Speaker 1: Life Uncut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands
Speaker 1: were never seated. We pay our respects to their elders
Speaker 1: past and present.
Speaker 2: Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land. This episode was
Speaker 2: recorded on Drug Wallamuta Land. Hi guys, and welcome back
Speaker 2: to another episode of Life on Cut. I'm Laura, I'm Brittany,
Speaker 2: and we have such a special interview for you today.
Speaker 2: We are talking to Melissa Levi. She is a clinical
Speaker 2: psychologist and she has written the book We Need to
Speaker 2: Talk About Aging Now. This is a conversation that has
Speaker 2: been very long awaited for me and we will get
Speaker 2: into the reasons why.
Speaker 3: It is such a personal and important conversation to me.
Speaker 2: But more so than that, if you have someone in
Speaker 2: your life experiencing dementia, a grandparent, a parent, you are
Speaker 2: going to get so much out of this chat. But
Speaker 2: for anyone who isn't and doesn't have someone and can't
Speaker 2: relate to that experience, I so hope that you listen
Speaker 2: to this episode as well. And the reason for that
Speaker 2: is is because this is truly a conversation around how
Speaker 2: we deal with our parents aging. And the thing is,
Speaker 2: if we are lucky enough, all of us are going
Speaker 2: to experience our parents aging, and if we don't get
Speaker 2: to experience that, then we're certainly going to have to
Speaker 2: experience our parents dying at some point in time. And
Speaker 2: it sounds grim and it sounds like an unbelievable reality.
Speaker 2: But something that Melissa talks about in this chat is
Speaker 2: how ignoring those conversations and never ever preparing for that reality,
Speaker 2: which is a reality that we're all going to be
Speaker 2: faced with one day, is actually so much more detrimental
Speaker 2: to your family ties. It's so much more detrimental to
Speaker 2: your healing than what it is if you're actually able
Speaker 2: to have those conversations with the people who you.
Speaker 3: Love the most.
Speaker 1: Something else I found really interesting about this is it's
Speaker 1: not just a chat for the people that have someone
Speaker 1: in their life with dementia, but it's a chat around
Speaker 1: how to prevent dementia, which I think is really important,
Speaker 1: especially off the back of we've seen Chris Hemsworth recently
Speaker 1: with his documentary where he discovered that he is more
Speaker 1: predisposed to early onset Alzheimer's. I think that hits different
Speaker 1: when someone in the public eye comes out and says, Wow,
Speaker 1: no one's exempt from this kind of stuff and it
Speaker 1: can really get anyone. And these are the things I'm
Speaker 1: going to change in my life to improve my life
Speaker 1: and to try and prevent that. So the conversation around
Speaker 1: prevention is just as important as a conversation around dealing
Speaker 1: with it totally.
Speaker 2: And I think for anybody who has it in their family,
Speaker 2: you live with this fear of like what if that's
Speaker 2: going to happen to me, or what if that's where
Speaker 2: I'm going to end up. We cover everything in this chat,
Speaker 2: from what successful aging looks like, how you can make
Speaker 2: and really support your family members, and I think mostly
Speaker 2: like how you can have conversations with your parents. It's
Speaker 2: a beautiful chat and we hope you enjoy. Recently, we
Speaker 2: were having a discussion on the podcast around dementia and
Speaker 2: aging and it came up in conversation.
Speaker 3: My grandma is currently in a nursing home. She was,
Speaker 3: she still is.
Speaker 2: It's such a hard thing to navigate, but she was
Speaker 2: like my second mum growing up, and she would be
Speaker 2: the person that I would go to for everything.
Speaker 3: I lived with my.
Speaker 2: Grandparents, so I was incredibly incredibly close with them, and
Speaker 2: dementia is something that runs really, really prolifically in my family.
Speaker 2: I don't really remember there ever being someone elderly on
Speaker 2: my mom's side that hasn't ended up having dementia, So
Speaker 2: for me, it's always also been a fear that I have.
Speaker 2: And one of the things that we spoke about, Britt
Speaker 2: was how I feel like my relationship with my nan
Speaker 2: has changed over the years because she just isn't the
Speaker 2: person that she used to be. She's not there anymore,
Speaker 2: and I've really struggled with how to be present when
Speaker 2: she doesn't understand that she has grandchildren, and sometimes it
Speaker 2: feels like she doesn't know whether I'm there or I'm
Speaker 2: not there, or I visited or I haven't visited. And
Speaker 2: you know, it's so easy once your grandparents move into
Speaker 2: a home and they're being cared for, and you still
Speaker 2: make time to go and see them, but you're kind
Speaker 2: of like, are they getting anything out of this? That
Speaker 2: was the big question that I had been asking and
Speaker 2: really grappling with, And when we had this conversation, there
Speaker 2: were so many people who wrote in who said that
Speaker 2: they were having similar experiences, whether it was with their
Speaker 2: mum or their parent, all their grandparents. But I think
Speaker 2: that it is so incredibly prevalent. This idea not just
Speaker 2: of dementia, but obviously aging is something that we all
Speaker 2: go through. And understanding what is the best way to
Speaker 2: support your parents to navigate that changing in relationship is
Speaker 2: something that I have such an interest in and I
Speaker 2: know so many of you did, which is why we
Speaker 2: have Melissa Levi, who was a clinical psychologist with over
Speaker 2: a decade of experience at Simpsons Hospital. She's helped thousands
Speaker 2: of families navigate at the aging journey and she's also
Speaker 2: written a book which was fabulous and it's called We
Speaker 2: Need to Talk about Aging, because we absolutely do. It's
Speaker 2: this thing that we all shy away from, but it's
Speaker 2: where we're all going to end up if we're lucky
Speaker 2: enough to end up there.
Speaker 3: Melissa, Welcome to Lafelon card.
Speaker 4: I am so excited to be here and I love
Speaker 4: the podcast like yours is bringing aging and dementia into
Speaker 4: the spotlight.
Speaker 3: Straight off the bat.
Speaker 1: Melissa, I think the most important question on everyone's lips
Speaker 1: is how do we not age?
Speaker 4: If that could figure that out, you can go buy
Speaker 4: an island retire.
Speaker 1: Oh no. It was funny because we were talking about
Speaker 1: this guy that was viral on the news recently because
Speaker 1: agent has such this negative connotation, but he's been viral
Speaker 1: on the news because he's spending over two million dollars
Speaker 1: a year trying to stop aging and slow aging, and
Speaker 1: he's got like penis injections. He's doing all sorts of things.
