Rolling with Resistance - caregiver Omar Hamilton

Omar: 0:00

Can you talk about the sundowning and everything, everything was just worse.

J Smiles: 0:04

Okay Like, he'll be in front of you and just have like a crazy moment and start sweating. It was nuts. An example I'll give with that is that once I was there came to Florida. Happy to see him whatever I'm sitting down. He was a little disheveled. But I'm like, I'm here. So whatever, I can handle whatever. And kept hearing him talk to himself. Like, Oh, y'all think I'm playing? My man came in the kitchen, came back with a knife brought it over to me. Whoa

Omar: 0:28

Ready to chokes me up. Like y'all think I'm playing, I jump up and I'm like whoa. I'm like let me tell a story and I was like yo dad, I like calm down and he was just out of it. Like he didn't know anything. So I walked out the house, close the door, lock the door, stood outside for a second call the home attendant because I was like, I'm gonna watch him. I'm gonna chill, you know? And then like, 15,20 minutes later, we open the door. He comes out. He looks at me calm. It was like you see that guy right there. That's the nicest guy ever, pointing to me.

J Smiles: 1:01

Parenting Up- caregiving adventures with comedian J Smiles, is the intense journey of unexpectedly being fully responsible for the well being of my mama. 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.

Zetty: 1:32

Hi this is Zetty. I hope you enjoy my daughter's podcast. Is that okay?

J Smiles: 1:45

Today's episode rolling with resistance. a chat with Omar Hamilton. I cannot believe this. Is it really true. Is it really true? Do I have Omar, the big O Hamilton on the Parenting Up podcast

Omar: 2:05

In the building

J Smiles: 2:07

Ah, I love it. Thank you so much for joining us. This is going to be a special one family. This is going to be a very special one. So I'm gonna be honest, y'all know we keep it real here. Omar and I met at the Mecca, Howard University.

Omar: 2:23

H.U.

J Smiles: 2:23

You know! Omar and I met over our love of hip hop. I mean, if you know anything about Howard University, then that's it. I could tell all of you, you're welcome.

Omar: 2:34

The cultural initiative

J Smiles: 2:35

Absolutely. You're from New York

Omar: 2:37

Bronx, New York, born and bred.

J Smiles: 2:40

Right, but your roots are.

Omar: 2:42

My family is from Jamaica, West Indies. I'm actually the only one in my immediate family born in the States. Everyone else is born in Kingston, Jamaica.

J Smiles: 2:51

I love it. And that flavor comes through with you and your entire family. I think that helps you keep it real when you're talking to us. We're glad to share today about your dad.

Omar: 3:03

Yes.

J Smiles: 3:04

And I think that this is super specia because so often when we're talking about caregivers, the story is about not a guy is usually a woman. Yep. Whether the loved one is a mom or dad or uncle or Auntie whatever. Typically, the caregiver is a sister and now we got you. And so that's going to make your story that much more powerful. I happen to know quite a few men who are caregivers. But by in large in the marketplace, I think you guys make up like less than 20% of what has been charted and followed. So

Omar: 3:41

that's interesting. I actually had a friend that was like, I need to have a daughter so somebody could take care of me when I'm older, that's hilarious.

J Smiles: 3:48

Let's talk about your father, how you came to realize that something was happening that made you have to get involved. So that's where I want to start. But all my listeners know I like to take it back and forth storytelling excites me. I'm not real big on a linear life or a linear story. Hell, I didn't really I haven't led a linear life so why would I tell a linear story? So but let's start with your dad was living in New York. He was living independent So my dad was out here. He wasn't living too far from me in the Bronx, New York and my dad is a man's man and he was you consider him the patriarch of the family. You know, when he walks into the room everyone is like hey, and smiling and you know, the men tdp him up and the women you know want to be with him. He's charmingthem you know, that's that throughout the years, so he retired and he owned a nice home and Hold on pause, Is that is that where you get it from? Ladies I have to tell you, I have to tell you ladies there have been quite a few who've been trying to make, who've been trying to get caught by Omar. Anyway, moving on this is the caregiving, this is about caregiving.

Omar: 4:52

My dad is a lot more charming than I am.

J Smiles: 4:55

That's scary though. nThat's scary.

Omar: 4:56

It is it actually is you know.

J Smiles: 4:58

Okay.

Omar: 4:58

So you know, I Just I would get live close to me. So I'd always stop by we always talking or whatever the case is like, we're really close, you know, then I just noticed him slowing down a little bit. So I said, You know what, let me have on top of me stopping by and let me make sure I have weekly dinners for him. So Sunday dinners was locked in here not like I come up by Sunday, he was always an amazing cook. So I would stop by the house, but when I would stop by, he would always keep me in a certain section. And the first warning sign is that he had an investment home, but the investment home, no one was living in.

J Smiles: 5:32

Okay

Omar: 5:33

So there is a basement, first floor, second floor, third floor, and he was staying in the basement, so there were three floorshe could have rented out and he should have been really raking stuff in it's not like oh, whatever. And I would come there. And at first he would keep me kind of like upstairs, you know, and in one of the empty apartments. So we'd sit have dinner and bring up the food, what have you. And yeah, so he would keep me in a certain part of the house. So I just kept asking him because I know he said he wanted to move to Florida. So I'm like, what's up with Florida? He like yeah, I want to go and I like he's dragging his feet. So I said, I will do the legwork. Because my mom and stepdad are already down there. My aunt, his sister have a bunch of aunts. You know, like I said, so many Auntie's, like Kanye said we could have an Auntie team. It would, it would. It's a better support system down there. You know, so I'm like, I'm gonna get him to Florida. So I said, Dad, how much you owe on this house?He was like, Oh,

J Smiles: 6:24

So pause one second, your dad on his own. was talking about moving to Florida?

Omar: 6:30

Yeah.

J Smiles: 6:30

So this is prior to any signs? Well

Omar: 6:33

Exactly

J Smiles: 6:34

At least, you weren't aware of any decline it's just hey, I'm getting older, I want to move down to Florida with my relatives it's warmer, life is easier. Why not? Got it?

Omar: 6:48

You know, so I was like, all right. I was like, give me all your paperwork. I like how much do you owe in this house. And he was like, Oh, just like the paper said 30 something thousand. I was like oh, dad about to kick off this house worth something, we sell it.

J Smiles: 7:01

I know that's right, party

Omar: 7:02

Trave and I was like, oh, man, pops is going to live good. Then I came into the house the next week. And that was like how much he bought this house again, just random at that time. I forgot. He was like the paper said 300,000s omething. I was like, hold up. We went from 30,000 to 300,000. I was like, we added some zeros.

J Smiles: 7:19

That's the wrong direction, dad. That's the wrong

Omar: 7:21

Wrong direction. I was like, here's the thing. I'm direction coming here next week. I want all your paperwork, have it all laid out for me when we have dinner next week. Next week, I came I took the paperwork. It was 300,000. I brought it to my attorney. Also we looked it over and my heart, my heart just shattered. Because I realized something was wrong. You know, I was like, he went from that to that. And he took out a reverse mortgage for no reason. And you know that people call and they prey on the elderly.

J Smiles: 7:52

Yes

Omar: 7:52

Carry on seniors and they don't understand what's going on. So someone called him and sold him something he didn't understand. So he took out a reverse mortgage and was still paying the mortgage. You know, so when I found out that

J Smiles: 8:04

Oh my goodneess.

Omar: 8:05

Yeah. So when I found out all of that my heart just dropped. I probably broke down and I was like, something is absolutely wrong. And I need to dig deeper. And I dug deeper on like stocks and stuff he was, his habits around the house and what he was doing and who was trying to fix what. People saw something was wrong with him and they were manipulating him. Every everything from neighbors, fake fix it people, and I just regulate I came in

J Smiles: 8:37

Hold on pause, I'm sorry. J Smiles likes that fake fix it people. Yeah. Let me tell you contractors are some of the worst people in this world. Shout out to all those good ones. But man, listen, you know, that's we could do a whole podcast on contractors, Right, fake fix it people

Unknown: 8:53

Yeah, I chased one in front of my building. He was about to get it. That's a whole nother. But yes, I came in and regulated

J Smiles: 9:00

Pause one second Omar, were you the only I shouldn't say only but were you the primary person in New York at the time that your father could have turned to or could have been?

Unknown: 9:11

We just had that relationship.

J Smiles: 9:12

Okay.

Unknown: 9:13

You know, my dad, you knew with me, you know, he wouldn't audit three words without talking about his son that went to Howard University and this and that they go he don't even call me Omar, call me Big O. That always call me that? You know, okay. nabba on and but people weren't close enough to know I have a brother in Jamaica. I have a half sister in queens, but I'm that dude with him. Like That was our relationship. You know, so, I just kicked down the door on everything. You know, I just came in, like, you know, came in the door. I said it before. So, you know, look through all his finances, checked him out physically doctors, so forth. And I was like, I gotta get him out of here. I just realized that the first thing and then what crushed me was , there was a random story, he walked to the store one day and somebody snatched his chain. I was like, Oh, hell, no dad has get out of New York.

J Smiles: 10:01

So you heard that, did he tell you that?

Omar: 10:03

He told me the story then a friend of his said he told him it. But he thing is he had two chains that he would always wear all the time. And the main chain was gone. So it did happen. You know, he was like, he was walking on area called like 233rd in the Bronx, and somebody saw the chain, snatched it and ran. And I was like, Nah, I like that's it.

