Season 2 Episode 1: He’s dying to tell you!

Thanks for joining Hospice Nurse Penny and Halley (Hospice Social Worker) on the journey to #NormalizeDeath! Our guest is Cody Hufstedler. Cody has worked as an inpatient palliative care chaplain in Denver Colorado since 2013. Since 2023 he has hosted the Dying to Tell You Podcast where he interviews people living with life limiting and terminal illness. He enjoys cooking and eating, and spends lots of time exercising so that he can continue to cook and eat. His deeply held values are hospitality, compassion, acceptance, and fun!  The website is: https://dttypodcast.com/ The podcast Dying to tell You is on all podcast platforms TikTok: @dying.to.tell.you Instagram: DTTYpod Thanks for joining Hospice Nurse Penny and Halley (Hospice Social Worker) on the journey to #NormalizeDeath! You can reach us at [e-mail], on all places you find podcasts are found. A video option can be found on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/@DeathHappensInsiders Hospice Nurse Penny on the socials: @HospiceNursePenny Halley on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook: @HospiceHalley Our intro music was composed by Jamie Hill (misfitstars.com)

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You know, if we can give a minute,
let that fear breathe,
work through it, and then go, okay. But
logically speaking,
let's let's take some time to think about
what's most important here, and how how are
we gonna get you the most of what
you're hoping for and help you avoid the
things you wanna avoid and help you live
as well as you possibly can now. Right?

(00:20):
You've got you're not dead.
And so, like, how do you wanna live?
Welcome to the Death Happens podcast,
an insider's guide to dying. We're your insiders.
I'm hospice nurse Penny. And I'm Hallie, hospice

(00:41):
social worker.
Welcome back, Penny. It's season 2. Oh my
gosh. Welcome back season 2 already. This isn't
like TV seasons where you get 1 1
year and then you get a whole year
off and then you gotta come back. We're
like The house of the dragon where they
make you wait 2 years. Oh, that's true.
Yes. Yeah. Maybe we should we should do
that

(01:02):
instead of waiting 2 months. Yeah. I can't
know about all that. But today, we have
a great guest for the listeners. We have
Cody Hofstetter.
He is a palliative care chaplain in a
hospital and also the host of the Dying
to Tell You podcast, and we will be
talking to him shortly.
But first, we wanna give you our education
piece.

(01:23):
Yes. Let's get to. Yes. We're gonna talk
about patient stories in HIPAA.
I've talked a little bit about this before.
Penny is much better at this than I
am as far as telling patient stories. I
am the absolute worst.
You just don't hear me telling patient stories.
And and I realize
my partner said to me after season 1,

(01:45):
well, oh, I heard you talking about the
medical aid in dying episode, and you said
you were gonna tell patient stories, and then
you didn't say anything. You just said how
it generally was.
Absolutely right. I I meant to tell a
little bit more of a detailed story on
that, and I'm happy to
add one in. But the point is,
that I really have a hard time. I'm

(02:07):
so very careful. I lean so far on
the far side of not making sure I
don't tell anything wrong, that I just I
don't come up with good things. But you,
I think Penny, can explain better
how you're able to do
that. Well, for one thing, I've worked at
several different hospice agencies. So any patient story
that I tell could be from any

(02:28):
agency that I worked for. So right off
the bat, people, you know, aren't necessarily going
to know who I was talking about because
they don't know where I was working at
the time that this story took place. Many
of my stories are really old. I've been
a hospice nurse for 20 years, so they're
old.
But sometimes it's just a matter of changing
little details,
their name,

(02:49):
their gender,
their disease, unless it's something that's, like, relevant
to the story because of whatever symptoms are
associated with that disease.
So, so that's that's kinda how I do
it. And and one of the things we
were talking about earlier is that,
death is a matter of public rec record.
So when somebody dies, that information is public

(03:10):
record. So anything about them that's been made
public is fair game.
If it's something
personal about them that not everybody is going
to know, like, for example, if somebody was
pregnant when they died and that had not
been announced yet,
that would be a breach of their privacy.
Mhmm.
One of the things I've seen lately that

(03:31):
I find very troublesome
is people on social media
who work in
health care,
especially particularly
home health care
Mhmm.
Who are putting videos of their patients
on social media. What? What? Yeah.

(03:52):
So I saw one recently where
the it was a home health caregiver. I
don't know if she's private hire, if she
works from an agency. I don't know
in what capacity she's working or employed, but
she is a caregiver.
And her patient who she cares for has
dementia.
Not not terribly advanced. She's still able to

(04:13):
take her patient out,
which is what she was doing. She had
her in the car. They were gonna go
get ice cream or something like that.
And
that is very problematic. We're starting to see
that more and more where people are recording
videos of the people who they are caring
for and putting them on social media.
That's such a sticky wicket. Right? Because

(04:37):
I've seen videos that you've,
stitched where they're fantastic educational pieces. Like, I'm
thinking about
the man that was in the hospital and
his wife and loved ones just got up
in there and loved on him and stuff,
and they were showing his agonal breathing.
So clearly he, at that moment is not
able to make the decision to share it,
but the family shared it. Mhmm.

(04:59):
And then to, you know, I, we don't
know if maybe the family said, okay, but
especially with dementia when you're in that in
between place, that's
tough. Yeah. Yeah. And there are, quite a
few creators on social media who have
a relative who is someone with dementia, and
they are are documenting that journey.

(05:20):
There is one, the Cathy project. I haven't
seen them for quite a while. As a
matter of fact, I need to look them
up. They're in in British Columbia.
And Cathy is
when they started this out in her early
fifties with early onset dementia, and it's well
recorded
in these videos that have been put out
that she agreed to

(05:40):
doing these videos. But as
she changes,
it's a little more,
would she
did she really anticipate that the changes were
gonna be that much?
And
is she still okay with being?
I had a really interesting conversation
with a a doctor

(06:02):
the other day about
death with dignity and how
can someone when they have early dementia
say, I want this,
and then later have that upheld.
And he pointed out the fact that when
you
have your early dementia
or your not early dementia, but, like, it's

(06:22):
the the onset of it. Right? You're like,
you've been told you have dementia, and you
say, that's it. I don't want I want
death with dignity or I wanna do VSED.
How can you be sure when they get
let's say VSED as a voluntary stop eating
and drinking as a better example.
How can you be sure
when they get to that point where they're
no longer able to make their needs known

(06:45):
and you're saying, okay, we're not gonna feed
her because she didn't wanna be fed. She
said she wanted to do VSED.
How can you be sure that she still
feels the same about
not eating and drinking
as she did when she made that decision?
I I have so many thoughts as you're
talking. First of all, I feel like you're
talking about Canada because someone couldn't have medical

(07:06):
aid in dying or death of dignity
with dementia because by the time they have
6 months or less, they're not decisional. Right.
Right.
But,
I have had experience with someone choosing VSED
with early onset dementia,
but they chose it way upstream.
Right. Right.
Are new.
This is really in the last, I wanna

(07:28):
say, 5 years
that I've seen directives,
which is maybe what you're talking about. Directives
that people can make for dementia without, like,
without,
like, you can offer, but don't feed after
a certain point. Mhmm. Mhmm. And I was
just thinking before you started getting to the
main conversation, I was thinking the same thing.
Like,
for agreeing to film someone, it's the same

(07:49):
as an advanced directive.
Thank you for bringing us back. How do
you know?
You're gonna make that still yeah. You just
have to Can they anticipate that they're shitting
themselves
and that's gonna be part of a public
video? Can they how would they know? And
thank you for bringing that rabbit hole I
took us down.

