[00:00:13] Speaker A: Hi everybody. Welcome to Battle Ready. And in our show, what we do is we try to find people solutions to their challenges. You know, now after Covid, everybody's trying to figure out, okay, what do I do? How do I move forward? They didn't have any real plans. And in our thing, we try to not only provide you solutions, but show or share stories of individual successes. Today we're joined by Hilary Bailey, which she is the founder of Freedom and Hillary, you're going to have to help me out with the name of your company. Hilary, are you there?
[00:00:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm here. It is, yeah, hi. It's Freedom Caregivers and Companions.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: Freedom Caregivers. You know, she has the unbelievable opportunity to help people, families and elderly in their caregiving. Well, welcome to the show.
[00:01:04] Speaker B: Thank you for having me.
[00:01:06] Speaker A: So, and I have a little experience with this. My mom, we actually had caregivers come to the house for a while. She had copd. So tell me in your meeting with the families, what does that look like? What happens during those initial meetings?
[00:01:22] Speaker B: So first and foremost, when I go out, I usually try to talk with obviously both the client and then the. It's usually 90 of the time. It's going to be the children that are calling us that need help, you know, caring for their parents. So the first thing I'm going to do is, you know, sit both of them down and ask them how we can help them.
Normally for the kids, you know, that's going to be things like helping with the grocery shopping or helping with the meal prep or maybe taking them to the doctor.
And then you really want to focus on the client and see what it is they need help with. You know that it's a very intimate thing inviting someone into your home to help you with intimate activities. Right. Like showering.
Especially for women, that can be, that can be difficult.
You know, really anyone you know, that can be difficult. So first of all I'm going to ask how can we best serve you? How can we best help you?
And then I'm going to do what's called a non medical assessment. So I'm going to go through, I'm going to look at the home, I'm going to do a quick home safety assessment. So I'm going to look at, let's say bathrooms. I'm going to make sure that we have, if we have balance issues and you're wanting us to help with the shower, do you have bars? Do they have a shower chair? We're going to look at their, their balance. Are they walking with a Walker, you know, how do they get around the home? Do they need handheld assist? Are we going to need to be using a gate belt to make sure that they don't wall looking for fall hazards? Are there, are there throw rugs, which I hate throw rugs. If you have throw rugs and you have elderly patients in your home, please throw them away or use double sided tape because their foot is going to get caught and they're going to fall and you're going to have bigger issues.
I'm looking to make sure, you know, for the safety of my caregiver. Safe. Do we have weapons that are laying out in the house? Is there somebody on the couch that's sleeping that might be looking a little suspect? I have to make sure that the home is safe for my caregivers and I have to make sure it's safe for the clients. And then we're going to go into medically kind of what's going on. Is it we maybe have Parkinson's and we are having some mobility issues, do we have dementia? Are we having some cognitive issues? We're really, we're still kind of able to do things for ourselves, but maybe doing it safely might be the issue.
And then what I'm going to do is I'm going to develop a plan of care for my caregivers and it's going to basically state anything and everything that they're supposed to do while they're there with the client and how much help they need with it.
And then when my caregivers go out, they, they execute that.
[00:03:53] Speaker A: So why is it so important for the elderly, you know, to stay at home? I mean, I know when I, when I was calling around, my mom was fighting it hard, so I couldn't even imagine what those conversations are like.
[00:04:05] Speaker B: That is because it's comfortable for them, it's familiar for them most of the time. That's where they raised their family, it's where they built their life. It's where they did fun things with their kids.
It's familiar for them.
So just think about it from the perspective of when you're sick and you're in the hospital, do we get as good a rest as we do? And when we're at home, do we feel as comfortable as we do when we're at home? Absolutely not. We don't, you know, and then you think about having them having to adapt to a new routine. So say if they, you know, if they go to a skilled nursing facility, you know, you don't get as many choices as you do as when you're, you know, in your home, you don't get to necessarily eat what you want, when you want to eat it. You're kind of told when to eat, you're told when to shower, you're told when to do this. And so even though you need the help, in a sense, you do lose a lot of independence all at once, because you have to follow the facility where you go. You have to kind of follow their rules and their schedule. So it takes you out of your schedule and what you are familiar with. And specifically with dementia clients, that can be detrimental. I mean, we have to do it. Sometimes they have to go into a facility or to a home. But, you know, there are studies out there that show if you move a dementia client or an Alzheimer's client from their home that they've been in forever, they are likely to decline once getting to the facility very quickly and usually will pass within one to two years.