J Smiles: 10:24

So all of this is happening, you're getting this information, around the same time of the bogus reverse mortgage, because for anyone who's listening, if you have a senior family member, who you even think might still be lucid, if they are living alone, you need to go ahead and immediately get into their finances and understand, tell them about a reverse mortgage. I'm not going to tell you whether you should or should not do a reverse mortgage that is very personal. And it depends on what their bills are. But I will say this at a minimum, you should never the hell be paying your mortgage and do a reverse mortgage now that, yeah, that that's illegal. Okay. So talk to them about that. That's a lot to digest.

Omar: 11:14

And I'm getting all this information right away. And I had to like shut down my world for a second and figure it out. And the thing is, no one believed me at the time. I was like, your dad is kind of out of it. Everyone, you know, like I tell my mom and she's like, it can't be that bad. I'm telling my aunts, they're like, oh, it can't be that bad. Telling my brother in Jamaica. They like. You can't imagine it because of the person he was. Like, you can't imagine Superman reacting to kryptonite until you see it.

J Smiles: 11:42

And the people that you're talking to your mom, your brother, they they don't live in New York.

Omar: 11:47

Yeah, my brothers in Jamaica, Bahamas and Florida. My aunt, as she was saying, you know, she was in Florida at that time. Okay, she would come back and forth. You know, so no one saw it. I was the only one really here.

J Smiles: 12:00

So he was talking to them, though, I'm assuming was with you on the phone. So he sounded normal.

Omar: 12:05

Yeah sound nice and he's a charming Dude, you know

J Smiles: 12:07

Right. I could my mom was able to do that, too. We're thinking, when I'm trying to backtrack it and add things up with the surgeons and with the neurologist. We're thinking for a couple of years, she was likely pulling the wool over all of our eyes,

Omar: 12:26

Absolutely

J Smiles: 12:26

And able to fix it. Tell us just for a few seconds. Tell us a little bit about your dad. Prior to this. You said he was a man's man. But what did he do to sustain himself to support the family?

Omar: 12:39

So my dad had a very modest job and made the most of it. The biggest parking guard garage in New York City in Manhattan. He ran it.

J Smiles: 12:49

That's a lot though. That is very complicated. He was anybody who's been to New York.

Unknown: 12:53

Yeah, but no, no, here it here. He flipped it though. He's this amazing dad, because all of these high level executives from entertainment, big name lawyers, so forth, were parked there and they just loved him. And if they knew him, after every three words, he talked about his son. So when I was at Howard, every year, I had a fly internship. Like I worked with Howard Stern, at the time, I was at Viacom and I worked with the CEO is the guy named Frank Biondi, like, wow, this special program with him. I worked at like the Sony theatres accounting with the CEOs in their office, like what I do

J Smiles: 13:35

Like what I doknow is that you always were with the fly internships. I mean, the word the word on the yard was that Yeah, Omar is connected who knew how or whatever? I mean, now you did do well, it wasn't like you weren't flunking out. So no, you did your part.

Omar: 13:51

Dad was the biggest part of it. He's the reason I went to Howard because I had a cousin there. And every year I just had a really good job. Like, I'd come back for the summer and I would make a lot of money for an intern like I had paid internships. And at times like that was difficult. That was very difficult like Howard Stern, like howard stern to walk up to me at that time and his producers and they will know my name.

J Smiles: 14:14

So people are looking at you like Who the hell is this cat?

Omar: 14:17

Yeah. Shout out to Mel Karmazin if anyone knows who he is.

J Smiles: 14:20

Yes

Omar: 14:20

Like this

J Smiles: 14:21

Yeah, I do.

Omar: 14:22

Mel, I can say this now, Mel gave me the money to start my company when I went independent off the strength of my dad.

J Smiles: 14:29

That's crazy.

Omar: 14:30

He said never tell your dad this. Like Mel is cool. Mel is cool. Shout out to Terry his wife. Like they were just really good to me. Excellent, amazing people. It's not like they gave me mad money, but they did

J Smiles: 14:42

Doesn't matter, you look you didn't have to go to a bank. Yeah, that's my point.

Omar: 14:46

We're just good because I came in work for them. They have like you know what, you always keep me here focus. You never carried yourself crazy. We get all these crazy interns because of Howard and you're coming here and your poise. They were like what do you want to do? Right You know, he's like, what do you want to do? I will help you use my name for anything. What do you want to do?

J Smiles: 15:04

That's right. Right. Because Howard Stern, Howard Stern is the shot jack. But he's a businessman like this don't don't get it confused. That's a brand. That's a brand. He worked very hard to get that brand. He's not, but he's not a clown when it comes to cashing those checks and keeping this business tight.

Omar: 15:20

I worked in radio traffic. And so I understood the money. I control, I worked with the people with the money coming in. Yeah, so I saw what money coming in. And we also did like a lot of the checks. So we'll know like, what checks they get. And we were like, Howard's the man.

J Smiles: 15:35

Right

Omar: 15:36

And he knows the funny thing is not to go into too much. But the funny thing about Howard is that you hear on the radio, so you'd be nervous that meet him. What a polite gentleman in person. Like in person

J Smiles: 15:45

Wow,okay.

Omar: 15:47

Polite just hey how you doing, things all right? Just cool, poise, mellow, chill, you know,

J Smiles: 15:53

The mellow and chill part, that is, that's exciting to know. But that also goes to show about a brand, right, you create a brand you created a niche, which may or may not fit your OFF AIR personality. Thank you for sharing that we're going to get back to that. But that does tell that does let the listener know I appreciate when the Parenting Up podcast family gets to understand the person who now has the disease. Right, so they get to understand how fast this disease takes over an individual who was independent, who was high functioning. Because like you said, your while your dad was the foreman of a very large parking garage in New York. The thing is, that's a lot of moving parts for a parking garage in New York. And for him to also have the wherewithal to approach these famous, powerful individuals who many people would be intimidated by but he's steady, constantly pushing his son. That's a lot of character

Omar: 17:00

Constantly, everyone knew me anytime I would stop by garages on Fifth Avenue

J Smiles: 17:04

Oh, wow. Okay. That's another level. That's another level of Fifth Avenue. Right?

Omar: 17:09

That's Yeah, that's the type of people that were there. But anytime I was stopped by anyone, he introduced me to knew who I was like

J Smiles: 17:17

Oh King Omar, the prince.

Omar: 17:19

Oh, yeah, exactly, the prince of Zumundo. Oh okay, they just knew everything

J Smiles: 17:34

Dad gave laughs right. Your other family members didn't see it and because of his stature, his personality for so many years about how old was he when you started to notice this?

Omar: 17:50

I have to go, I mean, do my math dad was his upper 60s.

J Smiles: 17:58

Okay, so that's still young.

Omar: 17:59

Wait, wait, I'm doing the math on it now. 70 something seven? Yeah, about 70.

J Smiles: 18:05

In today's world 70. He's independent living along. That's still so they are thinking okay, Omar is being dramatic.

Omar: 18:14

Yep.

J Smiles: 18:15

Overreacting. Y'all know how he feels about his dad. Somebody gave him a cocktail. Tell him to sit down.

Omar: 18:21

Yeah, yeah. And it was crazy as my mom thought it my mom is a nurse. She's a retired nurse. She's been a nurse for like 30 years and not have anyone to believe me. I thought she did and the funny thing is, I didn't know she didn't believe me until a few years ago cuz my brother said it to me. He's like, you know, mommy ain't believe you. She used to come to me all the time like Omar exaggerating. Im like word, not ma

J Smiles: 18:46

You're like I'm baby boy. Are you kidding?

Omar: 18:49

But I'm not an Exaggerator. Like, I play stuff down. anyone that knows me know that. If I accomplished something. I was like, it was cool. They like you crazy that's so and so I don't, and I'm West Indian, we exaggerate about everything. You know, so I was just like, Look, it's bad. It's that bad. And no one was hearing me until I went deep into it. And I started like taking pictures. I started document and everything. So the backtrack with is home he always kept me upstairs. So I'm like, I need to start going downstairs because he said he's living in the basement. So I'd go down in the basement, and that's where you could not deny anything because the basement was a wreck. I'm talking about messed up couches, water damage, water damage all over the place. And when you go to his bedroom and you open it up, the smell of mold just knocked you over.

J Smiles: 19:37

Really?

Omar: 19:38

The place was it was neat. The bedroom was neat and organized, but the smell of mold friend of water damage. You couldn't even stand in there 30 seconds and he was living in there sleeping in there every night. And that's when I was like No, no, no, no, no, no. And I don't you know, they keep finding out things and studies of Alzheimer's but in dementia that has to be that had to be connected to his situation.

J Smiles: 20:05

Right

Omar: 20:05

someway somehow, you know.

J Smiles: 20:07

Right, at least to exacerbate it or to speed it up or something.

Omar: 20:12

And my heart just broke again. I was like, all this all makes sense now, you know, so got him out of there, got him upstairs got out.

J Smiles: 20:21

Was that a fight to get him to move from the basement just to have desk because that's still his house, right?

Omar: 20:27

Yeah, yeah, he fought me. Absolutely. Because you know, that resistance stage like, I'm still the Son, you know, so yeah, he respects me. I'm not supposed to know any better. But I know how to charm dad. Man, you work so hard and you look good. And some ladies want to come see you and whatever, whatever. Like all that stuff. You know, like, I know how to talk to my dad.

J Smiles: 20:48

So that's the angle. Okay, so listeners

Omar: 20:50

That was angle, that was hot.