(08:10):
Back to where we were because that's really
what I was getting at was just because
they say
in the beginning,
yes, I wanna do this. How do we
know they still feel that way when they're
now so demented they can't express what they
want or know what's going on or you
know? Mhmm. Mhmm. And we see that a
lot. I guess you
you just have to trust when you're talking

(08:31):
to that person,
you know, that that they're still,
you know, gonna be okay with. And and
and in the case of the ladies in
British Columbia, I know the sister who was
doing the filming of the Cathy project
was, really mindful of that and saying,
even though she agreed to this, there is
a some point where I feel like

(08:53):
I might have to say I can't do
this anymore because I need to preserve
her,
dignity.
You know? Yeah. I can't be showing things
that are are undignified to her because
she maybe didn't anticipate that that's how things
were gonna go at the end. For sure.
So yeah. Yeah. It's it's it's and it's

(09:13):
and it's still a 2. It's one thing
when it's the family who's doing it, but
when is it?
Hired
caregiver, then we're even
that's even worse. Even know how that would
not be an ethical breach unless you had
some kind of
I can't even imagine
asking.
It's a it's illegal.

(09:34):
Yeah.
Unless you have something
signed from them. So so speaking about the
guy that,
I film I I took the video off
public record. Right?
So,
you know, hospice nurse Julie has had people
send her videos, and she signs, something with
them that says I'm gonna use this video

(09:54):
for my YouTube for educational purposes, and they
agree to it and they sign it. Mhmm.
I've never gone to that extent. I take
the video that's
public. It's out there. It's already on the
platform,
and I'm stitching it or taking a piece
of it. Right. I'm using that.
In her situation, one of the things that
happened was she posted a video

(10:16):
of a person who was dying with their
permission, written permission.
Somebody else
took that and stitched it like I do.
Right.
Because she's public. Oh, I told these people
that I would I would be using this
for education, and now somebody else has taken
this and
and used it. Mhmm. So it's kinda like

(10:39):
it made me think of is what I'm
doing okay? You know? I mean, it's public.
It's out there. And I I said that
to her. I said, well,
it's it's in the public domain.
Yeah. So she's her language would need to
change on her contract so she wants to
do that because, yeah, once it's out there,
anybody could use it.
Yeah.
But but she was saying that, like, on

(10:59):
YouTube, there is some kind
of use policy where
Mhmm. If if the intended use was only
for that person that it's implicit copyright. I
don't know.
But you'd have to state that, like, have
a disclosure statement at the bottom or something.
Right? Yeah. Maybe so. I don't know. But
it did it made me question, like,

(11:21):
is it okay for me to be
doing this? And I have had actually, somebody
has sent me pictures before of their dad,
and I used it. And I've never had
a family member come back to me and
say, why did you
use that? You know, like, they're always thankful
that I've actually put it out there. I
did have
situation with, somebody who was photographing somebody that

(11:43):
was terminally ill, put it out on the
Internet.
I
tag I put it out,
on TikTok. I did tag her on TikTok.
I believe I tagged her on Instagram, but
I didn't know what her I didn't even
know if she was on Facebook, so I
couldn't tag her. And then she came back
at me and said,
you didn't have permission to post that. You

(12:06):
know?
I got permission from them to post it.
You didn't have I was like, well, it's
in the public domain. It's out there. You
know? I tagged you where I could. Yeah.
I didn't know Which is more than a
lot of people do.
Right. And it and it went viral on
Facebook, and she was upset because she knew
that if something goes viral on Facebook and
I'm in the monetization program, I'm getting paid

(12:27):
for views for it. And so that's what
it really came down to was she was
mad that I was profiting off this video,
which in reality,
the piece that
was hers that was on there was 3
seconds long. It was everything after that that
I added to it. So
but yeah.
Ugh. Social media.

(12:49):
Yeah.
Well Yeah. Let's get to Cody.
Yeah.
Let's
get to Cody. Let's do it. Let's do
it.
Welcome, Cody. We're so happy to have you.
Thank you. Hola.
Cody is a happily done character champion.

(13:10):
Are you really?
What's that? No. Are you really? Ugh. I
I that's one thing I wish I had
been studying when I was younger was I
should've taken Spanish in school so I could've
continued that on. So much value in health
care right now being Totally. Bilingual. Oh my
gosh. I know. And I live in Eastern
Washington, so I really wish I was because

(13:30):
there is a big Hispanic population over here,
and I wish that I could Texas, and,
I I speak Texas Spanish.
Oh. All all the cuss words and,
the basics.
Yeah. I know a couple of cuss words.
Yeah. Yeah. I I lived in San Diego,

(13:51):
when I was, like, in the probably the
4th through the 7th grade. So I know
I know the passwords too. Yeah. There you
go. Order ordering food and, and swearing. I
can do that. Ordering food is easy. Yeah.
Enchilada.
Mhmm.
Taco por favor.
Well, we are we only already start talking

(14:14):
about on all cylinders. Yeah. Let's get good.
Yeah. We're going down the we're going down
the rabbit hole right off the bat. Yeah.
And who cares about death and dying that's
gonna talk about speaking Spanish and eating Mexican
food. Really? What's more important than tacos? Nothing.
Nachos?
Yeah. It's just deconstructed tacos.

(14:35):
True. True. That's true.
Alright. Cody, we have introduced you as a
palliative care chaplain
and the host of the Dying to Tell
You podcast. We're gonna have a few more
questions about that later. Is there anything else
we should know about you as far as
your introduction and getting to know you Besides
that you used to live in Texas apparently.
I mean,
I used to live in Texas. I grew

(14:56):
up there.
I lived there for, like, 20,
22 years, something like that.
I've been in Denver, though, for
almost 18 years.
And,
I've been a palliative care inpatient palliative care
chaplain at the hospital I work at,
the same hospital for 11 years.