[00:05:40] Speaker A: And so how do you go about, you know, working with the families to support the independence without risking health issues for the client?
[00:05:51] Speaker B: So you have to have some functional, measured testing done, I believe.
So you need to go see maybe a physical rehabilitation doctor, maybe have some balance tests done. You need to have some cognitive tests done so you actually know what your loved one is capable of doing safely.
That's the most important thing. And you need. So we can know what their limits are. Right, because if we don't know what their limits are, we don't know what they can do safely and what they can do safely and what the issues are that we need to address in the home. It may just be, you know, I think people get when they say that, you know, that they need help in their home. I think it can they automatically think, well, you know, we got to have somebody here 24 7, or we, you know, we need to have somebody here all night or all day. That's not always the case. Sometimes, you know, when you go to the doctor, maybe they just need help with the showering part, like you were telling me earlier with your mom. Maybe that's all that they need help with. Maybe that's the only safety issue. Maybe cognitively they're great and walking and making their own food. Their balance is well enough to do that. But the shower is, you know, is what they need help with. We need to identify the barriers that they're up against so we know exactly how we can help and keep them at home.
[00:07:08] Speaker A: I know one of our biggest challenges were, you know, yeah, she only needed help so she couldn't Cook for herself because she couldn't stand for a long time. So we needed somebody in there with it for the meal, care and, like, moving. You know, she could usually go to the bathroom by herself, but maybe the walk would be. So a lot of times our caregiver was just kind of sitting and looking at her phone, which made my mom go crazy because, you know, she like, oh, we're paying for this, but, you know, they're not doing anything. I'm like, but, you know, she had fallen a couple times, and I was at work, she was living at home with me. And it was kind of scary for me to have her by herself, you know, in that situation.
So what kind of things can you. Can somebody do around their house to, you know, help with the safety? And you said safety quite a few times earlier.
[00:08:02] Speaker B: Safety is huge. So, you know, there are individuals, and most of the time they're firefighters, actually, which I think is pretty cool. But, you know, you can have an actual home safety assessment done where they come out and they will look at, you know, things that I look at, but they'll look at, you know, other things like placement of the bars in the shower, placement of the toilet to where the toilet paper is.
If you're. If you're remodeling the bedroom, where's the best place to put the bed?
Where. Where are the light fixtures? Is it. Are they in a wheelchair now that they need to be put lower so they can turn them on and turn them off? I mean, there are people that actually do that and can come in and make suggestions for you on how to make the home safer. And I would suggest you have that done, you know, once a year. If you notice cognitive or physical decline between, you know, the next year, have it done more quickly. That way you have a professional coming out to let you know, hey, these are some of the things that I think you can do that would make it safer for your mom and dad. Again, we need to have those functional measure testing done, balance testing, cognitive testing, so we know what the actual barriers are. So when we do have that home safety assessment, we can explain that to the person that comes out as well, so they can make better suggestions for.
[00:09:21] Speaker A: Things like that when it. When does it become too risky, you know, to let them stay home alone?
[00:09:28] Speaker B: Well, the great thing is, is that there's companies like mine where if you can afford care 24 7, anybody can stay at home until the end, right? They can, but it's very expensive.
So if you're noticing a huge cognitive decline. So I Guess one of the main things I would say is, so I have a client who, I feel like we're there with them pretty much all the time. But I, I know for a fact that if there was like a fire or his wife got sick, he would not have the cognitive ability to know what to do, who to reach out to. I don't know if he would be able to call 91 1.
He wouldn't be able to get them out in an emergent situation.
So you want to definitely look at cognitively. Are they going to remember to turn the stove off? Are they going to know how to turn the shower on? Are they going to be able to get out in an emergency? Can they drive? Can they not? Do they know how to utilize the telephone correctly? If they can't get out of the house, do they know how to call 911 physically? Can they get to the chair, to the bathroom without falling? Can they do it safely? Can they clean themselves adequately?
That is, you know, people when they say, go to, oh, well, my mom can sit up still, you know, go to use the restroom by herself. Great. But can she adequately clean herself? Does she have the range of motion in her, her shoulders to be able to clean herself? Can she lean forward without falling off the toilet? There's just, so, there's so many things that you have to look at. So I would definitely say if they've declined cognitively, where they cannot respond in an emergency and you can't have someone there, definitely they need to go somewhere, somewhere else. Or if they physically cannot take care of themselves to maintain health, that's another, that's another real big indicator. They probably need to move somewhere.
