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The True Cost Of Dementia with Annalee Kruger - E99
8 Plays35 minutes ago
Thinking Medicare or Medicaid will cover everything in old age is a costly misconception - many families are blindsided by care costs that soar to $30,000 or more a month.
Adult children and spouses suddenly become caregivers without warning, forced into overwhelming decisions and family conflicts, all while juggling the emotional toll of watching loved ones decline. Avoidance, denial, and a lack of planning can turn a difficult situation into chaos, threatening financial security and fracturing relationships.
This episode is a real-world guide to navigating these realities, showing why proactive conversations and clear planning can save families from crisis, and featuring hard-earned wisdom from someone who's navigated this journey with thousands of families.
Annalee Kruger founded Care Right Inc, a virtual consultancy, in 2011, after working in Continuing Care Retirement Communities for 22 years. She has devoted her career to helping families determine their "safety triggers" for when parents need care, and the aging at home care budget to prevent families from not qualifying financially to gain admission into a quality care community.
She has been curated by over 32 wealth management firms to work directly with their clients. She is a national speaker on aging, caregiving, dementia, family dynamics/mediation, and end-of-life. She authored, ‘The Invisible Patient: The Emotional, Financial, and Physical Toll on Family Caregivers’. She also created the Aging Strategy Coaching Academy (ASCA), a global coaching program that addresses aging, family caregiving, dementia/chronic illness, the landscape of senior care, dying, grief, and much more.
“Kids are always blindsided because they just assume that their parents are thriving at home when oftentimes they really aren't.”- Annalee Kruger
In this episode you will learn:
- Why most families are not ready for the challenges of aging loved ones.
- The biggest mistakes families make in planning for senior care and how to avoid them.
- The real costs of aging, and common myths about Medicare and Medicaid.
- How group living and social teaming can improve health and lower risk of decline.
- Steps every adult can take now to make aging easier for themselves and others.
- Why solo agers need to plan ahead and build a strong support network early.
Resources
- Connect with Annalee on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carerightinc/
- Watch her YouTube videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBY2WWuTdSylECzGvksCC2w
- Learn more about Care Right Inc.:https://carerightinc.com/
This podcast was produced by the team at Zapods Podcast Agency:
https://www.zapods.com
Find the products, practices, and routines discussed on the Alively website:
https://alively.com
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction: Misconceptions about Medicare and Medicaid
00:00:00
Speaker
Families often think that Medicare or Medicaid will pay for all of this care that their parents need, and it does not. When Ethel and Marvin say, I'm not leaving my house, we're going to stay here until we pass away, they're spending anywhere from $30,000 to $40,000 to $50,000 per month in companion care, and that is just for one companion.
Podcast and Guest Introduction
00:00:25
Speaker
This is the Home of Healthspan podcast, where we profile health and wellness role models, sharing their stories and the tools, practices, and routines they use to live a lively life.
00:00:38
Speaker
Annalie Kruger, welcome to the Home Healthspan podcast. Thank you, Andrew, for having
Annalie's Background and Personal Story
00:00:43
Speaker
me. I appreciate it I appreciate you being here and this is a lot of these episodes end up having a very personal angle for me. It's how I choose a guest ah since I get to choose a guest. But before I get in into why that is and in your story, how would you describe yourself?
00:00:59
Speaker
am a lively, virtual family caregiver, senior care, dementia and end of life consultant serving families and corporations and financial advisors nationwide.
00:01:13
Speaker
Okay. So this, I think like maybe every single listener of this show is something that hits home for me personally, is someone who grew up with three great grandmothers.
00:01:26
Speaker
I've seen this generation after generation go through as my grandparents try to take care of their parents, great grandparents, and then- as my parents try to take care of their parents and what that looked like. And then now with my own aging parents, what that looks like. And i mean, God bless my parents. They were physicians.
00:01:44
Speaker
And having seen those generations, they're really trying to get ahead of it. They're taking that instead of just saying, hey, I'm just going to outsource that to my kids. They're really doing what they know and have experienced would be helpful for us. But I don't think everybody is like that.
00:01:58
Speaker
I think a lot of people... See, it's a disaster, but don't know how to stop that slow moving train wreck that they see coming. And so I guess this is where your work is so instrumental. So can you talk a little bit about how you got into this work? What is it that drew you into it?