Speaker 1: But it's to the point that how society is so
Speaker 1: petrified of aging? And what do you say to that?
Speaker 4: It's so funny because firstly, I get it, and I
Speaker 4: think before I started working with older people, I think
Speaker 4: a lot of our thoughts about aging are sort of
Speaker 4: driven by a lot of myths and stereotypes. What I've
Speaker 4: come to realize, though, is that aging is actually something
Speaker 4: where we can design our own journey to a large extent.
Speaker 4: And I think we'll get into that is, you know,
Speaker 4: we can't always control the twists and turns. We can't
Speaker 4: always control whether we get dementia, We can't always control,
Speaker 4: you know, those changes in health. But how do we
Speaker 4: respond to that? How do we still design a life
Speaker 4: that can be sort of meaningful and joyful in spite
Speaker 4: of that, and recognizing that, oh my god, that's actually
Speaker 4: a possibility. And the other thing is a client said
Speaker 4: this to me and she said, Darling, if none of
Speaker 4: us were to age, if none of us were to die,
Speaker 4: if time was infinite, what would ever be special?
Speaker 3: And I will.
Speaker 4: Always remember her saying that because I just think it's true.
Speaker 4: I think, you know, what makes life interesting and special,
Speaker 4: what allows us to grow as people is the passage
Speaker 4: of time and getting older. But I think we also
Speaker 4: really need to shift what we think of as the
Speaker 4: possibilities for later life.
Speaker 2: What was it about aging and working with people who
Speaker 2: are elderly that drew you to that occupation?
Speaker 4: So Funnily enough, when I was doing my Masters of
Speaker 4: Clinical Psychology, I wanted to work with kids. I always
Speaker 4: wanted to work with kids. Clearly, you get a sense
Speaker 4: this isn't how it played out. Basically, at UNI, I
Speaker 4: just drew the short straw. I was told that I'd
Speaker 4: be spending six months working in an older people's mental
Speaker 4: health service. So I called my mom, had a massive cry.
Speaker 4: And what I realized was I was crying because I
Speaker 4: was scared, like I knew, like you, Laura, on a
Speaker 4: really personal level. At the time, mis Aida, my grandfather
Speaker 4: was living with dementia, and a few weeks earlier I
Speaker 4: had spent the weekend with him in Melbourne, come back
Speaker 4: to Sydney, landed on the tarmac, turned on my phone.
Speaker 4: There were about a half a dozen missed calls from him.
Speaker 4: I called him back and he was really agitated and
Speaker 4: he just said, like, Melissy, I don't see you anymore,
Speaker 4: I don't hear from you anymore. When are you going
Speaker 4: to come and visit me? And of course I realized
Speaker 4: in that moment that he had no recollection of having
Speaker 4: spent days and days together, like living in his home.
Speaker 4: And I was shattered, and I was just so scared
Speaker 4: of confronting that same sense of loss and struggle and
Speaker 4: illness in you know, other families on misplacement. And I
Speaker 4: was also scared of you know, what am I going
Speaker 4: to do for them? How can I make a difference?
Speaker 4: You know. It was this belief that you know, well,
Speaker 4: I can't change this for them. But what I learned
Speaker 4: really quickly is that we can actually make a huge impact.
Speaker 4: And that totally changed the course of my life and
Speaker 4: working now. You know, for the past decade, I've now
Speaker 4: worked with more than a thousand families and it's been
Speaker 4: an absolute privilege and it's what inspired the book. And
Speaker 4: now I'm working with my hobby, who's a lot more
Speaker 4: tech savvy than me, and we're actually building these online
Speaker 4: courses to take all of the education and you know,
Speaker 4: strategies and everything I give to families face to face,
Speaker 4: to families all over the world.
Speaker 2: You know, for me, I remember watching it was an
Speaker 2: episode of You Can't Ask That, and I was standing
Speaker 2: in my kitchen just doing the washing up, and it
Speaker 2: was on the TV, and it was all about dementia.
Speaker 2: And I think for me, even though it has been
Speaker 2: something that has run in my family, something that my
Speaker 2: grandma has dementia, her sister died of Alzheimer's, I did
Speaker 2: understand it properly, and I understood it from the logical
Speaker 2: sense of what it actually is, like how she was
Speaker 2: experiencing it. But I'd never ever heard anybody who had
Speaker 2: been diagnosed with dementia speak about their own experience of dementia,
Speaker 2: someone who was cognizant enough to talk about it and
Speaker 2: was accepting enough of the diagnosis that they could explain
Speaker 2: how they were experiencing it. And for anyone who hasn't seen,
Speaker 2: you know, who's struggling with someone in their family who
Speaker 2: has this, I would so recommend going and watching that
Speaker 2: episode of You Can't Ask That because it was so
Speaker 2: amazing to me and it gave me so much more
Speaker 2: empathy around how people who struggle with dementia experience it
Speaker 2: and also how you might think that they don't remember something,
Speaker 2: but they still have lucid moments of memory, how it's
Speaker 2: not always just completely gone, and they can come in
Speaker 2: and out of that absolutely.
Speaker 4: And I think it goes back to what you said
Speaker 4: at the beginning, which was that you still make time
Speaker 4: to go visit your nan, but you have this sort
Speaker 4: of feeling of like does it matter? Does it mean something?
Speaker 4: And I guess the biggest piece of advice that I
Speaker 4: often give to families is, you know, with dementia, I
Speaker 4: think it's really about stepping into their world. So it
Speaker 4: may be a fleeting moment, but if you can give
Speaker 4: someone meaning, if you can bring someone joy in that moment,
Speaker 4: that that's a moment well spent and they may not
Speaker 4: remember it, but you will. This will, ultimately, like Laura
Speaker 4: for yourself, one day, become your sort of highlight reil,
Speaker 4: your photo album of your time with your nan. And
Speaker 4: I think of a gentleman who I'm going to call Nico,
Speaker 4: just to protect his privacy, and I'll change some details,
Speaker 4: but he was living with dementia, and when I first
Speaker 4: gave him the diagnosis, he was this big, sort of
Speaker 4: larger than life Greek man with this, you know, huge family,
Speaker 4: and he just wept. He just broke down and wept
Speaker 4: because he thought that I had given him a death sentence.