[00:11:20] Speaker A: Okay, so, Hillary, how would somebody reach out to you to get you to come out there and talk to them?
[00:11:27] Speaker B: They can give us a call. Our number is 346-468-1000. They can go on our website and request that we give them a call. They can go on our Google page, which is freedom caregivers.net Excuse me, that's our website, but you can go to our Google page and send a message that way.
We are always, always here to answer questions. I like to tell people, even if you just have a question about what's going on with your loved one, you may not need care. You just need some direction. Please use this as a resource.
[00:11:59] Speaker A: Well, thanks, Hillary. We're getting ready to go into a commercial, you guys. Everybody stand by. We'll be back with Hillary with the Freedom Caregivers. Talk to you soon.
Love what you're watching. Don't miss any moment of Battle Ready. Or any of our other live TV shows on NOW Media tv. You can download the app or you can be seen on Roku or any of the other iHeartradios. Look forward to talking to you. Welcome back. Hillary Abeli with the freedom.
I can't remember the name I lost. I drew a blank Freedom Caregiver. You know what, it's so sad because obviously you were talking about dementia and I'm kind of showing that a little bit here. So sorry about that. So, I mean, I know that in the time when we were looking for caregivers, we interviewed quite a few different companies and talked to them about what they did in their hiring. Talk to me about your hiring process of your caregivers.
[00:13:09] Speaker B: So we have very strict guidelines hiring caregivers. So all of our caregivers get a national background check, even though the state doesn't require that. Just so we can make sure that who we're putting in the home is, has always been someone of a good character.
And we try to hire on our core values. Right, we.
Right, right seat. Or sorry, right person, right seat.
You can't teach good character, good morals, integrity. That's not something I think that can be taught. So that's, you know, huge for us. So when, when we are interviewing, you know, I want, you know, there's all the regular interview questions, but I want to see the joy pop on your face and I want to see a smile pop up when I ask you about your favorite client.
Tell me about your favorite client.
And you can just tell the people that love what they do, they have the best stories and they can talk about that person for 15 minutes if you would allow them, and their face lights up. You can just tell that they really love what they do.
So they're obviously screened, embedded, we call references.
If we don't have at least two good professional references, you know, we don't, we don't hire them. We try to as often as possible, which we've been really extremely lucky, is to really only hire caregivers that have five to seven years of experience.
[00:14:38] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:14:39] Speaker B: Yeah, we take on a lot of higher acuity clients because we have an RN on my staff. And so we're able to do some medical activities that some agencies aren't able to do, like help with actually giving medication, not just reminding or they have oxygen. So say like for your mom or if they have a feeding tube. We're able to do that because we have an RN on my staff. And it Just, I think with people that have experience, they're just easier to teach, and I want to pay them what they're worth.
So my caregivers probably get paid about 45% over market value because they do have the experience and they should get paid for that.
[00:15:25] Speaker A: You know, that's very awesome to say, because I know when we were interviewing the different companies and we talked a couple of the actual caregivers, I think you could see in their face whether they felt like they were valued and. And it sounds like you definitely value your staff.
So at Freedom caregivers, tell me how you work with the family to get maybe the siblings on board, you know, when there's some challenges. Oh, wow. I saw the eyes. I saw the blink. You know, lucky for me, me and my brother were on the same sheet, but there's only two of us. I can imagine some of the larger families or more the stronger families dynamics. How does that play out?
[00:16:08] Speaker B: It can be. It can be difficult.
The reason being is everybody has different ideas about how to take care of their parents.
You know, especially this day and age where we have, you know, people that believe that medicine is the only way, or maybe a holistic way is the only way, or maybe they don't feel like mom's ready for in home care or and the other sibling feels like they are ready for in home care. I just try to tell people you need to keep the main thing. The main thing, right? The main thing is your loved one.
You need to think about what's best for them, include them in the conversation and communicate respectfully with each other. Listen to each other, because it's not. It's not about you, right? It's about your mom or your dad. It is not about you. Don't make it about you.
So sometimes it's helpful to have a mediator there.
I've been that before. Not on purpose, but I have been that before.