(15:18):
Wow. A little over 11 years. So, I
I did my,
I did my masters, and then I did
some training in a hospital.
And,
my my first job outside of training was
this job.
So I've been there for a long time.
I love it.
I still love the work. Every now and
then, I'll get, like, a little itchy and

(15:40):
try to think about what else I can
do. But,
you know, I take a little break, and
then I come back, and I just love,
I don't know, I love being in the
hospital. I love I love the palliative care
work. It's really good good stuff.
Cody, where where, in Texas are you from?
I grew up in the Dallas area,
but I've lived

(16:00):
I went to school in West Texas in
Abilene,
undergrad, and then I lived in a small
town called Hillsborough, Texas for,
like, a year and a half after I
graduated from
college.
I'm asking because I'm half Texan.
My dad was from Del Rio, Texas. Oh,
really? Mhmm. With,

(16:21):
Rodney Foster. He's from Del Rio. He's a
Oh, yeah? A country music singer. Oh,
yeah. It's interesting to me. I here, I'm
gonna go down the non hospice palliative rabbit
trail again here. But how,
how the
the accents
can really vary from one area of Texas

(16:41):
to another. Mhmm. Like, to me, you don't
have a, you know, a real strong southern
accent.
And my dad's wore off over the years
too. But my
relatives who stayed in Texas,
I couldn't hardly understand them. Like, I couldn't
talk to my grandmother on the phone because
she had such a deep

(17:02):
draw
draw
that I couldn't I I was just like,
I can't even understand what she's saying. Yeah.
Mine comes out from time to time. Like,
you know, if I'm talking to somebody that
like, if I my parents still have a
pretty strong accent. So if I'm talking to
them, it comes out. My wife calls it
a schwa, not a drawl.

(17:22):
A schwa. It's a Texas schwa, but she
says that, Texas is not really the South,
that the the people from the South, like
Georgia,
Tennessee, they have a drawl, but Texas has
a schwa. But I don't really know what
that means,
but it comes out from time to time.
And depending on the words I'm saying and
how many drinks I've had, I guess. Yeah.

(17:44):
I was gonna say no. I I actually
I I never lived in Texas, but I
definitely have a Texas accent if I've been
drinking. I don't drink anymore, but when I
did, yeah, I was like,
I used it to, you know, get myself
out of trouble with cops.
It's kind of a lazy way to speak,
so it's easy to do when you Yes.

(18:05):
Right? Like, it can hide a slur. Like,
it can hide, you know, that drunken slur
if you speak with a southern accent. Okay.
Donie, this is what she does to me.
She makes sure I keep us on track.
I will stop going down
all the rabbit holes.
Alright. Alright. I'm gonna come back to Denver.
You said that you had been there for

(18:27):
11 years.
That means you went through the COVID times
in the hospital.
Yeah. So tell us about that. How how
was that? And also in that question,
I wonder, do you cross over into the
hospice in the hospital world, or are you
just strictly palliative care? How does that look?
Yeah. So
which one to answer first? Yes. I

(18:52):
so I'll talk a little bit about COVID.
So
I I have, like, a a non alarmist
when it comes to stuff. So in 2019,
you know, we're getting wind of some kind
of big virus thing happening. And in the
beginning of 2020, I'm I'm part of the
ethics committee, and one of the other ethics
committee members brought this article about everything that

(19:13):
was happening in Italy and how we need
to be ready for, you know, rationing ventilators
and stuff. And I was nah. This is
not gonna happen. It's not gonna be a
big thing. It's,
you know, people are blowing this out of
proportion.
And,
it turns out that I was wrong about
that.
COVID was a big thing, and

(19:36):
it's just I don't know. It just happened
all so fast, and
it they they closed down everything, and they
were like, well, all all nonessential
people
stay home.
And I wouldn't have thought that I was
essential, honestly.
But turns out,
I worked through the whole pandemic, so we
just stayed there. And

(19:58):
as a palliative care team, we followed
all
COVID patients in the ICU,
which really meant we were working with families
of COVID patients. And so,
yeah, we spent,
I don't know, like 2 years just
almost completely
working in the ICU,

(20:19):
just helping people.
Really, it was just like a waiting game.
I guess you guys probably know that. But
at one point, the
the mortality rate
in our ICU was, like, 80%.
Because,
you know, when somebody gets that sick with

(20:39):
COVID, it was just
Mhmm. Zip. I mean, we all we obviously
had a lot who made it through.
We had,
we we're ECMO Center, so we had people
on ECMO.
You know, these young young folks who What
what's ECMO?
Extra core. It's a heart lung bypass machine.

(21:01):
So they use it to,
oxidate somebody's blood, when their lungs aren't able
to do that anymore.
So
so we had these young people, you know,
40 year olds who had no previous
known,
medical conditions who would
get so sick, and then they would just
come here, and

(21:21):
we would just have to
breathe for them and pump their heart for
them until we could either
until it became clear that it wasn't going
to happen, that they were gonna die anyway.
Or they would just make it through, and
it would just take months months months, and
then they would get out of our hospital
and go to an LTAC or,
you know, rehab facility to SNF. And,

(21:45):
they would,
you know,
eventually, we had a few that would walk
back into the hospital and
come and say thank you for everything that
that we did, but
it was wild. I mean, there's just
a lot
of Zoom, a lot of Zooming people,
and just

(22:05):
people watching their loved ones die
over Zoom, which is just
surreal. It's just,
I don't know. I don't know how to
describe it. Other than that, it was just
and it became normal to us. So it
was honestly,
at some point, it was just like, well,
this is how life is now, and we
just always wear a mask, and we always,

(22:27):
zoom people into everything. And
but, frankly, I mean, now, thankfully, we're back
to
mostly normal. But Can I ask you It
was hard?
What does that do to you
spiritually?
Like, how does that impact your religious point
of view? You're a chaplain.
I mean, we know there are atheist chaplains,

(22:48):
but all the chaplains I've met are pretty
much religious and practice in one religion or
another. And,
you know, how did that impact you
in that way?
Well, I'm I'm not
I mean, no. I'm not religious. I don't
I I'm a humanist. I'm I'm a humanist
chaplain, so I am

(23:09):
endorsed by the Humanist Association. And so,
you know, I don't
I don't hold to any any dogma or
anything. And it's
but,
you know, spiritually,
I guess, spiritually, emotionally
as a person.
I don't know. I think that,
while I was doing it, I didn't really

(23:31):
you know, you just it's what's happening. It's
just what we're doing in the moment. It
just kind of, like I said, became normal.
It happened real fast. You know, everything shut
down, and all of a sudden, we're all
wearing masks all the time. And it's
it we didn't really have a lot of
time to sit around and,
like, think about what we were doing. We
were just doing it. But

(23:52):
it's certainly
and I guess working in palliative care or
in hospice,
I'm constantly aware of,
you know, just death, mortality,
the fact that I am gonna die someday.
And,
but I do think that

(24:12):
one of the things kind of a theme
for me during that time was
just a recognition that we're not
we're not as safe as we all think
we are. You know, we we do all
these things. We create
we create routine, and we create these kind
of rules for life about how we do
things. And it makes us feel like, oh,

(24:34):
you know, I'm definitely gonna wake up in
the morning. I'm gonna be okay.
And for the most part, we are. Right?
We do wake up in the but the
reality is we're not guaranteed that. You know,
people people die all the time unexpectedly,
and this was just like a real,
you know, kind of a kick in the
gut. Like, oh, you could get this virus.
I I could have gotten that virus, and

(24:56):
I did get the virus eventually, I think,
2021 at some point, and I felt like
shit. But Mhmm. I didn't go to the
hospital.
But the real I just the,
it just made me very aware that I'm
not quite as safe,
not quite as invincible
as I thought I was. So

(25:16):
it it's not,
That's not distressing to me.
It's just
a realization. And it's kind of helped me
be a little more mindful about
enjoying what I'm doing and
just appreciate life,
which is, you know, it's the whole point

(25:37):
of my podcast. That's the point really of
my working in palliative care is not I
mean, I care about my patients, but it's
a learning for me.
This is a a gift for me. It
helps me be a better person and and
live with myself
in a better way. So,
yeah, I think
it was difficult for sure.

