Uncovering Purpose Through Life's Unexpected Twists

What happens when life pulls you away from a high-powered career into the unexpected role of family caregiver?
 
I faced such a crossroads when diagnosed with pulmonary arterial hypertension, compelling her to retire early and embrace a new chapter filled with unforeseen challenges. I bravely shares my personal journey, navigating my daughter's severe staph infection and her parents' declining health, all while relying on disability insurance to maintain financial stability. My story highlights the importance of preparing for life's unpredictable moments and the peace of mind that comes from having a safety net in place.

My experiences didn't just stop at personal trials—it opened doors to personal growth and community involvement. Early retirement became a blessing in disguise, allowing me to deepen my connection with her children and discover a passion for advocating affordable housing. Through these transformative years, I found fulfillment and purpose, illustrating how life's unexpected turns can uncover hidden strengths and opportunities. 

Listen in to gain valuable insights into balancing family caregiving with personal growth, and learn how I, Carmen Cauthen, turned adversity into a means of supporting loved ones and making a meaningful impact in my community.

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Carmen Wimberley Cauthen is an author, speaker, and lover of history, Black history in particular. As a truth teller, she delights in finding the hidden truths about the lives of people who made a difference - whether they were unknown icons or regular everyday people.

To Learn more of Carmen:
www.carmencauthen.com
www.researchandresource.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Unseen, unheard.
We've lived like that far toolong.
I'm Carmen Coffin, and this isQuiet, no More.
I retired in 2011.
Now I wasn't 65 or 62 in 2011,but I was tired.

(00:29):
I had been diagnosed withpulmonary arterial hypertension
in 2009, and I was on oxygen24-7.
, and that spring my daughtergot sick.
She had a staph infectiongrowing in her back after having

(00:50):
had scoliosis surgery threeyears prior, and so she was in
and out of the hospital forabout six weeks weeks and home
on medication that had to beadministered literally directly

(01:11):
into her heart three times a day, and so I was out with her for
a while, and then I went back towork, and less than a month
after I went back to work, Ifound out my mother had gout in
both feet and my daddy waswheeling her around in a
wheelchair I mean, not in awheelchair, but in an office
chair in their apartment and I,you know, needed to work with

(01:34):
her a little bit, and I alreadyknew that daddy had been
diagnosed with dementia, eventhough she was trying to not
really talk about it very much.
So I was tired, and I heard alady speak at an event that I

(01:58):
was at, and she talked aboutcoming home on disability and I
never thought that that wassomething that I could do.
I was just trying to figure outhow to keep holding it together
for another eight or nine yearsuntil I had my full time in to
work.
And she said you know, you cancome out on disability.
You'll probably be making thesame amount of money take home

(02:21):
money that you were.
It won't be taxed the same way.
And I thought, hmm, that's athought because I was really
tired.
I was really tired and I wasn'tgoing to come home for long.
I just wanted to come home longenough to kind of catch a
breath.
And so I decided to look into itand found that I had purchased

(02:45):
disability insurance.
And, by the way, if you'reworking and you have access to
purchase disability insurance,get it, because you just never
know, I never would have thoughtI'd be on disability.
I never would have thought I'dhave been on oxygen.
You just never know.
So if you have access todisability insurance, see if you

(03:09):
can afford to buy it, becauseit will be well worth your
getting it.
That I was paying for and Ifigured out, even if that
payment had to come out of themoney that I was going to get.

(03:30):
I was only paying thatquarterly.
I could pay it and still haveit.
It would still be in additionto whatever income I had coming
in.
And so I had a conversationwith my husband about it and I
guess he just didn't believe me.
But I went to work the next dayand I decided to go on

(03:51):
disability for six months.
And I was, but I needed thebreak.
What I didn't know was thatwhen I left work on Friday and

(04:15):
told my mother I was going to beout for six weeks six months
and she said to me I have adoctor's appointment Monday,
would you go with me?
And she said that I mean, mymother was the in control woman
of the world.
She was not giving up control,she was not asking anybody to go

(04:37):
to the doctor with her or doany of that kind of stuff.
And the fact that she asked meto go said a lot to me.
She was concerned and shewanted somebody else to be there
with her and I was willing, ohso willing, to do that for her.
But it turned out I went to anappointment with her on Monday.

(05:00):
We had went to three, threedoctor's appointments the next
week and she had cataractsurgery coming up two weeks
later, and the fact that she wasletting me go to these doctor's
appointments and now, mind you,the doctors had to be talking
directly to her.

(05:20):
I'd had to correct them acouple of times because, as she
said, I am the patient, she'sjust here with me.
But I started to hear thingsabout her health that were
concerning to me and things thatshe had not been telling me
because she was in control, andso I realized that I needed to

(05:43):
take a little closer attentionto the things that were going on
in her life.
And then, when she had thecataract surgery, unfortunately
a little piece of the cataractbroke off in her eye and she
started to lose her sight inthat eye, and that was another
cause for concern, because thenshe couldn't drive, and that was

(06:07):
another loss of control for herand that was an issue.
So what occurred was that forall of her appointments, there
would be three of us going,because daddy was going and I
was going, and so we'd have tohave a doctor's office big
enough for three people to sitin plus the doctor.