But you also have to, like, from a company perspective, you have to find out who the medical power of attorney is, right? Because they're the decision maker, period. When it comes to, you know, my company. I, you know, I have a couple right now who their son is the medical power of attorney. I take direction from him.
His. Him and his sister get along really well and they make decisions together, but what he tells us to do is what we do. So that's the first question that I always ask. Okay, if there's six of you, who's the medical power of attorney? Because that's obviously who your mom wanted you to make decisions for her. So you're who we're going to take the direction from.
[00:17:52] Speaker A: What about now? I always make the joke that everybody today has a degree in Google. So they start to Google everything and all of a sudden they know the solutions, everything. But how hard is it? Or what's the challenge you face when dealing with a family? And maybe one of the family is an rn, maybe she's an ER rn, but now we're talking about in whole care, which is going to be imagined different. How does that go?
[00:18:24] Speaker B: I'm trying to think. I mean, that's another one of those situations where, I mean, they do have a lot of knowledge. So that's awesome.
And you would hope that the siblings were going to actually listen to her. I mean, because RNs, you know, most of them aren't just, you know, like, say, in the ER forever, they have done, you know, bedside nursing. They do know about disease management and, and how to deal with, you know, mental and cognitive and physical decline.
So I think, I think I've had that situation one time that I can really remember. And again, I think, I mean, I hate to say this, but I'm pretty lucky that I get to, you know, if that person is not the medical power of attorney, I just say, well, you know, I appreciate your input. I think that's great, but I have to defer to the medical power of attorney because that is who makes decisions.
But in a way it can be great, you know, because I do often too find that if the, if you're, if a loved one has an RN or some kind of medical person in their family, they're more apt to take advice from them.
[00:19:34] Speaker A: Yeah, no, naturally, you know, you think it's always kind of hard because I know, I was telling you earlier, you know, I'm in the real estate world and then I come in and I'm talking to somebody, but their brother's uncle, sister's cousin is a realtor, and they're telling one thing. And so you got to, you know, be politically correct, but, you know, also make sure and be forthright that tell them, hey, this is actually what the market says. So I'm assuming with you, you put out a plan of how you're going to serve them and you'll take input, but ultimately it's you and the caregiver's power of attorney that, or the person's power, attorney that has power that make the ultimate decision.
Okay.
And so the conversations are the parents there or the elderly person or whomever you're going to provide the Care for. Are they usually there with. With during all the conversation?
[00:20:32] Speaker B: It depends.
If they have. If they have advanced dementia and, you know, they're not going to really.
They. They can't make decisions or can't follow in a conversation. Usually not. That's. It's usually just myself and the medical power of attorney and whomever else. You know, if they want to invite their siblings, it's usually just us. Now, if that client is alert and oriented, absolutely.
Because guess what I'm taking. If they're alert and oriented and they just need help with physical stuff and they don't have any kind of cognitive decline, they make the choices. Right? They're going to make the choices because a medical power of attorney does not come into effect, really, unless that person is not able to make decisions for themselves. So. Absolutely. And it makes the transition so much easier if. And I will focus on that person. When we are doing the plan of care, their kids might chime in and say, oh, you know, wait, but mom, let's. Let's think about this. Or do you, you know, did you remember this? Maybe we should do this? And then, you know, they might be like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But no, my focus is on them, what they want, how we can help them. Because if they can be a part of the decision making, it's not so scary. It's not like somebody's coming in and pushing this person on them to help. They're getting to make the choice and they're getting to say, you know what?
Yeah, I would love if they helped me do this, or I would love if they helped me do that. Well, I wouldn't prefer that they do this, but they can also tell us how they like things done. So, like, if we're doing light housekeeping for them, they can tell us how they like that done. They can tell us what they like to eat so we can cook them, you know, stuff they like to eat, what games they like to play so we can be social with them. So, Abs, I love it when the person can be involved in making that plan because it definitely makes it less scary.
[00:22:20] Speaker A: And when we come back, I know we get ready to go into commercial in a few minutes, but we're going to come back because as diverse as Houston is, bilinguals, I'm sure, you know, there's a lot of man, so many cultures in Houston, and just like everybody else, our families get older. I'm sure you have a method of working with them. So again, once again, how do we get with you and have somebody be able to reach out to you for the, for your company.