(25:57):
I don't know. I didn't I didn't find
it as distressing as a lot of people
did, and I I don't blame them for
that. I think it it was definitely distressing.
And I think nurses,
especially nurses in the ICU, had it way
worse than me. You know,
they're just constantly I mean, it was just

(26:17):
we were proning people, you know? Yeah. Mhmm.
Putting them on there. Flip flopping people. And
that's all, you know, we're just
prolonging life with
ventilators and ECMO machines, and
and sometimes it works and sometimes it didn't.
And there wasn't really
we didn't have that much control over whether
it worked or whether it didn't because people's

(26:38):
lungs are just trashed. You know? And
we're just
waiting, and they they are just doing all
this care,
intense amounts of care for people that they're
not really sure. I mean, I guess that's
always the case, but there's just a lot
of people and a really bad situation.
Well, I think for the most part, you
know, ICU nurses are used to

(27:01):
probably most of their patients surviving. They do
get experience, you know, with an exposure to
some
death in the ICU, but it's definitely more
about
its critical care. It's like doing everything that
you can to keep a person alive
and probably the majority of the time they
do. Right. But not during COVID. It's I

(27:22):
mean, I'm saying that as somebody who just
watched a lot of ICU nurses
on social media Yeah. And
how that impacted them because and and many
of them were new grads. Yeah. You know?
Oh, yeah. And and we don't learn about
death and dying as much in nursing school
Mhmm. Just like in medical school. You know?

(27:43):
Like, that's not the focus. The focus is
on preventative
and treatment. It's not about
death and dying. You know? You go through
nursing school, you might get an hour lecture
on hospice and palliative care, but for the
most part, you don't get that experience. You
certainly don't get it in nursing school as
far as your clinicals. You know? So Yeah.

(28:03):
Yeah. It was like, oh, wow. I did
not know that this was going to happen.
You know? And I think that was that's
what was was really,
really hard for them. And I was watching
LPN social media,
content creator, and she was in the thick
of it big time and talked a lot
about it during that time. And then she

(28:25):
just recently put a video out talking about
it again and saying how
she was
holding the Zoom
for people to see their person dying. And
she just never expected that was gonna have
Yeah. Happen. You know? Yeah. Yeah. I think
that's right. A lot of people
were
exposed to dying that normally aren't. We're really

(28:46):
good at keeping people alive. I mean, we
we really I'm not me, but
the hospital in general is really good at
keeping people alive. And Far beyond when they
should be, let's just say.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Howie, you asked about
palliative care versus hospice in the hospital and

(29:07):
our
so, yeah, I do
I do palliative care. So we,
we really are
just palliative care. However,
a lot of times when people have done
everything possible and it's not working anymore or
whatever,
and they are in the hospital and ready
to transition to comfort care. If we don't

(29:29):
think that they're gonna be able to get
out of the hospital,
we will do that transition in the hospital,
and we will provide that care for them.
And so our the palliative care team will
be part of that. Our our doctors are
not attending
are are are not admitting doctors, and so
they don't
the primary team remains their primary team, but
we consult. And so the

(29:50):
social workers and the chaplains will provide support
to patients' families.
We don't
do GIP
in the hospital very often
just because
it's kind of a it's a hospital culture
thing for us.
We haven't
historically done that, and so we're not good

(30:11):
at it. And so,
it just doesn't happen very often. We're we're
trying to get better at it, and we
need our hospice partners to be
there and available and able to do that.
But we don't typically do that.
And for those who don't know,
GIP is hospice level of care, general inpatient

(30:32):
care, it's really meant for
acute symptom management. And and one of the
problems with doing GIP in a hospital setting
is that it's it's hard
to justify,
that they're meeting that eligibility
if they're just comfortably actively dying because that
is not a qualification
for general inpatient care. They really need to

(30:54):
be having some aggressive symptom management going on
ongoing assessment. So it is actually a really
slippery slope to have somebody GIP in a
hospital.
It's it's hard to do. And,
and I think that's part of the reason
why we haven't historically done it because
it is it is hard to qualify somebody.
And
honestly, it's just it's more comfortable and

(31:16):
just gooder overall
to to do it outside of the hospital.
You know, when if somebody can get out
of the hospital, it's more comfortable. It's
more family can be around and,
you know, it's just hospital's a sterile environment.
It's not great.
Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm gonna redirect us
just a little bit, Cody, because I think
you have quite a social work heart when

(31:38):
it comes to
your passion of advanced directives and planning.
So where did that passion come from?
It's just part of what we do, as
a team in the hospital. So for our
on our team and probably I'm imagining
at other hospitals too. I don't know. I
haven't worked at any other hospital. So

(32:01):
the
but the the work that we do as
a team,
there's a lot of overlap between,
social work and palliative care or social work
and chaplaincy.
And so,
historically, on our team, the chaplains have
addressed
all advanced directives, but medical power of attorney.
We really I mean,

(32:22):
over the years, we have tried to
meet people further and further upstream. So as
soon as they have some kind of a
life limiting diagnosis Thank you.
We will now.
I know. I know. But as soon as
we can, we we want to get them
and we want to talk to them. Okay.
You don't need a medical power of attorney
right now. Right? But you don't need a

(32:45):
medical power of attorney until you need it,
and then it's too late. And so you've
gotta do it. And so we're trying to
do this as early as possible. And so,
historically, the on our team, anyway, the chaplains
have been doing that. We've gotten
trained through the,
that group out of La Crosse, Wisconsin.
Prospecting Choices, I think, is what it's called.

(33:06):
But we've gotten training through them and through
Kaiser to do conversations for most, or you
guys probably have POLST or POST. Mhmm. I
don't know what you have. Yeah. POLST in
Washington.
So, we've gotten training to do that. And
so we will work with
that's another thing is that we're trying to,
1, we're teaching hospitals, so we're trying to

(33:28):
educate
the resident
doctors who are there. So we'll I'll grab
a resident, and we'll go have a conversation
about a most form with a patient and
talk them through, you know, this is what
this means, and this is what that means,
and this is how you should be you
know, we want you to be thinking about
the decisions you're making.
And so in doing that, we're we're getting

(33:51):
the medical information that we need from the
resident doctor, but he's he or she is
learning from us about how to have that
conversation. And then the patient is learning about
medical decision making and thinking with us about,
how they want their care to look. So
so to answer the question, really, which was

(34:11):
how did I get kind of a an
interest in that, it was really given to
me because it's my job. But I I
also I also think it's really important. And
That's fair.
Yeah.
You know? But I I think it's really
important, and it's something that a lot of
people don't do,
and
and I think they should.

