Speaker 1: I'll get a team.
Speaker 2: Welcome to another installment of the project. That's you, It's Jumbo,
Speaker 2: it's Fatty Harps, It's Craig Anthony, half of the kid
Speaker 2: from the Country.
Speaker 1: It's Francis. Is it Patrick?
Speaker 3: Michael Patrick Michael.
Speaker 1: Francis Michael? Fuck? That's the most Catholic name ever. Francis Michael.
Speaker 2: Peter Leech is one of those a what we Catholics
Speaker 2: called we all of a sudden, I'm a Catholic?
Speaker 1: Is what? Really? It's one of those a confirmation.
Speaker 3: Yes, Peter, you had to choose it.
Speaker 4: I chose Peter because Peter, you know, it's sort of
Speaker 4: like these days it could be kind of cool because
Speaker 4: Peter was the rock of the church on which the
Speaker 4: church was got so I was kind of like the rock,
Speaker 4: as in, were.
Speaker 3: You though.
Speaker 2: I don't I don't know that you were the rock
Speaker 2: that Jesus built his church on.
Speaker 1: But all right, yeah, well, so for the non Catholics,
Speaker 1: for the non Catholics that are like, what the fuck?
Speaker 2: So when you're when you're about thirteen, you undergo this
Speaker 2: thing or you go through this, but what is it
Speaker 2: a ritual.
Speaker 1: Process of right to fuck?
Speaker 2: Some some Catholic kind of called a confirmation and you
Speaker 2: get to you get to choose the name, and you
Speaker 2: have a you have a name that goes on.
Speaker 1: You know. So I'm Craig Anthony.
Speaker 2: Mine was meant to be Mark, and he called me Paul,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, so I was confused. So anyway, he goes,
Speaker 2: I confirm you Craig Anthony Paul. I'm like, Champ, that's
Speaker 2: the wrong name. But I didn't obviously say that because
Speaker 2: I was fourteen year old in is c a fat
Speaker 2: kid or thirteen?
Speaker 1: So I just went right.
Speaker 2: Paul.
Speaker 3: You had to.
Speaker 4: It had to be like an Apostles name or a
Speaker 4: Saints dame. It couldn't just become Francis Michael, Dante Leech.
Speaker 3: She couldn't go Francis Michael Muhammad or Leech.
Speaker 2: You had yeah, oh yeah, yeah, Craig Anthony Shakira.
Speaker 3: Yeah, much more popular if you could choose like a
Speaker 3: really hip name.
Speaker 5: Oh I'll tell you what. There are a whole range
Speaker 5: of reasons. Let's not start on the Catholic Church. But
Speaker 5: it's just if anyone's got some fucking marketing and branding
Speaker 5: and pr work to do. Anyway, let's not open that door.
Speaker 5: How are you well, I know how you are. You're busy,
Speaker 5: are you all okay?
Speaker 4: But you know, I think you and I are roll
Speaker 4: in the same boat at the moment without you know,
Speaker 4: let's talk about the thing that we've been talking about
Speaker 4: when we haven't been talking on here, and that is
Speaker 4: mortality and aging, and it's everywhere at the moment, Craig,
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, you know my love politics, and
Speaker 4: suddenly aging immortality has become not just a national conversation
Speaker 4: in United States, it's the global conversation.
Speaker 3: As you watch Joe Biden right before our eyes, President
Speaker 3: Joe Biden, right before.
Speaker 4: Hours deal with being an eighty one going an eighty
Speaker 4: teen year old man himself in real time on the
Speaker 4: world stage, coming to terms or in fact not coming
Speaker 4: to terms with the fact that age, despite all of
Speaker 4: his achievements and all of the things that he thinks
Speaker 4: he can do, is wearing him down. And it just
Speaker 4: reminds us all the mortality comes to everyone, and you
Speaker 4: and I both dealing with that in our own lives
Speaker 4: with our parents at the moment, and it's the one
Speaker 4: road we might take as many different parts in life
Speaker 4: as we choose that everybody will have a different maleways
Speaker 4: for their life, you know, which you know, no matter
Speaker 4: how many things are similar and how many things we shared,
Speaker 4: the will always be a bit like our DNA or
Speaker 4: you know, there'll be a different road.
Speaker 3: We've all got a.
Speaker 4: Different road, but it all ends at the same spot.
Speaker 4: And that's a really confronting thing. And I think that's
Speaker 4: you know, the conversation around the Biden experience about him
Speaker 4: and what his capacity is. And basically they're saying every
Speaker 4: we're just falling short of the fact, well, he's going
Speaker 4: to die soon, so it can't be president.
Speaker 3: No one's going to say that, right because mortality is
Speaker 3: to go. You can't say that.
Speaker 4: But that's what the subtext is, and we're all dealing
Speaker 4: with it in real time, and the consequences are just
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 3: Go Gainshawan.