[00:22:48] Speaker B: Well, I would definitely recommend going on our, our website, which is www.freedomcaregivers.net.
kind of look around and you'll, you'll see, you know, what areas that we service and you'll see, you know, the things that we can do for your loved one in the home. And then you can either shoot us a message from there and we'll give you a call or you can go ahead and just give us a call at 346-468-1000.
And that is a 24 hour line.
We, the phones are always rolled over so we're always there to answer any questions you guys might have.
[00:23:26] Speaker A: Well, great, everybody. We'll be right back with Hillary from Freedom Caregivers and Companions.
We're going to a commercial break right now. See you soon.
If you love what you're watching, don't miss a minute of Battle Ready or any of our other favorite programs on Now Media TV shows. You can be able to download the Now Media app on Roku or some of the other Apple IDs and then you can go in and also see them on Roku OS and other places. Make sure you come down. It's a bilingual station. It's also English Spanish. So come back and see us. We're back again with Hilary Bailey with Freedom Caregivers and Companions. What do you think? I got it that time.
Hey, welcome back.
So we talked a little bit and you mentioned in our previous segment, you know, that you compensate your caregivers based on their abilities, which is amazing because I mean, that's always important.
And so that could be a cost to the family. So, so are there programs out there that you can share that people can look into to help them defray some of the cost of hiring you and your caregivers?
[00:24:44] Speaker B: So there are three things that I can talk about. Unfortunately, none of them help with, well, only one of them helps with my company specifically.
So as being a veteran, I'm sure there, you know, there are VA programs, aid in attendance that you, if you were a, if you served during wartime, you can get aid in attendance and you can apply for
[email protected] and you can spend that money. If you get a, you know, qualified for that, you can spend that money with any caregiving agency. So actually you can use that with us. It just, you know, it just depends. Now there are other VA benefits where the company has to be certified by the va, which I'm working on, but it does take, it does take a While, but there are other agencies that are, have, are already VA certified that the VA pays them directly to take care of our veterans.
Secondly, there is Medicaid. So I don't personally take the Medicaid program, but there are other agencies that take the Medicaid program and I'm not exactly sure what the qualifications for that are, but I know it has to do with income and assets, medical need and things like that.
So you can definitely, I think probably go on to TMH and probably look up what the qualifications are for Medicaid.
Obviously there's also. The last and most important thing is long term care insurance. A lot of us don't have that. I personally do have that. I have a financial planner that is setting me up for success. So when I get older I will have a policy that will help pay for things like this. It may not pay for all of it, but it'll pay for quite a big chunk of it.
So. But a long term care insurance actually used to be offered through some people's jobs.
[00:26:28] Speaker A: Right.
[00:26:29] Speaker B: I have a client who worked for the government and he had long term care insurance and it paid for every hour that we were at his home.
So if you don't have long term care insurance, it's cheaper the younger that you get it. I would definitely, definitely look into that. Long term care insurance is huge.
[00:26:46] Speaker A: Okay, is there any grants out there or do you know of any grants or things like that?
[00:26:51] Speaker B: I don't, I personally don't know of any grants that help pay for custodial care.
[00:26:58] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. You know, nowadays we're going back to what I said earlier. Everything's on Google so there's a search and you know, you don't know what you don't know. Right. And it's early on in your business and so it's as you grow. I know and what I do now, I constantly find programs.
Programs always change to help people buy homes or get into rentals or whatever it may be. And so I'm assuming eventually there with so many people, you know, living longer and the healthcare industry is getting a little bit more expensive, it's kind of important to find different programs out there for people to help with. What are some of the quiet signs that someone, someone shows when they start to decline?
[00:27:51] Speaker B: I think probably the one that's the most prevalent is the cognitive decline that you're going to start to see. So you'll start to see some increased confusion.
They're going to lose loss of interest in things that they used to really love to do. Especially socially, you're going to see changes in appetite, they're going to want to sleep more.
Again, they're not interested in, in much.
Things that may used to have been important to them, like paying bills doesn't become so important anymore.
They don't want to eat their, their favorite foods and they're starting to need help with those daily activities like the bathing and the dressing and toileting and things like that. They're, they're not able to go to the grocery store anymore may because either they can't drive or they don't feel comfortable driving or maybe they're just, they don't have the energy to do that. So I, I definitely would say the cognitive is probably the first thing that you might notice. And then definitely loss of strength. So decreased ability to do things for a long amount of time without maybe getting short of breath or just, you know, needing a break.