Speaker 4: And what he thought was that, like most of us,
Speaker 4: when we think of dementia, we think of the worst
Speaker 4: case scenario. We think of someone who is maybe sort
Speaker 4: of nonverbal and doesn't recognize their family anymore. And I
Speaker 4: guess there's a few things to know. I think the
Speaker 4: first is, and this is what I said to Nico
Speaker 4: and his family, is that dementia can be a really
Speaker 4: long journey, but also a really individual journey. For some people,
Speaker 4: it can progress really slowly. For other people it progresses
Speaker 4: more quickly. But for the majority of the patients that
Speaker 4: I've seen, most of them don't reach that sort of
Speaker 4: end stage that comes to mind when we hear the
Speaker 4: word dementia. And even for those that do, we can
Speaker 4: still give them quality of life. And for him and
Speaker 4: his family, just educating them, and I think, you know,
Speaker 4: I wish he could have seen that episode of you
Speaker 4: can't ask that, because I think it would have really
Speaker 4: shifted his thinking about what was possible for him. And
Speaker 4: he lived for I think six years after his diagnosis
Speaker 4: at home and continued to function, you know, really well
Speaker 4: and independently, still do things, you know, spend time with
Speaker 4: the grandkids, go to the local club, you know, do
Speaker 4: things that made his life meaningful. And then his daughters
Speaker 4: had always assumed that his wish would be to stay
Speaker 4: at home at all costs, but he actually said to
Speaker 4: them that after his wife passed away, that he didn't
Speaker 4: want his daughters looking after him at home if he
Speaker 4: needed sort of twenty four to seven care. So when
Speaker 4: the time came that he did need more care, he
Speaker 4: actually chose to move into a Greek speaking residential age
Speaker 4: care home, a nursing home. And I went to visit
Speaker 4: him there and I said, you know, Nico, how is it?
Speaker 4: And he said, you know, everything here is so good.
Speaker 4: You know this is good. But there's one problem, Melissa.
Speaker 4: He said, everyone here is Greek. I said, Niko, your Greek?
Speaker 4: He said, shit, am I. And what we did for
Speaker 4: him as his dementia progressed was he had been a
Speaker 4: handy man he'd been a painter, you know, so in
Speaker 4: the courtyard of this nursing home, they gave him pots
Speaker 4: of paint. He would pass the days painting the back fence,
Speaker 4: you know, starting from one end to the other and
Speaker 4: then going again, you know, gardening, fixing bits of furniture.
Speaker 4: They let him have a cigar in the back corner,
Speaker 4: even though he wasn't meant to. They just sort of
Speaker 4: turned a blind eye, so he didn't always remember how
Speaker 4: he had spent the day. But if you went and
Speaker 4: visited him at any given moment, he was in sort
Speaker 4: of a joyful place. He was in flow. He was
Speaker 4: doing stuff that made him feel like himself. And there
Speaker 4: was another lady that I saw just to I guess
Speaker 4: acknowledge that sort of worst case scenario, who I'll call Sophia.
Speaker 4: And when I first met her, she was in the
Speaker 4: high care dementia unit of her nursing home, her residential
Speaker 4: age care home. And when I met her, she was
Speaker 4: sort of slumped over in her chair, her face was
Speaker 4: like inches away from the tray in front of her,
Speaker 4: and she had been nonverbal for a long time. And
Speaker 4: I spoke with the family and they said, you know,
Speaker 4: she'd always been a really devout Catholic who loved going
Speaker 4: to church. So we started playing some hymns and songs
Speaker 4: and she couldn't articulate the words, but she would hum along,
Speaker 4: and she lifted her head and with the help of
Speaker 4: the care staff, sat up in her her chair and
Speaker 4: you know, we got the care staff to massage her
Speaker 4: arms and her shoulders. She'd sit there going like mmm.
Speaker 4: You know. It was so pleasurable for her. And she
Speaker 4: used to love Brandy Custard and she was on a
Speaker 4: special diet so that she wouldn't aspirate, wouldn't choke. And
Speaker 4: the family said, you know what, we would rather take
Speaker 4: the risk of her choking on Brandy custer lots of
Speaker 4: bit coal dying than foregoing it. And that was the
Speaker 4: decision they made, and that's what she did. And it's
Speaker 4: just this idea that your story, even if it's really
Speaker 4: really hard, I think, with the right education and support,
Speaker 4: there are so many possibilities for your family and for
Speaker 4: the people you love.
Speaker 1: I think right now a lot of the general population
Speaker 1: are learning just how prevalent it is from crazily enough
Speaker 1: Hollywood stars that are coming out and talking about their
Speaker 1: dementia all their families have talked about the dementia, and
Speaker 1: I talk about Bruce Willis who had fronto temple, who
Speaker 1: has fronto temporal dementia, Robin Williams, who I think it
Speaker 1: was a lowly bodied dementia. How many different types of
Speaker 1: dementia are there.
Speaker 4: So the way that I think about dementia, because it
Speaker 4: is really confusing. One of the most common questions families
Speaker 4: ask me is you know what is the difference between
Speaker 4: dementia and Alzheimer's disease. So I think of dementia as
Speaker 4: an umbrella term. It's an umbrella that basically tells us
Speaker 4: that something has changed in someone's brain. There is some
Speaker 4: sort of disease process in the brain that's affecting their
Speaker 4: ability to think and function day to day and their behavior,
Speaker 4: but we don't really know much more than that. Under
Speaker 4: that umbrella. There are over one hundred different subtypes of dementia. Wow,
Speaker 4: So Alzheimer's is the most common. It accounts for about
Speaker 4: seventy percent of all dementia cases, which is why people
Speaker 4: confuse the term. But it's only one type, and each
Speaker 4: type has its own sort of pathology, like a different
Speaker 4: cause of the changes in the brain and therefore its
Speaker 4: own symptom profile. So a lot of people think that
Speaker 4: for dementia, everybody gets memory loss, but the examples that
Speaker 4: you've given, memory loss is typically the first sort of
Speaker 4: clinical symptom of Alzheimer's. But for Bruce Willis, his first
Speaker 4: symptoms were language based apha.
Speaker 3: Also, I think.
Speaker 4: Correct correct aphasia, and you know, for Robin Williams, I
Speaker 4: think it was a lot more to do with sort
Speaker 4: of his mood and personality and psychological sort of symptoms.