Challenges in Senior Care and the Need for Planning
00:02:15
Speaker
For sure. i i am probably one of the most blessed people that I know because I'm 53. And in the 70s, when I was growing up, we didn't have home care. We didn't have independent living, assisted living. There wasn't designated memory care units. We didn't have any of that. We didn't have technology. We didn't have the Internet. We didn't have any of that.
00:02:35
Speaker
And so when my own grandparents started aging and getting more frail and having some, you know, chronic pain and memory issues, we moved them into the farm. I'm an Iowa farm kid. And so they moved in with us and on the farm.
00:02:51
Speaker
And it was just such a blessing because it was my dad's dad and my mom's mom. They were both widows. And so but we moved them in to our our home. And it was really great to just grow up with with having that third you know that third generation or that next generation up.
00:03:08
Speaker
I learned so much about how different people, how people can just have a very different aging journey. So for example, my dad's dad, my grandfather, he was physically fit. He was fit as a fiddle. he'd ride horses with us. He'd ride on the combine that drive the tractor. He just needed the people. He needed us around him and just some structure to his day and activity. Whereas my mom's mom, she had like major osteoporosis, wheelchair depression because of her chronic pain. They didn't have chronic pain clinics like they do now. And so she had a very different, like she needed hands-on care. So we, you know, we took care of her and physical to, physical care of her. That just shaped me into who I am today. And I knew by the time I was in third grade that I was going to do this type of work. I just didn't know what it was called at the time, but it's it's social work, right? And so I went into social work and long-term care. I worked as a social worker in CCRCs, Continuing Care Retirement Communities. And once I have independent living all the way down to skilled nursing and memory care. And I did that as a social worker and marketing director.
00:04:20
Speaker
And then eventually as an as executive director for over 26 years. And the problem was the same every single day. Adult kids got thrust into caregiving and thrust into decision making. They were completely ill prepared and completely ill equipped, meaning a typical scenario. Mom's a caregiver to dad. Dad has Alzheimer's. Mom had a stroke.
00:04:45
Speaker
Kids get that crisis call. Hey, do you know x y Z? And you're like, yeah, that's my mother. Well, we have her in the ER. She had a major stroke. And so that gets the kids thrust into decision making. And then the the hospital will say, here's a list of facilities. Go find one by noon tomorrow because we're going to discharge your mom after she gets somewhat stable. But the kids were so overwhelmed and they were like, we got thrust into taking care of dad. We didn't realize how demented he was. You know, he has his days and nights mixed up and they were exhausted after like two days of taking care of, you know, a demented loved one. And so when they get that call from the discharge planner at the hospital that says they have to find a facility for their mom the next day because they're discharging and that's how it goes every single time. The kids had no idea what questions to ask or what to look for during the tour. Just stepping into that environment is so so intimidating and daunting because unless you hang out in long-term care communities, it can be daunting walking into a facility and you're like, oh, I never wanted to have to put my parents in here.
00:05:48
Speaker
And now we have two parents that need two different types of care. Dad needs Alzheimer's and memory care and mom needs skilled rehab. And so so they didn't understand dementia. They didn't understand that assisted living is different than skilled nursing. And then when I would ask them, what do your parents have in order? Do they have living will, power of attorney, long-term care insurance? Like where are what's their code status? Are they to be resuscitated, not to be resuscitated?
00:06:14
Speaker
And the kids had no idea how to answer any of that. We're like, we don't know. We've never talked about any of that. But then Andrew, like this many, like this teeny tiny percent of adult kids would say, you know, we tried to get this information from mom and dad, but they gave us so much pushback that we quit trying.
00:06:31
Speaker
So that's why I started my own consultancy. Cause I'm like, I think I can make better, make a bigger impact helping families worldwide with, you facilitating their family meetings and doing aging planning so that when that crisis happens, they already they understand
Family Meetings and Understanding Dynamics
00:06:47
Speaker
dementia. They understand the lay of the land for senior care, how much care costs and they have their documents in order and they're properly supported along the way.
00:06:55
Speaker
There are a lot of steps and work involved in getting this. And I would imagine the ordering is incredibly important because as you were saying it, my experience is very much like what others have said of we tried, but they didn't really engage.
