caregiver you are in the right place. 

INTRO - Zetty:  2:24  
Hi, this is Zetty. I hope you enjoy my daughter's podcast. Is that okay? 

INTRO - J Smiles:  2:24  
Today's episode - Let more go.

INTRO - J Smiles:  3:11  
Our global community is expanding. I want your feedback. Let's snuggle up. Send a Purple Heart, the little emoji, to +1-404-737-1449. Parenting up family, I want to stop right now, back up a little bit, and let you know the plan I had that day. Zetty and J.G were flying solo. It's December 25, it's not that cold outside. We live in the deep south part of the United States. You know, sweater weather, sweater weather. No big deal. We're going to eat a little bit, and we're just going to chill watching game shows. That's the plan. I don't holiday much. That confuses Zetty. What holiday is it? Where are the family members that mattered the most to her? Well, hell, Momma, most of them are in heaven. Or at least that's what I choose to believe. I don't want to go through all of that. I don't want to make family and friends who I would like to be around, have to choose where they would rather be or be with me and Zetty, then my feelings get hurt if they don't show up. That's a mess, right? Holla if you hear me? Boom. Also it's a little tricky if Zetty has an episode, or she starts to come in and out of agitation. That's already too much for the holidays. Just the thought of it, hunh. Ain't no mistletoe. Nobody's son is gonna have his chestnuts roasting by my fire. Okay. I gave up all of my preceding thoughts about life and plans to be my mom's caregiver. That was my choice. So, I'm thinking we gone chill. I'm probably gonna spike my coffee with a gallon of Bailey's per teaspoon of coffee. And that's how I'm glad to do this Christmas. I'm real clear: there will be no work. Not writing a joke. I'm not talking to anybody. I'm not answering emails. I mean, if Barack or Oprah... there are a few people. Cristiano? I digress. 

INTRO - J Smiles:  6:17  
Everything's going along real smoothly. Until after breakfast. And, yes, Zetty's breakfast is not top of the morning. It's more like top of whenever that baby's eyes open. Her breakfast every day is in bed. It is Mother's Day for Zetty every single day. Hell yes, she is spoiled. I know that. Giving her breakfast in bed is actually better for her entire care team. Me and the people who are hired to assist me. She wakes up in a warmer, friendlier state of being because she ain't gotta get from up under the covers. All she has to do is chew and swallow. The medicines get a chance to start working in her body. Her brain starts to wake up. The water starts to go through her little cells and veins and stuff. It's a method to the madness. Zetty's morning body is pretty much a factory. You can count on it. One and two equals three. Three is the toilet. You do your part as the caregiver on shift. You watch the clock, and yayyy, everybody claps. Well, that day, things were a little bit off schedule, and I don't know why. The aroma came a little bit off. I was like, "Ewh, I hope this is gas." I get Zetty up. We're walking, I don't see anything, great. In the middle of her saunter, and Zetty has what they call junk in the trunk, she is well endowed. Men have often complimented her on her hourglass figure, which right now is a little bit more like five-hours-of-figure. But anyway, she has some stuff you can hang on to. Okay, gross alert, there are moon pies and chocolate malt shakes. Zetty is leaving treats for Hansel and Gretel. I'm like, "Whoa, we are not.... we are not making it." There has been a lift off and an explosion that is definitely off schedule. And who is about to get this overtime because I'm not working today. The toilet must of moved. It took two years for us to get to that toilet. I'm like, "Did the toilet join animation and CGI or something? Did it get legs?" If that frickin toilet had stayed where it was supposed to? We would of made it.

INTRO - J Smiles:  9:53  
It was so obvious that it was carwash time. I mean, undercarriage. I mean, outdoor holes. I mean, where are the building window washers with the harness and the scalpel? I need a team of cleanup people. "Hi, Zetty, welcome to salon D. Smiles." Y'all, I gave Zetty a spa day that neither of us had planned for. Steam shower, massaging her back, her feet. Now she did almost kick me, it wasn't her fault. I should have told her that I was going in between the pinky toe and the toe beside to pinkey toe. You know, you can't just run up on a woman in between a pinky toe and little toe. You can't.. that was.. I was out of line. I was out of line for that but almost took one in the chin. Which would of been very difficult to explain to anybody. Like, "How you get kicked in the chin, J?" You know, it sounds like I was having rough sex and then.. okay, anyway, too much. Massaged her calf muscles, shampooed her hair, deep conditioner. I went in. "We're gonna do this, then 10 toes down. Alright, Momma?" I created a playlist on our streaming service for Zetty's favorite music. It's about an hour and 45 minutes long. I had that blasting in the bathroom. Have you ever been to a spa when they curated your preferred audio pleasure? Okay. Alright. Hello, holla if you hear me. I let Zetty hold the handheld part of the shower. So she's just spraying her shoulders, her torso, my pants every so often. I kept her locked in by giving her something to do and allowing her to sing along. By the end, we were both wet, but only Zetty was clean. 

INTRO - J Smiles:  13:02  
It's four hours since we started the trek from the bed after breakfast. Zetty's clean, I'm bending over picking up 17 towels. Some from the floor, some from the bench, some from thrown into the bathtub that did not get used, but has become the safest place for wet, dirty things. Three trash bags securing never to be seen again unmentionables. A back aching like I've been building a railroad from Atlanta to Athens, Greece. Yeah, across the Atlantic Ocean. Do you know how hard you'd have to work to build a railroad across an ocean? That's how my back felt. Sweat dripping off my nose. Dink... dink... onto the floor. Mind flooded with ideas. Damn this day has not at all gone according to plan. I'm not going to get to do anything. I mean, I planned to do nothing. This is not the kind of nothing celebration I meant. Who can I call? Hell, it's almost lunchtime now. It's time to prepare the next meal. I can't tell nobody this. It's Christmas. Who the hell wants to hear this? Nobody's even gonna believe this story if I tell them. But do I want to? Is it too heavy? Is it not fun? Is it unfair? But shit, why do I have to cover this, and do it, and hold it by myself? 