Speaker 4: It's such an interesting and really freaky scari.
Speaker 2: And I mean, I'm fascinated from you know, because I'm
Speaker 2: fascinated with the brain and the mind, and I'm fascinated
Speaker 2: obviously with the body.
Speaker 1: And we talk about this thing.
Speaker 2: There's a newish term, not that new, but last five
Speaker 2: years it's gained some legs called health span.
Speaker 1: Francis, have you heard of that?
Speaker 3: I also get what you're saying, which is it's rather lifespan.
Speaker 4: It's the quality of your life while you're alive, because
Speaker 4: you can live and will you both have seen this too.
Speaker 3: You can live a long life. But it doesn't mean
Speaker 3: you're living in a cognizant life, or an active life,
Speaker 3: or an enriched life, or an inner life where you're
Speaker 3: experiencing the world. You're just a set of lungs and
Speaker 3: a heart.
Speaker 4: And you know, it's a fair question to discuss around
Speaker 4: what is the value of that, Where is the agency
Speaker 4: and that what is the sort of ethics of maintaining
Speaker 4: people that way? I guess the voluntary system dying legislation
Speaker 4: which is available in the different parts of the world
Speaker 4: at the moment, and in saying Victoria, in Australia it's available,
Speaker 4: and I'm sure it's available elsewhere as well, around the
Speaker 4: country and internationally. You know, it challenges those old precepts
Speaker 4: of the established church and other religious and monochy philosophies
Speaker 4: around the sanctity of life, you know, you know, being
Speaker 4: an absolute when we are now asking well, is life
Speaker 4: lived that way really a life with dignity?
Speaker 3: And if it's not a life with dignity, what is it?
Speaker 3: And it's a big question to ask.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are so many things that come up for me.
Speaker 2: And you know, my mum and dad are eighty five
Speaker 2: and your dad.
Speaker 1: Is in his eight ays is he? Yeah?
Speaker 2: And I mean, you know, there's there's so many things
Speaker 2: that kind of intersect, you know, the psychology and the
Speaker 2: brain stuff and the general wellness and the immune system
Speaker 2: and the ability to be able to get in and
Speaker 2: out of a chair and and and all of the
Speaker 2: practical things. You know, I've been talking to my mum
Speaker 2: this afternoon and God bless us, she's fine. There's no
Speaker 2: neither she or Dad have dementia per se. But you
Speaker 2: know that there's some cognitive decline which is pretty much
Speaker 2: inevitable with everyone from fifty, depending on a few things.
Speaker 2: But we know that we can stave that off with
Speaker 2: you know, training our brain for want of a better term,
Speaker 2: But there's always going to be a level of just
Speaker 2: like physiological decline, cognitive decline, psychological decline perhaps.
Speaker 1: But you know, my mum is I've been talking to
Speaker 1: her this afternoon.
Speaker 2: She's got these bills that have come in and you
Speaker 2: know it's now at the point where she can't go
Speaker 2: and you know, pay bills with a check anymore, you know,
Speaker 2: cash is pretty much irrelevant and redundant.
Speaker 1: And she was talking to me about and that these
Speaker 1: are not you.
Speaker 2: Know, they're just power and insurance and red Joe and
Speaker 2: all of these things. And she's so stressed about it.
Speaker 2: And I, in the end, I wasn't going to see
Speaker 2: them this weekend because got stuff to do. And in
Speaker 2: the end, and we're recording this Friday, two thirty and
Speaker 2: I just rang Mom and I said, I'm going to
Speaker 2: come down tomorrow. I'll be there at midday and we're
Speaker 2: geting to go through everything.
Speaker 1: We're going to figure out how to.
Speaker 2: How to make everything electronically linked to me and Melissa
Speaker 2: will fix it all for you, Melissa who runs my life,
Speaker 2: of course. And so just to take that responsibility of
Speaker 2: paying bills off her out of her hands so she
Speaker 2: doesn't she's so stressed about everything. She's got a new
Speaker 2: phone and they keep sending her notification. She doesn't know
Speaker 2: what to do. I'm like, Mum, you don't have to
Speaker 2: do anything. Oh, but why are they sending them? I'm like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, you know, And and I look at
Speaker 2: Joe Biden and I think, you know, one of the
Speaker 2: things that really creates cognitive problems is or sleep. Well,
Speaker 2: he can't be sleeping that well, right and pressure, stress,
Speaker 2: and anxiety are all cognitive inhibitors. Right now, imagine the
Speaker 2: pressure that he is under apart from the fact that
Speaker 2: he's eighty one or two, and you know, God bless him,
Speaker 2: but clearly on the slide, like that's not arguable anymore,
Speaker 2: but you chuck on top of that again, arguably the
Speaker 2: most powerful position in the world with the most pressure.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know how he even gets out
Speaker 2: of bed at the moment.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And of course there's sort of the Greek tragedy
Speaker 4: element of this is, you know, we're getting too deep
Speaker 4: in the political weeds. Here is his inability to recognize
Speaker 4: that and step away from the campaign and allow someone
Speaker 4: younger to do it.