00:07:13
Speaker
And just like... You know a lot of people, it's a pride thing. They don't get hearing aids for much longer than they should. And maybe that creates more dementia than would otherwise happen. They give up driving much later than they should. They see it.
00:07:26
Speaker
People are really scared of aging and death. And having that conversation is incredibly uncomfortable for them and they're fearful of it. And so even if you are a child stepping into the caregiver role,
00:07:40
Speaker
you have to kind of get the ground fertile to be receptive to that conversation. What does that step look like? That's the tricky part. and And oftentimes when families try to facilitate their own family meetings, it just goes sideways for a lot of different reasons. Some of them are, everybody has a different idea of quality of life. Everybody has an idea of dementia. Well, if dad gets worse, well, but when I hear that, that tells me that they did not get educated on dementia because dementia will get worse. It's a progressive disease.
00:08:16
Speaker
There's usually a fair amount of denial within family members. They're like, oh, mom and dad are doing OK. Well, they might be until they aren't. But I can promise you that I always can tell when kids start visiting their parents for the holidays and special events because they're like, oh, my gosh, dad didn't recognize me or mom's lost 20 pounds or the house smells or whatever. They haven't been taking their medicine or we didn't realize that this and this and this was happening. And so kids are always blindsided because they just assume that their parents are thriving at home when oftentimes they really aren't. And so when kids then finally realize, oh, my gosh, mom and dad aren't doing well, they've had falls, they're in and out of the hospital.
00:08:58
Speaker
There's urinary tract infections or they got scammed or, you know, there's always these signs that are very apparent if you're not in denial. And so when kids then start these conversations sometimes with their parents, they're a little bit inflamed because they're like, oh, this just this bad thing just happened. And and so it's hard to keep like that emotional level that's that's going to not be defensive for families.
00:09:23
Speaker
But that's why there's value in having a neutral third party family meeting facilitator. That brings all of this dementia education, brings family dynamics to the table to help them have productive and effective family meetings.
Financial Planning for Aging Care
00:09:39
Speaker
And then you also just real quick. Cause that's kind of a loaded question, but blended families are, can be complicated, especially if it is a later in life marriage where maybe the adult kids actually never really met each other and they have no relationship. Well, now Ethel had a stroke and Marvin's kids are like, well, we don't want our dad getting burned out, taking care of your mom. So we're going to move our dad closer to where we live. And so you can see how family dynamics can get incredibly tricky and very quickly.
00:10:09
Speaker
Do you find it's easier? you know, the best time to plan for a crisis is not in the crisis. It's well, well ahead of it. And so do you find it's when people are still healthy and moving and say, Hey, look, I am not trying to stomp on your autonomy, your freedom right now, but right now where you are all together, everything's great.
00:10:32
Speaker
Could we have this conversation to start Setting here the signpost that we can both agree as it sits today would be where we need to start looking at something different. It is always, always better to plan ahead in truly anything in life. Like we plan ahead in everything, where we want to go to college, our occupation, who we're going to marry. You know, we plan our vacation. We plan for every single aspect of our life. So why wouldn't we plan for our aging years? It just kind of boggles my mind.
00:11:04
Speaker
But... What happens, though, too, is, you know, bringing up those conversations of like, let's get ahead of this. And I do want to say it's usually the adult kids who are reaching out to to us at CareRate because they have become mom and dad's assisted living. And it's just not safe or so or sustainable for their relationships or their family. But I do want to say that there are aging parents out there who are like, Anna Lee, we've tried to have these conversations with our adult kids and the adult kids don't want to talk about it.
00:11:35
Speaker
So, so I think we need to be fair on both sides of the the fence there that, you know, there's a lot of parents that are like, cause they, just like you had talked about, maybe their parents left kind of a mess for them to have to clean up. And so now they're like, well, we have you know, we have cancer or we're getting older. We don't want to leave a mess for you kids. We want to get our accounts, passwords, long-term care insurance. We want to talk to you about all of this, but sometimes the kids are the guilty ones in that piece of it. They're like, we don't want to talk about it because they're in denial or they're just, it's not comfortable conversations.
