Hello, and welcome to the Get to Life Podcast, where we have conversations about Oregon, Tissue, and I know Nation. I'm Roy Steele. I'm Joey Boudreau. And I'm Sarah Bligmore.
And today on The Get to Life, lots to get to. Yes, of course we're always looking for ways to support donor families. Today we'll be talking to the host of the Grief Out Loud Podcast, which is a great resource for donor families. Alright, so you don't want to miss that, all those details and more coming your way right here on The Get to Life.
But before we get to that, you may have been asking yourself, we're Sally, we're Sally Gentry, right? Exactly. I heard she was climbing Mount Everest. I heard she was pursuing her Passion of Dog Psychiatry.
And there was something about a lottery ticket, not sure. I'd get a call. Yeah, lots of rumors going around. What's fact, guys?
Alright, let's listen. Hi, podcast buddies. This is Sally Gentry. Decided to take my advice and call 504648347 and leave a message for you.
As some of you know, I've recently retired from LOPA after 19 years. And during that time, I had the distinct honor of working with hundreds of donor families and recipients. During the last three years, I had the pleasure of being on the Gifted Life Podcast along with Lori and Joey, producers Kirsten and Shalon. And most of all, Troy, you who helped me sound professional.
I miss our monthly recordings that's filled with donation, transplantation, and research information for our listeners. In addition, I miss the ups and downs and humor and dedication it takes to do the recordings. Thanks to everyone for listening. Hey, guys, continuing forming others of this important message in helping make life happen.
Oh, and I do plan on dropping by every now and then just to say hello. I mean, that is unless you lock the door and won't want me in. Thanks again for being fantastic and innovative co-workers. I'll see you soon.
Take care. Bye-bye. Oh, Sally, I'm going to miss her. I'm going to miss her sitting right here.
Her words of wisdom. Yes, especially I would like to love her. No, don't like to just do it. She would just say it matter of fact.
Right? Helping us out. I'm going to ask you, Joey, calm down right now. Calm down.
I know you love to hear that. I'm helping you. My personal favorite. I know how you feel.
Oh, Lord. Amen. I'll help professionals. We're a snat me right there.
Sarah and Joey, I'm using your first names because I hear you. I'm using your first name. You see lessons learned. All things we learned from Sally.
I'm going to miss her laugh. Her bright clothes to brighten up the room. We're just going to miss. We're going to miss ordering pickles.
No joke. No, she's incredible. She's such a service to our community and to everyone at Lopo. She was a character.
She was a professional and knew how to have a good time. Cut up and make the day enjoyable. We should drive by her home and make sure she's okay. Take her out or something.
Maybe one day she'll get tired of being retired. She can come back here on the gift of life. I can feel her in my head like wrapping up. Not talking about me.
We're going to wrap that up. We miss you. We're going to get on to the gift of life podcast. Here on the gift of life podcast, we are excited because we're talking to another podcast host.
Hannah, Krista Farrow, that's fun to say, Jenna. You might be the only person that ever said that. Thank you. Thank you.
Your podcast is called Grief Out Loud. Grief Out Loud, if you're looking for new podcast material. Why Grief Out Loud? Tell us what it is that you're trying to do.
We started this podcast back in 2015. I don't know if we really knew why we were starting, but we thought it was a great idea as a way to take the work that we were doing locally in Portland, Oregon. We run Grief Support Groups for kids and teens and young adults and our adult family members. And recognizing that the community we're creating for them in person was a phenomenal thing, but it was only for folks who were here in the greater Portland area.
While there's tokens like ours all around the country, we also know there's areas of the country and the world that don't have access to that service. We thought, is there a way for us to have conversations with people who are grieving to share tips from professionals? We can start to extend that community virtually to people who are anywhere around the world who could benefit from hearing other people's stories. That was the initial idea behind the podcast.
So now that you guys have gotten into it, obviously now four years. So are there certain segments of grief, certain aspects of grief that you guys focus on? Or is it pretty much carte blanche throughout the grief spectrum? I would say it's pretty much across the board within the realm of we're focused on grief from the diagnosis or the death of somebody in someone's life.