J Smiles: 20:51

But I appreciate you sharing that kind of thing because especially for caregivers who are newer to the grind, or for some of us who just need to be reminded that

Omar: 21:00

He is like you right, you right, so I smoothed him over. I your loved one is they that same individual right there, their cognitive decline might be on having their daily conversations unravel. But they're sole in their spirit, there the same so your dad, he's that smooth, dude. So you hit him with the Hey, pops, what if some ladies want to come over? He's like hey hey hey we moving upstairs. got a real good broker that he was this really patient, older gentleman. And he was the I feel like he was a godsend because he was the perfect person for that scenario. So not only did he help me sell the home, he helped me fix it up. And he was patient with both of us. And I say both of us because I was going through something helping my dad in that scenario. Even though you heard about Alzheimer's/dementia, it was still kind of foreign to me. I just know that I need to get dad out of there. You know, cuz I'm like New York is like a jungle, it's not for the young, it's not for the old.

J Smiles: 22:04

Right

Omar: 22:05

So I was like I need to get him out of here. And he saw that, and he even picked up on it. He's like, Hey, man, you know, your dad is definitely demented. You need to know that. And it's good that you're moving him. And this is how I'll help you. So he had people coming in there cleaning stuff, fixing up the place, making it presentable.

J Smiles: 22:22

Wow

Omar: 22:23

He would talk to my dad good, drive him to get something to eat, come back. And you're not going to find somebody with that compassion

J Smiles: 22:31

In New York

Omar: 22:32

In New York, in the jungle, you know

J Smiles: 22:36

How did you locate this agent? Is this someone who you've worked with before?

Omar: 22:42

No, I've never actually worked with him before. And God is good, because I actually met him through someone that is not the kindness of people.

J Smiles: 22:51

Okay, well, that's how you know

Omar: 22:52

Somtimes, that's their purpose. Sometimes, you know, so you can meet so so and so. So I met that person a while ago and

J Smiles: 22:57

I love it. I was like, they made us reach out to him, just as he was God is good.

Omar: 23:04

It worked out the way it was supposed to. But I feel like it wouldn't have worked out without him.

J Smiles: 23:10

So one thing that was kind of on your side is that dad already wanted to go to Florida and that he had so many relatives there.

Omar: 23:16

Yeah.

J Smiles: 23:17

Tell us about actually getting him out of New York and to Florida like packing up his stuff.

Omar: 23:24

Yeah.

J Smiles: 23:24

Did y'all fly? Did y'all drive? Did you have to make up a story? Hey, hey, Dad, I got three girlfriends down there waiting on you.

Omar: 23:32

It was a process because after a while, you know people come in and out the house and you like your privacy, so they resist you on that stuff a little bit. Also, you know, so again, it was great between me and the agent Howard. We was just there to like smooth out everything to make him comfortable. The hard part was throwing out stuff that was basically like decrep it and I said it last time he was I the water damage was bad. And when you went into like his closet, it was worse. So he had clothes that was just you couldn't even give it away. I had to throw out tons of stuff but everything I threw out I had to buy back. And the example I talked about before you speak again, is that shoes, he has sneakers and shoes. Let's just say I threw out four pairs of sneakers and I'm the one that bought them and some shoes let's say three pairs of shoes. Like they would just dryrot like it was terrible. But everything I bought everything I threw out I bought back

J Smiles: 24:28

You're like dad I'm gonna get another pair

Omar: 24:30

And I bought them back like I bought them some buttons some fresh Nike's. Here man you got like now the lady's gonna love you. What happened to my other stuff? He like I had nine pairs of shoes, eight pairs of sneakers and you throw them out. And the next time you talk to him 12 pairs of sneakers and I like man, you can't even win right now. And I was like look, I was like dad and I was like look at your feet. Look at these nice brand new sneakers you have on but what about my good stuff before I'm like lawd that's how you know

J Smiles: 25:02

You like even like first of all, it wasn't good stuff.

Omar: 25:05

It wasn't you couldn't even wear it. Like it

J Smiles: 25:06

No matter what old stuff ain't better than new stuff, not no shoes.

Omar: 25:11

Like I felt guilty throwing it the garbage because I was like, dang, the garbage don't even deserve this. You know, like it was, it was they were in terrible condition,

J Smiles: 25:21

Right

Omar: 25:21

I mean, me and the guy, we even looked at stuff we'd like we can't give this away. We can't do Salvation Army. You know, it just has to go.

J Smiles: 25:29

That's another, you know, paper cut on your hand on another knife sliced in your heart for you to say, Wow, dad really thinks that that pair of sneakers was worth saving or keeping?

Omar: 25:44

Yeah, yeah. And that said, you just keep realizing like, It's worse than I thought it's definitely

J Smiles: 25:48

It's worse than I thought, right

Omar: 25:50

This is we have to do, you know. So through that process, we fix up the house, we had some buyers that we were comfortable with. We were patient with them also. We close we work on what time how long, he has to get out. And the transition was divine because my aunt lived in Connecticut, which was about 45 minutes or hour away. And she was about to go down to Florida for good. What happened was we just sent him to Connecticut for like a week. And when they moved, he just went with them. And I was like, it couldn't have been , it could not have been a smoother transition.

J Smiles: 26:27

Right. He's just packing up with his sister. He's just like, Oh, we are leaving. And just everybody just going.

Omar: 26:32

Myaunt and my uncle, they were going he went up there with them. Like he's close to them. He's comfortable with them.

J Smiles: 26:37

Right

Omar: 26:38

Stayed there, you know, and I have another cusion I have tons of cousins up there. So it was just great. So he just stayed there and it was time to go. And when they got to Florida, he stayed he stayed with them for a while.

J Smiles: 26:50

Okay

Omar: 26:50

Until you know, and they looked at houses until we found a perfect property. And the property we found for him was perfect because the supermarket was right up the street. The pharmacy that I use is right down the other end. And it was a senior community, walk around omfortably. Very body looks out or everyone.

J Smiles: 27:11

Okay, let's pause before we get there. I want to ask you while y'all were still in New York, did you have any test run, any diagnosis? As you were preparing the house? You okay? You know, I'm getting dad out of here. We going to Florida. Whether it, was there any medical treatment? I didn't set him up with doctors until he got to Florida. Okay.

Omar: 27:32

You know, when New York it was focused on getting him out of there

J Smiles: 27:36

We just got to get out of here.

Omar: 27:37

And anyone he had before I felt like was manipulating him. He even talked about a lawyer he had and I was like what the hell you have going on that you paying some lawyer and I saw some receipts but I'm like, somebody who's just taking your money. So I just I just didn't trust anything.

J Smiles: 27:51

Right.

Omar: 27:51

I was like you know what

J Smiles: 27:52

You circle the wagons we getting out of here.

Omar: 27:54

I'm like that's it you got to get out of here. You know, so once he got down there, we got the home. We got him doctors and the great thing about Florida, it's like Florida and California are best for like seniors as far as like health care, you know, so even where he lives, all his doctors are within like 10-15 minutes vicinity.

J Smiles: 28:13

Awesome.

Omar: 28:13

It was great. He knows.

J Smiles: 28:14

Thats fantastic

Omar: 28:15

Yes, I had some good references. I spoke to certain offices. And luckily the ones that I chose, are the ones that we stick to even till today

J Smiles: 28:25

That's hot. Now to

Omar: 28:28

You know that

J Smiles: 28:28

I'm saying that's , I mean you know, that's like actually marrying your, you know, Junior High crush. That I mean who the hell does that anymore? So you, you get him down to Florida. He's staying with your aunt for a while until you found the home. Is he still in that senior community?

Omar: 28:48

Yeah, he's still there.

J Smiles: 28:50

Alright, so talk us through a little bit. In this transition, though. How are you the son, the primary caregiver how are you feeling? You get that down to Florida, but before he settled, what's happening in your mind and in your heart? You've sold the house or you are in the process of selling it. You've stopped your whole life. Are you married? Do you have kids?

Omar: 29:13

Man, I don't even have a goldfish named Arnold.

J Smiles: 29:22

So, but you stop your life, but you do have a company?

Omar: 29:25

Yeah, yeah, I froze stuff. I mean, at one point, I had to stop and get my bearings because it affected everything and it's your dad and I was ignorant. Like I just didn't know that much about dementia and Alzheimer's. So I'm a deer in the headlights trying to figure it out and see what's best for him. So I stopped stuff for a second of course, eventually, you know, I gotta make my coin so I kept working, but it was like two jobs as you know.

J Smiles: 29:48

Yes

Omar: 29:49

You know, I had my job that I run my company. Then I had my job of running dad's life,

J Smiles: 29:55

Correct. That's exactly what it is.

Omar: 29:58

It's exactly what it is.

J Smiles: 29:59

Yes, that's exactly what it is. What were you doing to keep yourself like waking up and day and staying at it in this interim doing that the heat of the transition? Can you recall? Were you just on autopilot? Were you like, what you eat a lot of fries? Will you drink a lot of tequila? Like what?

Omar: 30:17

You know, I was just trying to figure it out, like I played this situation really close. And I had to get educated on what was going on. You know, something I advise anyone that's going through this, you have to know what the disease is. And you have to learn about the progression. Also.

J Smiles: 30:36

How did you do that? Was a Google where you talking to individuals,?