00:12:10
Speaker
Well, speaking of uncomfortable conversations, there's a crass financial component to this and funding what that end of life, because you could have the pie in the Here's all the things I want. And you look at the bank account and say okay, that's great. But if you live for 10 years instead of five or 15 instead 10, these things look different. And just having seen, again, both my sides of grandparents that had not budgeted,
00:12:38
Speaker
for this and the mess that it then imposed on the rest of the family and then the impact that it had on the siblings relationships yeah trying to to do that. So how do you think about that financial aspect and the financial planning and and realism of what I want all of these things? Great. And I want a unicorn and a pony and all this, but like, we still have to be realistic of what is possible.
00:13:05
Speaker
So financial peace is usually where families start the conversation because usually, because they may not have planned ahead and been proactive with these family conversations about the what winds of aging.
00:13:18
Speaker
And so usually what prompts, what prompts these family meetings is a crisis, you know, a hospital stay of fall and when care is needed and families often think that Medicare or Medicaid will pay for all of this care that their parents need. And it does not. It does not. And so when they talk about, well, you know, when mom and dad want to age in place at home and when Ethel and Marvin say, I'm not leaving my house, we're going to stay here until we pass away. What they don't realize, and this is another wedge that happens within relationships of families because they don't know what they don't know,
00:13:56
Speaker
And they assume that Medicare or they assume that Medicaid are going to pay for this care. Well, one companion, depending on where you live in the country, but my clients that are aging in place at home, they're spending anywhere from 30 to 40 to $50,000 per month.
00:14:12
Speaker
in companion care, and that is just for one companion, depending on where you live. so when you when you're talking about trying to age in place at home, it's very expensive. And that's not including a geriatric care manager, one that can coordinate doctor's appointments, take you to your appointments, set up medications and manage medications. Those can be another $150 $300 an hour. so i mean, it's expensive to age in place at home.
00:14:42
Speaker
And so that's why when we do family meetings and aging planning, we outline, well, here's how much care can come is going to cost in your area. Here's what the waiting lists are for different care communities. Here's what they offer for different levels of care, memory care or assisted living or skilled nursing.
00:14:59
Speaker
This way, we can then have that conversation with the family and say, well, now that you know how much care is going to cost, what is going to be your aging in place at home care budget so that you don't break the bank and now not financially qualified to get into a you know a more quality higher end care community? And so when when when families try to have those conversations, obviously, it's better to have it proactively instead of waiting until you're at the hospital bedside and the doctor says, well, you need to go to a facility or if you go home.
00:15:33
Speaker
Then you're going to have to have 24-7 care. That's often when families are kind of forced into these conversations and it doesn't go go very well.
Role of Care Communities
00:15:43
Speaker
So to go back to your question earlier about proactive family meetings and proactive conversations about the wet ones of aging. They yield much better family relationship outcomes and financial outcomes because then you are more mentally equipped and hopefully get your ah do documents in order versus the family meetings that come to us when they're in crisis mode. They're emotionally charged. And then that's you never make good decisions.
00:16:14
Speaker
I did want to ask on these care communities. And so my parents, my grandparents, my grandfather and grandmother were living in the house. My grandfather grew up and my father grew up. I mean, it was, it was very, very difficult emotionally and personally for him to move.
00:16:32
Speaker
but they were able to do it. I mean, less than a half a mile away from their home was one of these where they had townhomes and then they had the, the assisted living and then they had the dementia care all under one roof. And they even had a hospital just across the parking lot. Like everything was right there.
00:16:48
Speaker
And so, In the end, from the outside, and maybe this is idealized vision of it, but it was like college all over. It seemed amazing. like It was very difficult to schedule time with them. Like, oh, well, we have everybody for Bloody Mays at this time, and then we have our bridge at this time. And then and so it was really hard. But they had shuttles that took them and all their friends to their church because there was a bunch of people from their own church. And knowing the importance of social connection,
00:17:12
Speaker
and how isolated older adults can be when you're less mobile, when you're going out, it seemed like that might have been something that actually really extended their life and their health span because it kept them so engaged versus being pretty immobile and watching a bunch of TV at their house.