So while lots of different loss and transition points can create grief, whether that's the end of a relationship or the loss of a job or struggles with mental health. And there's so many things in life that can create grief. We're focused primarily on people who have had someone die or someone who's living with an advanced serious illness. That's so amazing.
So you do work with patients of chronic illness as well? We do. So the study center has been around since 1982. But in 2014, we started a brand new program for us.
It's called Pathways. And it is a group specifically for families who are dealing with an advanced serious illness. So there's a group for children, teenagers, the person who has the illness and also the primary caregiver, the other adults in the family who is focused on caregiving both for kids and for the person with the illness. So that has been a really important addition to the study center's many of the services.
When you sound like a great resource yourself, somebody to ask you about your background and how you ended up where you are today. Sure. So totally by accident, every time I know how I got where I am, I'm still like, hmm, I'm glad it happened. I'm not really sure what happened.
I went to school to get my master's in social work a thousand years ago. And when I graduated, I was trying to find a job and I was like, something about this isn't sitting. And so I just made the decision like I'm terrible with people, but I'm pretty good with numbers. So I'm going to do research because I can like, I can like, sidle up a decent to supporting folks by doing research.
And then after about six months of doing that, I thought, oof, this is not my one graduate school. I actually do like people. So a friend of mine recommended that I look into the deputy center as an opportunity for volunteering because she had had some of the time that I'd come to her graduate school class. And she's like, I don't know really what they do there.
There's kids and there's teddy bears and they're sad. I don't know. You should just check them out. So I was like, well, that doesn't give me much to go on, but I will look into them and ended up taking their volunteer training.
And it was the first time for me and a social service setting, whereas like I need to get a big exhale here because the way the deputy center approaches working with people approaches working with grief totally felt like it was an alignment with how I've you changed and how I've you'd wanting to be with people. We really come from that perspective of people in grief are going through a totally natural normal process and they don't need intervention. They don't need fixing. They don't even need advice.
They need support, understanding, witnessing people being able to listen to their stories and to help them figure out what they need to do. So I was like, I can't work with people because this is an environment that fits for me. That's so I'm so happy that you said that. You know, I heard recently someone say that grief is a natural response to a natural scenario, which I totally disagree with because as we know in this world, everyone is going to die at some point.
So everyone is also going to grief at some point. So a question I had was, in working with families who are preparing for death, what would you what would be a tip for you that you would give out to prepare for grief? Because at some point we'll all experience it. I think that's the most impossible question to answer.
How do we prepare for it? You know, there's a thing when you talk about like it's not necessarily a natural situation, but I mean for so many people it's an unknown situation or unfamiliar situation. Even if they have had someone in their life die previously, every new grief is going to have its own characteristics and qualities, many of those unknown and unfamiliar. So I think a lot of grief is just trying to recalibrate.
Like what does the world look like now with this huge thing? And I don't know if there's any way to prepare for that. You know, I don't know if there's any way to do something now to ensure that we don't feel grief later. I know for my own life I think about making deposits in the savings account of the crisis.
I think that's a way to diminish the regrets. The way I think about it. Like what are the things, what are the conversations I can have? What are the ways I can connect with people?
What are the things I can prioritize in my life? So that when that person is no longer physically present, I've hopefully done everything I could to minimize the regret guilt that I might carry into my grief, right? Those are great things for me to take away. I can certainly tell you in listening when you were describing the Dougie Center at first, I was kind of getting an idea, but it sounds very fascinating to me.
What were the most, I guess, surprising and fascinating things that you learned from what your expectations were going into the Dougie Center to where you are now? Well, it just passed my 17 year mark of working at the Dougie Center. So you are asking me to go way back in the recesses of my memory of what I expected. I mean, I'm hard now to know because I'm changed so dramatically by this work, but I imagine going into it, I probably carry the stereotype that many of us do and by no fault of our own, just from our socialization and how we've been taught about what grief looks like by movies and books and all sorts of other ways.