Omar: 30:40

I read, but most of my education came from experienced folks. So one of my best female best friends outside of Quita Pansy is my friend, Michelle, and she's a doctor, she wants to do the same exact thing where her dad, so she let me know what she went through. And she talked to me about the phases. So everything I was going through, she always told me what's next. She's like, alright, Omar, and this is going to happen next. And you're going to have to do this because this is going to happen next,

J Smiles: 31:09

Right

Omar: 31:09

Make sure this is next and save money, because it comes to the point where it's going to be very expensive

J Smiles: 31:14

Right

Omar: 31:14

You know, like, she would just run down everything. And I was like, okay, and that helped me a lot. So between the conversation with her and I have a cousin ev that went to Howard and he's the reason I went to Howard, he's a practitioner, and he deals with those patients all the time. And he and my dad were really close. So that was the combo that probably brought me to tears, though, because I got really delved into it, like

J Smiles: 31:37

Okay

Omar: 31:37

You you, you can talk about the disease, but when you talk about it, in in regards to a person, you know, and what's going to happen to them, it's it hits you totally different.

J Smiles: 31:48

Right. You said he's a nurse practitioner?

Omar: 31:50

In Connecticut

J Smiles: 31:52

Right. So you were learning as much as you could about not only the disease, but what life would look like for you as his primary caregiver.

Omar: 32:01

Absolutely

J Smiles: 32:02

Because it hits you like a block, but then you were like, okay, shit, I got to start. How do I get prepared? So I won't get the rug snatched from under me every third Tuesday.

Omar: 32:13

Yeah, absolutely. And something caregivers have to realize is that you always have to prepare yourself. It's not like I worked on stuff back then and I'm good now. Like, you constantly have to update stuff. An example I'll give is that, on of the HU homies a homie, Dr. Drake, you know, from Howard. She goes through something similar where they care her parents and one day she jogged online, and she posted and she was like, one thing about a caregiver, you got to realize that you have to take care of yourself too.

J Smiles: 32:43

Correct

Omar: 32:44

I was like, wow, I had to dm her. I was like, yo drake like you right, like, real talk, you know, and that's something maybe a year or two ago, you know, but that really said it, you know. It's like, holds, I quote Jay Z all the time, you can't help the poor if you want to them, you know, so you have to take care of yourself, but you can't help anyone. And that was real when she did that I can't hit home. Like I'm looking at my phone and my feelings like oh snap

J Smiles: 33:12

what do you do? That's a nice segue, what do you do to care for yourself, like right now? Not back then,

Omar: 33:18

You know, again, to me, in regards to that, to know what it is to prepare yourself for the future, for the present in the future, know what it is, and have I had to get make sure I got my me time and take better care of myself. And I felt like I always did take care of myself, like always work out and so forth. But next level, you know, like, make sure your cardiovascular is right, your mind and meditate and so forth, do all of these things that make sure that you could function to the best of your ability. And especially with being a caregiver, you learn a lot about our medical system.

J Smiles: 33:52

Yep

Omar: 33:53

Healthcare System

J Smiles: 33:53

Yep.

Omar: 33:54

And you're like, Oh, no, you know, they want to pump all of us full of drugs and have this on this things and make money off of us. So I think I stepped up and I adjusted like, my diet. I adjusted my workouts like, I'm definitely healthier now than than I was then. And I was never a slacker, I just educated myself on me on like the body and the human body and like what it needs better. Like if you took a picture of me now and let's say 2015 and 12 like I look trimmer, my face and so forth, my skin you know, so

J Smiles: 34:28

Absolutely

Omar: 34:29

I did that. I stepped it up when I stepped it up another level in regards to health. I posted a video today of me jump roping i was i was in jump roping in 2012.

J Smiles: 34:42

You like hell nah, ain't no way. No way. Oh wait, oh 8-10 years ago, you would not jump roping.

Omar: 34:48

I was not jump roping. Yeah, shout out to be more to if he listens to this because he helped me with that a lot.

J Smiles: 34:55

So now we're in Florida, dad's in Florida and you're selecting the senior community. How did you decide which senior community because I know you have family there. But obviously you live in New York and you're controlling this ship.

Omar: 35:08

Yeah

J Smiles: 35:09

That family didn't even believe your dad needed their thing. So how did you decide?

Omar: 35:13

Now they started to believe it down there stay with my aunt, my aunt is very much involved, you know. So she's there, he stayed with her. And physically when he had to go to places she was there also. Now, another blessing that I had is that the illustrious university that you and I went to Howard University, my friend, Renee is down there, and she's a real estate agent. So I got a homie helping me out. And she handled it with extra care, like she cared. She got to know my dad, she knew what was going on. She's tight with my cousin Ev also

J Smiles: 35:45

That's love.

Omar: 35:45

And she just,

J Smiles: 35:47

That network

Omar: 35:48

She was just really on it.

J Smiles: 35:49

That bison network, she listened to the needs of your father. And I would like everybody who is a part of the Parenting Up Podcast family, no matter where you live in the world. Maybe you didn't go to Howard University, we'll have a moment of silence for you. But no matter honestly, no matter where you live in the world, no matter whether you went to college or not, this is the point, do not hire someone who's not listening to your needs. Whether it is a real estate agent, or a caregiver or an agency, or physician, when you choose to let your loved one become a patient of a physician, you just hired them just because you'd only pay $10 for the copay do recognize that your insurance company is paying is paying them that doctor works for you. If they're not listening to you, your needs, whatever you are concerned about, don't hang around them. So in this case, Omar, he is telling us the wonderful ways that his connections, the goodwill, how God touched his life through this journey with the connection with the Howard alum who was the real estate agent. But also the point is that real estate agent was listening to the time we get to know his dad and the knees, that Omar head, we can all find service providers like that. Whoever it is, whoever might be shaving your dad, right or cutting his hair, don't have a barber cutting your father's hair who has Alzheimer's or dementia, who's just gonna cut the hair,the way they want to, and not taking the time to say no, my dad, like the tape are tight on the sides just because he can't articulate that I'm telling you how to hell, he liked it. You know what I mean? So continue with that.

Omar: 37:37

Exactly. So I was fortunate. Find that type of scenario with someone that really cared, knew his situation, and other all of the places we looked at when we found a place that he's at now, She even said, it seems like price wise, this works great. He doesn't have to do much. It's like a villa.

J Smiles: 37:55

Nice

Omar: 37:56

The villa he moved in, so the community they take care of the outside, very affordable, nice, great neighborhood. And it was in close proximity to my aunt, you know

J Smiles: 38:06

Yeah, that's a win

Omar: 38:07

Five minutes away. So I'm like perfect, this is it. You know

J Smiles: 38:11

Yep

Omar: 38:12

Shout out to Renee and my aunt and then and you know, we all came together and worked that out. And the price points are perfect.

J Smiles: 38:20

So you've mentioned a couple times about your mom being involved. But your mom and dad aren't together?

Omar: 38:27

No my

J Smiles: 38:27

I find that fascinating. And I want to raise them up as well as a part of the glory of the extended American black family that we barely rarely hear about.

Omar: 38:40

So so the hilarious thing on that is that my mom is a really private person, and I get it from her. So she knew I was talking about her. She'd be like, Omar, why you talk my business up, you know

J Smiles: 38:53

You don't have to say her name, we not gonna go find her.

Omar: 38:55

Yeah, yeah, but um, yeah, she's not on these interwebs so we are good. You know she stayed in the background and you know, supporting me through it at the beginning and just watched and words of encouragement and do this and do that. And the example is when we had to furnish his place like she's the one that came with me and picked out everything and so forth and get this and get that and what have you. So she watched in the background, but as the disease progressed, he needed more help. And the example I give is that once he had a fridge that was there already, and I was like this fridge is dirty, so I made some other people come through and clean it. And when I checked it after I was like this ain't up to my standards, but I noticed that there was a leak or something with the fridge. Then I told my mom and stepdad because they're a combination of mom and stepdad.

J Smiles: 39:42

Right

Omar: 39:43

I left and when they came into the house, they got a cleaning crew clean the house sparkling clean, saw the fridge and when I came back, there was a brand new fridge.

J Smiles: 39:52

From your mom and stepdad

Omar: 39:54

From my mom and stepdad, yeah, just brand new fridge.T hey have done that multiple times with other things, but that's how they roll. Like, I get a lot of my ways from my mom, you know, and I've been fortunate because I have three parents- my mom, my dad and my stepdad, you know,

J Smiles: 40:11

And that's, that's a tight group. That's a tight group.

Omar: 40:13

And the funnier thing is that my dad didn't really like my stepdad. You know

J Smiles: 40:18

Well I mean thats

Omar: 40:19

Yeah, he got the girls he won. So dad wasn't mesisng with my stepdad. He would be like that bald head blah, blah, blah. He talked bad about him, and the first person online to do something for my dad was my stepdad like no lie. Like, he don't talk about it. And even with COVID right now, fast forward a bit, because how crazy Florida is, they won't let me come down and that's the only big problem I really have a COVID, but I get it. So they're like, Look, all the things that you used to do, we'll do it. So I'll call my stepdad right now he'll be like alright I'll go, I'll go there right now for you. I'll do this, I'll do that. What do you need, I'll bring over Pampers or whatever

J Smiles: 40:56

Wow

Omar: 40:56

They're just in depth, they're just heavily involved. And that's a bonus, because you don't expect that from like your mom and stepdad, but they are heavily involved. And with COVID, when COVID first hit, that's the family discussion we had to have. And they said that they're like, don't come down here. Everything that you do, we will try our best to do that and more. And they've, they've just been doing that.