00:17:28
Speaker
So how have you seen that come into play? That's exactly right. What often happens when when seniors don't have a plan or they don't have enough supports in place or engagement, we know that they have increased risks of depression, anxiety, and if they have memory impairment, it's going to...
00:17:47
Speaker
It's not going to help that at all when they're just sitting there on the couch, looking out the window and they're not mentally engaged. And usually if there's not enough supports in place at the house or in there, you know, where they live, they're probably not eating very well because once they start using walkers or memory impairment happens, they're going to eat whatever's easiest. And that's why they eat a lot of potato chips and Pringles and stuff that they can, that they don't have to cook.
00:18:12
Speaker
Right. And So they're not eating well. They're certainly not drinking well, because as we get older and more frail and falling, once once people fall, they lose a lot of confidence in in getting from point to point.
00:18:26
Speaker
And they don't want to have to go the bathroom. So what goes in has to come out. And so they don't drink very well. And so a lot of our seniors are dehydrated and they also are getting urinary tract infections. And they're also quite malnourished because they're not eating healthy. And then you layer that on with not remembering to take their medications or because now they're so frail or so medically complex, they're not getting their medications. Yeah.
00:18:51
Speaker
or they're not getting to their doctor's appointments to renew those prescriptions.
Invisible Patients: Challenges for Family Caregivers
00:18:55
Speaker
That's when a lot of kids finally realize, oh my gosh, mom and dad are a mess because they didn't realize the kids didn't realize that their parents were failing at home. And so, and they're getting, you know in a care community, a properly run care community, they're actually getting social engagement. They they can be in their apartments when they when they want to be, but otherwise it's a social and medical model.
00:19:19
Speaker
And that's really what people need is that routine engagement. Medication management is part of, you know, moving into assisted living and care communities And then also the transportation. so and then family can just come and visit when they when they want to or when they can or when they can fit into the schedule. because you're Right. You're right. When you move into the communities, you really want to get engaged as much as you can. and there are very busy people. Now, it's better to move, you know, sooner rather than later, because a lot of times what happens is our parents,
00:19:54
Speaker
will wanna stay at home or age in place at home, and then they're leaving their home to go straight into like a nursing home because they they bypassed independent living or assisted living, and now they don't physically qualify or maybe financially qualify to get into like independent living or assisted living. So they're moving straight from home into a nursing home, and that doesn't always feel good either.
00:20:18
Speaker
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00:20:32
Speaker
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00:20:46
Speaker
And so in all of this, I mean, it is, whether it's the parents not engaging or the kids not engaging, There is a bag left with the kids, right? And this is what ah you describe as the invisible patient, right? that That next generation that is the caregiver. And you've you've written a book on it. So what is it you see there? What happens there?
00:21:11
Speaker
So the invisible patient is, you know, is the family caregiver. So I've worked with over 20,000 families across the country and they're the kids or the it's primarily the adult kids that reach out to me.
00:21:26
Speaker
But they're like, gosh, you know, if there was just a book, a manual, a how to with mom and dad. So I wrote one. But I also don't want to um leave out the spouses who are family caregivers who are like, you know,
00:21:39
Speaker
I didn't expect that, you know, at 60 years old, I was going to be taking care of ah a spouse who had a stroke or has ALS or has MS or, you know, kids who got thrust into caregiving because mom's dementia progressed or dad had a stroke and.
00:21:56
Speaker
So the the book is for whomever is the primary family caregiver and just, you know, about the importance of self-care and making carving out space for you, but also the the damage that comes along with caregiving if you don't have a plan in place so that you, you know, nobody wants to at the end of life not have relationships with their siblings, like, you know, and and parents don't want their kids to never speak to each other again because of aging and family caregiving and dementia. Right. And so my book is jam packed with checklists and scripts for like if you're going to facilitate your own family meeting, just different ways that you might want to try to incorporate the information from the book.
00:22:43
Speaker
It's got the grab and go binder checklist, like all the accounts, all the stuff that you should have in order and getting all of this stuff done, preferably proactively. That is also part of self-care, but also understanding the disease that they're actually taking care of.
00:22:59
Speaker
Again, most of our families are in that dementia journey and they just don't understand the disease process. process and they wouldn't because they are in uncharted territory. So it's really a ah book that truly has jam packed with my 30 years of professional and personal experience working with seniors and those in the dementia journey. And it also has my love letter to my mom. My mom had early onset dementia.