(34:33):
When you talk a lot of too about
longevity of health care workers, which is also
vital and vitally under discussed.
So what are things that you're doing to
advance that?
Yeah.
So we work,
again, a lot with,
young residents,
and we have a lot of new grad

(34:54):
nurses that come to our hospital. We have
a
a nursing
residency. So for the 1st year of their
work in the hospital, they have this residency
program where they have these,
educational days. They come in and do all
this education stuff. And so
some of what I've been trying to do
is talk about how to

(35:16):
maintain your own well-being,
you know, through
self care. And
and it's
not not self care in the sense that,
you know, I'm drawing a bath and, you
know, drinking a glass of wine and eating
chocolate, which is fine. I don't I like
a bath as much as the next guy.
But,

(35:36):
you know,
the ability to
encounter these kinds of difficult things over and
over again
and
maintain
yourself. So
I think it's
the kind of people that go into health
care
are caring people, you know, they want to
be caring, they want to connect with people.

(35:59):
And, and all of that is good and
fine. And
if I am taking on the emotion,
taking on, you know, either counter projection or
projecting my my own beliefs onto them,
getting my own stuff kind of mixed up
in their stuff,
it can be devastating.

(36:19):
And so
the things that I talk about are,
being aware of yourself. Like, what is it
that triggers you? What is it that hooks
you in and makes you wanna do more
than you need to be doing?
What is it that,
makes you really, really hate a patient
or really hate a family? I mean, there
we all have these kind of biases and

(36:41):
triggers and things that kinda hook us in.
And
if we walk around and
kinda do our work unaware of it,
it will it will ruin us, and it
won't it won't serve the patient or the
family. And and so I think what, I
mean, what I talk about is,
allowing myself to have my experience
and to deal with that experience,

(37:03):
my own internal experience,
deal with it internally,
and let the patient and the family have
their experience
and help them through that experience, but not
getting those 2 mixed up. Because,
you know, what I feel about
what they're going through,
it's none of their business. They don't need
to know what I feel.

(37:24):
They need me to be there and be
professional and help them work through their stuff.
So,
it's, you know, remaining curious about what's happening.
It's being aware of my own biases and
my hooks and my,
the things that I, you know, really hate.
But that's a big one. So,
yeah, so that's what we do. We just
try to we

(37:46):
we have
a,
every every rotation out of the ICU,
the residents at, like, toward the end of
the rotation
will do kind of we call it resiliency
rounds or something like that, where we just
take a morning and kinda talk through that
whole month. Okay. What was hard about this?
What what happened emotionally? We're not talking about

(38:06):
medical stuff. We're talking about emotionally, what was
difficult for you, why was it difficult. Let's
pay attention to that. What was great about
this? Let's pay attention to that. Let's, this
and so just kinda talking through working through
all that kind of stuff.
So
we do the same kind of thing with
nursing staff and
anybody that will listen to me. That's what

(38:27):
that's what I say. Yeah. Whenever I'm talking
to other
clinicians,
especially nurses about
how to survive because I get that question
a lot. How do you do what you
do? Yeah. I always talk about emotional boundaries.
Mhmm. How to have not just professional boundaries,
but emotional boundaries. Yeah. You know, that's not

(38:47):
your family. This is your job. You can't
get enmeshed in what's going on with them.
You can't try to fix what's going on
with them. Whatever is happening in that dynamic
has been there for long before you walked
into the picture.
You know? And for me,
one of the more, concrete things that I
could do that helped me with that emotional

(39:07):
boundary is to to not attend funerals.
Mhmm. Mhmm. Because I did not have the
bandwidth.
And I started in GIP care in hospice
care centers, 2 different hospice care centers for
7 years
where literally, you know, 5, 6 patients will
die in a weekend. Yeah.
I I wouldn't be doing anything but going

(39:28):
to funerals if I went to. You know?
So it's kinda like I needed to say
Right. If I'm not gonna do this for
this person,
then I can't do it for anybody. Like,
that has to be my hard line right
there. This is my emotional boundary. I cannot
be putting myself into,
you know, this
funeral or memorial service
in my own private time, day after day,

(39:50):
and survive this work. Yeah. Yeah.
Yep. We
the the thing about,
like, all the stuff that's going on in
that family has been going on for years
years. Made me think of this patient we
had in the in the ICU a couple
weeks ago.
And this family was just,
they were just fighting. You know, one one
family member was like, he's suffering. We need

(40:12):
to let him go. Another family member was
like, he would wanna live even if it's
in a facility.
And, you know,
of course, like, I have my
I have my bias. Right? And I know
what I would pick. And so
I I had to be really careful about
not giving preference to this man who
who I agreed with. Right? Mhmm. Because

(40:35):
the the lady who I disagreed with,
she's having a
they're both having loving responses, right, to the
to the person in the bed.
And
their inability
to talk and work through that on their
own
is
I mean, it's something that I can work
with,
but it's not something I can change because

(40:57):
it's been happening for 50 years. You know?
These people have lived as family for a
long time,
and they've developed this way
of
not communicating well. And that's how it is.
And I can I can inter interject, and
I can work within it, but I can't
change in 2 days what's taken 50 years
to develop? So Yeah.

(41:19):
So not only am I kind of
just trying to separate
myself,
my own bias out of that,
situation,
I'm giving myself a little grace for
not being able to fix the situation because
what am I gonna do? You know, this
lady loves her father deeply and is terrified

(41:41):
that he's gonna die.
Mhmm. This other man loves his father deeply
and is terrified that he's suffering. And
Mhmm. What's the reality? What's real I mean,
what's true about that? I mean, both. I
mean, they're both true, and they're both loving
responses to a difficult situation. So
it's just it's hard to do. It is

(42:01):
hard to do. And I, you know, I
was not always good at it. And I'm
not always great at it now. But
that's, that's the idea
anyway,
is to, you know, set those emotional boundaries
and
and professional boundaries.
And another great example of why we need
to have those conversations upstream and that we

(42:22):
put to our level of wouldn't help us
out, wouldn't it? Yes.
Yeah. And and and what a great story,
and I'm sure Hallie will agree with me
that
it's one that we've heard play out over
and over and over again. Different characters, same
story. Yep. Yeah. Yep. For sure.
It really hammers in the need to make

(42:44):
your wishes known.
Yeah. So anybody that's listening to this, now's
the time. Talk to your family. Yeah.
Yeah. You don't have to wait for a
life limiting illness to have this conversation.
In fact, you really shouldn't because
aliens could come to this guy It's too
late. In a car accident. I mean, who
knows? You know? Yeah. Yeah.