[00:29:10] Speaker A: Well, what should families do when they start to notice things off or something's off with the elderly?
[00:29:16] Speaker B: Communicate.
Communicate with them, ask them, talk to them.
Don't offer a solution without knowing what the problem is.
You might be able to physically see the problem that's going on. But let's talk to them about what they feel like is going on.
Involve them in the conversation. Like I said earlier, the more that you involve them and let them know that you are there to validate their feelings, validate what's going on, and then ask how you can help. Do not force your help upon them.
Ask them how you can best help them. Now, obviously we might later on down the road get to a point to where you have to kind of force your help upon them because it's not safe anymore.
If they have the cognitive ability, let them help make decisions for themselves.
Ask to take them to the doctor, but let them make that choice. If they need a little time to think about it, that's okay.
Just don't force it, force it on them. Keep them a part of the conversation. Always, always, always keep them a part of the conversation.
[00:30:31] Speaker A: I remember my challenges sometimes talking with my mom. She would sit there and she would tell me, ricky, I just sit here and in my mind I can do everything, but then when I stand up, everything changes, you know, and sometimes she's watching a show, very much into the show, and then all of a sudden she needs to go to the bathroom and she had her long oxygen line, you know, because she had copd.
So that became kind of scary, you know what I mean? So. But she did not want to hear anything. So them conversations you know, I had to call and talk to somebody because, you know, I'm a mama's boy, so I really never want to argue with her. But, you know, it gets kind of hard. So I could imagine the emotions of the family members are pretty, pretty crazy. When they come call you, how do you work with them to get them more comfortable with, you know, the conversation with their. With their family?
[00:31:33] Speaker B: I think by talking.
So let me rephrase. So when we get a phone call from a loved one, we also try to validate because they're so worried about what their. How their loved one's going to react to us coming in the home, how they're going to react to know that they're calling and talking to us about them maybe needing some help and they don't think about themselves.
So how is helping your loved one affecting your life?
What are you missing out on? How are you not taking care of yourself? What are you having to make hard choices between doing something with your kids over here, going to work, taking your mom to the doctor? That's a lot of emotional.
It can bring up a lot of emotional issues for people. So we like to try to talk to the. The person that's calling and say, hey, what you're feeling is completely normal. It's totally fine for you to be having feelings like this. It's totally fine for you to be calling us and asking us what's the best way to talk to your parent?
And we. And because they were raised with this person, they always think they know how they're. How they're going to react. And that can be scary. They say, oh, my mom's gonna hate this. Or, you know, my mom going to think this is, you know, terrible that we're trying to run her life. And, you know, and they're mean. She's going to be mean to the person that you send out.
Not always the case.
So we. I just talk with them and give them the best suggestions, you know, that I know, which is just to communicate with them honestly and clearly.
Don't, don't sugarcoat again, allow them to be a part of the conversation.
Don't take anything personally that they say back to you if they get angry.
Their lives are changing at a rapid rate.
They're losing their independence. They can't do what they used to do. Their kids are now having to make suggestions and help them and sometimes tell them what to do.
A lot of parents don't take kindly to that. They don't want their kids to tell them what to do.
They Want to tell you what to do.
So again, clear, open, honest communication.
Don't take what they say personally. Try to understand rather than be understood. Like in the St. Francis prayer. I don't know if you guys know that prayer.
Try to be, try to understand rather than to be understood and keep their, keep their feelings in mind and just know that this is a, a huge life change for them and try to put yourself in their shoes. Right? Put yourself in their shoes. Thinking, okay, now I have to have somebody help me go to the bathroom. I have to have somebody to help me shower. It's a dignity thing too. Right. That takes away some of, some of their dignity. You want to help them preserve their dignity throughout this process. So it's definitely very hard depending on the DY dynamics of the child and the parent. But it can be done. It can be done if you're just again, open, honest, clear communication.
[00:34:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I still think back. It was always, it was always rough. My mom definitely wanted to take charge no matter what. She wanted it her way.
She was. My mother was German. My mother's German. Right. So she's very strong willed and sometimes I had to have conversations with, you know, her about how she talked with the caregivers and back and forth. So I definitely remember that was a strain. Well, listen, we're getting ready to go into commercial. We're here with Hilary Bailey with Freedom Caregivers and Companions. We'll be right back.