00:23:25
Speaker
That's one of the reasons why when I left corporate senior care, I started my own virtual consultancy to facilitate family meetings and help families all across the country navigate the aging and dementia journey.
00:23:40
Speaker
Not only because my mom had early onset dementia and I wanted to be actively involved in where they lived in Iowa versus me driving back and forth from Milwaukee. But also the market had changed where kids just don't live near each other anymore. They don't live near their parents. And so the only way I could help them was to leverage Skype because that's what we had back then in 2011. So um but the book is for is for the family caregiver to let them know that they're not alone.
00:24:08
Speaker
The reason that we put ah ah a lonely bench on the front cover is because most family caregivers, when they don't have a plan in place, for their parents or for their care recipient, they do feel alone and they will get isolated in the event of like dementia or if their loved one has a stroke or they just can't be left home alone for a period of time.
Preparing for Personal Aging Needs
00:24:30
Speaker
The family caregiver is not getting out to Bible study or they're having to take FMLA for work or they're not getting to book club or they're not being able to take vacations.
00:24:41
Speaker
Because of the the duties of being involved as a caregiver. And if you have an actual aging plan in place where we we know what care is going to be available and how to pay for it and what are waiting lists and and their loved one are on waiting lists of different care communities proactively, then there's that peace of mind of knowing, okay, I can do this, but when my health starts changing or if caregiving impacts my marriage, my finances, you know, it's kind of a checklist as well of setting some boundary of I'll care give, but if these, these, these, and these things happen or change my life in a negative way,
00:25:23
Speaker
then we need to do something different. That makes a lot of sense. On the dementia thing, and this may be kind of a side topic, but for people that don't have experience with it, I've certainly heard stories where the person becomes a different person and it's your, you're looking at your mother or your father who can say some really horrible and hurtful things to you.
00:25:49
Speaker
How do you coach that invisible patient or his spouse, right? Like it's not always the the child, like you said, how do you coach people? to be able to separate that because you you're looking at this person that is this person to you, but the person speaking is not that person. how It's one thing to intellectually know it, but it just seems really hard for it not to hurt.
00:26:09
Speaker
Yeah, and it all starts with, you know, that's why i'm a family caregiver coach and consultant because it it starts with educating them about dementia, that it's a brain disease. So their loved one's brain is shrinking, shrinking, shrinking. And so along with that is going to obviously have,
00:26:25
Speaker
Your loved one is going to have changes in their mood, behavior, their personality, their safety awareness, their safe judgment. you know And so so when families better understand the disease that their loved one has,
00:26:40
Speaker
then they can better manage with those changes of if your parent becomes aggressive or agitated or has sexual behaviors, they now will have the tools on how to manage those behaviors and personality changes. Where it gets tricky, though, is family dynamics, right?
00:27:00
Speaker
Maybe dad was a terrible dad and now he's got dementia and the kids are like, ugh. We have to take care of someone who wasn't a good dad to us. And so there's what we call a little bit of compassion fatigue because they're like, well, it's hard to be compassionate for someone who maybe you don't have a great relationship with. And there's a lot of resentment.
00:27:22
Speaker
Or maybe maybe your loved one who has memory impairment also has pretty significant mental health issues, schizophrenia, bipolar, borderline, because I deal with a lot of families that have a lot of stuff. Right. yeah It's not just one noise. Yeah.
00:27:38
Speaker
Yeah, it's not just one. They're dual diagnoses with, ah you know, mental health issues. And the adult kids will say, you know, mom's always been negative or she's always, you know, threatened to kill herself. And so that's just who she is. Well, now that there's dementia on top of that, it's hard to separate. Well, how much of this is dementia? How much of it is mom? How much of it is the mental illness? And so families really need a lot of help and education and support when they're in those types of journeys as well. And that's that's why we do what we do and and virtual so we can we can help families wherever they live and wherever they are in their care journey.
00:28:15
Speaker
Okay. And then on that, whether you are the person that will need, I mean, if you think about all of us eventually needing caregiving potentially, yeah first what is it someone at different stages could start doing today to not put that same level of burden on whoever their caregiver ends up being?