Speaker 4: So yeah, there's huge variability. And just briefly, Laura, maybe
Speaker 4: to put your mind a little bit at ease, is
Speaker 4: that Another big question I get asked is around if
Speaker 4: mum has dementia, if granddad had dementia, will I get
Speaker 4: dementia tally? And it's a huge fear people have. The
Speaker 4: short answer is no, and the long answer is but
Speaker 4: there are sort of exceptions to that. So if mum
Speaker 4: or dad have Alzheimer's disease or vascular dementia, which is
Speaker 4: the second most common type, and it was diagnosed maybe
Speaker 4: after the age of six, the likelihood that it is
Speaker 4: inherited is really slim. So there are some genes that
Speaker 4: are involved. You might have heard of, like the APO
Speaker 4: E four gene for example.
Speaker 3: Certainly have not, but.
Speaker 4: How do you live your life not hearing?
Speaker 3: Everyone knows that.
Speaker 4: But basically what we know from the research now is
Speaker 4: that there are so many other factors, lifestyle factors, other
Speaker 4: factors that have a much stronger bearing on whether you
Speaker 4: will get dementia than carrying that gene. There are certain
Speaker 4: dementias where there is a stronger hereditary component, and just
Speaker 4: as an example, that would be like early onset Alzheimer's.
Speaker 4: So when mum or dad have been diagnosed before age
Speaker 4: sixty five, and then some of the other subtypes that
Speaker 4: are less common can have a stronger genetic component. But
Speaker 4: if mum or Dad has sort of Alzheimer's vascular, I
Speaker 4: would not be concerned that it's then inevitable that you
Speaker 4: going to get it.
Speaker 1: I believe that's why Christal Hemsworth did his documentary recently
Speaker 1: and why he's publicly come out and said I'm going
Speaker 1: to take a step back from acting and be with
Speaker 1: my family because they found a genetic link for him,
Speaker 1: like a predisposition to it. So that is I guess
Speaker 1: what you're talking about, where there are sometimes this genetic
Speaker 1: link and predisposition.
Speaker 3: What about if it's a looser link, Kitche.
Speaker 2: I mean we've just touched on if it's your direct parents,
Speaker 2: but what if it's say, like so, for me, that
Speaker 2: was something that is in my family. My nana's sister,
Speaker 2: she passed away of Alzheimer's in her sixties, so she
Speaker 2: had a very aggressive and was diagnosed extremely young, and
Speaker 2: that genetic link has kind of always been the one
Speaker 2: that scared me. And I think that that is where
Speaker 2: it's prevalent in my family for example.
Speaker 4: And your nan with her dementia was diagnosed.
Speaker 3: Later in life.
Speaker 4: Later in life. I think you'd have to speak to
Speaker 4: a geneticist on this because it gets quite complicated. But
Speaker 4: my understanding, whenever we would take sort of clinical histories
Speaker 4: and look at genetics, we'd really be looking at people's parents,
Speaker 4: maybe grandparents. Yeah, right, and then I think the sort
Speaker 4: of genetic component gets weaker and weaker as it sort
Speaker 4: of disperses out from there.
Speaker 1: I mean, because we all think about it, right, We're like, oh,
Speaker 1: do we have to do an extra sudokua week, Like
Speaker 1: what is it that we do to prevent dementsua?
Speaker 3: Or what can bring dementia on?
Speaker 4: So I love this question because in twenty seventeen and
Speaker 4: then in twenty twenty, there was a report published in
Speaker 4: the Landset, which is one of the most prestigious medical
Speaker 4: journals in the world, and it was really exciting because
Speaker 4: it was a huge, huge report looking at you know,
Speaker 4: an enormous amount of data, and what they concluded is
Speaker 4: that about forty percent of diagnosed cases of dementia are
Speaker 4: due to modifiable risk factors, so about forty percent of
Speaker 4: cases are preventable. Wow, and these are things that we
Speaker 4: can take action on. So some of them seem sort
Speaker 4: of really basic and intuitive, but basically the way that
Speaker 4: I boil it down. And for those people that have
Speaker 4: maybe seen the documentary on Netflix about the Blue Zone,
Speaker 4: oh yeah, you'll notice that some of these strategies sort
Speaker 4: of you know, crossover what Dan Buttner learned by visiting
Speaker 4: these blue zones. The first is basically, you know, if
Speaker 4: it's good for your heart, it's good for your brain.
Speaker 4: So good cardiovascular health is a huge asset in preventing dementia,
Speaker 4: both vascular dementia, but Alzheimer's disease, other types of dementia.
Speaker 4: So you know, keeping blood pressure in check, cholesterol in check,
Speaker 4: and you don't need to freak out. If you know,
Speaker 4: oh my gosh, but high blood pressure runs in my family,
Speaker 4: just go see the GP. Take medication to regulate it,
Speaker 4: you know, exercise, eat well.
Speaker 3: Which we all can do. We just a lot of
Speaker 3: us choose not to.
Speaker 2: It's because it's so easy to kick the can down
Speaker 2: the road, right and we all do it. It's so
Speaker 2: easy to be like, I know what I'm supposed to do,
Speaker 2: but then I'll just start it next year when I
Speaker 2: have you know, the next New Year's I.
Speaker 1: Want to twenty five pieces of ks right.
Speaker 2: Now, or I want to drink that wine, or you know,
Speaker 2: it's so easy for us to kind of just keep
Speaker 2: on pushing it down the track with the intention that
Speaker 2: you'll do it later, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: you're in your late fifties and you haven't done any
Speaker 2: of the stuff that you thought you were going to
Speaker 2: do from the time that you were thirty, because time
Speaker 2: just kind of gets away from you.
Speaker 4: The research shows that these strategies are most helpful. I
Speaker 4: mean that all it doesn't matter when you start. It's
Speaker 4: never too late, but if you want to optimize it,
Speaker 4: it is in mid life. So you know, it's not Okay, Well,
Speaker 4: when I get into my seventies, you know, I'm going
Speaker 4: to like become a triathlete. These are things that you
Speaker 4: want to do in midlife to have the greatest protective effect,
Speaker 4: I guess. And the other thing is it can also
Speaker 4: be simplified. So if you look at Dan Buttner's work,
Speaker 4: it isn't about running marathons or joining CrossFit forty five,
Speaker 4: Like you don't have to do anything vigorous. So if
Speaker 4: you look at these blue zones and like the world's healthiest,
Speaker 4: longest living people, it's more just constant movement every day,
Speaker 4: so literally like a thirty minute walk and doing house
Speaker 4: chores and gardening and swimming and dancing, like do stuff
Speaker 4: that you enjoy that's not onerous. And with diet, it's
Speaker 4: also that sort of Mediterranean inspy a diet. I mean,
Speaker 4: who doesn't love Italian food, Like this is a great diet,
Speaker 4: and you can have red wine. But you've hit the
Speaker 4: nail on the head because a lot of people say,
Speaker 4: like if I do sudoka, if I do this, you know,
Speaker 4: can I prevent dementia? One of the best things you
Speaker 4: can do. So you might have heard of neuroplasticity. It's
Speaker 4: basically we used to think that when you were a
Speaker 4: kid that you got your brain, had this burst of
Speaker 4: new brain cells, and then your brain cells just gradually
Speaker 4: sort of died off over the course of your life.