J Smiles: 41:22

That wait I gotta look for you. I know your mom won't hear it. But (claps) that is those are the types of stories that have to be shared more and more and that is the purpose of this podcast. Because who knows, maybe someone will hear that story, they may be the step dad or the step mom who wanted to offer more, but felt a little awkward. And now hearing the story of your mom and stepdad that might give them the energy or the courage to say, Hey, you know what, I do want to do more? It's okay, we have a blended family. This is a modern world we live in. And let's be all hands on deck. So tell us a little bit about the situation that your dad lives in now, does he have caregivers coming in? Does he have 24/7 care?

Omar: 42:17

Yes. So he's in the same place, he has 24 hour care now, but then the degree disease wasn't as progressive as it is right now.

J Smiles: 42:27

Okay

Omar: 42:27

So at first, we didn't have caregivers, because again, I'll be honest, I was ignorant, like, you don't know anything, and you're still learning about the disease. So you don't know howbad the person is and so forth. So I kept learning piece by piece, like you're not going to learn everything overnight.

J Smiles: 42:42

Nope

Omar: 42:42

And when you and when you learn, learning it and digesting it is two different things.

J Smiles: 42:47

Hold on, I need you to say that two, three more times because buddy, you're not the only one. I don't know if any of us, I haven't heard of the caregiver who actually got a hit of the disease. Everybody I know, we're behind it, something happens that makes you recognize that their loved one is not quite themselves. And then you adjust to that one thing and then a new thing happens and then you adjust to that new thing. And you are constantly behind the eight ball. So you get him down to Florida and you get him in his senior community like bet now we're safe. And then you're like, oh shit, now we're not safe

Omar: 43:25

Yeah, we're not safe and you know, wandering off, and we just worrying about stuff, you know. And when he was in New York, he liked the tip people where he worked, he used to get big tips, he would mess around and give people like money, whatever the case is. And then I heard a potential story as somebody manipulating him there. And I was like, Oh, no, that's it. Like, I took control of all the accounts and everything. And then I was like, he needs care. But he wasn't comfortable with people in his space outside of me and my aunt, the person that we found originally, we had to start her literally like a hour here, a hour here, wow, progressively pick it up until he got comfortable with having that person there. And it got to the point like if she stepped away, he would ask. He's like, Where's the lady? You know

J Smiles: 44:13

Okay

Omar: 44:13

But itt took a lot to get there. You know, cuz after a while, he's like, all right, and he would want people to leave. He wouldn't want anyone there. You know

J Smiles: 44:22

Like why are you in my house?

Omar: 44:23

So that took it took while

J Smiles: 44:25

Was he driving when he got to Florida?

Omar: 44:27

Nah he wasn't driving. He was talking about getting a car and I was like, nope, nope, nope.

J Smiles: 44:32

In this senior community when from the beginning did they have the option or services for someone to come clean or for someone to stop by? Or was that all private where you had to schedule for caregivers to come in on your own?

Omar: 44:46

It was all private. And that's a problem I have with the community at least the one he's in I don't know how everyone operates. But In Florida, you have all of these elderly, senior

J Smiles: 44:53

Okay communities. So of course they have special needs. There's things they can't do an example I give like, even last week, we had to throw out something in bulk. So I call the office, the management office and I said, Look, I have some stuff that's in bulk in front of the house like how can I get rid of it? They are like yeah, the dumpster is a half mile. And I like Yo, you know, you you you manage in the senior community, right? They're like, yeah, how do you expect seniors I like I'm an able bodied dude, I can bench like 400 pounds. I can't carry that stuff to damn up half a mile up. Right

Omar: 45:29

How you expect them I like you know what you should be ashamed of yourselves.

J Smiles: 45:32

That's correct.

Omar: 45:33

Yeah, I just straight up I tell people that all the time when I'm dealing with them down there I like you're dealing with seniors and you have not adapted to the situation and you're handling like you're handling young

J Smiles: 45:43

And you shouldn't hold yourself out as a senior community if you're going to say get that bulk stuff up the hill the best way you can then you should not advertise as such. That's fraudulent.

Omar: 45:55

Yeah, absolutely.

J Smiles: 45:57

Well not fraudulent, that's misrepresentation.

Omar: 46:00

Yeah, so I go through that

J Smiles: 46:01

False advertisement

Omar: 46:01

Stuff all the time, but at one point, we had to get like cleaning crews to come in and do stuff

J Smiles: 46:06

That was all separate

Omar: 46:08

Yeah all separate, all separate because the management they they take care of the outside but the inside like is all you so the people I have not to take care of him that great.

J Smiles: 46:17

Okay

Omar: 46:18

They do laundry and all of that also so that works. But periodically, I still get somebody to come in and do like a vicious cleaning. But nowow the place is pretty clean like they maintain it really well.

J Smiles: 46:30

What kind of stuff happened that led you know, in different points that let you know, hey, we you I think you mentioned something like he started wandering.

Omar: 46:38

Yeah, he would wander once in a while, he got lost. So what I did was I had to trick dad. I got him like a bracelet, a gold bracelet with like his IDs, numbers and stuff. And he's registered.

J Smiles: 46:51

Hold on Omar, I gotta, I gotta tell you, dude, you got it. You got some of the best I tricked dad stories. Keep going.

Omar: 46:59

Yeah, so instead of putting like a dog tag on him or whatever, I got him a nice gold bracelet. And I got his name on it and some numbers on the back and it got ours and he's registered with the local prison. So if anything happens, like he's in the system, but I had to instead of putting that on him because you know in there he's still a man's man. So I like looked at I look what I got you for Father's Day. Like all this was nice, man. I was like t e lady's gonna love that man. Lo k at you, you're gonna be t e killer with the bracelet and a l that he'd rocket with with pri e with extra pride.

J Smiles: 47:32

Gotcha.

Omar: 47:33

You know, so I had to trick him into Yeah, you're registered in case you wonder and get lost. So what have you with some

J Smiles: 47:40

Has he wandered?

Omar: 47:41

He has wandered before and maybe one or two other times and the crazy thing is we figured out a system that works well, you know, and he still never moved that fast but maybe like silently like real just

J Smiles: 47:56

Okay

Omar: 47:56

Like you know, so I remember once the lady was there cleaning so she's washing stuff in the laundry and cleaning the bathroom. He got a two bedroom that clean in the back room. So we have a window in the front that has never been opened before. I don't know how but he opened up that window and escaped. And it only took a few minutes you know he just straight up escaped and like people

J Smiles: 48:19

Was the door locked or he just chose the window?

Omar: 48:21

The door was locked.

J Smiles: 48:22

Okay

Omar: 48:22

The door was locked. We locked it from the inside there's a special lock key you need to key to exit also.

J Smiles: 48:28

Okay, so he said you know what,I got to go

Omar: 48:30

I got to go and he just like vanished for a second and it's a whole big thing where the police get involved and they come. Once they had helicopters and it was just a hole and I was like he don't even move that fast where the hell he gonna go you know, but we find him somewhere but he has a route between his house and my aunt's house. And we figured that out so anytime something like that happened was like twice and he was found like in between that route like even though he was demented and progressng he always knew the other place that I need to go

J Smiles: 49:04

Right

Omar: 49:04

Is by sister

J Smiles: 49:05

He's just trying to go visit

Omar: 49:07

In his head somehow he gotta go

J Smiles: 49:08

He's like listen, the other person I was talking to is not in the room. I need some company. I'm going by my sister's

Omar: 49:15

Yeah, you know and sometime he would say oh I need to go home. I need to go home ,thinking like that's his home because he needs to stay there so the only two places he knows to stay is his house and there.

J Smiles: 49:27

Gotcha, does he talk about New York?

Omar: 49:29

He doesn't really talk about New York, not now, he gone before he used to talk about it but then he was happy he was down there but

J Smiles: 49:35

Okay

Omar: 49:36

The phase where they they're like really resistant, that was rough because they think that everybody's stealing stuff and he's like oh why did I leave New York, why I sold my

J Smiles: 49:46

Right house and mind you everything in Florida was just better for

Omar: 49:49

His resistance stage, that's the hardest stage that him. The weather, the house, ewer house ,newer everything ut oh man this and that, this an that, the resistance, people st aling my money. Oh, you steal ng too, oh are you on drugs. ike that really resistant stage I've gone through to date, because he's just pushing back on everything, like everything you're doing good for them, they are just pushing back on. Nah, I don't want to do that. Nah, why am I here? Where's my 16 shoes? Still, you know

J Smiles: 50:21

I'm so happy you're sharing that because for caregivers, and for people who are supporting caregivers, because I have a lot of listeners who actually aren't caregivers, yet. They have parents who are still healthy, but they've seen it happen to others, maybe their friends to people like J Smiles and Omar. And they're like, hey, let me just understand a little bit about how this thing works. Or maybe their spouse, or one of their best friends is going through it and they want to be more supportive friend. For them to even know and hear how much we are constantly having to fortify ourselves for the what you call the resistance it's serious.

Omar: 51:09

Yeah.

J Smiles: 51:09

And we laugh about it when we're recounting these stories, because we have to if we didn't laugh, I don't know if we could make it any long term right.

Omar: 51:17

Yeah. Yeah, like thank God for those moments that you could kind of joke about here and there. You know, those little funny things.

J Smiles: 51:24

You're talking about your dad getting out the window, and then their helicopters dude that's not that's, that's not funny in the moment. Were you in Florida when that happened orwere you in New York?