00:28:35
Speaker
That is such a fantastic question. So one thing that all of us need to do who are over the age of 18, start getting your grab and go binder put together, get your living will, get your power of attorney, start these, start this process now, get your accounts and and your passwords, all of that, get it, get it on a spreadsheet, get it organized because life has its own agenda and we're not promised that we're going to make it through life unscathed, right?
00:29:03
Speaker
Like four days after my 40th birthday, I was helping a an 82 year old gentleman cross the street in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. All of a sudden he yells, watch out. The next thing I know, I was getting myself up off the street. I got hit by a school bus driver. She was distracted by the kids on the bus and she blew through a four corner stop. It was over the noon hour.
00:29:27
Speaker
And so I'm 5'11". You guys wouldn't know that because I'm in this little square. But thank God I'm this tall Iowa dairy farm kid because I have good bones. But my face broke the headlight of the school bus. And that's what prompted her to slam on the brakes. So apparently...
00:29:45
Speaker
I flew 50, according to witnesses, I flew 15 feet. I got up off the street and I'm like, what the heck just happened here? But thankfully, I carry a backpack with way too much stuff in it because that's what prevented me from hitting my head on the curb.
00:30:02
Speaker
And so I get up and I'm like, gosh, what happened here? And then I see all this broken glass and all this broken reflectors. And then I see the bus. I'm like, oh, my gosh, I think I just got hit by a bus. And so then all these people came running out of the street and they're like, oh, my God, you just got hit by a bus. I've never seen anything like it. You flew 15 feet like you're this tiny little thing. and I'm like, I'm so not tiny. And so um So I went into like crisis mode for myself because all I do is crisis management, right? Because it's it's hard to get families to start these conversations and get everything ahead of time. So I carry my living will. I always have carried my living will and my health care power of attorney and my do not resuscitate form. I carry that with me because I do travel a lot. And that way, God forbid, something happens to me like getting hit by a school bus.
00:30:54
Speaker
When all of these witnesses came running out of the street, I didn't know if I was if I had a brain bleed. I didn't know if i was going to lose consciousness. I didn't know. And so just in case I gave everybody something to remember, like my name is Annalee Kruger. I'm this is my birthday. I'm allergic to sulfa and penicillin. And here's my DNR, my do not resuscitate form. And here's my living will. And and so when the ambulance came.
00:31:22
Speaker
They're like, we have never, ever had anyone like produce their documents in the back of the wagon. And I said, well, I do crisis management for a living where families just, they just, people think that they're going to just skate through life without any hiccups. And so it's just kind of ironic that me, the the planner of of everybody got hit by a school bus, but at least I was prepared Because I had my living will and my power of attorney. So so get your documents in order and communicate them. If you have a business, get your business succession plan. if you have a pet, I do senior dog rescues. So if you have pets, get a pet emergency plan, because so many people.
00:32:08
Speaker
they they just leave so much vulnerability to the people or to their employees or to their business. But you have to get all of this in order and document it and make sure that the people that you appoint as your decision makers actually know what your wishes are and have the documents. So that's one thing that however old you are right now,
00:32:32
Speaker
Cause I always say all the people that had major strokes last Thursday didn't wake up thinking, Oh, I think I'm going to have a major stroke today. I didn't wake up on May 3rd of 2012 thinking, Oh, I'm going to get hit by a school bus today and have like my whole life, like in a weird way for eight months. Right. But the blessing of that, cause there's always this, there's always a silver lining with anything that's tragic.
00:32:56
Speaker
In my opinion, anyway, you just you got to find it sometimes. But in my the silver lining was that because I'm single, and I needed care because I had broken ribs, obviously a broken face and and internal bleeding, i needed care and I live alone.
00:33:13
Speaker
And so I moved back in with my parents temporarily because I needed care. And that's when it was very apparent that my mom had dementia. oh she would She would say the same thing. ah Well, there was no mealtime because I was on a liquid diet. I was drinking through a straw. But like at breakfast, she would say the same thing at lunch that she said at breakfast. as she was So she was very repetitive with the things that she would say. And so I was like, oh, no, mom is in mom has dementia because, you know, that was my biggest prayer was like, please don't let anyone in my family end up with dementia because it's just a god awful disease for everybody.
