Happy Healthy Caregiver

Sue Ryan has been in roles of family caregiving for more than 40 years. Her mission is to empower individuals to maximize and accept the potential opportunities that change will bring. Sue moved from feeling frustrated, overwhelmed, and yes - sometimes frightened - to confident, balanced, and supported, navigating the transitions in her life, her care receivers, and those who support them on their...

Most people run away from the topics of death and dying but Registered Nurse and family caregiver Barbara Karnes runs toward it. She’s a quoted expert in many national media publications and has been awarded the NHPCO Innovator award for her decades as an end-of-life educator. She is a pioneer in the hospice industry and the author of what is referred to as “the little blue hospice book”.  In this...

In this episode, meet Sherrell D. Mims. She is a family caregiver, registered nurse, entrepreneur, and author. Her passion is empowering caregivers worldwide. In this episode we talk about the importance of securing help in your community, sharing your story, being patient with yourself, seeking a good belly laugh, and proactively dealing with the cloudy days that come upon us. Show notes with pro...

In 2019 Tiffany moved home to Maui, Hawaii to become primary caregiver to her adult brother Christian. Christian is now in his thirties and has been living with autism. Inspired by her brother's interest in jewelry and wanting to help him find a job, Tiffany created Depo Market, a retail business that provides jobs to other adults with disabilities like Chris. In this episode, we chat about what m...

Joe Vazquez and his wife Laura live in Texas and have been married over 11 years. In February 2021, Laura suffered a traumatic and anoxic brain injury. With Laura’s freak garden accident, life as they knew it changed. Joe had to find his way as a family caregiver with zero care experience. In this episode, Joe shares his story and we discuss marital commitment, mental health therapy, FMLA benefits...

Susie Singer Carter cared for her mom Norma for 16 years until she passed away last July from Alzheimer’s disease. Susie is a multi-award-winning filmmaker, actor, and caregiver advocate. You can see all of these skills intertwine in her 2018 Oscar Qualified short film, “My Mom And The Girl” starring Valerie Harper in her final performance. Susie also produces and hosts the Love Conquers Alz podca...

Inesa Ponomariovaite is a former family caregiver living in Chicago. She is also a holistic health professional and an expert on the benefits of hemp. Inesa is the founder of Nesas Hemp, a company providing full-spectrum CBDa Hemp Oil with preserved healing compounds. In this episode, we learn about Inesa’s caregiving stories, her self-care practices and how CBDa Hemp Oil can optimize your health...

Michele Houck is a serial caregiver who started her caregiver roles at age 16 with her mother's first breast cancer diagnosis. Over the last 5 years, she's been the primary caregiver for her mother, her sister, AND her father all who passed due to different cancers. Michele also has over 20 years Marketing experience for many companies in the health and wellness space. Her lessons learned as the m...

After working at National Geographic for 21 years, Gina Martin saw how important visual storytelling can bring awareness to important issues. Gina helped her dad Bob care for her mom, Diane, who had Alzheimer’s. The Bob & Diane Fund was created to bring a visual awareness and understanding to Alzheimer's and Dementia. In this episode, Gina shares her parent’s story and how the fund in their na...

Ben Mandelbaum grew up in a home along with his 14 siblings where he witnessed his Mom caring for his great grandmother, and then his grandmother. Ben was also part of his dad’s care team – his dad passed from ALS earlier this year. Ben’s background is in finance for skilled nursing communities. In this episode, we talk about living life while caring for others, the difference between Medicare and...

Charlotte Bayala is a spousal caregiver determined to love her caregiving life and help others along the way. Charlotte’s life changed forever when her husband was diagnosed with an incurable form of thyroid cancer in 2013. She uses her experience as a caregiver and her training as a Yoga and Meditation teacher to help caregivers find easy ways to care for themselves. In this episode, we talk abou...

Kim Albrecht knows what the sandwich generation feels like. She has been her 18-year-old daughter’s primary caregiver since Miranda was born and she helps care for her mom who is living with dementia. Kim is a southerner transplanted to California via the Midwest along with her husband and 2 teenage daughters, the oldest of which has level 3 nonspeaking autism. Kim hosts the award winning LOMAH Di...