Omar: 51:33

I was never there when it happened.

J Smiles: 51:35

Right. So um, so you get a call.

Omar: 51:39

Imagine getting a call at midnight, and you're laying down and you're like, Yeah, what? Hello. And you hear all this commotion in the back and then somebody puts like a police captain on the phone, they're like we're gonna find your dad, Mr. Hamilton, don't worry. You're like what, it's the most helpless feeling ever. You know

J Smiles: 51:56

What you mean going to find him? I didn't even know he was lost.

Omar: 51:59

Yeah, like I can imagine as worse than being like gunpoint, like, it's just you feel helpless, like

J Smiles: 52:04

You're not even in the game. How long in those instances did it take for him to be located, a couple of hours?

Omar: 52:11

Never really long once they got on it. It never took lon, but every minute is nerve racking.

J Smiles: 52:18

Absolutely. Was he in good shape when they found him?

Omar: 52:21

Yeah. Okay. Like a lot of times where he just walked up to people and was like, I want to go home. And someone would be like, this is an older gentleman, and he's out and this is not making sense to them. They would be like stay here and they will call like the police or something. You know

J Smiles: 52:36

That's love, because that could have been handled differently.

Omar: 52:41

Absolutely. And the thing is walking out in somewhere else, or walking out in Florida is different because their regular streets are like highways.

J Smiles: 52:50

Correct. Yeah, they don't really have sidewalks.

Omar: 52:53

Yeah their regular streets are like highway. So every minute he's gone, It's a liability.

J Smiles: 52:59

This is correct. They don't have a lot of street lights.

Omar: 53:02

Nah its like they got it

J Smiles: 53:03

Correct

Omar: 53:04

But it's further down and the cars are zooming by and it's way more cars and the only saving grace sometimes is that it's really odd to see someone just regular walking on those type streets.

J Smiles: 53:16

Yes.

Omar: 53:17

Like I said, there's times when people have looked them like that looks odd and a caring person would like pull over fortunately, but unfortunately, there's other people. There's a lot of people down there going through similar.

J Smiles: 53:27

Right

Omar: 53:27

So someone like me would see that and pull over and like, excuse me, sir, you know,

J Smiles: 53:32

Correct

Omar: 53:33

I had an incident with somebody like that, like pulled over and went up to him. I was like, Are you okay, sir? You know

J Smiles: 53:39

Right. He said, I want to go home. Praise God, he was able to even articulate that. In that moment.

Omar: 53:44

He didn't know where home was, but that's the importance of

J Smiles: 53:46

But he could say that

Omar: 53:48

Of being registered. So once the police came his picture and everything is in a system and they're like, Okay, this is who he is. This is who we need to call this where he lives and routine. They got to take him to the hospital first to just check everything you know. And then you pick them up there.

J Smiles: 54:04

So tell us tell us. I can't I'm sitting here speechless. I don't even I really don't even know how to how to manage something like that. But now he has 24 seven care because he needs it. The disease has progressed to that point. How do you manage emotionally you have emotional ties to your dad, a business, you have a life, how do you manage so much remotely? You're in New York, he's in Florida because obviously as his needs have increased then there are more moving parts,

Omar: 54:37

They increase daily, so am I handling it? You know, cuz there's always something like I just got called with something earlier. It's just balanced and you could just try your best and you you have to try not to beat yourself up. Because as caregivers we always feel like even if we did a lot we always feel like we can do more.

J Smiles: 54:56

Correct.

Omar: 54:57

You know, and when I

J Smiles: 54:58

Say that, say that Omar

Omar: 55:01

We're like dag I should I did this but I could ofdid this this this this this

J Smiles: 55:05

Dude

Omar: 55:06

No, you did the best you can.

J Smiles: 55:08

I just went through that last night with myself.

Omar: 55:10

People had to embed that in me for the longest and I still go through it with my car early I was like, I'm about to break this COVID curse and go down to Florida and regulate just because. Alright, and I'm debating that right now actually in a fresh new situation, you know. So it's just balance and you just know what's important to you. And the crazy thing is, we spoke about this before people understand that not going through it. So you might even be dating and so forth or talked to a friend, but unless they've been through this and their caregiver, and not saying it has anything to do with their heart, they just don't get it. You know

J Smiles: 55:49

I agree

Omar: 55:50

For someone that's been through it like where we're here like me and you we here, we talk about this no limit, we'd be on here, it will be like the homecoming zoom. We be on here 9 hours.

J Smiles: 55:59

That's correct.

Omar: 56:00

Word up, word up

J Smiles: 56:02

Correct. There I agree with you completely. There's a indescribable intersection of emotional connectivity, lack of control over science, and tremendous desire to execute flawlessly that come together to create a freakin barnstorm in our souls because we're not trained for this. That's what I'm consistently trying to drive into others without sounding like a broken record, I'm like hey, you got to remember, I didn't go to school for any of this, like none of this. And it happened overnight like with you, with your father, I hang out with this dude all the time. We, you know, we break bread once a week, we talk all the time I didn't. This happened overnight. And now things are unraveling every day, something new is happening. And you're trying to keep all the balls in the air and wondering, did I make the right call? Am I doing enough? Did I pick the right caregivers? Did I pick the right doctor that whatever, whatever it is, are we eating the right food? I know, I think blueberries are better than strawberries, but let me read this next article, right all that stuff. Supplement A versus supplement F like, you know, how many fillers how many fillers are in this dude, I

Omar: 57:28

It's, it's a lot, you know, but I just stress like your education on it is imperative. Like you will not survive, you know, and like we said, there's levels there's you educate on it, and then you digest it, like you've really taken in, and what it is. And the second part is actually harder, you know, like you got to really come to grips with this is the disease, this is what it is now. And this is what the progression is.

J Smiles: 57:55

Correct

Omar: 57:56

So I know I had that combo, and I did my studies to know what I'm dealing with. And what its gonna be next month and what it's going to be next year.

J Smiles: 58:07

Yeah

Omar: 58:07

That's the hardest.

J Smiles: 58:08

It's hard. It's hard. It's painful.

Omar: 58:10

It's hard to swallow cuz you're, you have to, you're thinking about their mortality.

J Smiles: 58:16

Constantly.

Omar: 58:17

Constantly, man

J Smiles: 58:18

While you're also trying to give them the best quality of life that you can. It's a hell of a trick shot.

Omar: 58:26

Yeah, and know what it is. I would say. There's a lot of times where it gets you down because this disease is sad. It's the only thing that you can go through where you could be next to the person and still miss them.

J Smiles: 58:39

That's hot. That's a hot line. That's a hot line you're right next to them they're breathing, they're talking to you, but you miss them.

Omar: 58:47

I be in Florida and just talking to my dad is sitting there looking at him and I'm like, man, I miss my dad. And there was a lady that lived in the community once and I went to one of his board meetings for like the condo association, the villa.

J Smiles: 59:00

Yes.

Omar: 59:00

And I was talking to the lady and she noticed and we were talking about him. And she's a caregiver. And she's like, we call it the long goodbye

J Smiles: 59:09

Correct

Omar: 59:10

Man, I wanted to burst out in tears and I'm not even a crier. I wanted to be like (crying sounds)

J Smiles: 59:20

Nipsey Russell, The Wiz right

Omar: 59:23

It's the longest goodbye ever man

J Smiles: 59:27

It is

Omar: 59:28

It is long

J Smiles: 59:29

It is heart wrenching. I know one thing that I grapple with is the ebbs and flows of the emotion. Because the hats that I have to take off every 10 to 15 minutes because my mom and I live together. My office is based in the basement of my home. And so depending upon if I'm on shift or if there's a caregiver on shift and they might need me for something or if I'm going to all doctor's appointments depending on the day that my mother is having. I could pop off and then I need to go write a comedy set or prepare for a podcast, prepared to go travel or prepare to do something with the Smithsonian, whatever it is. But I may have just had a very dark moment with my mom, but I need to act like that didn't just happen. It could be less than 10 minutes, Omar.

Omar: 1:00:21

Yeah

J Smiles: 1:00:22

The trampoline is exhausting for me personally, how fast I have to go and switch hats between which personality I'm supposed to be within the confines of say 9am to 9pm. Dude it can take me out and there are some times where for two or three days I'm like, Yeah, I can't answer the phone or meet with anybody. I have to allow my emotional system my psyche and my mind to get back to a steady state.

Omar: 1:00:53

Well, kudos to you because I'mma get real New Yorker on you. I'm have to keep it 100 not even 100, 100. Yo, I could not deal with it daily like that in my face. It would kill me. And maybe if I had to do it, I could, but I just know how painful it is like, kudos to you on that all the respect in the world. Seeing it every man. It's a lot when I go to Florida and my mom would always tell me when I by the time I get back to her house because she lives just 10 minutes away. My support system is great and then like I just fall asleep and I was like, Mom, am I sick? Why am I falling asleep? And she is like, you're emotionally exhausted

J Smiles: 1:01:33

That's correct.