Welcome back. If you love what you're watching out here in Battle ready. And you like other shows too at NOW Media, make sure that you download the app Now Media app, either on your iPhone or on Roku. On some of the other places. You'll be able to also see the bilingual station, the bilingual channels and the bilingual programs, English and Spanish. We're back again with Hilary Bailey with the Freedom Caregiver and Companions. I know you got your eyes closed because you wasn't sure if I was going to get it, but I think I got it. Welcome back.
How are you doing?
[00:36:02] Speaker B: I'm good. Thanks for having me.
[00:36:04] Speaker A: No, I appreciate you being here. You know, it's this show when I was reading about earlier, I was thinking, man, I know a lot about it. I know a lot of the struggles that I had. I can't even imagine, you know, from your side. I knew from my side as the child. Right.
But so tell me, what are some of the things when you get the kids calling you and they're like frantic or they're doing the tire kicking. Do you have that Also where they're like calling you and then calling the other ones. And what are some of the difference between you and some of the other companies out there that do the same thing?
[00:36:41] Speaker B: Well, I would definitely say number one is the caliber of caregivers that we hire. You know, the state of Texas doesn't put too high a restriction on caregiver on people that can work for you. When you're licensed by the state of Texas, that you just have to be 18, ages 18, excuse me, over the age of 18, 18 or older and pass a background check. That is the qualifications to work for a PAS agency like I own, like I talked about earlier, our caregivers, you know, most of them have five to seven years of experience or they are certified nursing assistants. A lot of my caregivers are certified nursing assistants, are certified medication aides. I think secondly our RN delegation program. So we are able to take on higher acuity level clients that need more than just medication reminders and help taking a shower. So we, you know, in the past we've taken care of bed down clients that are on a feeding tube and need complete and total care with their, you know, their medications. They may have oxygen, they may need to be suctioned. We work with a lot of hospice clients because of this.
So, you know, hospice clients who are at end of life need end of life medications like morphine and things like that. You know, when we're in the transitional stage and we're at the end and because I have that RN on my staff, we are able to give those medications to those clients.
We. And that way we're not having to wake the family up to say, hey, can you please give this medication? I'm not allowed to give this medication. It can be a smooth transition. So we're able, like I said, able to take on those higher acuity clients that need just more than just the daily care.
[00:38:31] Speaker A: And you mentioned hospice. How can hospice actually improve someone's last days?
[00:38:38] Speaker B: Oh, hospice is a gift. And I have learned that since I have opened my company. I think hospice gets a bad rap. I think back in the day, you know, when somebody was put on hospice is like, oh, they're going to pass away in the next, you know, couple of days. And sometimes that's the case.
But hospice can be a gift. If you are diagnosed with a terminal illness, you are not seeking curative treatment. You have, you know, six. The prognosis is six months, you know, or left, left to live.
Hospice is a gift in a way that it focuses on providing comfort, dignity, and quality of life, right? So we're not going to the doctor twice a week because of all of these things that are going on. There's symptom management, and the symptom management is done from home. You call your hospice nurse, you tell them what's going on, they call the doctor, they fix it, right? If they're having increased pain, the pain management is, is wonderful. We don't want to be in pain at the end of our lives. There is, you know, there's usually a chaplain on board that if, that if your loved one or even the family, you know, needs spiritual guidance or just want spiritual comfort, you know, they have that where they can come out and give that to the client. There's a social worker, like, if you're having, you know, maybe some family issues or you're needing, you know, increased care in the home, like, they'll come out and visit with you, help you, you know, plan your future. They make it where it's about the quality of time that you have and not just the quantity of time. You're not spending your time going to doctors, going to hospital, going to er, trying to have, you know, your symptoms of a terminal illness managed. You get to stay home. When your family comes over, they get to actually sit with you, be with you, pick a meal for you and not be worried about, oh, do I need to take them to the doctor? Do I need to give them this medicine? Do I need to do this? It's all.
It's managed by hospice. And I have found it to be such a huge gift for people, and I just wish that it didn't have such a bad rap. And that's why I think education on hospice is so, so important.
[00:40:51] Speaker A: I know. I remember when I met with the hospice staff, with my mom, and I think, you know, when you hear hospice, you think of immediate decline, immediate death, for lack of a better way of saying it. But I remember them sitting down and talking with us and they said, I mean, they have people in hospice that have lived for a year, even longer because of just all the care. I think, like you said, it's.
It's good to.