(43:05):
So, Cody, tell us a little bit about,
dying to tell you and and where that
came from because I'm dying for you to
tell me where you find your guests. Oh.
Yeah. Well, I'm just dying to tell you.
Find my guests?
That's always the problem, isn't it? Oh my
gosh. I
I've had this conversation so many times. I
know I've told Penny
that I've, I've talked to, you know, a

(43:27):
1000 people with amazing 1,000 different stories
and they're my hospice patients. So I can't
ask them to be my guest. So,
and I have a really hard time making
up stories. I'm not good at changing
details enough for me to feel comfortable telling
stories, so you don't often Mhmm. Hear me
telling stories,
for exactly that reason because I'm so worried

(43:47):
about telling stories.
But you're finding people that are willing to
tell their own stories, so tell us all
about that. So much easier. Yeah.
So the the idea
just came because I was sitting out with
my
family and friends, and we were I was
telling a story about somebody that I met,

(44:08):
you know, that was dealing with illness and
how great it was. I mean, I just
learned so much, obviously, from from doing this
work.
And they were like, man, this is
it's so great, these conversations that you have.
You should
write a book or, you know, whatever. And
I said, 1, that's really hard.
And 2, like, changing changing the names and,

(44:30):
like, what is the legality with all of
that? And,
my wife's a lawyer, and I'm always thinking
about that kind of stuff. And so
but I was like, you know, these people,
they're not dead. They can tell their own
story.
Mhmm. It would be cool to to interview
these people and kinda give people an
a little peek behind the curtain of, like,

(44:51):
what I do and kind of these conversations
that I get to have with people.
And
so I kind of floated that idea. And
my wife goes, who
the hell would listen to that? It's so
depressing.
And I was like, oh, well, maybe.
But I don't think it has to be.
I don't and so, yeah, it was just
this,

(45:13):
because I don't I don't find it depressing.
I is,
it's life giving and meaningful.
And so I was just like, maybe we
can maybe we can do this. It takes
the right person. Right? Somebody that's,
you know, has a life limiting illness. Somebody
something they're gonna die from. Somebody who is
aware of that and accepting of that and

(45:34):
willing to talk about it
and somebody who's not so sick that they
can't talk about it anymore
and somebody willing to let strangers in on
the conversation.
Mhmm. It's a I mean, it is kind
of a a tall order, but I just
I I felt really strongly that this would
be a good thing to do. And so,

(45:55):
I've I found my friend, Chris, who does
my,
kind of producing and editing, and,
we talked about it. And,
and then I just started putting the word
out to
my palliative care friends outside of the hospital
who would have patients that I'm not going
to see and just started saying, hey, if
you know of somebody that would be willing

(46:16):
to talk, let's let's talk.
And
my friend, Andy, is a palliative care physician,
and he works
within the same palliative care group but at
a different clinic in a different hospital.
And he said, hey. I've got this guy,
and his name's Aaron. He's our first he
was our first guest, and he was like,
he's exactly what you want. He's he's got,

(46:39):
you know,
an end of life plan. He's he's got
all this like, these
he's got rituals and stuff that he wants
to do, and he is he was he
was like, he really is dying to tell
people about this. He really wants to he
wants people to know, and he's got a
message about, like, you need to start planning
for end of life because,

(47:01):
you know, death and taxes are are the
only sure thing, and everybody
plans for their taxes every year, and nobody's
talking about debt. So now is the time
to talk about that. So we contacted Aaron,
and we set up a time to to
interview him. And then the pandemic happened, and
so we were like, well, we're just gonna

(47:22):
put everything on hold for now. And,
eventually,
he contacted us
and said, look. You know, I've got I've
got new meds in the brain. And, if
we're ever gonna do this, now is the
time. So let's let's get together and do
it. And,
man, it was so
it was so good. And we I I
think we probably have 2 and a half

(47:42):
or 3 hours worth of
interview with him
because he just, I mean, he just had
so much to say, and he was on
high dose steroids. So he was just like,
but,
anyway, he was great, and that that
that kinda started it. And,
you know, you're right. Finding the right people

(48:05):
has been
the biggest problem for us.
And
so we just kept
putting the word out, and we finally got
a couple
recorded.
And then we were like,
it's not a good idea, but we're gonna
start the podcast. We only have a couple
in the bank, but we're just gonna start
it and hope that people will come to

(48:25):
us through this
podcast and starting to, like, put stuff out
on social media and stuff. And that's that's
really where we've gotten a lot of stuff.
A lot of our guests is through social
media and through people that I know who
work in the medical field who have patients
that I'm never gonna see. So, yeah, it's
been it's just so much fun, honestly.

(48:47):
It's
it's so I don't know. It's,
it's life giving and meaningful in a in
a way, a different way than the work
that I do in the hospital.
And,
yeah, I just love it. I love it.
Yeah. I imagine you've learned a lot from
the all those people you've talked to. And
I was just listening to your most recent

(49:09):
one
where someone has a plan for medical aid
in dying, which, of course, Colorado is one
of our
sister states that has that option for people.
And it's
it's really it was a window into
his lines in the sand, which I thought
was a great part of the conversation.
Yeah. Yeah.

(49:30):
Yeah.
He yeah. Bob is so great. I would
like to,
at at some point, hopefully, in the next
few months,
get to get back together with Bob and
his daughter because
Bob's
wife and I don't know if he had
actually made it into the
final cut, but Bob's wife,

(49:50):
had dementia,
and,
she did,
she voluntarily stopped eating and drinking.
And,
that's how she came to the end of
her life.
And to hear him talk about that
and,
was just,
it was heartbreaking in some ways. And also

(50:12):
just,
man, he
he was steadfast.
I mean, just
he
he he prolonged his own life with chemotherapy
that he would never have done
if his wife hadn't needed him to be
around for that. And
yeah, it was that was wonderful to hear.

(50:35):
And, yeah, I have I have learned a
ton from I've I've changed the way that
I practice
through these interviews.
It's been it's been really great. Really great.
Anything surprising that you've heard in in your
work or in your interviews that
caught you off guard?
Yeah.
The one that I think has really shifted

(50:56):
for me is I really shy away from
or I've always had this kind of
I don't know what to say.
I've had kind of
a a bad reaction
when people,
use
use
the the fighting

(51:17):
words or, you know, military
words.
Mhmm.
I I always I I feel this really
terrible
feeling in my stomach
when
somebody has gotten this new diagnosis that is
metastatic cancer that we know they're gonna die
with it. And they say to me, well,

(51:39):
I'm just I'm gonna beat this thing.
And
I've always had this kind of
immediate reaction to that that,
well, I need them to know that that's
not true.
Like, I need them to know that they're
not gonna beat this.
And
Nancy
Kaye

(51:59):
was, I think, the second
second guest on the podcast, and she
used that term.
And
I guess
the because of this different setting that I
was in and I was had a little
more freedom to explore. I just said, you
know,
we know that you're dying from this. What

(52:19):
do you mean? And she's like, well, I'm
gonna beat this by living
as well as I possibly can with this.
Right? Like, I am gonna beat this by
doing everything that I wanna
do. I'm not gonna let it beat me.
I'm gonna beat it. And so I still
don't like the the
the terminology. I don't like those those words
necessarily,

(52:40):
but
it's changed the way that I react when
I hear that. And I instead of instead
of having this kind of shutdown posture
and need to, like, fix it,
I I find myself coming in a little
more curious and a little more open to
that and saying, okay. Well, let's talk about
that. What do you mean by that, and
how how can you beat it? If it's

(53:00):
gonna kill you, how do you beat it?
And,
so that's that's been kind of my big
learning so far is
not only not just that, but any any
kind of turn of phrase
that makes me,
feel bad or,
have that kind of, like, shutdown reaction,
I can just notice that and go, okay.