Omar: 1:01:33

It's a lot. Oh man to see a hero just deteriorate right in front of your eyes. Yeah, before COVID I had to go once a month. Like I'm always in Florida. There's times I would stay down there two months straight. I could work satellite. I'll just stay at my mom's house and go to my dad's house every day, whatever sometimes, but I was always there. But I was like,

J Smiles: 1:01:55

Every day dude, every day in the same home. One of my every day tight, tight, tight ,my line sister Janelle, she teases me she's like Jay, Zetty can smell you should like soon as you come in house. She's like it don't matter if you can make noise. But I can make zero noise, Omar, she will come out and she'll be like, my mom calls me JG, JG, JG Is that you? I can't say no, right. I come in, I'm putting bags down and she may just be taking a walk down the hallway, the caregivers, they take her for a walk. You know, she has a little leg exercises that she does just trying to keep her blood circulating. But if she sees me or hears me, then I'm absolutely going to give her my time and depending on where she is, that's going to shift my emotional state or my mental state. And then there are literally times where 45 minutes later, I'm on the phone with an IRS agent and I have to switch back to that. And do and then I'm like you I'm on the couch. I'm exhausted. Do you remember the movie, The Greenmile with John Coffey?

Omar: 1:02:59

Yeah, yeah

J Smiles: 1:02:59

Absolutely. I have my best friend often she will be like so what you doing, is this a JC moments, and she'll call me John Coffey all the time, because I give it all out and then I crash. Right now at least I haven't figured out another way to do it.

Omar: 1:03:15

Blessings to you guys you know

J Smiles: 1:03:17

Thank you, thank you, sweetheart. Thank you, sweetheart.

Omar: 1:03:19

Its a great deal, to touch upon that even like caregivers. That's a whole another thing also like finding them right caregiver and so forth. And even before I found the main one that I have now, it was a process. You know,

J Smiles: 1:03:35

What kind of questions do you ask?

Omar: 1:03:37

Pastor says mind you I don't go to church a lot, but I listen, you know, I'm a spiritual person. Pastor said, a fool will always let you know what's on his mind. And a wise man would listen. I would just always sit with them and just listen.

J Smiles: 1:03:49

Okay

Omar: 1:03:50

I would like my dad has dementia. Have you ever dealt with this before? What do you know about the disease? And I just let them talk. I remember one lady my family wanted me to hire she was just nervous, scared and she ain't know anything, you know, I was like ah nah this ain't gonna work. And they will pushing for that I was like ah nah that's not gonna work. But it's one lady randomly, wasn't going to go sit with her and I said, let me go. And I went by she was just so versed.

J Smiles: 1:04:14

Okay

Omar: 1:04:15

And everything, like she talked about eating habits and making them comfortable. It was just, it just touched me here. I was like this is the lady, this is it. This is it. You know, she's like, yeah, sit with them

J Smiles: 1:04:25

Gotcha and make them comfortable and spoon feed certain things. And you know, like, don't force them. Sometimes they do things when they're ready, but just kind of shadow them and say things like to make them remember and put up pictures.

Omar: 1:04:41

She does all that, you know put up old pictures, share

J Smiles: 1:04:41

Right photo albums, and she switches out pictures here and there, you I love it, I love it. Is there something that you've know. come across in terms of the dieting for your dad in terms of something that he's eating or not eating that you're like, Yo, I did my research? I changed this and I really feel that this, you know, maybe it made a difference before does that make a difference now but something that you think the listeners could benefit from

Omar: 1:05:06

As you're saying dieting right, I'm drinking water. And as I'm preparing for this topic, I wish it was liquor

J Smiles: 1:05:14

I know that's right, it's heavy dude. This shit is heavy as hell.

Omar: 1:05:18

Let me tell you what is a terrible combination, diabetes and dementia.

J Smiles: 1:05:23

That is awful.

Omar: 1:05:24

At one time my dad was diabetic and we changed his diet.

J Smiles: 1:05:27

Okay

Omar: 1:05:28

More and more water and what have you and make them walk around a little more. And now he's not

J Smiles: 1:05:33

Fantastic.

Omar: 1:05:34

When he was and we didn't really know at one point, that combination would make him spiral out. He talked about the sundowning and everything. Everything was just worse,

J Smiles: 1:05:47

Okay

Omar: 1:05:47

Like, he'll be in front of you and just have like a crazy moment and start sweating. It was nuts. An example I'll give with that is that once I was there, came to Florida. Happy to see him whatever I'm sitting down. He was a little disheveled, but I'm like, I'm here. So whatever, I can handle whatever. And I kept hearing him talk to himself like, oh, y'all think I'm playing? My man came in the kitchen, came back with a knife, brought it over to me.

J Smiles: 1:06:11

Whoa

Omar: 1:06:12

Ready to choke me up. Like Yo, man, I jump up, I'm like, whoa, Let me tell a story. And I was like yo dad, I'm like calm down and he was just out of it, like he didn't know anything. So I walked out the house, close the door, lock the door, sit outside for a second called the home attendant because I was like, I'm gonna watch him. I'm gonna chill, you know? And then like, 15-20 minutes later, we open the door. He comes out. He looks at me calm. He was like you see that guy right there, that's the nicest guy ever pointing to me. Almost chopping me up, OJ style, I just threw OJ under the bus.

J Smiles: 1:06:49

Its too late, you just did it.

Omar: 1:06:52

Yeah, I was the nicest guy, nicest thing since sliced bread within 15 minutes.

J Smiles: 1:06:56

He didn't remember the episode.

Omar: 1:06:57

Didn't remember, didn't remember at all, that was a learning curve. And I shouldn't have been in the crib anyway,

J Smiles: 1:07:02

Right, I'm sorry. He had diabetes, and you weren't aware?

Omar: 1:07:05

Yeah. Like it's just hit was like he would just grab stuff with people not looking not even know, extra bananas and whatever. And we're like, what the hell's going on? Because he's eating good and then we caught on to it. And we were like, ah, he just altered his diet. You know, most of that is dieting anyway. You know, people put away

J Smiles: 1:07:25

What did you take out? Can you recall the kind of things you took out? We took out you know, he'll still get rice, but we took maybe half the rice put in vegetables. Okay

Omar: 1:07:35

A lot of water, a lot was water and his movements really, because his diet was never really that bad. He had one real bad habit. Like there was a Chinese food place near a buffet place. Those are big in Florida, and he just loved it. And sometimes if we didn't get him something from there, he would go bananas, you know?

J Smiles: 1:07:53

Yes.

Omar: 1:07:54

Like, all right, once in a while, we need to do this for him. And when we got that diagnosis, we just had to cut it out.

J Smiles: 1:07:59

Right

Omar: 1:08:00

You know, like, All right, we're gonna lie to you and give you vegetables and say it's from the Chinese store.

J Smiles: 1:08:05

Right

Omar: 1:08:06

You know

J Smiles: 1:08:07

Right, right. We just don't scorch him a little bit and say that soy sauce.

Omar: 1:08:10

Yeah, exactly, you know

J Smiles: 1:08:12

We went through, I will say this with my mom. She loves sweets. She's always had a sweet tooth research and studies, every neurologist has said that the sweet tooth increases as the disease progresses. So with my mom, I thought, Oh, man, this is not going to be good because she started out with 12,000 grams of sugar in her tooth. So where are we going from here? All the caregivers, all my friends, they want to do something good for her and treat her special. So they want to bring her cake and cookies, everyone who stops by wanted to just bring her one brownie, one cookie, one slice of cake. But what I found out Omar was everybody was doing it. So I traveled a ton on normal circumstances, I'm gone half of the month. And then I'm trying to figure out what's happening because I don't purchase that at the grocery store. But if everybody get one cookie, or one piece of cake, that stuff adds up and I had to sit everybody down and say listen, I'm not being mean, or being a bad person. But if you really love her, are you trying to kill her? Does that tell him how you want to love her? Because adding this much sugar, let me tell you where we're taking her because she's getting sugar in the fruit. She's getting sugar in the rice. She's getting sugar in the crackers. She's getting sugar in the bread and I had to break it down. Like listen, hey, I appreciate that y ou all want my mom to be happy because you give my mom a piece of cake or cookie, honey you would think it was new money, big face hundreds. You know what I'm saying? Oh man, she is hugging and kissing and thank you so much. This is so good. I've never had anything this good. She will give you a song and dance that makes you feel like a million dollars, who doesn't want that kind of affirmation but I'm looking at my look, first of all, you can't think you love her more than I do. If I thought that cake wouldn't hurt her, dude, she could have cake every day for lunch, a whole damn cake. But there is a an immediate correlation between sugar and poor brain health. So that's that's how that's how so? Absolutely. I get what you're saying. But dude, that had to be it had to be scary though, a

Omar: 1:10:34

It was the worst. It was the worst. kinfe.

J Smiles: 1:10:36

And that's your dad

Omar: 1:10:38

Until we put that in check his diet in check, there was a rough period. And it just happens that I was down there because he even got hospitalized. Like it was so bad, like he had to go to the hospital for a few days. And the hilarious thing about the hospital I remember when he got admitted, let's say stayed in three days. I talked to the nurses and the doctors. I was like look, he can be a handful. I'm letting you all know that he needs a sitter because you know, they get people sitters also because I like he will wander if y'all are not paying attention to him like oh, no, we got this, Mr. Hamilton. This is easy. I said, Look, this is not like anyone else you have had.

J Smiles: 1:11:16

Right

Omar: 1:11:16

What happens? The next morning I come back. They're like, oh, thank God, the son is here. Oh, he tried to escape and this that in the third and he tried to sweet talk to nurse. I was like

J Smiles: 1:11:28

I told you

Omar: 1:11:29

What I told y'all, I said, you see what y'all y'all were arrogant yesterday. Yeah, letting you know, this is a special case. I had to pay the home attendant to come to the hospital. And I was like, look, I pay out of pocket. Unfortunately, he doesn't qualify for anything. Because the country's health care system sucks to seniors.