It's almost like babying them in a grown up way, I guess, you know, And I thought that was. It was more very relieving to me and my family because, you know, it doesn't matter what anybody thinks. And this is me, my personal statement here.
Nobody's ready for their loved one to pass. Doesn't matter what, you know, what everybody's telling you, any of it. You Know, when it happens, it's devastating, you know, So, I mean, that was good. And I think we were at Sister Living at the time, so, I mean, she was surrounded by a lot of people that she cared about, so that was a good thing.
How do families emotionally cope with this time over this step of hospice?
[00:42:16] Speaker B: I think it is dependent upon who you are and what you believe.
I think talking with a professional is super important.
You know, anticipatory grief is real.
You know, when our client. When our loved ones are passing. And we know that, you know, the grief starts before they actually pass. So talking with, you know, a professional to deal with that anticipatory grief, accept what's actually happening.
Being on hospice doesn't mean that you give up hope, but I think you need to be in acceptance of the illness that your loved one has, what that looks like, and educate yourself on the disease process. I think, like, knowledge is power, and I think there's so much fear behind, you know, like you said earlier, we don't know what we don't know.
[00:43:15] Speaker A: Right?
[00:43:15] Speaker B: And if we would learn about it, it would, you know, it would remove all of, you know, all of that fear. You know, we have. I have clients who watch their, you know, their loved ones, you know, pass away with dementia. And they call it the long advice because it is.
It, you know, their mind goes, and then it affects their body, and their body goes. And it's slow. And it's a long. And it can be a long process. Not always, but most of the time it's a long. It's a long process.
So I think if people are educated on what that looks like, what the progression of that disease looks like, and what the end probably will look like, it takes the fear out of it. And it's like, oh, okay, this is. This is what's supposed to happen. I read about this. I educated myself on this. This is what's supposed to happen. And accepting that that is what's going to happen and doing your best to spend quality time with your loved one towards the end. And I think that's one of the great things about hospice, is that it allows you. It allows you to do that. Because, you know, hospice, they bring AIDS out, you know, to help the showers and stuff. You know, they can use us for supportive care. We have four or five right now on hospice. So I think people need to utilize professional help. Like I said, they need to utilize professional help, learn about anticipatory grief, educate themselves on what that disease process looks like for their loved ones. So you can remove the fear out of, well, what's going to happen next?
You know what's going to happen.
[00:44:46] Speaker A: So why are you thinking about that? I mean, to cut you off. We're getting, getting close to the end. I wanted to talk about DNRs. I remember that was the hardest thing for me to accept was my mom had a dnr.
And so, I mean, we got a few about a minute and some change. So let's talk a little bit about how you help the family with DNRs.
[00:45:06] Speaker B: So we, I don't necessarily help them through that. That's definitely something that the social worker at the hospice does now if they want to, want to speak with me about it. And they, you know, if they want, you know, my opinion. And sometimes by that point, we've been with the family for so long that, you know, they value what we say because we've cultivated a relationship with them. So what I say is we talk, I talk again about quality of life. Well, if we have to do CPR on your mom or your dad, we're more than likely going to break their ribs.
Okay. So if we revive them now, they've got broken ribs.
They're, they have, no, really don't have, you know, a quality of life, especially if it's definitely towards the end. They're not eating, they're not drinking. It's like I asked them, what kind of life do you want for your loved one? Okay, is them laying in the bed? You know, is that, is that what's good for you? Like, I mean, do you really want that? So you just kind of have to ask those hard questions.
[00:46:09] Speaker A: Okay, so once, since we're getting ready to go into the end of our program has been so such an amazing opportunity to talk with you, Hillary. Tell us how we can get ahold of you.
[00:46:20] Speaker B: So first I would go to our website, which is www.freedomcaregivers.net.
you can look at all the services that we can provide for you. You can actually reach us, find our phone number through there or you can send us a message that will come straight to my email. And we're happy to give you a call and talk with you. You can call our office anytime at 346-468-1000 and somebody will be available to help you and walk you through any questions that you might have about in home care. And if we can't help you for any reason, we can definitely direction once again, Hillary.
[00:46:57] Speaker A: This is Hilary Bailey from Freedom Caregivers and Companions. Thanks so much for spending some time with us today and helping us work through this system and work through this conversation because I know it's a big conversation now in Houston.
Yeah, guys, thanks a lot for joining us today. We'll talk to you soon. We'll see you on the next show at Battle ready. Have a great day.