INTRO - J Smiles:  15:29  
It's as if the Alzheimer's angels heard me. These thoughts are permeating my brain. Zetty's fluttering about the bathroom. Next song on the Zetty playlists. Dun dun dun dun, dun, dun, dun. I'm not musical at all. But it's Gladys Knight and the Pips, "You're the best thing" in parentheses, that ever happened to me. Now backstory; that is Zetty's song to me. She told me that from the time I was about 7, 8, 9, something before 10. It's our song. When she ended her marriage to my biological father, Zetty has always contended that that song got her through the hardship of being a young mother, at a time when being divorced, was really, really frowned upon in the United States. Being a divorced Catholic woman was a no no. I mean, it's still not great, but it was, whew! Un un. And then to have a child. What in the whole heavens begeavens. The song, especially the hook, was what Zetty told me to concentrate on as a youngster: "If anyone should ever write my life story, for whatever reason there might be, you'd be there between each line of pain and glory, because you're the best thing that ever happened to me." My momma told me my entire life, that I was her reason for pushing through the tough times. And her reason for trying to excel and fortify herself professionally, financially, spiritually, in order to take care of me and protect me, fill in the blanks of all the good mushy stuff that Hollywood would think, "Oh, yeah, let's make a movie about that." That song comes on, and then Zetty' voice is audible and strong, vocally superior. I turn around, my mom is using the sides of her thighs as if they are a clapping stick or a metronome or something to keep time with Gladys Knight. I said, "Look at Zetty being a Pipette". I slammed the contents of my arms down on the floor. I go to hug my mom. She commences to swaying and singing. Without hesitation, we are slow dragging. And Zetty is the lead. She takes my hand, one arm is now outstretched, and she is patting my shoulder. I said, "Zetty, you better be keeping time, girl." I don't know if she was on the two seven beat or the one three but it felt good to me. I counted at least 6, 7, 12 circles, okay. Probably at least 4 or 5 circles as we were slow dragging. That's what Zetty used to call it during the song. I didn't sing, I let her sing. I didn't ask her any questions. I absorbed the moment.

INTRO - J Smiles:  20:02  
When Gladys and Zetty ended their duet. My momma locked pupils with me. "Yes, yes. Yes, J.G, you are." And scene. People, y'all, Zetty clicked in. She was so clicked in in that moment, she said, "Yes, you are the best thing that's ever happened to me." Enraptured by the moment, holding on to it as best I could, I ain't want to mention Christmas or nothing sappy about the holiday season. Inside, I said, "Merry Christmas, Ma." For the record, Christmas was Zetty's favorite everything. That exchange for J.G and Zetty was initiated by booboogate. Shout out to Watergate that started in the 70s with Richard Nixon in the United States; cheating and doing criminal things during the presidential election. And then it went to the alleged cheating of the New England Patriots. And Spygate with the football, and then it's become kind of a joke with all the gates. So that's why I called it the booboogate. Or booboo bomb. Everybody knows what a bomb is. When you dropping something on somebody or something that doesn't want to receive what you dropping. This forced pressure washing experience, yielded Zetty initiating a slow dance with me. Tenderly expressing the first song she ever told me was ours. Thank you, Universe, for ruining my plans. This is the best Christmas Day moment I've had since Zetty was diagnosed with this sucky disease. The resounding drumroll in my head, "Let your plans go, J. Who's to say your plan is better any freaking way? As a matter of fact, Chick, why don't you let more go and let it go quicker?" Who saw the movie Frozen? Where are my Disney fans? "Let it go. Let it go."

THE SNUGGLE UP:  23:41  
The Snuggle Up. Number one. The definition of plan is: proposal or achieving a task. Ha. The plan doesn't even have a lot of faith in itself. From the beginning, plan is like, "Auh, I mean, I might have happened. I might show up to work. I might not. Maybe. Let's see, who all over there?" What's your point, J. Smiles? As caregivers of LOs, of course, create some framework. But don't be so married or wed to the plan that you forget: it's a proposal, it's a suggestion, it's a target, it's a hope. Think about it. The proposal comes before the wedding. How many people you know they had a proposal and did not ever get married? Chill. Number two. Let's say your plan is to bake a pie, and it doesn't happen. Parenting up family, it has already not occurred. The extra energy of being pissed off, devastated, and whining and crying about it to yourself or a bunch of other people is energy that will keep you upset. Go ahead and make another plan, proposal suggestion, target, of making the pie. If you still want the pie, plan when you're going to do it, or hell, ask someone else to bake the pie, go buy a pie. Number three. You make your LO's life spin. Congratulations. Snuggle up to that. Think about how great you are that a portion of your purpose in this moment of your life, in this moment of humanity, you are pouring so much goodness into the world and to the energy of the atmosphere, that you are keeping and sustaining the entire individual universe over an adult. You badass.

OUTRO:  27:01  
 That's it for now. Thank you for listening. Please subscribe for continuous caregiving tips, tricks, trends and truth. Pretty pretty please with sugar on top share and review it too. I'm a comedian. Alzheimer's is heavy, but we ain't gotta be.