(53:22):
I'm having that reaction that I normally have.
Can I get with it and stop and
just give it some time and let that
breathe and just, like, see explore it, be
a little more curious about it and not
so judgmental about it, which is my typical
response?
It's just being a judgmental asshole. So so
Well,
I I I really like that.

(53:43):
I
I really love that you
explored that with her and that that was
her answer. I really liked that because I'm
triggered by that as well. I'm especially triggered
when people say they lost their battle with
cancer. No. It's like Hard. It's like
yeah. It's
a you're you don't have a loaded weapon.
You know? You can try all you want,
but death is gonna take you when it's

(54:03):
gonna take you, and sometimes there's nothing you
can do about that. It really triggers me.
And then I'll hear people with cancer saying
I'm gonna fight.
And I still feel
triggered, and my outward response is, well, you're
the one who's going and I've even made
videos where I say, look. If you got
cancer and you wanna say that you're gonna
fight it, okay. I'm okay with that. But

(54:24):
let's not say that somebody lost their battle
with cancer after they've died. Yeah. Well It's
really not fair to them to say that.
Right. Exactly. Yeah. But still, even though I'm
kinda giving that permission, like, if you have
cancer and you wanna say you wanna fight
it, I feel the same way that you
just described. Like,
in my brain, I'm thinking, what the fuck
do you mean by that? Yeah. Yeah. You

(54:45):
know, you're like, you're gonna die from this.
You have stage 4 metastatic cancer. It's in
your fucking lymph nodes, dude. Like, that's the
freeway to everything in your body.
You're gonna die from this. What you know?
But, you know, I give them the grace.
But so I think it's really cool that
you were able to
explore that and that her her

(55:05):
really her definition of beating it wasn't,
I'm gonna eradicate cancer and live until I'm
90 years old. Right. It's Right. I'm not
gonna let it get me down. I'm gonna
do what I can to live as long
as I can. I'm gonna
have a good life. I'm gonna you know,
like, I really like that. Not to say
that's probably everybody's
idea when they have cancer. Some people who

(55:26):
are trying to, you know, beat it are
really trying to beat it and to live
as long you know, forever and get rid
of it completely out of their body. Yeah.
But but it does, you know, give me
kind of a little
new perspective to try
to squash the voice in my brain that
wants to go
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I I need

(55:47):
to shake them and go, you're gonna die
from this.
I mean, what good is that? I mean,
that's not gonna help. I mean and to
but to be fair too, part of that
is
let's look at what else could you know,
like, you need to do your advanced directives.
Like, if this doesn't work, then you should
be taking this pathway. Right? Like, doctor Sammy's
book, hope for the best, plan for the

(56:07):
rest. For the worst. Yeah. Yeah. So, like,
just,
you know, like, let's walk 2 pathways here.
There's the one that you're gonna stay focused
on, but on the side road over here,
we've got this. Yeah. So that you aren't
coming on to hospice
3 days before your death, and we're scrambling
to make everything work out for you to
be at home with your family and to
teach them and to do all this stuff.

(56:28):
Mhmm. It's like trying to the balance, you
know, walk in that that thin line in
between.
Yeah. So I guess probably that's what
that's why I get that triggered feeling of
stop saying
that you're gonna beat this. Yeah. You know?
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think
I mean,
I'm I'm seeing people

(56:49):
when they get when they first get the
diagnosis. And so it is
you know, give them a a minute to
let it let it run around their head
a little bit. Yeah. Like, can I can
I just chill out a little bit and
let them sit with it for a minute
before I shake them and tell them they're
gonna die? Like, they'll figure it out, and,
you know, we can help them through that.

(57:10):
And,
you know,
I always say, you know, like,
people will say that although there's always hope,
and I'm I I I've ruffled my feathers
at that too. Like, yeah, there's hope.
But, you know, what are you hoping for?
Like Well, we'll be talking to doctor Sammie
this season about specifically that because she

(57:30):
has an amazing
chapter in her book and part of her
podcast that talks about
reframing and redefining hope as we go down
our path. So Right. We'll put a pin
in that thought for now. Yeah. Because yeah.
Right. There is always hope. And what we
hope for changes. It's what we hope for.
Yeah. That's what I say. The same thing.
We don't ask you to give up hope

(57:52):
when you come on hospice. We ask you
to change what hope means to you. Right.
And people will say, well, I'm not giving
up. And I'm like, yeah. Nobody nobody gives
up. Nobody ever has to communication. Gives up.
That may not be true. But generally speaking,
people don't give up. And, you know, you
you wanna fight? Great. What are you fighting
for? I don't need to change your your
wording, but I need to explore that with

(58:14):
you. And then if you're just using that
as a deflection
so that you don't have to, like, emotionally
deal with it, well, I can figure that
out too. But we can also get past
that, and you can, like, work through it.
And you can figure out, okay. Because I
think
that that
a lot of times is just a fear
response. Right? I'm gonna fight. I'm gonna fight.
You know? And,
okay, cool. And

(58:35):
most of the time, making decisions out of,
you know, a reactionary fear is not the
best place to be making decisions from. You
know, if we can
give a minute, let that fear breathe,
work through it, and then go, okay. But
logically speaking, let's let's take some time to
think about what's most important here, and how
how are we gonna get you the most

(58:57):
of what you're hoping for and help you
avoid the things you wanna avoid and help
you live as well as you possibly can
now. Right? You've got you're not debt.
And so, like, how do you wanna live?
Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. And isn't it a beautiful
transformation
when they get through that minute and they
start to,

(59:17):
like, re really reframe how they're thinking about
the end of their life. You know? It's
beautiful to watch that unfold. I
I saw that happen on TikTok with a
young woman. I've probably talked about her last
season, Jessica Christine. She had I don't know
if you were on TikTok at the time,
Cody, that she was on, but she had
colon cancer. Young woman

(59:37):
found out that she was dying. They were
putting her on hospice. She was terrified, made
a video, 10,000,000 views. People in the comments,
hospice nurse Betty, help her, help her, help
her. And I was just like, let her
sit with this. Like, let her be feel
her feels. She needs to. Yeah. And then
once she worked through that and started, like,
accepting

(59:57):
that she needed to change her plans Right.
It was beautiful. She had a bucket list
and people helped her, and this guy
did a GoFundMe and people
raised money for him to go make her
beignets that was on her bucket list, you
know, and and it was you could see
this unfolding in real time on TikTok, and
it was just beautiful to watch, you know,

