The Agewyz Podcast

For many lesbian, gay bisexual or transgender (LGBTQ) older adults the thought of moving into a long-term care facility means denying your identity and going right back into the closet. One person working to change that is Cliff Alburger, the first LGBTQ Chaplain Resident at Hebrew Senior Life (HSL), which provides daily care for 3,000 elders across nine campuses in the greater Boston area. On the show Cliff talks about how he and his team carry out their mission of creating a welcoming environment to ensure LGBTQ residents are able to live out their golden years on their own terms. He talks about training staff who genuinely want to know how to respectfully interact with LGBTQ elders, and about the surprising conversations he’s had with folks in their 80s and 90s in HSL’s pre-dominantly straight population. Cliff also talks about some of HSL’s senior initiatives, and he provides tips on what LGBT elders and their family members should look for when researching long-term care facilities. Cliff Alburger has a Master of Divinity degree from Harvard Divinity School.

Learn more about HSL’s LGBTQ Seniors Initiative: https://bit.ly/2y1Zc5s

HSL Blog on the Spiritual Care of LGBT Elders: https://bit.ly/2IEu5Be

Music: “I Can See Daylight Again” by Dlay | CC BY NC ND | Free Music Archive

Writer Ann Campanella was 33 years old and hoping to become a mother when her own mother began showing signs of Alzheimer’s disease. As her mother declined, Ann suffered a series of miscarriages that compounded her feelings of grief for the mother who was slipping away from her. On the show Ann talks about her experience, captured in her memoir “Motherhood: Lost and Found.” She tells us how she got through the long stretch of grey days caring for her mother at a time when her friends were caring for their own kids, about the painful experience of taking her mom to Duke University Medical Center and why she’s reaching out to people in similar circumstances. Ann is actively involved with AlzAuthors, which works to raise awareness, reduce stigma and lend support to people whose lives have been touched by dementia.

Explore Ann’s website: http://anncampanella.com

Amazon page, “Motherhood: Lost and Found”: https://amzn.to/2NClNQ2

Learn more about AlzAuthors: https://alzauthors.com

Music: “Growing Silence” by Ketsa | CC BY NC ND | Free Music Archive

For the past six years cartoonist Sharon Rosenzweig has been making comics about her mother and what Sharon refers to as their “adventures with Alzheimer’s Disease.” When her mother entered hospice, Sharon’s daily practice of drawing her and her caregivers became a way to connect with her when other forms of communication were lost. But after her mother died, Sharon found it impossible to continue drawing. She found the way back to her art through a warm-up ritual suggested by the cartoonist Lynda Barry. On the show Sharon tells us about that ritual, how it helped her grieve and how anyone with an interest in drawing can begin making a comic. She shares the story behind some of her comics, including “Mom’s Flock,” “Judgment Call” and “The Last Ride of Mo Rosenzweig,” all of which appear in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Sharon’s work is part of a movement called Graphic Medicine, defined as the use of comics to tell stories about illness and health. Her graphic memoir, based on her drawings about and with her mother, has the working title “Spiral Notebook.”

Link to Sharon’s comics in Annals of Internal Medicine: https://bit.ly/2OcIR3V

Sharon’s spiral drawings: https://bit.ly/2NyCTNN

Also mentioned in the show:

“The Comic Torah: Reimagining the Very Good Book”: https://amzn.to/2MzBQc3

“Syllabus” (Lynda Barry): https://amzn.to/2NgxfRd

Music: “Dryness (wet mix)” by Ketsa | CC BY NC ND | Free Music Archive

Self-care gets a lot of play in the media, but the truth is we’re all connected and the practice of care involves many people, especially in times of crisis. In today’s show we talk with media scholar and veteran journalist Dr. Sherri Williams about her piece for Elle digital magazine titled, “It Takes a Squad to Care for an Elder.” Sherri describes how—in the midst of earning her PhD—she dropped everything and traveled to Michigan to be with her grandmother, a news junkie and fan of Jay-Z whose health took a turn for the worse when she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She talks about her family’s response to her grandmother’s impending death, how her last days changed Sherri and what she learned that others may find helpful. We also dip into some of Sherri’s other work, hearing her views on immigration and the care workforce. Dr. Sherri Williams is an assistant professor in race, media and communication at American University. Note: this episode originally aired August 10, 2017.

Read Sherri’s article for Elle.com: https://bit.ly/2p4GjtU

Sherri’s website: http://sherriwilliamsmedia.com

Music: “Save One Another” by Dlay | CC BY NC ND | Free Music Archive

Rx4good President Ann Moravick expands on her piece for Forbes digital magazine titled, “What’s Love Got to Do with It? When Caring for a Business and Caregiving Converge.” Ann’s parents were in good health into their nineties, but in the summer of 2017 her mother was hospitalized three times and her father underwent a cardiac procedure that ultimately led to his death. She explains why becoming a caregiver was as daunting, if not more, than starting her own business, and tells us how caring for her parents changed her relationship with them and what she learned from her caregiving experience. Ann also talks about the challenges and promises of healthcare today and the work of her company Rx4good, whose goal is to help companies make sure they listen to patients and caregivers when they’re developing clinical trials and support programs, or anything meant for the patient or caregiver.