Going back to what my friend had said, well, there's sad kids there. I imagine I brought that imagery with me and that expectation that grief equals sadness and grief equals so much more than sadness. I think that's in the biggest education piece for me and maybe the biggest surprise that in our group, it's really interesting in the past, I think that when I was raised, I was in the first place with grief in the Dougie Center and you clearly saw a gap, saw another need, and saw other outlets and media that were available. So what was a thinking in 2015 when you guys said, okay, we need to really start reaching out to more people about this?
Well, you know, we received a lot of emails and phone calls from around the country of people who are looking for services similar to the Dougie Center. Maybe somebody who lives in a state where there isn't a program or they live in one corner of their state and the one program available is 250 miles on the other corner of that state. Also hearing from people who were children when someone in their life died and now are in the 50s, so they're not at the right, I don't want to say right, but they're at the wrong age. But they're not in the demographic that most Greek support programs are serving in terms of kids and teens.
And recognizing that for a lot of times they find comfort in community and revisiting, hearing from other people who have gone through a similar experience at the same age, even if it has been 30, 40, 50 years later. And I think that the genesis of that idea for me is that we have over 200 volunteer facilitators who work with our groups. And these are community members who facilitate in our groups for kids and teens and adults. And many of them are people who had the experience of the parent who were sibling dying when they were a child, and they didn't have a place like the dining center to go to.
So as I come to volunteer, they're able to work through some of their griefs with the other volunteers and then be present for these kids. And I thought, gosh, if it's a meaningful for these folks, I bet there's people out there who can benefit from hearing what it's like to be grieving. Well, from one podcast to another, we applaud your efforts. That was our goal too, was to reach more people to help people.
I just start these healthy conversations for us. It's about working tissue, I donation for you. It's about grief. But sometimes I'm just not ready to talk about it.
I just want to listen, right? And feel okay. So I like that. So I guess, how do you measure is your podcast working?
Do you have a favorite episode or an aha moment when it came to this new tool that you have for folks? Hashtag have a favorite episode. That's another impossible question. They're all really valuable.
And all of those conversations are just an honor for me as a host to have. Oftentimes, I think maybe 10 to 15% of our interviews are with other staff at the dining center. Other professionals keeping it up that more. Here's some things you can do to help.
Here's something to look to be aware of in grief. And so those are really meaningful and powerful. But for me, when I get to sit down with someone who's either currently working through their experience of grief or is reflecting on their experience of grief, it's like a little mini support group with just two people in it. And so just recognizing the power of that.
I mean, all the folks who have been on the show in that perspective, we did do a series with folks kind of reflecting on how grief has changed for children over the past five decades. So we started with somebody who had somebody die when they were eight in the 40s and we talked with someone out of parent-dying the 50s, parent-dying the 60s, parent-dying the 70s. So that was a really interesting step of interviews to do. My goodness.
And then I forgot the second half of your question. I was asking if you thought if it was working? Yeah, that's another interesting. What does it mean to be working in grief?
I obsessively check the downloads because that's what I do. We're listening out there and hopefully it's not just my mom listening over and over again. So that's always validating for me when we have a big spike in downloads or knowing that it's reaching people. But I think what's most meaningful are the folks who email us from around the country in the world to say thank you so much for your podcast.
I tuned in because my husband just died and I got three kids and I needed some ideas for Father's Day. And your episode really made a difference for someone who says, I'm in my 60s but my dad died when I was seven and I never knew other people felt the way I felt until I heard your show. So that to me is a sign of working. Right.
You're helping folks, right? So you said 17 years at the Dougie Center, I like to ask these experts who come on about how social media plays into grief. We see a lot of our families using that kind of as an outlet. What are you saying?