(01:00:18):
like, her just finally
and it's not even about embracing
the fact that she's dying. It's accepting the
fact that she's dying and embracing what life
she has left and trying to live it
the best way that she can. And it
was just amazing. You know? Yeah. And I
mean, part of part of why I love
all this is

(01:00:38):
that I think
I'm about to say it in one of
my podcasts is
my situation really is not that much different
from
somebody else's situation. We're,
our our next guest is has ALS, and
she's you know, her her timeline is truncated.
Right? It's it's compressed.
But

(01:00:58):
she's she's losing her ability to do things
that she's always done.
So am I. Right? Like, I'm not running
I'm not running a marathon anymore. My knees
my knees won't do that.
She's not running marathon anymore either. It's gonna
take me a longer time to get where
she is, but I'm gonna get there. And
so
can we just take a moment and realize,

(01:01:18):
like, there's nothing wrong here, and we all
have this condition.
And and it's it's happening. Right? And now
is the time to be living the way
that we wanna live,
and that's another thing that is really, like,
through doing this podcast and working in palliative
care is just,
oh, now is the time because I am

(01:01:39):
not like I was saying about COVID, I'm
not guaranteed to wake up tomorrow, and I
better better enjoy today.
Well, that's a great transition towards the end
here because I wanna honor your time.
I do wanna just we don't have to
get into it, but I just wanted to
make sure I mentioned that
I love your gratitude and remembrance post on

(01:02:00):
social media. So if people are not following
you on social media, they need to be
Yeah.
Do that.
Yes, please.
That that's one of my favorite things is
having people talk about people that they've lost
and that they love because,
you know, we all carry things with us
that were given to us by by family
and people that we've loved, that we've lost.

(01:02:22):
And that's one of the things at bedside
when we're, you know, excavating somebody and they're
gonna die. We always talk about, okay. You
know, what if what are you taking with
you from them? You know, what are how
are you gonna honor them, and how are
you gonna live in a way that honors
who they are and what have they taught
you? And so,
yeah. In fact, when we get off of
this, I'm gonna make another post, and we're

(01:02:42):
gonna invite people to share,
yeah, just a remembrance of somebody that they
love. So if you're not following,
please follow.
And I will ask you in a second
where to find you. You're muted, Penny, by
the way. But we're starting a new thing
this season. Stomach was growling. And so he
muted me. So Mine was too earlier. I

(01:03:03):
hope it didn't make it. Ellen, can you
hear me? I'm a move my microphone away.
I couldn't hear you.
No.
This season, we're asking
a question to everyone. So you're gonna be,
our trial question here. Oh, okay. The coffin
question is, what do you want done with
your body when you
die?
I really don't care.

(01:03:28):
That's the real answer. And, also,
I I don't
I don't like the idea of pumping my
body full of,
preservative and putting me in a box to
be preserved
even though I know that eventually I'm gonna
rot. So
I don't like that.
Creation's cool. New options lately.

(01:03:49):
Yeah. I know. Creation's cool.
We had a couple people recently
do the,
composting.
Was it I think there was like a
water composting thing that they were doing. Yeah.
Acclimation.
Yeah. Any of those, I suppose. Honestly, if
you just, like, wrap me up in a
in
a blanket and toss me in the ground,

(01:04:11):
that would be fine too.
I just don't like the idea of being,
like, all all preserved.
That doesn't sit right with me, but
I don't
I I don't think that I'm gonna care.
I'm I'm open to,
you know, something after life, but I'm I'm
not convinced. And so I don't think that
I'm gonna care what anybody does with my

(01:04:31):
body. So but if, if
anybody's
listening out there,
Yeah. Don't don't bury me. You can cremate
me or compost me or toss me in
a hole. No. I was gonna say, make
sure you tell your loved ones about that.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think they do.
Well, where can people find you? We've mentioned

(01:04:51):
a few times, but I just wanna make
sure we're clear about where people find you.
We'll also put it in the show notes.
Okay. Well, let me look. I don't know
the name of my
that the,
dying.2.tel.u
on,
on TikTok and then Dying to Tell You
on

(01:05:12):
Instagram,
Facebook. But Dtty
podcast
is the,
website,
dtypodcast.com.
And,
yeah, we're on,
you know, all the places, Apple Podcasts, Spotify.
Wonderful. Subscribe. It helps if you if you
subscribe.
So and then it automatically downloads, and then

(01:05:33):
we get all the all the
warm fuzzy feelings when we see all the
numbers.
Well, Cody, thank you so so much for
being a guest today. We've really enjoyed talking
to you. Yes. Thank you. Yes. Good day.
Fascinating. Yeah. Good to meet you guys in
person. You as well.
Wow. How inspirational

(01:05:54):
to remember, you know, as we say, someday,
we'll all be dead. It's true. Life is
a terminal condition.
Yes. Yes. That was fantastic. I I really
enjoyed talking with him.
I I haven't listened to,
his podcast. I've heard pieces of them
on social media. Now I'm gonna be subscribing
and binging to everything because

(01:06:15):
how fascinating,
and I love that. Know
that and that, you know, we know that
people who are dying do wanna talk about
it.
Mhmm. You know, and families are often reticent
to have those conversations.
They're uncomfortable.
They don't wanna they don't wanna nobody wants
to broach the subject because everybody's afraid that
nobody really wants to talk about it, so

(01:06:35):
nobody brings it up. But, you know, there's
been studies that have been done where they
have
shown that people who are dying do wanna
talk about it. So I love that he's
giving them,
you know, the platform to do that. It's
a great question. I mean, I'm sure you've
had the same problem. I can't tell you
how many times I've had family members say
don't say hospice.
So Even even to decisional patients

(01:06:57):
don't say hospice. Like,
and and How are you doing? And for
everybody listening,
we can't do that.
Electing hospice is, you know, you're electing the
hospice benefit. It's it requires informed consent.
So somebody who's decisional or somebody who's not
decisional and then the family
elects it for them and says, don't tell

(01:07:18):
them hospice, but then maybe they've had a
stroke and they start to kinda come around
or and have some clarity. You know, we
we now
you know, we do have to tell them
that they're on hospice, we are obligated.
So unless it's somebody who's,
you know, really doesn't have the cognitive ability
to understand
what that means,

(01:07:38):
or it upsets them every time you talk
about it, then of course.
But, you know, if they're decisional.
Yeah. I I do have or have had
a patient
that had a kind of a trauma response
every time because the short term memory was
so bad Mhmm. That it would re trigger
that, like, you're getting the diagnosis all over
again.

(01:07:59):
And that I understand. Completely get it. We're
part of your care team. That's all that's
important to say.
But, yeah, it's
it's exhausting when you're trying to do this
education and then
and be supportive, and you can't even offer
what you really want to offer, which is
the allowance for them to grieve. Yes. Grieve
their life. Grieve the end of their own

(01:08:20):
life. Yeah. Absolutely.
So, yeah, Cody's doing good work out there.
Yeah. He is.
Alright. Well, until our next video, until our
next interview,
remember to live.
Because someday, we'll all be dead.