Learn more about Rx4good: http://rx4good.com

Ann’s piece for Forbes: https://bit.ly/2PLBP7w

Also mentioned in the show: National Alliance for Caregiving: https://www.caregiving.org

Caregiver Action Network: http://caregiveraction.org Ideo: https://www.ideo.com

Music: “UpUpUp and Over” by Blue Dot Sessions | CC BY NC | Free Music Archive

Award-winning author and illustrator Marissa Moss is best known for her popular “Amelia’s Notebooks” series. She took a radical departure from that series with her novel, “Last Things: A Graphic Memoir About ALS,” a deeply personal story of how Marissa coped with the devastating effects of her husband Harvey’s illness. A renowned art historian and UC Berkeley professor, Harvey Stahl died less than seven months after being diagnosed with Bulbar ALS. On the show Marissa describes the novel's evolution and tells us why she was determined to show the full effects of Harvey's illness, from being stared at in public because of how he looked and the reaction of her sons (14, 10 and 6 when Harvey died) to her frustration with medical professionals and even her beloved husband. She reads a passage from “Last Things,” and explains how magic paperclip bracelets helped her youngest son, Asa, get rid of his nightmares. Marissa's novel sits squarely in the Graphic Medicine movement, which explores the medium of comics and the discourse of healthcare. Learn more about Graphic Medicine by exploring this year's conference in Vermont: https://bit.ly/2JIME7b.

Note: this episode originally aired September 14, 2017.

Marissa’s website: https://www.marissamoss.com

“Last Things” website: https://www.marissamoss.com/last-things.php

Music: “Growing Silence” by Ketsa | CC BY NC ND | Free Music Archive

Best-selling author Marita Golden talks about her novel “The Wide Circumference of Love,” in which the real-world impact of Alzheimer’s disease on the African-American community is woven into a fictionalized story. Marita tells us how writing the novel turned her into an Alzheimer’s activist. She ponders some big questions about how the disease is changing America and she shares some alarming facts, uncovered during her research for the book, about the impact of Alzheimer’s on communities of color. Born and raised in Washington, DC, Marita also talks about the colorful, pre-gentrified neighborhood of her youth and growing up on the same block where famed Harlem Renaissance writer Jean Toomer spent his childhood. Note: this episode originally aired on November 16, 2017.

Marita’s website: http://bit.ly/2igYwBk

Connect with Marita on Facebook: http://bit.ly/2iVKLrp

Find her book on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2jqBKdW

Music: “Lakeside Path” and “Delicious” by Blue Dot Sessions | CC BY NC | Free Music Archive

Dr. Maxine Borowsky Junge, artist, psychotherapist and co-author of the book, “Dear Myra, Dear Max: A Conversation About Aging,” returns to the show to talk about what she discovered on a trip to upstate New York where—with her adult children in tow—she visited three living communities designed for older adults. Now 80 years old and living alone on Whidbey Island (WA), Max can’t afford to stay in her house much longer but she’s determined to fulfill her priorities for the next stage of her life. She tells us how she decided which communities to visit and what sort of questions she asked of the marketing people she met with, including how they treat dying and death at their communities. Max also talks about how her kids participated in the adventure and reacted to the communities. She offers her thoughts on ageism and how adult children can maintain a healthy attitude toward aging parents.

Click here to listen to our previous interview with Max Junge: https://bit.ly/2KwQwsE

Check out the book, “Dear Myra, Dear Max”: https://bit.ly/2EFgyWx

Music: “Turning On The Lights” by Blue Dot Sessions | CC BY NC | Free Music Archive

Executive Director Joe Carella of the Scandinavian Charitable Society of Greater Boston talks about how his accidental placement in a geriatric hospital ward as a teenager sparked his passion for community-centered living: a commonsense approach to aging where older adults in residential facilities are connected to the larger community through events and programs at the facilities that anyone can choose to participate in. Joe’s passion was stoked on a research trip to Scandinavia, where he visited several facilities for older adults in search of alternatives to caring for America’s aging population. He later oversaw the design and development of the Scandinavian Living Center in Newton, Massachusetts, an assisted-living community that welcomes over 2,000 visitors a month and is based on the principles in Joe’s book, “Creating Unlimited Options for Aging: The Path Forward.” Joe tells us why institutional housing for older adults is outdated and even club-like communities for older adults, like The Villages in Florida, are unhealthy. He makes clear that community-centered living isn’t a marketing concept, but a gathering concept.

“Creating Unlimited Options for Aging”: https://amzn.to/2KOGRkQ

Scandinavian Center for Living: www.slcenter.org

Also mentioned in the show:

Leonard Florence Center for Living: https://bit.ly/2m4Rwcu

Elizabeth Seton Residence: https://www.elizabethseton.org

Music: “Our Names Engraved” and “Jog to the Water” by Blue Note Sessions | CC BY NC | Free Music Archive

Canadian photographer Jay Perry was thirty-one years old when his father was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Jay’s business was just taking off, with a portfolio that included artists Snoop Dogg, Usher and Gwen Stefani, but he decided to stop working and move in with his parents to help care for and spend time with his dad. On the show he talks about the experience chronicled in his book, “My Dad Got Sick: Love and Insights From a Caregiver’s Unexpected Journey Through Cancer.” Jay tells us why it was all worth it, but also frankly shares his anxiety about being in debt from taking two years off from work, why he made himself vulnerable by sharing his cancer journey with his dad on social media and why he didn’t take a lot of photos or make any videos of his dad before his death. Told he had nine months to live, Jay’s father continued to baffle doctors two years after his diagnosis. Jay also tells us about his mission trip to Haiti and “Kettenie-Love,” a photograph he took during the trip that changed both Jay’s life and the little girl in the photo, and about his project Friends With Hearts.

For a transcript of this episode click here: Transcript

Explore Jay’s book, “My Dad Got Sick”

Jay’s website

The story behind “Kettenie-Love”

More about the project Friends With Hearts

Music: “Melancholia” by Dlay | CC BY NC ND | Free Music Archive