Speaker 3: It's almost Shakespearean and it's tragedy.
Speaker 4: Someone who's commuted, has done so much work in public service,
Speaker 4: his entire life, has suffered so much personal tragedy from
Speaker 4: the death of his wife and his daughter and the
Speaker 4: death of his elderson from cancer and just kept going
Speaker 4: and just you know, I think most people across the
Speaker 4: past and divide in the United States. Despite all the
Speaker 4: rectoric that you hear, most sensible people acknowledge he's been
Speaker 4: an incredible public sermon who has done great things. But
Speaker 4: he's at this very moment, because of his inability to
Speaker 4: come to terms with his own mortality and his own decline,
Speaker 4: is in danger of undoing his legacy, which is just tragic.
Speaker 4: It is the sort of stuff of a Greek tragedy.
Speaker 4: So it's happening in front of our eyes, but it
Speaker 4: does remind us about our own challenge to come to
Speaker 4: terms with our.
Speaker 3: You could call it decline, but I would.
Speaker 4: Like to say the changes that we face that we
Speaker 4: can't avoid, the changes that are that are inevitable in
Speaker 4: lots of ways, that might be seen as decline, but
Speaker 4: it's just it's confronting, Craig, and you and I both
Speaker 4: had sort of dealing with parents who are diminished physically
Speaker 4: and mentally, and it's you know, part of you wonder
Speaker 4: as well, both of you.
Speaker 3: Both you and I and a lot of people who.
Speaker 4: Listen to this podcast spend a lot of time thinking
Speaker 4: and working hard at being our best version of ourselves now.
Speaker 4: But you can't bank it. It's not like you go, well,
Speaker 4: I did it for ten years, kind of a year off.
Speaker 4: We can I have four years at the end of
Speaker 4: perfect cognition because you know, like long service leave, I've done.
Speaker 3: Twenty years of eating.
Speaker 4: Well and exercise, So there's a getting an extra five
Speaker 4: years of being at the top of my game. And
Speaker 4: it doesn't work like that, does it? Or does it great?
Speaker 4: I mean, give me, give me some hope.
Speaker 3: That it's been that we're investing in. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: a geriatric future that is a little sharper than what
Speaker 3: we're experiencing with our own well.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's an inevitability of decline. Of course, nobody
Speaker 2: lives forever. Nobody has optimal cognitive function forever, nobody can
Speaker 2: bench press their house forever. We get all of that,
Speaker 2: and so there's what we know is there's an inevitability
Speaker 2: of chronological aging day after day, of course. But what's
Speaker 2: not what's what isn't a constant is the way that
Speaker 2: we age. So there's the variability of and I mean,
Speaker 2: of course we're all going to die at some stage,
Speaker 2: and of course we're all going to end up in
Speaker 2: a diseased or a dysfunctional state eventually. And that's where
Speaker 2: that term health span comes in is you know, so
Speaker 2: what we want to do is we want to be
Speaker 2: you know, really we want to be atypical in that
Speaker 2: we want to be as strong and functional and healthy
Speaker 2: and cognitively kind of good as we can for as
Speaker 2: long as we can. And so we know that, you know,
Speaker 2: sleep and exercise and quality and nutrition and minimal stress
Speaker 2: and being challenged and working against resistance in an intelligent way,
Speaker 2: and all of those things can help us stay somewhere
Speaker 2: near optimal for our potential. But it's you know, there's
Speaker 2: still that which you and I spoke about briefly this morning,
Speaker 2: is that's all good? And I think you and I
Speaker 2: for our ages are probably going okay, maybe slightly better
Speaker 2: than average hopefully, but there's going to come a time
Speaker 2: where we're not. And you go, well, so what do
Speaker 2: I do between now and then? And I think between
Speaker 2: now and then, that's the health span bit, is you know,
Speaker 2: it's like you were alluding to, living ninety years is good,
Speaker 2: but not if the last fifteen years are fucking horrible,
Speaker 2: you know what to do about that?
Speaker 1: And with that is the conundrum.
Speaker 4: The other part of it is also just the fragility
Speaker 4: of living well it is, you know, being able to
Speaker 4: sort of have those moments of realizing the realization occasion
Speaker 4: where you go, look, I'm feeling good physically. No, my
Speaker 4: joints don't feel sore. I don't have a muscle injury.
Speaker 4: I'm walking okay, my back's not sore. I'm not finding
Speaker 4: it difficult to sit down or stand up or walk.