Yeah, I mean, I think that's always changing and evolving both generationally and just with a climate around social media. I mean, I think it's one of those tools where it can go both ways. There's folks who really appreciate having an opportunity to one maybe connect with other people. So maybe they find a Facebook group for other people who are dealing with the death of a spouse or they find a Facebook group for other people in their young adult years who are dealing with a death of a parent.
So they can find and build their own connections in community. That's going to be a really positive outlet. Or people being able to ask friends and family to post memories and photos of the person who died. So they can continue to keep that memory present day.
And then there's the other side of it where some folks will say, you know, other people are posting so much about the person that they weren't close to them the way I was. Mm-hmm. They can feel like there's a bit of an imbalance of other people being so public in their grief. And maybe as though it's like linked into their territory or people reaching out to them by social media, maybe on the day when they weren't feeling ready for seeing a memory or seeing a photo too.
So I think there's ways to balance out and for kids and teens who are using it, like helping them think through, okay, here's some ways people might respond, which could feel really good and positive. Here's some ways people might respond that doesn't feel quite so good and positive. How are we going to prepare you to respond to that? Or how are we going to react if that occurs?
Yeah, definitely in 2019 seeing more technology. I was just curious, obviously, to seeing some of that. But grief out loud, we found it to be a great resource. We wanted to share it with our listeners here on the gifted life.
So you can find that just on your favorite podcast app out there. Absolutely. Yeah. Stitcher, Apple podcast, anywhere people are getting their podcasts, we should show up.
All right, Jenna, we appreciate you sharing your knowledge with us. Keep up the good work. We hope to have you back here on the gifted life soon. Thank you.
Thank you so much for the work that you're doing in the world as well. Thank you, ma'am. Now, in the podcast, we're going to take a moment for mental health with Ms. Sarah.
What are we talking about today? So today we're going to talk about self-care. Self-care right now is a very hot topic in mental health because there's so much research out there that shows that increased care for our mental, emotional, and physical health is a direct correlate to reduce burnout, stress, and anxiety. So what is self-care though?
It's taking care of ourselves. I mean, we live in such a crazy world, right? We have so much going on. A lot of us have kids, pets, jobs.
So it's important to really take that time to focus on ourselves. And I know that with that comes a lot of guilt, especially for parents, there's that added part of guilt when you take care of yourself and not your kids. But really what I want to focus on is the fact that if you take care of yourself, you can better take care of others. I'm going to take this home and listen to it again and again as a mom.
And you should. And it's true. We hear that from a lot of parents. There's so much guilt when it comes to taking care of ourselves.
But the research overwhelmingly shows that when you do, you're going to be a better coworker, mother, friend, calmer. Well, so I mean, I practice self-care every evening with my two glasses of wine. Okay. Yes.
That's how I de-stress and think, okay, this is good for me. Yes. Right. Is that a part of it?
That absolutely is self-care. And I had a professor in grad school who whenever we would talk about self-care and alcohol, he would say, as long as the couple glasses of wine, don't turn into the bottle. Yeah. You're okay.
Yeah. I mean, it's two big glasses. It's the same thing. Right.
Yeah. It's a bottle. I know, as long as it's not highly. When I'm stressing out, I'm looking at this worksheet that we're going to tell you more about, who's listening, it says, time away from your phones.
What are you trying to stress me out? I know. And it's true. And when's last time you kind of just put your phone away in the other room and took a moment to read a book or do a self-check-in or be with your family?
I'm going to miss something. Exactly. The fear of missing out. Right.
I know. Oh, so talk about this worksheet. There's so many resources out there to be able to assess your own self-care practices. And so we're going to go ahead and provide one on our website and link in the show notes.
So go ahead and take that, see how you're doing. And it's such an eye-opener to see. You look at your physical, psychological, mental, emotional care, and it really kind of can open your eyes to see what you need to do better for yourself. It's okay to say no.
It's absolutely okay to say no. I don't have to go to that activity after work. No. No.
That's free, right? That's free. It's true. And you know what?