00:33:51
Speaker
But the blessing in and getting hit by the bus was it allowed me um a good recovery because my parents took care of me. But also it alerted me that my mom had had dementia because they can cover pretty well on the phone.
Solo Agers: Building Support Networks
00:34:06
Speaker
But when you're staying there, it's it's hard to it's hard to keep covering for that. Wow. What what a story. I mean, it.
00:34:15
Speaker
Metaphorically, people talk about all the time, well, what happens if you get hit by a bus whatever? And like you literally got hit by the bus. So it plays out. I literally got hit by a school bus. But I'm so grateful because I'm grateful that it was me because if it was that 82 year old that I was helping across the street, I mean, thank God that it was me that got hit, you know, because it would have would have killed him. And that would have been that would have just been awful.
00:34:39
Speaker
Absolutely awful. You sound very like me on turning everything into a positive. I got attacked and mauled by a pit bull. And everybody everybody's like, oh my God. And it was the second person they attacked that day, but they finally came and picked it up after i got attacked because the first person didn't report it to the police.
00:34:56
Speaker
And my whole thing was like, I'm so grateful it was me because if it was a child or an old person, it could have killed that person. But me, I was able to wrestle it off and and just like tore up my foot.
00:35:06
Speaker
yeah But really turning into like, oh, it was such a blessing. I got attacked by this pit bull. I i might have saved someone's life. But it's ah very, very similar. Well, Annalie, thank you for your work. This is incredibly important and universally important.
00:35:21
Speaker
and incredibly timely in such an aging population as we have in the Western world, not, not just in the U S but all the Western world, uh, just that, that tipping point. So thank you for what you do.
00:35:33
Speaker
And thank you. And can I just say one more thing? Super fast. Um, We talk about a lot of about family caregivers and families, but there's also a ton of us out there that are going to be solo agers. Those of us that aren't married, we didn't have kids. You know, we we just they just apparently wasn't in the cards to to have that type of family situation. And so.
00:35:57
Speaker
If you're a solo ager out there, which means you're maybe widowed or divorced or single and you don't have kids, now what what you can do now, no matter how old you are, what you can do now is absolutely get your documents in order. You can get your you can order the grab and go checklist right off my Care Right Inc. website.
00:36:17
Speaker
Get that stuff in order. is number one, but number two, so like get your funeral, taking care of your pet plan, your, you know, all of that, get your documents in order.
00:36:27
Speaker
But if you're sitting there like, oh my gosh, all I did was work my whole life. I don't really have any friends. Who am I going to name as my healthcare or my financial power of attorney? Now is the time to really start getting out there, build relationships because there's tons of us solo agers out there and what keeps us up at night is who are we going to call when we get older and frail and vulnerable? And if we need care, we can't just pick up the phone and call a kid and say, hey, can you take me to the specialist? I need a ride. We don't have that. So now is the time to really start building out your social circle so that you can develop relationships and get to know people really in a deep way so that you can decide, okay,
00:37:14
Speaker
If I become incapacitated, will you be my health care decision maker or will you help me with my finances if I need help? So those are two things that solo agers can start doing now as well.
00:37:26
Speaker
Okay. Yeah, that that's that's important. And I think like with all of this, the the best time to start was 10 years ago. The second best time is today, right? it's Get going if you haven't yet. So you mentioned your website. We'll certainly have that in the show note links, as well as the Invisible Patient, your book. Where else could people find you if they want to learn more or get some help?
00:37:47
Speaker
Yeah, you can also reach out not only through the carerightinc.com website, but you can also look me up on LinkedIn under Annalie Kruger. You can also Google me. I'm all over the internet in a good way that makes my parents proud because this is all I do is help families, help corporations and help financial advisors literally across the country.
Conclusion and Resources
00:38:09
Speaker
um So I'm easy to find, but LinkedIn under Annalie Kruger. or through the Care Right Inc. website. Fantastic. Well, thank you again, Annalie, and wishing you a lively day.
00:38:22
Speaker
Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us on today's episode of the Home of Healthspan podcast. And remember, you can always find the products, practices, and routines mentioned by today's guests, as well as many other healthspan role models on alively.com.
00:38:38
Speaker
Enjoy a lively day.