Speaker 4: When we're younger, we take that for granted, but I
Speaker 4: don't know what you're like. But I now have those
Speaker 4: moments of the city were go, wow, this is I'm
Speaker 4: really aware of that at the moment, because it's not
Speaker 4: always going to be the way. And when you do
Speaker 4: get sicked and you are incapacitated, and whether it's you know,
Speaker 4: I guess many of us experienced in the last five
Speaker 4: or six years with the COVID nineteen and you know,
Speaker 4: it can really stricken you really quickly.
Speaker 3: And he went from feeling I.
Speaker 4: Remember the first time I caught her, I was just
Speaker 4: being finished on a long run and it was feeling
Speaker 4: really good and came home. I drove home from the
Speaker 4: A River troil, I was exercising, and by the time
Speaker 4: I got home, I'm going to know.
Speaker 3: That the end or from rush after just having a
Speaker 3: good hour and a half role feeling great right, and
Speaker 3: by the time there's just that instinct something ain't right.
Speaker 4: And by the time I got upstairs, I was a
Speaker 4: million miles away.
Speaker 3: From from feeling it good.
Speaker 4: And so you get are you're really sick really quickly
Speaker 4: and you lose that zest and yeah, and it's really
Speaker 4: quite frightening.
Speaker 3: It's like a window on a world that, as you said,
Speaker 3: is inevitable for all of us. And I wanted you know,
Speaker 3: it's all that sort of philosophy around the ability to
Speaker 3: cope with sickness or to endure, or to you know,
Speaker 3: to be able to sort of learn more of yourself
Speaker 3: about yourself and how you deal with illness and relate
Speaker 3: to your body. Fascinated all that stuff around that because
Speaker 3: there is that attitude towards sickness. I guess it's saying
Speaker 3: with cancer. When someone has cancer, we lionize the idea
Speaker 3: that you're fighting, right, so you're going to have you're
Speaker 3: a batler, you're fighting. You've got cancer. And cancers obviously
Speaker 3: are multi multi hued, you know, tapestry of misery, no
Speaker 3: doubt about that. But there are some cancers that you
Speaker 3: can't fight, right, But you get diagnosed with.
Speaker 4: And you know your life is going to be cut short.
Speaker 3: But you know because of the pressure that there's a
Speaker 3: virtue in fighting illness.
Speaker 4: You people go through really difficult treatments and chemotherapy and
Speaker 4: other treatments that make them sick in the process, and
Speaker 4: they might eke out a short a bit longer life span,
Speaker 4: but not quality of life. But if you were to say, actually,
Speaker 4: I know I'm going to die, there's no way I
Speaker 4: can be cured. I would rather just live my life
Speaker 4: and go through the palative process when it happens, but
Speaker 4: I'm not going to undertake treatment.
Speaker 3: I think our culture would judge you as somebody who
Speaker 3: wasn't a fighter, that you weren't prepared to fight the
Speaker 3: disease that you know, by being a fighter using the
Speaker 3: frame using the word fight or battling cancer, you know, it.
Speaker 4: Does suggest that if you don't, then you're a coward.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's the other side of being a fighter's count, right.
Speaker 4: So I think it's really fascinating people come that do
Speaker 4: come to terms with their illness and go okay, philosophically,
Speaker 4: I know this is going to be horrible, but I've
Speaker 4: come to a point where I'm at peace or I
Speaker 4: found a certain state of grace in dealing with the
Speaker 4: fact that I would rather die with this way than
Speaker 4: put myself through a treatment to prove a point, or
Speaker 4: to eke out another month or two and be sick
Speaker 4: the entire time.
Speaker 3: You know, it's a really interesting way. Do we have
Speaker 3: to come to terms with our own mortality?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that you're talking about voluntary assisted
Speaker 2: dying before. So We've had a friend of mine who
Speaker 2: I actually went to UNI with, who did exercise science,
Speaker 2: then went and did nursing and then a bunch of
Speaker 2: other stuff after that.
Speaker 1: Her name's Nicki Morrison. Shout out to Nikki. She's a
Speaker 1: straight up angel.
Speaker 2: She she works with people, so she's a death duel
Speaker 2: of Francis. So when people want to take that path
Speaker 2: of assist dying, she facilitates that with them in the home.
Speaker 2: And it's like I think for some people who when
Speaker 2: like you said, there is medically no chance of you know,
Speaker 2: that they are going to recover, just to be able
Speaker 2: to say, all right, well I'm going to die, I'd
Speaker 2: rather die on my terms. I'd rather die. I don't
Speaker 2: want to die in agony. I don't want to die
Speaker 2: in being humiliated and have someone wipe my ass. And
Speaker 2: I don't want that. I don't want that. I don't
Speaker 2: want to be you know. And not that everyone would
Speaker 2: be embarrassed or neither should they be necessarily, but for
Speaker 2: some people, you know, I think to be able to
Speaker 2: make that decision about you know, for some people and
Speaker 2: certain specific medical circumstances, I understand that, and.