Speaker 3: Like our eggs, like they do just gradually die off.
Speaker 4: They correct, correct, Look, it's all it's all a bit bleak.
Speaker 4: But no, that is not true anymore. So what we
Speaker 4: know now is that actually your brain has the potential
Speaker 4: to create new brain cells and new connections between those
Speaker 4: cells basically until the day you die.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 4: So that is neuroplasticity. So then everybody's like, okay, I
Speaker 4: want a piece of that. How do I promote neuroplasticity.
Speaker 4: It is by getting your brain to do something new,
Speaker 4: something that your brain cannot currently accommodate. So if you
Speaker 4: were being forced out of your comfort zone at work
Speaker 4: to do things that were really new, to learn information
Speaker 4: that was completely novel to you, your brain is just
Speaker 4: on fire. It is creating new cells, new connections, new networks.
Speaker 4: And with sudoku, I always think it's great do puzzles
Speaker 4: do sudoku, But the problem is when you become really
Speaker 4: good at it and really proficient at it, either you
Speaker 4: need to up level and try something a lot more complex,
Speaker 4: or you need to switch to something else. So I think,
Speaker 4: you know, we often stay in our lanes and we
Speaker 4: stick to what we're good at. But I've had like
Speaker 4: my grandmother in law, who's now ninety four, decided to
Speaker 4: take up line dancing in her seventies.
Speaker 3: Oh it's so good, you know.
Speaker 4: So it can be anything. It actually doesn't matter what
Speaker 4: the activity is. It can be learning a language, learning
Speaker 4: an instrument, learning to dance, anything that you cannot currently
Speaker 4: do really well and intuitively will promote sort of more
Speaker 4: brain cells. And just on this top of like how
Speaker 4: do we protect against dementia, another really strong protective factor
Speaker 4: is our sort of social connections. And it also speaks
Speaker 4: to one of my favorite studies, which is the Harvard
Speaker 4: Study of Adult Development. It's sort of the one of
Speaker 4: the longest running studies of adult life in the world.
Speaker 4: I think it's been running for over eighty years. Basically,
Speaker 4: back in the nineteen thirties, they decided to follow a
Speaker 4: group of Harvard men and a group of men from
Speaker 4: some of Boston's most disadvantaged suburbs, and they checked on
Speaker 4: them every couple of years, you know, examined their family life,
Speaker 4: medical records, brain scans, blood tests, professional achievements, socioeconomic status,
Speaker 4: everything mental health, and they asked the question in real
Speaker 4: time of like what creates or what predicts a healthy,
Speaker 4: happy long life. And they had I think hundreds of
Speaker 4: thousands of data points and they found that there was
Speaker 4: actually one factor that separated the men that had these happy,
Speaker 4: healthy long lives and those that didn't. And it wasn't
Speaker 4: their IQ, and it wasn't their blood pressure, and it
Speaker 4: wasn't their financial success. It was the quality of their
Speaker 4: close relationships.
Speaker 1: Shit, we need our friends, Laura, I'm hearing.
Speaker 2: But it's so, I mean, this is something that's covered.
Speaker 2: Just going back to the series The Blue Zone. We
Speaker 2: recommended it on our Vibes the other week. Some of
Speaker 2: the communities that had their most panterarians were the communities
Speaker 2: where they prized friendship and they prized this sense of
Speaker 2: having a community, which I think for a lot of us,
Speaker 2: especially as the years progress, we lose friends. I mean
Speaker 2: it studies show that each year you lose your friendship
Speaker 2: network gets smaller, and that could be because work pressures
Speaker 2: get bigger, or you have children and just like the
Speaker 2: realities of all of the things that we take on
Speaker 2: means that we can't put our time and energy into
Speaker 2: our friendship circles.
Speaker 4: Often it's not the quantity of the friendships but the
Speaker 4: quality of the friendships. So you can have fewer, but
Speaker 4: they have to be like really good, like Brene Brown
Speaker 4: would say, like bury the body friends, you know.
Speaker 3: Like I've made a big mistake, Wessa.
Speaker 2: I would love to know if someone's listening to this
Speaker 2: and they think that their parent has or someone who's
Speaker 2: close to them has dementia, or is worried about their
Speaker 2: parents memory or lack thereof. How do you broach that
Speaker 2: conversation with a loved one that you're worried about their
Speaker 2: not just their aging, but that you're worried about how
Speaker 2: cognizant they are and worried that maybe they do have dementia.
Speaker 4: So in terms of how to broach and I love
Speaker 4: that we're talking about this because dementia and really aging,
Speaker 4: it's a family journey. This takes a village. And when
Speaker 4: I think of sort of the families that have a
Speaker 4: more successful journey versus those that have a less successful journey,
Speaker 4: I've come to think that families that have a better journey,
Speaker 4: have sort of nailed what I think of as like
Speaker 4: the care triangle. And in explaining this triangle, I want
Speaker 4: to answer your question of how to broach that conversation
Speaker 4: with mum if you're worried about her thinking or her memory. So,
Speaker 4: if you visualize a triangle, I think at one point
Speaker 4: you've got mom, dad, or your aging loved one. At
Speaker 4: the other point you've got the care which statistically is
Speaker 4: really likely to be your listeners. You know women currently
Speaker 4: in their twenties to forties, but as they get a
Speaker 4: bit older will become what they sort of call, unfortunately
Speaker 4: like the Sandwich generation, like caring for aging parents while
Speaker 4: also caring for kids. And then at the other point
Speaker 4: of the triangle you've got the family. And families that
Speaker 4: have the best journeys are those that have the big
Speaker 4: conversations with mum and dad to get a sense of
Speaker 4: understanding what's going on for mum and dad now and
Speaker 4: what are their wishes for the future, Like Mum and dad,
Speaker 4: what do you want if you get a difficult diagnosis?