J Smiles: 1:11:49

Correct.

Omar: 1:11:50

My dad does not qualify by $49. But that's a whole another subject

J Smiles: 1:11:55

Whoa, not $49.

Omar: 1:11:57

And of course his expenses exceed whatever he has coming in from Social Security and what you call it. I'm the only one flipping the bill, if anything, but that's a whole nother you know, but yeah,

J Smiles: 1:12:08

We got three, we have three more episodes to do Omar.

Omar: 1:12:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah you know

J Smiles: 1:12:12

At some point, Absolutely

Omar: 1:12:14

And She, and I had to pay her to come in. That's how we managed him in the hospital. Like they couldn't, they couldn't deal with him. They couldn't handle him. They didn't know how to talk to him, how to smooth him out, how to deal with him at night andI had like,can you go there? And help him and talk to him and walk them down the hallways back and forth.

J Smiles: 1:12:34

Right

Omar: 1:12:34

They can go to bed and he's barely had to put the things up on the side, like a little jail.

J Smiles: 1:12:39

But what I appreciate that what you did and what I do not appreciate about the medical system, or certain hospitals, let me just say that is when you have a family member, or it doesn't matter if it's a family member, but you have someone an advocate, a care advocate, as involved, coming with such specific information as you did with your dad. Soon as he's admitted, hey, let me tell you very specifically, this is what you need to do. And they brush you off. And they say no, no, we got it because we're the experts. That really makes me so hot. They've done that before with my mom. I too end up sending my home caregivers there to be with her because I say listen, let me tell you what they get everything wrong with my mom, Omar My mother talks as clearly as you and I she enunciates her diction is flawless. She's using SAT/Mensa words what maybe you would give her you might put her up for a Nobel Prize. If you just took like the first three sentences that she said. And you would trust her because she says it with a ton of confidence, but she's lying. Okay. She is absolutely lying.

Omar: 1:13:59

Yeah, yeah

J Smiles: 1:14:00

It is all a lie, it is all a lie. You cannot believe anything come out of her mouth. And that's what I tried to tell them. And I'm saying she does not follow verbal cues. You cannot tell her anything. You have to engage her physically. So like if you want her to stand up, you have to just kind of

Omar: 1:14:17

Yeah, reach for her hand and start to pull her gently in her body way, she will move with you. But if you just say stand up, she'll say okay, but she won't move because she doesn't always register that verbal command. So whatever it is, they say to eat,

J Smiles: 1:14:31

Right then they not as kind to you and I'm like hey go to the bathroom, brush your teeth, it's time to swallow your pills. She doesn't do it, then they believe she's being difficult because she talks so clearly. And she says okay, but she doesn't do it. So then they register her as a hard case and ou know, once they say a hard ase, they don't come in as ften. what you don't want is me in here on you like that. You don't really want that. But the number of times that that happens, I'm like, hey, you can't believe her words. She has Alzheimer's. She's advanced. They don't know what the hell that means. The number of working nurses in hospitals that don't really know how to interact with

Omar: 1:15:23

Yeah.

J Smiles: 1:15:24

An Alzheimer's patient is abysmal.

Omar: 1:15:28

Yeah, it could be doctor sometimes. It's true. He had a neurologist that was great. And he had a partner in his practice. So the one that I love just retired, and we had a bond because he went to the same thing with his mom, so I was so comfortable with him, but he left and I had to deal with the partner. And I'll never forget this. This is when I stopped going. We were in there once. And you know, they want to try out these new drugs on people. He asked my dad, he's like, do you want to try this drug? And I'm on my head. I'm like, first of all, I'm sitting right here, your damn neurologist and know that he got dementia and is far gone. And you asking him if he want to try something, man, I wanted to snatch that man up. I'm like yo, I wanted him to see how I get Jamaician. I wanted to box him up. I'm looking at him, I'm like, are you serious? I like hold up. Ashton Kutcher is about to jump out to the side somewhere, right? I like right for real

J Smiles: 1:16:18

I'm getting punked

Omar: 1:16:19

For real, did he really ask that. I like what that was it,like, that's it?

J Smiles: 1:16:24

That's it, we're done.

Omar: 1:16:25

This is done.

J Smiles: 1:16:25

We're done.

Omar: 1:16:27

His partner would have never asked that. But I'm liking he ain't here now.

J Smiles: 1:16:29

Right

Omar: 1:16:30

You know

J Smiles: 1:16:30

That's right. The number of times that we hear the medical community say, we need the family to be more involved. We need more patient advocates, we don't you know, we only have 10 or 15 minutes to speak with the patient before we have to move on. We need you all to come with your loved ones, especially seniors, to tell us what's happening. And then Omar and J Smiles, we show up and we tell you and you freakin ignore it. And so that's the purpose, that's another part of very big pillar of the Parenting Up podcast community is to say, hey, while we are fighting for cure, and supporting caregivers, we are also spreading awareness so that nurses and doctors and legislators can understand you all have to do a better job at educating yourselves if you're going to treat our loved ones. This is what we're going to need. I don't think I should ever have a problem spending the night at any hotel anywhere because my mother has Alzheimer's, excuse me not ahotel at any hospital. I should have all, I should never have a problem if there's a restroom. I don't care. I'm supposed to be one person at a time going to the restroom at any restaurant, on an airplane. I'm squeezing in there with her. In any case, there should be, hey, she has Alzheimer's, I got to go wherever she goes. There needs to be this just general breakthrough on how the world treats them. And the expectation of they always have a handler.

Omar: 1:18:14

Absolutely

J Smiles: 1:18:15

Let's treat them like superstars, know what I'm saying? Beyonce always get a handle and how can my mama can't get one.

Omar: 1:18:20

Exactly.

J Smiles: 1:18:23

So well, baby, this has been a fantastic, fantastic conversation. I appreciate you sharing you opening up your heart, telling us about your story about your dad, about your family, how you all are creating a how you had a village continues to come together day after day, week after week to make sure that daddy Hamilton is okay. And that his quality of life is as best it can be under the circumstances. You have any parting words?

Omar: 1:18:55

Two things that I said that I need to embed that

J Smiles: 1:18:58

Okay

Omar: 1:18:59

Study know what it is do your research on what it is, um, you could Google all day, but it's best to really talk to someone also that is going through it or has gone through it .And realize that you can't do everything and you can't do everything yourself. I know a lot of people that started and they moved their parents in with them with no help. And I'm like you're heading for disaster.

J Smiles: 1:19:21

Yes

Omar: 1:19:21

You need help.

J Smiles: 1:19:22

Absolutely

Omar: 1:19:23

I mentioned me and my aunt. The caregivers, my mom, my stepdad, some other aunts that jumped in like it takes a village just know you. There's no way you can do it yourself. doing your best. Don't beat yourself up. I'm still not listening to myself at times. But try not to beat yourself up that much because you're doing your best and the good Lord is paying attention to everything.

J Smiles: 1:19:46

I love it. That is the best way I know to end this episode of the Parenting Up podcast caregiving adventures with comedian J Smiles. Thanks, Omar.

Omar: 1:19:56

Thank you for having me man

J Smiles: 1:19:58

Absolutely sweetheart.

Omar: 1:19:59

H U

J Smiles: 1:19:59

You know. Parenting Up family, I'm so excited to share this milestone with you. This is Episode 25, we are in 20 countries with well over 3000 downloads in such a niche category, alzheimer's and dementia for caregivers. Wow. Thank you all so very much. I'm going to take a little bit of a break, probably about two months. Please continue to push the podcast to your friends, your family, tagg them. Let me know if there are particular segments or topics that you want me to hit in the next phase. I'll do my best. Caregivers, self care is the best care while you're Parenting Up. Don't forget to snuggle up. The snuggle up- number one, help your family members and friends by documenting the decline that you see in your ello early on, maybe take short videos, or voice recordings so that they can hear and witness for themselves these things that j st aren't quite right. That w ll help you prove your point t at you're not just being dramat c, or you're not blowing things ut of proportion. It's hard. I 's tough on everyone to witne s, the once strong leader of he family or even the calm, ste dy person starts to decline. H lp them out, give them proof. It ll be easier on all of you. Nu ber two lean into your ello old personality. I love how Omar used his dad's affinity fo the ladies, and keeping them appy to get him to move, to cl an up his place, to get new shoe . Hey, whatever it takes us. Number three, get your own set of Alzheimer's advisors. G ogle is not going to take yo but so far. If you recall, I re erenced moogling being my top hing. It takes me way further th n Google ever could find out wh in your network has experi nce with Alzheimer's, with ome form of dementia. So you an ask them questions that pop up that you don't really even know how to pose to the medical ommunity, to doctors, or nurse or what have you. Just tell hem hey, you know what, wh t did I expect? What's gonna hap en? It is invaluable to just ut your mind at ease and get you ready for what's to come ne t. Number four, if you enjoy t is podcast, if you've gotten ne single tidbit of help or sup ort, please share it, spread th word, click on it, send the l nk to someonew, it will help You are my marketing budget. T ank you. Number five, join us e ery Monday night for our live streaming show, n getvokal.com 9pm eastern standard time in the United States cannot wait to ee you, chat with you, hear your questions ,and your comments a out caregiving. Also sign up fo our Parenting Up email list. Both will have details in the s ow notes. That's it for n w. Thank you for listeni g. Please subscribe for contin ous caregiving tips, tricks, t ends, and truth. Pretty Pre ty please with sugar on top s are and review it too. I'm a com di