Speaker 1: I I, yeah, I don't I don't know that I
Speaker 1: would say no to that.
Speaker 2: You know, in my own my only thing would be
Speaker 2: my very religious upbringing, which.
Speaker 1: Tells me you can't do that.
Speaker 2: But you know, that whole eternal lake of fire thing, Francis,
Speaker 2: that's somewhat of a deterrent.
Speaker 3: It is, it is you know, yeah, that's hard white
Speaker 3: into a lot of people cray. And it's the reason
Speaker 3: why you know, we still have this discussion around it,
Speaker 3: around a system dying and the dignity of sacred, sacred
Speaker 3: nature of life. I still I still wristle with the
Speaker 3: tea because as a philosophical.
Speaker 4: Position around that, if we make those sorts of decisions
Speaker 4: culturally relative, so you know, we can start if it's
Speaker 4: not an absolute or empirical idea that all life is
Speaker 4: stacred or you know, the sancting of life is universal.
Speaker 4: Then we can start to peel off different areas and
Speaker 4: in different times, in under different cultural circumstances, political circumstances,
Speaker 4: we make allowances that we would not have even considered
Speaker 4: in the past. And so I understand that the cultural
Speaker 4: relativity argument around well when do we start choosing or
Speaker 4: how do we make a value judgment about what is
Speaker 4: dignified living or what is a life worth living? And
Speaker 4: that becomes a subjective conversation. And you know, you know,
Speaker 4: if people are the chronically depressed and they don't feel
Speaker 4: like living anymore, does that then become an issue around
Speaker 4: the quality of life and should they then allow it
Speaker 4: to be have access to assistant eye And that's when
Speaker 4: you get to these culturally relative positions about the value
Speaker 4: of human life and who's making those rules, who's making
Speaker 4: that judgment?
Speaker 3: It's it isn't you know?
Speaker 4: I know that we're living a world of binary opinions
Speaker 4: where you're either.
Speaker 3: For or aget it.
Speaker 4: I think it's a really difficult situation, a difficult issue
Speaker 4: that does impose a lot of serious ethical and moral
Speaker 4: questions that aren't easily answered. I mean, there are cases
Speaker 4: and as you said, where people are so physically stricten
Speaker 4: or that is there can be no argument about it.
Speaker 4: But at the same time, when you start to add
Speaker 4: that element of about dignity and quality of life, that
Speaker 4: means different things different.
Speaker 2: People, And don't you think it's interesting that we do
Speaker 2: live in this very kind of You've got to have
Speaker 2: a yes or no, Like how about fuck? I don't know,
Speaker 2: Like I don't like it's okay, you know, it's like,
Speaker 2: why do I have to be in one or the
Speaker 2: other camp? Here's an idea. I'm human and I'm unsure.
Speaker 2: I don't want to Like, there's also that option I
Speaker 2: feel it's it's ridiculous that people feel compelled to pressure
Speaker 2: or leave people in Well, here are your two options.
Speaker 2: Which of these is? How about listen, Brian? How about
Speaker 2: neither I need more information or more time or I
Speaker 2: just you know, I just don't know. As somebody who
Speaker 2: is in his fifties and you've got a dad who's
Speaker 2: not super well at the moment, how are you going
Speaker 2: with that?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: Has this been I don't know, has this been a shock?
Speaker 2: Has this been has it effected perspective in any way.
Speaker 3: That's interesting. My dad's been sick for a very long time.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: He retired at the age of forty after a workplace
Speaker 4: accident and has been with basically both my parents have
Speaker 4: basically been dealing with a healthcare system for a better
Speaker 4: part of thirty forty years. And to that end, I'm
Speaker 4: so glad that they live in Australia where their access
Speaker 4: is working past people to high quality healthcare is second
Speaker 4: to none, and that they're looked after with dignity and
Speaker 4: with great care and with an expertise out on the
Speaker 4: par with anywhere else in the where we really are
Speaker 4: truly fully blessed. So that aside that illness or battling
Speaker 4: the illness and sickness has always been part.
Speaker 3: Of my life, or dealing with my parents' illness, that's
Speaker 3: just what we've always done. But as he gets closer
Speaker 3: to the end, I spend a lot more time with
Speaker 3: you because I and this is one of the things
Speaker 3: I would encourage people to do if they're dealing with
Speaker 3: the situation that you and I are, and that you
Speaker 3: and I think are both chosing this part. It's easy
Speaker 3: to sort of, I think, not easy to write words.
Speaker 4: It's tempting to sort of try to pass your way
Speaker 4: through it and go, look, i'll do a little bit here,
Speaker 4: I'll do a little bit there, and I hope someone
Speaker 4: else can get up there, or you know, I'll try
Speaker 4: to cut corners around looking at my parents or hope
Speaker 4: one of my siblings picks it up, you know, because
Speaker 4: it's confronting, right, It's time consuming, and you spend a
Speaker 4: lot of time sitting around hospital wars or waiting for
Speaker 4: appointments and around other sick people, and traveling to and
Speaker 4: from appointments in cars, and you know, it's a grind.