Speaker 4: How do you want to live life in one, five,
Speaker 4: ten years? Because I see all too often families that
Speaker 4: are having these conversations making huge decisions for their parents
Speaker 4: in hospital corridors.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when it's too late to having those conversations.
Speaker 4: Way too late there. It's so stress school, there's so
Speaker 4: much pressure. It often leads to family conflict because everyone's
Speaker 4: got a different opinion, and the opinion of the actual
Speaker 4: person that matters most, you know, maybe is not available
Speaker 4: in that moment. It's just it just sets you up
Speaker 4: for so much struggle.
Speaker 2: What do you do though in the instance, because I
Speaker 2: think that this is something a lot of people do
Speaker 2: deal with. On one hand, you have parents who will say,
Speaker 2: I don't want to be a burden to my children.
Speaker 2: I want you to put me in a home, you know.
Speaker 2: And then there's other parents who say, never put me
Speaker 2: in a home. I would rather fall over in a
Speaker 2: bathtub and die that way than being put in a home.
Speaker 2: And then you're faced with the challenge that your parents
Speaker 2: can't take care of themselves, they can't be at home,
Speaker 2: They need to be cared for in some capacity. But
Speaker 2: they've always fought and are still fighting this idea of
Speaker 2: going quote unquote into a nursing home or a care
Speaker 2: facility or something like. How do families manage that? Because
Speaker 2: that was very much my situation with my grandma. And
Speaker 2: also I have a very close friend who's currently dealing
Speaker 2: with that themselves, and I think that that's something that
Speaker 2: is so hard to make peace with.
Speaker 4: Absolutely so. And I think actually that's the perfect example
Speaker 4: of why having these conversations early is so helpful. Because
Speaker 4: if Mum and Dad say you know, or Mom says,
Speaker 4: you know, I never want to be in a home,
Speaker 4: you know, I'd rather take the risk of, you know,
Speaker 4: living by myself. It's about then being able as a
Speaker 4: family to sit down and say, you know, okay, Mom,
Speaker 4: what's that going to take and having real talk and
Speaker 4: sitting around the table and saying, okay, sister, what are
Speaker 4: you prepared to do for mum? And okay, brother, what
Speaker 4: are you prepared to do to facilitate this? And some
Speaker 4: family members will wow you and flaw you with what
Speaker 4: they are prepared to do, and others will really disappoint you.
Speaker 4: But you're better knowing that upfront and having realistic expectations. Okay, Mom,
Speaker 4: if you got dementia but you still wanted to stay
Speaker 4: at home and you needed care, what's that going to cost?
Speaker 4: Like in real terms, what sort of money are we
Speaker 4: looking at here. Yeah, And okay, mom, if you want
Speaker 4: to stay at home, how do we try to best
Speaker 4: support that. Well, firstly, let's get an age care assessment
Speaker 4: early so that you've got access to government funding for
Speaker 4: home care. Yeah, so that if you want to stay
Speaker 4: at home, it's not just on my shoulders, my sister's shoulders,
Speaker 4: my brother's shoulders. We've got people coming into the home.
Speaker 4: Because staying at home is a possibility, but it does
Speaker 4: require planning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And also in that on the planning side of things,
Speaker 2: with anything that's like government done, it requires the time
Speaker 2: and the processes. And if you're then in a position
Speaker 2: where you need the care and you need the support
Speaker 2: around you, and you need the income to be able
Speaker 2: to do it, but you've filed for that so far
Speaker 2: down the track that you're in a position now where
Speaker 2: the care is not going to come as immediately as
Speaker 2: you need it, that puts so much additional strain on you.
Speaker 4: One hundred percent. And I think that's why these conversations
Speaker 4: are so important is that actually the only thing harder
Speaker 4: than broaching these topics. And I want to loop back
Speaker 4: to your question about like, how do you broach it
Speaker 4: in the first place, The only thing harder than broaching
Speaker 4: the topic is not because aging is inevitable. It doesn't
Speaker 4: mean that we can't shape the journey ahead, but it's coming,
Speaker 4: like every single one of us is going to be
Speaker 4: touched by it. So let's go into this prepared. Let's
Speaker 4: go into this with a plan. And in terms of
Speaker 4: how you might broach that first conversation, you know a
Speaker 4: few things. I think. Firstly, if you're worried that mum
Speaker 4: might have dementia, most of the time I've noticed that
Speaker 4: Mum's probably noticed something too, especially in those early stages.
Speaker 4: She's probably scared and deny. You're scared and possibly in
Speaker 4: denial correct or just not wanting to burden you. Maybe
Speaker 4: it's like you know, in her heart and on the
Speaker 4: tip of her tongue, but she can't bring herself to,
Speaker 4: you know, speak it to her children. So just a
Speaker 4: few tips for that. I think the first is I
Speaker 4: would almost talk about it the same way you'd talk
Speaker 4: about a broken arm, and just be like, really calm
Speaker 4: and confident in how you approach it, because I think
Speaker 4: that often allowed the other person to feel a bit
Speaker 4: more at ease. The other big thing to know here
Speaker 4: is that your job is not to convince Mum of
Speaker 4: a diagnosis. That is not your job in this conversation.
Speaker 4: Your job is just to communicate your concerns and really
Speaker 4: to get Mum to go to the GP. That's your outcome.
Speaker 4: So be really clear on your outcome is to get
Speaker 4: Mom to the GP. You can't be expected to diagnose
Speaker 4: this or to convince Mum. And really, instead of focusing
Speaker 4: on the diagnosis of dementia, I would focus on just
Speaker 4: the changes you've noticed. You know, Mum, I noticed that
Speaker 4: you've missed a couple of medical appointments lately. Or Mom,
Speaker 4: I noticed that, you know, there's a couple of scratches
Speaker 4: on the car. You know, you never used to scrape
Speaker 4: your car. Or Mom, you were meant to pick up
Speaker 4: the grandkids on Thursday and you just seem to forget,
Speaker 4: you know, but I've noticed these sort of things are
Speaker 4: happening a little bit more. Or you know, Mum used
Speaker 4: to love going to play bridge. And I bumped into
Speaker 4: Margaret the other day and she said she hasn't seen
Speaker 4: you for a number of months. Like, let's pop down
Speaker 4: to the doctor and just have a bit of a
Speaker 4: chat about what's going on. Because in some cases the
Speaker 4: changes in mum's memory. Yeah, maybe it is the beginning
Speaker 4: of something like a dementia process. But there are actually
Speaker 4: a lot of other possibilities and some of them are
Speaker 4: treatable that could be at play here.