Susanne White is the founder of Caregiver Warrior. She cared for her parents and this caregiving adventure changed her life. She blogs about this journey on her website, caregiverwarrior.com and shares her experience, strength and hope with others so that they too may survive caregiving with grace and empowerment. In this episode, we go deeper into talking about emotional self-care including being...

Carlos Olivas III is a California native who is a three time caregiver. He currently cares for his dad who is living with Alzheimer’s and provides support to his adult daughter and his brother who have mental health concerns. Carlos is archiving and documenting his Dad’s dementia progression through his vast assortment of art In this episode, Carlos and I chat about how work can sometimes feel lik...

Sheila Welch is a dementia family advocate and educator. For over 12 years, Sheila has been the Developer/Coordinator of Loving Through Dementia: a free, all volunteer ministry that offers help, hope, inspiration and dementia education to families facing dementia; and provides resources and guidance for churches of all faiths, all communities, and all individuals who seek to better serve these fam...

Caregiving happens. My upcoming guest needed to reschedule – dad in hospital. Family always comes first. I’m not as batched up with episodes as I’d like and the show must go on with a new episode every other Wednesday. So like caregiving, I pivot and haven’t done a show on this topic before. In today’s show, I’m sharing strategies to help the family caregiver that is or feels like they are all alo...

Aisha Adkins is an only child caring for her parents. Her mom has Frontal Temporal Dementia, and her dad has suffered multiple strokes. Aisha’s career is the Constituency Organizer for Caring Across Generations. She is a storyteller, advocate, international speaker, and passionate about building an equitable, inclusive, and comprehensive public health and care infrastructure. She enjoys classic fi...

Meet my son Jacob at age 20. Jacob was eight when our caregiving season started. He’s witnessed a lot during his adolescent and young adult years…we reflect on this, share family memories. and talk about how caregiving may have influenced his life.  We also talk about how he coped with isolation during the pandemic, how he manages school stress, his plans for this summer, and why he decided to del...

Meet Kimberly Whiter who is on a mission to guide families to a more financially-positive caregiving and aging experience. With her unique and personalized process, families gain multiple professional perspectives and can make a plan for saving time and money for overcoming the challenges of elder care.   In this episode we talk about changing careers while caregiving, finding financially positive...

Meet Amanda Clark who cared for her late husband Joe after he was diagnosed at age 28 with colon cancer. This diagnosis came two months before their wedding. Blogging helped she and her husband through this journey until Joe passed in 2014. After Joe’s death, their joint blog became Amanda’s non-profit called Cocktails & Caregivers. In this episode Amanda talks about what it was like to care f...

Meet Jennifer and Ellen the force behind Yoga4Caregivers – a social impact business that aims to expand access to holistic wellness services to caregivers. Jennifer is the founder of Yoga4Caregivers and Ellen is the Program Manager and Volunteer Yoga Teacher.  In this episode with Ellen and Jennifer we talk about busting stress, infusing minutes of self-care in your day, and how you can access fre...

Meet former family caregiver Debbie Howard. Debbie lived and worked in Japan for 30+ years. Debbie is also a former caregiver on a mission to change the way the world looks at caregiving so the impacts are not so devastating. Her work focuses on providing companies with support programs for employee caregivers to mitigate the related risks of absentee-ism, employee turnover, and extra healthcare c...

Meet Patti Lafleur who says she has the amazing opportunity to be the care partner for her Mom, Linda, who has dementia and type 1 diabetes. Patti was a Kindergarten teacher for 9 years before quitting her job to care for her mom full time. People truly enjoy watching Patti and Linda’s life through social media and this keeps Patti connected, too. Patti’s goal in sharing our story is to change the...

Meet Bianca Padilla. Bianca’s experiences caring for her grandma inspired her to start Carewell along with her husband John – a family-founded company that simplifies life for caregivers by providing personalized service, compassionate content, and expert-vetted home care products.  In this episode, we talk about how Bianca’s family came together to create a care plan, seeking bi-lingual health ca...

Meet Lucinda Koza. Lucinda is a family caregiver and the founder & CEO of I-Ally, an app that provides a secure community and marketplace for millennial family caregivers. She started the company after her own experience becoming her father's sole caregiver at a young age. In this episode we chat about societal stigmas, the importance of keeping our identities, solo caregiving, millennial care...