Speaker 4: It's a grind, right, It's hard work. But I'm glad
Speaker 4: that at a certain point when I was trying to
Speaker 4: do it in a way that was, you know, collaborative
Speaker 4: with other people, I just thought, this is too hard,
Speaker 4: and I'm going to regret not just buying him totally.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 4: So My siblings are great, and we all work together
Speaker 4: on it, but I just look, as much as I can.
Speaker 4: I will take him to his medical appointments, just out
Speaker 4: of when not making a call.
Speaker 3: Are you free? Are you free? You know? Because that
Speaker 3: gets exhausting of itself. If I can't, and there be
Speaker 3: times I can't because I have a job that takes
Speaker 3: me all over the place. We'll know in in vance
Speaker 3: and we'll work it out.
Speaker 4: But if i'm if i'm here, or if I can
Speaker 4: make time, I'll do it. And that's just taken a
Speaker 4: lot of stress out.
Speaker 3: And it's also meant that I spent a lot of
Speaker 3: time with him, and you know, you get to know
Speaker 3: him a lot better. You know, he's got the vascular
Speaker 3: he's got that beast the dimension, which is a version
Speaker 3: of the disease which affects his short term memory, but
Speaker 3: his long term memory is quite vivid. And so he's
Speaker 3: been telling me stories.
Speaker 4: About his young life and his childhood and growing up
Speaker 4: that he never shared with me before, which I've recalled.
Speaker 4: I've recorded some of those just on my phone, just conversations,
Speaker 4: so that I've got those to keep, and.
Speaker 3: That's been really important.
Speaker 4: It's given me another tour understanding of who he is
Speaker 4: and the challenges he faced as he as a kid,
Speaker 4: you know, growing up basically kicked out at home at
Speaker 4: the age of twelve and living with friends and just
Speaker 4: living on his wits most of his life.
Speaker 3: But then there's another moments that just just good fun.
Speaker 3: Like we sit together day we were waiting for his
Speaker 3: doctor and dragged on and on and on. So I
Speaker 3: just get out my phone now and go on Instagram
Speaker 3: and find my favorite comedy clips and we just sit there,
Speaker 3: you clicking through instag comedy stand up thirty forty second
Speaker 3: bits of people say hey, Dad, look at this, just
Speaker 3: pissing ourselves laughing, and it's just a lot of fun.
Speaker 4: We we're idiots in the in the hospital waiting room.
Speaker 4: I don't know because there's noise and everything going. I said,
Speaker 4: I just put it on and go. I look at
Speaker 4: his day and he's having a great old bally laughing.
Speaker 4: I think, well, this is fun, I mean, be of
Speaker 4: a shit.
Speaker 3: Situation by laughing at a bit of day that on
Speaker 3: comedy or some old you know, really.
Speaker 1: Speaking of Catholics.
Speaker 2: I you know, it's funny, like yesterday or this week's
Speaker 2: been really busy for me, you know, just lots of
Speaker 2: work and lots of stuff, and today fair bit on.
Speaker 2: And I got on the phone with mom before as
Speaker 2: I was telling you, and like she's a bit stressed
Speaker 2: about some stuff. And then the more we talked, like
Speaker 2: it was clear that she was really stressed. And then
Speaker 2: it's funny how when you know, like with me, there's
Speaker 2: no wife, there's no grandkids to support, there's no of course,
Speaker 2: and I'm fine with all that. There's no siblings, and
Speaker 2: so it's all pretty much me, which is fine. But
Speaker 2: then you get to the point where you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: so this conversation I'm in right now with my mum,
Speaker 2: this is more important than all the other things I've
Speaker 2: got to do today, Like this is what needs to
Speaker 2: have my energy and my attention and my focus. And then,
Speaker 2: as I was saying before, Mama is so worried about bills,
Speaker 2: not that they don't have the dough to pay them,
Speaker 2: but she doesn't have the skills, right, And I just said,
Speaker 2: you know, all right, I'll come up tomorrow.
Speaker 1: We'll just come up tomorrow and we'll sort it all out.
Speaker 2: And it's funny how when things are going for me,
Speaker 2: when things are going shit with my mum and dad,
Speaker 2: it's like all the other problems aren't problems absolutely, you know,
Speaker 2: It's like it just gives me a level of clarity
Speaker 2: and perspective about what actually matters. Because for me anyway,
Speaker 2: because I don't have a wife and kids, so I
Speaker 2: guess they're the most important people in the world to me.