Speaker 3: What is the difference?
Speaker 2: I mean, I know that we've spoken a lot about
Speaker 2: dementia and it's something that I'm, like I said, genuinely
Speaker 2: so interested in that. What do we deem successful aging? Like,
Speaker 2: what does it look like for somebody to have like
Speaker 2: a compromised aging, but then, on the other hand, successfully aged,
Speaker 2: because it's all hopefully it's the end goal, right, hopefully
Speaker 2: we're able to actually age. It's a privilege to be
Speaker 2: able to get hold even though none of us want to.
Speaker 2: But what does that look like?
Speaker 4: So to me successful aging, when I think about what
Speaker 4: that is, it's someone being able to live a life
Speaker 4: that is consistent with their own wishes values, to still
Speaker 4: experience a sense, even if it's a momentary, sense of meaning,
Speaker 4: of connection of joy. There's like a beautiful poem by
Speaker 4: William Ernest Henley called Invictus, and the last two lines
Speaker 4: say like I am the master of my fate, I
Speaker 4: am the captain of my soul, and I think successful
Speaker 4: aging will look different for every single person because we
Speaker 4: all live completely different lives. But I think it's about
Speaker 4: and just briefly, just to give two stories that in
Speaker 4: my mind, I guess typify successful aging and maybe a
Speaker 4: sort of less successful journey as a family. I think
Speaker 4: of Bruce, who I met. He came into hospital, into
Speaker 4: ed into emergency after having a big stroke, and the
Speaker 4: doctors were talking to his kids. He didn't have a
Speaker 4: partner or spouse and saying, you know, what do you
Speaker 4: want us to do? We can do surgery to relieve
Speaker 4: the pressure on dad's brain. We can do this surgery,
Speaker 4: we can do conservative management, you know what would dad
Speaker 4: want us to do? And they just look I will
Speaker 4: never ever forget the looks on their faces. They were shattered,
Speaker 4: and they just said, we've never discussed this as a family.
Speaker 4: Like the best we got was Dad saying, you know,
Speaker 4: don't ever let me become a vegetable total. What does
Speaker 4: that mean right now? Like what do we do? And anyway,
Speaker 4: the doctors supported the family, they made a decision. Bruce
Speaker 4: ended up surviving the stroke, but he was really, you know,
Speaker 4: quite disabled after that. You know, his level of function
Speaker 4: had really taken a big hit, and then the family
Speaker 4: were faced with other decisions. Okay, so when it was
Speaker 4: time for dad to go home, could dad go home?
Speaker 3: Where's it going?
Speaker 4: Looking up all of these massive decisions, they ended up
Speaker 4: in conflict because the daughter and the sun had very
Speaker 4: different ideas of what was best for Dad. So they
Speaker 4: stopped speaking. And I just thought, like, this was a
Speaker 4: normal family, Like this could happen to any of us.
Speaker 2: This is why I think this is conversation is so
Speaker 2: important because you know, you don't know you need to
Speaker 2: have the conversation until you're in it. And I know
Speaker 2: for you, Britt, like when we started this, you're like,
Speaker 2: you know, I have not had experience with dementia in
Speaker 2: my family, so it's not something that relates to me.
Speaker 3: It's not something that I've ever thought about. But that's
Speaker 3: just it.
Speaker 2: You don't think about it until you're so far deep
Speaker 2: in it that you don't know what to do. And
Speaker 2: then there's the guilt about am I supporting my And
Speaker 2: it makes me truly feel upset, like is there the guilt.
Speaker 3: That I'm doing it right?
Speaker 2: Because you don't know And we didn't have these conversations
Speaker 2: with my grandparents and it's because we didn't have the resources,
Speaker 2: and it was because they were very in denial around
Speaker 2: it as well. And I think our family approached these
Speaker 2: kind of topics as though, if you put your head
Speaker 2: in the sand, we'll deal with it when it's a
Speaker 2: big enough problem.
Speaker 1: Or if you're not happening, if we don't actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: don't talk about it. We don't always said it's like
Speaker 1: it's not.
Speaker 2: Real and you almost don't know what's coming. So we're like, well,
Speaker 2: we'll deal with it when we have to deal with it.
Speaker 2: But if you're dealing with it when you have to
Speaker 2: deal with it, it is actually too late. And so
Speaker 2: as much as I know that the specific conversation about
Speaker 2: dementia may not relate to everyone, the conversation around aging
Speaker 2: relates to every single person listening to this, and these
Speaker 2: are conversations we have to have with our parents.
Speaker 4: I think also, Laura, just to be kind to yourself,
Speaker 4: like your family is the typical family, your family's my family.
Speaker 4: We didn't talk about this when my Zeta was diagnosed
Speaker 4: with dementia. I hadn't even started my career. Just giving
Speaker 4: yourself also grace to know that you are not unusual
Speaker 4: and we get stuck in this vicious cycle of like
Speaker 4: aging scares me also because as you say, I don't
Speaker 4: have the education and support to even know how to
Speaker 4: broach this topic. So I'm not going to think about it.
Speaker 4: I'm not going to talk about it. Then we're going
Speaker 4: to have to confront it at some point, whether we
Speaker 4: like it or not. But without planning, without preparation, it's
Speaker 4: a really difficult journey. It confirms all of our worst fears.
Speaker 4: So you know what, we're going to go back to
Speaker 4: not talking about it and thinking about it again.
Speaker 1: And it's one of those things that in terms of
Speaker 1: not just dementia, but now just aging in general. It
Speaker 1: is a conversation you need to have with your family,
Speaker 1: even to the point of what are their wishes in
Speaker 1: terms of burial cremation. If it's cremation, where do they
Speaker 1: want to their ashes spread? I think these are really
Speaker 1: important conversations because I've seen exactly the same thing too
Speaker 1: many times. When you get to that point and you're like,
Speaker 1: it's debilitating. She's like, I don't know what they want,
Speaker 1: and it hurts me that I don't know if I'm
Speaker 1: going to do the right thing for them. I remember
Speaker 1: I had a conversation with one of my friends lost
Speaker 1: their parents, and this is what made me think of it.