That was actually one of my things for New Year's Eve was saying no two things I don't want to do out of obligation. It's okay to, if you're tired, not go to dinner with a friend, go in the next week when you're less exhausted. Letting people down, like, how worry? But you're not because that moment and those times that you do spend with them when you're better cared for are going to be much more enriched and meaningful.
Play with your children, love yourself, give yourself affirmations like that. Yeah. It's all perfect. But you're so calm saying it like I'm calm listening.
Okay. I'm calm down saying it and doing it or two different things, of course. But it's just it's going to improve your physical health, your mental health. It's going to do everything if you take just a couple minutes every day to do something that's good for you.
But it says eat healthy. And sometimes, you know, I think self-care is I want to eat that big stuff, put in a fried stuff, put in a nut we were talking about earlier. And do it. It's all balanced about making your soul happy and yourself happy.
I'm not getting a very good score right now. We're going to have to have another talk on this. All right. All right.
So guys, this worksheet amazing. So where can we find it again on our website, thegiftedlife.org or in our show notes, take day trips or mini vacations. Yes. I'm going to talk to my boss about he's just coming up for war.
All right. I like that Sarah. Thanks for your time. Thank you.
At this point on the gifted life, we honor hero as we do in every episode today's hero, Doug Colston. Yes, we learn about Doug from his wife. He loved God and his family. He was a hard worker and always saw the best in people.
He was an amazing husband and best friend. I was so blessed to have met and lived a life with him. He was a father to eight amazing children that he loved with all his heart. Seven of them had started their own lives with one remaining at home.
Needless to say, those two had lots of plans. He was also just beginning his journey as a papa, the two beautiful babies. I don't have to tell you how excited he was. Those two did not stand a chance or maybe it was him that didn't.
Either way, it was bound to have been a hoot. And now we pause and say thank you to Doug for the gift of life. All right guys, in our question and answer segment, we actually just got a call in recently and someone was concerned wanting to remove themselves from the registry. The backstory is that his friends family received a bill following his friend's donation.
And so he went to remove himself from the registry because he did not want his family charged for donation. So we were glad that you reached out, right? Right. And the confusing part is when the hospital staff, the physicians are still in life-saving mode, of course, all of those items, all the supplies, all the care that goes into that, there's still a bill that the family is going to receive from that area.
Now, the donation process itself is completely free. It's a gift. And we say that and we mean it. It's a gift from one person to another life-saving gift.
So there's no charge to the family for that gift. Now, we've gotten a number of calls throughout my many years of working with closely with family services that families ask us, Hey, look, it looks as though we were billed for this. And of course, we get involved, we help navigate with the family and the hospital to make sure again that they're not charged for any of the donation process charges. All right, that's good to know, right?
And then the end result of this story was that we kept someone on the registry with the facts. So we always encourage you to learn the facts and make an educated decision. And we want to hear from you. So please email us your questions to info at thegiftedlife.org, or you can give us a call at 504-648-3477.
We may even play your message on the podcast. And that'll do it for episode 111 of The Gifted Life. Special thanks to Jenna with the Grief Out Loud Podcast. What a great resource.
Yeah, and the best place to find us, guys, thegiftedlife.org. That's where we're pushing out this information as we learn. We want to share together. Listen there and find links to listen on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to your podcasts.
If you listen on Apple Podcasts, please leave us a five-star rating. It really helps others find our podcast. And on social media, like our page on Facebook, the Gifted Life Podcasts, and follow us on both Twitter and Instagram at Gifted Life Pod. And we hope that we inspire you to say yes to organ tissue and eye donation.
If so, the process is simple. Register me.org. That's a one-stop shop. In the meantime, we hope that you go out and do something you would normally do to help us make life happen.
It's a team effort. Until next time. This is a production of the Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency or LOPA. The Gifted Life is hosted by Lori Steele, Joey Boudreau, and Sally Gentry, our executive producer is Kirsten Hines.
Producer is Shalom Caraway. Intern is Rebecca Rannem. And we are recorded, engineered, and mixed in our Povington, Louisiana studio by Troy Perez.