Speaker 2: And and I don't know if people feel this, but
Speaker 2: I feel like it's almost like now I'm the dad, yes,
Speaker 2: and I feel like I am responsible and if I'm
Speaker 2: not responsible, no one will be. And it's just I'm
Speaker 2: not at the point where I'm making decisions for them,
Speaker 2: but I'm thinking, Okay, I think we need to talk
Speaker 2: about this thing now, and they will never bring it up.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It's like they live in this big old house in
Speaker 2: Latrobe Valley on a big old black land with fucking
Speaker 2: way too much stuff and way too much space. I'm like,
Speaker 2: you two dither around about the twenty square feet and
Speaker 2: the rest of the mansion is fucking gathering us, right,
Speaker 2: But it's.
Speaker 6: Oh no, no, no, no, I'm like, but it's so
Speaker 6: hard because you know what that is as well, and
Speaker 6: I'm you know, doing this at the moment with my
Speaker 6: dad going into care is it's a.
Speaker 4: Massive change for them, and that's a that's a signifier
Speaker 4: of their own, you know, their own journey that they're
Speaker 4: getting to a point where you know, they're in the
Speaker 4: twilight of the years.
Speaker 3: So it's pretty confronting. But I know what you mean.
Speaker 4: It's also you're just not in a position to maintain
Speaker 4: this place anymore, Like you know, it's just too big
Speaker 4: and it's but demands too much of you. So yeah,
Speaker 4: that's really hard. I do have power of attorney with dad,
Speaker 4: so I do have to make some of those decisions.
Speaker 4: But I'm pretty clear headed about that. And the other
Speaker 4: thing I would say to people who are when your
Speaker 4: time comes.
Speaker 3: To deal with this is get on top of that
Speaker 3: really quickly. Talk to your parents, talking siblings.
Speaker 4: You know, my siblings and I have a really solid
Speaker 4: and great relationship when it comes to dealing with these issues.
Speaker 4: And I'm really really lucky, really really lucky to have
Speaker 4: four siblings that we all get it and we all
Speaker 4: support each other and despite all the different things are
Speaker 4: going on our own lives. Because not everybody has that right.
Speaker 4: And if you do have issues with siblings that I've seen,
Speaker 4: it hurd a lot or other people in your family
Speaker 4: who don't understand, you know, what's.
Speaker 3: Going on, or they've got their own hurt and their.
Speaker 4: Own feelings that they haven't really dealt with, and it
Speaker 4: starts to manifest itself around the situation with the parents.
Speaker 3: Oh, it could be help, it could be hell so.
Speaker 3: And that's where those flash points become really important, where
Speaker 3: you haven't.
Speaker 4: Established who has power of attorney in a situation like that,
Speaker 4: and you're trying to have a collegiate conversation with your
Speaker 4: brothers and sisters or an uncle or an auntie, and
Speaker 4: nobody has the ultimate deciding power to decide because you
Speaker 4: haven't done your power of attorney, and it just gets messy.
Speaker 4: So I implore you, if you're going to go and
Speaker 4: involved in a caring role for an aging parent who's
Speaker 4: at some stage is going to need someone to make
Speaker 4: decisions for them, have that conversation now. Get it out
Speaker 4: of the way, because there'll come a time when you're
Speaker 4: going to need it. And that's one of the things
Speaker 4: I've learned is I guess the theme of this is
Speaker 4: that we're embracing the aging and I guess mortality in
Speaker 4: a way.
Speaker 3: We're going to run.
Speaker 4: We're going to run towards it when we see it
Speaker 4: when we need to help people, because there's no getting
Speaker 4: away from it and the only way through is through,
Speaker 4: and to do it well, to do it well for
Speaker 4: both the person who you might be caring for nursing
Speaker 4: and for yourself. You have to embrace it. You have
Speaker 4: to embrace it and take it on as painful and
Speaker 4: as confronting as it is.
Speaker 2: As somebody who never has to kind of navigate or
Speaker 2: negotiate the sibling thing, right, and who's going to do this?
Speaker 2: And that's not something I have to contend with or
Speaker 2: have the pleasure or the whatever. I don't know what
Speaker 2: the right term is, but I've had, as you kind
Speaker 2: of alluded to, lots of conversations with friends who've gone
Speaker 2: that with parents and the money grabbing sick who is like,
Speaker 2: all about the dough. I'm like, what, oh, yeah, it's
Speaker 2: all about I'm like, oh my god, like that that
Speaker 2: just it just repulses me so much. But I get
Speaker 2: that it happens. But the idea that you know, dad's
Speaker 2: on his way out or mum's on her way out
Speaker 2: or whatever, and the kids are fighting over the money
Speaker 2: rather than loving the mum and dad, and just like
Speaker 2: it never I mean, well, I never really thought about
Speaker 2: it till I started hearing about it, and I hear
Speaker 2: about it quite a lot.