Speaker 1: They didn't know what to do. It was unexpected, they
Speaker 1: didn't know what his wishes were. And I had the
Speaker 1: conversation with my parents and people are going to think
Speaker 1: this is really weird. But there's something that you can
Speaker 1: do where you can cremate someone and you can have
Speaker 1: it made into jewelry. Now I know this sounds crazy.
Speaker 1: I've had people ask us before, yeah, so you can
Speaker 1: put their ashes into like a stone and it doesn't
Speaker 1: look like it it's yeah, and you wear it. And
Speaker 1: I sort of made the choke like can I do
Speaker 1: that so that I can you guys can be close
Speaker 1: to me on a necklace, close to my heart or
Speaker 1: close to and you know, they were like at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, but like, if that makes you
Speaker 1: feel better, do it. And so we had that convot
Speaker 1: and it was funny and it was light because they're
Speaker 1: not dying now, but we made it in a way
Speaker 1: that wasn't morbid, and at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: I sort of feel a bit more comforting. I don't
Speaker 1: know if they've changed their mind that I want me,
Speaker 1: they don't want to live in a ring for the
Speaker 1: rest of their life. But I think those conversations in
Speaker 1: all capacities are really important so that you'd not face
Speaker 1: without anguish when the decision comes.
Speaker 4: And I think you've touched on something, brit that's so true.
Speaker 4: And I've seen this play out, is that when we
Speaker 4: have the conversations early and it does feel a little
Speaker 4: bit further away, it is a bit more hypothetical, and
Speaker 4: your level of comfort grows the more you talk about it.
Speaker 4: It grows and you can even laugh about it. And
Speaker 4: I think about my husband Ben, his grandfather, who we
Speaker 4: call Pa. We used to sit around the dinner table
Speaker 4: laughing about like what would happen when he died, what
Speaker 4: would be written on his tombstontal, how he wanted to
Speaker 4: be cared for, like he wanted a hot nurse at
Speaker 4: the end of his life. He said, he said, this
Speaker 4: isn't he said this excrimination? Oh sorry, he said, used
Speaker 4: to say, like the bald spot on his head, Like
Speaker 4: it's not a bald spot, it's a solar panel for
Speaker 4: a sex machine. Like he was, you know, vivacious and
Speaker 4: cheeky and until the very end. But what was so
Speaker 4: amazing was I look at my family and the grief
Speaker 4: we had after losing my Zada, because again we didn't know,
Speaker 4: We didn't have the resources, the knowledge to know what
Speaker 4: conversations to have. My Zada was a Holocaust survivor. All
Speaker 4: of my grandparents were, so they were the first generation
Speaker 4: in our family that we saw getting old. None of
Speaker 4: us had faced it before. So when he died and
Speaker 4: the decisions we had to make, there was so much
Speaker 4: stress and complexity along his dementia journey, and there was
Speaker 4: so much grief when he died, like complicated grief, second
Speaker 4: guessing I wish I could have done, we should have done.
Speaker 4: It was soul destroying. Whereas when Pa died, everyone and
Speaker 4: he's got a big family, six kids, everyone was in alignment.
Speaker 4: Everybody knew his wishes back to front. They had the
Speaker 4: care lined up so that he could stay at home
Speaker 4: for as long as possible. They had palliative care lined up,
Speaker 4: the doctors knew what to do. And when he did
Speaker 4: pass away, he'd been married sixty three years to Grandma.
Speaker 4: She was phenomenally resilient in her grief, and the whole
Speaker 4: family were. And I was so intrigued by this because
Speaker 4: they missed him and yearned for him, but they didn't
Speaker 4: have that layer of second guessing. They were like the
Speaker 4: we knew that we did everything to give him the
Speaker 4: end of life that he wanted. And that is a gift.
Speaker 4: These conversations, I promise promise, as hard as they are,
Speaker 4: they are a gift. They are a gift to your
Speaker 4: parent because your parents like, Okay, they get my wishes.
Speaker 4: I have more control over what my life's going to
Speaker 4: look like as I get older. They're a gift to
Speaker 4: you because, as you say, brit there's not that anguish
Speaker 4: of what to do. And actually they have the power
Speaker 4: to bring everyone closer and even prevent family conflict because
Speaker 4: it gets everyone on the same.
Speaker 2: Pay Melissa, thank you so much for coming and being
Speaker 2: a part of this. This is an episode I have
Speaker 2: wanted to do for the longest time, and I know
Speaker 2: it was a little bit selfish because it is very
Speaker 2: like self healing for me. But I do think it's
Speaker 2: going to help so many people. And I think if this,
Speaker 2: if you take anything from this episode, go and have
Speaker 2: those conversations with your parents in a way that allows
Speaker 2: it to be on the table so that there isn't
Speaker 2: the fear of around aging because we're all going to
Speaker 2: fucking end up there if we're lucky.
Speaker 3: If you're lucky, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: There was even if someone that doesn't have direct link
Speaker 1: with dementia. I found that very insightful, and I know
Speaker 1: a lot of people will.
Speaker 4: Thank you so so much for having me and without
Speaker 4: wanting to like self promote at all, But if there
Speaker 4: are people listening that really do want more support and
Speaker 4: they want sort of the nitty gritty or like templates
Speaker 4: for having these conversations or anything, you can head over
Speaker 4: to talkingaging dot com. We're going to put up a
Speaker 4: page talkingaging dot com forward slash Life out Cut with
Speaker 4: just a bunch of free downloads.
Speaker 3: You amazing, You're also your book.
Speaker 2: You know we need to talk about aging for anyone
Speaker 2: who needs to and wants to learn more.
Speaker 3: It's phenomenal.
Speaker 4: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3: Guys.
Speaker 1: All the links for those resources and Melissa's book are
Speaker 1: all going to be in the show notes. So if
Speaker 1: you're interested, jump on over and you can find everything
Speaker 1: you need there and we will be back in your
Speaker 1: ears tomorrow with ask Guncut, don't forget, tell you, Mum,
Speaker 1: tell you, Dad, tell you, Doug, tell your friends and
Speaker 1: share the love because we love Blah.
Speaker 5: They're we gonna the buddy. They're not cunning the body,
Speaker 5: they're not cut a gay. The body.
Speaker 4: The cut of.
Speaker 5: The day. The bay, the bay,