Speaker 4: It is one of the great revealers of human character
Speaker 4: is dealing with mortality's people who find that their brother
Speaker 4: and sister. And you know, I've heard this twice in
Speaker 4: the last three or four years from people that I
Speaker 4: know who had found out that their older brother or
Speaker 4: sister has been nursing a greed for many years and
Speaker 4: expects it. You know, I've always done a certain thing
Speaker 4: in relation to the parents' situation and the estate that
Speaker 4: they never dreamed possible because they feel entitled to a
Speaker 4: certain situation being settled in their favor. It's it reveals
Speaker 4: character about greed and you know, the desperation to want things.
Speaker 4: But also I guess in some ways, you know, people
Speaker 4: carry a lot of hurt around and it manifests in
Speaker 4: this way. When a parent dies. It's it is quite
Speaker 4: it's quite horrifying. And that's why it's good to try
Speaker 4: to have these conversations early and make sure that everyone
Speaker 4: understands where they're at. And sometimes it's good not to
Speaker 4: have a lot to worry about. By my parents, there's
Speaker 4: no fighting over much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'm not getting rich off Mary at any stage,
Speaker 2: So God God blessed that little But you know, about well,
Speaker 2: I did hear recently of somebody that I know quite
Speaker 2: well well and there's a member in their family one
Speaker 2: of the children who is who was basically on dad's
Speaker 2: deathbed trying to get him to change the will.
Speaker 1: Like what kind of fucking human does that?
Speaker 3: Oh wow, you know.
Speaker 1: Like pleading his case.
Speaker 3: But you know this also it comes back to what
Speaker 3: we were talking about earlier too, which is.
Speaker 4: About the efficacy and that the integrity of the right
Speaker 4: to assist to dying because one of the other issues that.
Speaker 3: Is very permanent in this is elder elderly abuse and
Speaker 3: financial abuse older people. So if someone gets if someone
Speaker 3: is sick or incapacitated and their person who has the
Speaker 3: power of attorney.
Speaker 4: Decides, maybe against the wishes of the people they have
Speaker 4: at their power at because they have a financial need
Speaker 4: or they've got an impulse to acquire something quickly, that
Speaker 4: they go down. If we were to say, well, that person,
Speaker 4: they wouldn't have the right to go down.
Speaker 3: It's just the dying route at some point. If things
Speaker 3: change at the moment, it's a lot more stringent around that,
Speaker 3: and the person who would be subject to it's just
Speaker 3: the dying has to go through some very rigorous processes
Speaker 3: before they are put on that program. But you know,
Speaker 3: once again, everything's relative and cultural relativity might mean at
Speaker 3: some point he's just going, well, this person's in.
Speaker 4: A bed and you know, it's not not really engaged
Speaker 4: in the world, and you're the you're the power of attorney.
Speaker 4: You have the right to turn off the machine, you know,
Speaker 4: and that that.
Speaker 3: That happens all the time.
Speaker 4: That's sort of not the spousal abuse or financial abuse
Speaker 4: of older people exploring older people because of their financial circumstances.
Speaker 3: You know, that's a real issue. It just it's sometimes
Speaker 3: events like this can bring out the very best in
Speaker 3: us in the way we handle these situations, but it
Speaker 3: can also bring out the very worst.
Speaker 1: At the moment.
Speaker 2: I my thinking around my mom and dad is I
Speaker 2: want to within reason, I want to see them as
Speaker 2: much as I can, and because there's going to be
Speaker 2: a time where I'm going to wish they are around
Speaker 2: to annoy.
Speaker 3: Me, you know what I mean, you'll hear their voices
Speaker 3: in your head.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that'll be there forever. But yeah, I just think,
Speaker 2: you know, I know it sounds cliche, but just to
Speaker 2: just to be able to spend time with them while
Speaker 2: they're still here and you know, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: So I guess I'm a little bit philosophical around that.
Speaker 2: But it also you know, there's a real practical component
Speaker 2: to how do I help them manage whatever it is
Speaker 2: the last one two five ten years of their existence,
Speaker 2: because you know there's apart from all the medical stuff
Speaker 2: and all the psychological and emotional and sociological stuff, there's
Speaker 2: still there's all the practical things that need to be navigated,
Speaker 2: which is it gets quite messy, you.
Speaker 3: Know it does. But as we said, there's no other
Speaker 3: way through them through it, so onwards we go to
Speaker 3: it we do.
Speaker 1: Indeed, now are you heading off? You're heading off to
Speaker 1: see your dad after this?
Speaker 4: Am I life to the old fella, listen to his
Speaker 4: bad dad jokes, which you know, concert with those still, so.
Speaker 2: You're going to one day you're going to miss them, mate,
Speaker 2: So you just celebrate them while they're still coming out,
Speaker 2: while they're still coming out.
Speaker 1: You too, mate, I appreciate you. I hope things all
Speaker 1: right with you.
Speaker 2: Will say goodbye affair, but for the moment, Francis Michael
Speaker 2: Kevin Patrick, John O.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Dante's Shakira, thanks for having a