(06:29):
But I was able to be there andto see what she needed and see
how I could help, and to seealso that my father really
depended on her for everythingthat he did.
Now he was still deliveringMeals on Wheels Meals on Wheels

(06:55):
but he would tell me sometimesthat he had gotten lost.
And with our Meals on Wheelsoffice, wherever you were going,
you had directions, fromleaving the office where you
picked up the food to every stopthat you made it told you every
turn which way to turn.
They had all of that writtenmade.
It told you every turn whichway to turn.
They had all of that writtendown.
And I think maybe there was aGarmin system or something
called a Tom Tom system out atthat time, and so eventually I

(07:20):
bought one of those for him, buthe didn't exactly know how to
use it well and pressed too hardand broke the screen.
So I realized that they bothneeded my assistance.
And one of my friends said to meif you're not going to go back,
when you said you're going togo back, you have to let them

(07:44):
know that like three monthsearly.
So if you were out for sixmonths, then within three months
you need to tell them thatyou're going to be out longer
because it will mess up yourmoney.
Well, we were already strainedwith finances, so it was a

(08:06):
learning time, and when I madethe decision to not go back, it
was not a happy time at my house.
There were perks that I hadwith my job.
In fact, when I made thedecision to come home, to begin
with we missed going to aconference in Texas.
That my family had been lookingforward to, because that's

(08:28):
generally how we had our familyvacations was.
Whatever conference I went to,the whole family went.
The girls would generally havea children's portion of the
event and I would be in mymeetings and my husband would do
the spouse portion.
And so I messed up summervacation that year.

(08:50):
But actually for me it was good, because it was the first time
I had been home with my kids forany part of the summer and my
oldest child was in the 10thgrade.
I was thankful to have thatperiod of time with them.

(09:11):
But I realized that my parentsneeded me and they had planned.
They had purchased long-termcare insurance.
They had done the things thatthey thought that they needed to
do.
We had had a Christmas familymeeting a couple of years prior

(09:33):
to that.
They had taken care of wills,health care, power of attorneys,
power of attorneys, all of thattrust stuff.
They had done all of thosethings and that was good because
we had all of those pieces putinto place.
But they needed me andfortunately I was able to stay

(10:00):
home and continue to take careof them.
They had made it plain that atsome point they were going to
move into assisted livingbecause my mother, within a
couple of years, ended up onoxygen.
My father's dementia wasgetting a little bit worse and

(10:23):
it was just important forsomeone to be there to help them
, and we ran into all kinds ofissues.
Mama would go to the doctor atone point and just find out that
things weren't going well.
In fact, when I first startedgoing to the doctor with her and

(10:46):
realized that there were somany things going on, I asked
the doctors every doctor that wewent to, because she had
specialists to tell me all thediagnoses that she had.
And by the time I finishedgetting all the diagnoses, she
had 25 things wrong, accordingto what they said, but some
things.
They had just made thatdecision and they hadn't tested

(11:09):
her to be sure that those werethe things that were wrong with
her, and so we began to unravelthat tape and whittle down some
of these diagnoses that she had.
One of the things that she wasdiagnosed with was pulmonary
hypertension, and it had takenalmost five months for me to get

(11:31):
into a doctor who specializedin that.
So one day for one of myappointments, I took my parents
with me to my appointment andhad my specialist to see my
mother, and so we realized thatthat wasn't a primary diagnosis
for her, but it was somethingthat we had to keep check on.

(11:52):
But it was something that wehad to keep check on and my
father.
Once they made the decision tomove to an assisted living
facility, my father's doctorsaid he couldn't drive anymore,
and so then I became the primarydriver for both families, so I

(12:15):
was taking my parents to placesthat they needed to go or doing
the shopping for them.
I was taking my children to theplaces that they needed to go.
If my husband was sick, then Iwas making sure he got where he
needed to be, and so I wasfortunate that I was able to
take that time and to have thatdisability check come in and
that was not federal disability,that was state, because I had

(12:39):
been a state employee.
Now in the North Carolina StateEmployment Office.
You have to go on short-termdisability for one year before
you are allowed to go onshort-term disability, for one
year before you are allowed togo on long-term disability, and
that means that your check, theamount of your check, gets

(13:02):
dropped almost by two-thirds.
And so that was why it wasimportant for me to have that
disability insurance, so that wewould have enough money coming
in to pay our bills, to continueto pay our mortgage.
And so after a year I went tolong-term disability and that

(13:25):
increased my pay.
Still wasn't necessarily enoughto pay all the bills, but it
was enough for us to do thethings that we needed to do.
What I want to say is that I wasso fortunate to be able to take
care of both of my parentsuntil they passed.
You just never know what you'regoing to have to do.

(13:48):
Know what you're going to haveto do, and so that was why my
retirement came early.
I did continue to do somevolunteer work.
I still was active in bothchildren's PTA and their school

(14:10):
activities, and I think itrounded out some of the time
that I had not spent with themwhen I was working such crazy
hours at the legislature.
But you know, sometimes you haveto do things that you did not
plan to do or that you did notplan for.
So think about those things asyou're moving forward with your

(14:31):
life, about those things asyou're moving forward with your
life.
Think about the other peoplethat you might have to help take
care of and figure out what thebest way is to move forward.
I will say that had I not donethat, some of the other roads
and the other paths that I havebeen able to come through would

(14:52):
not have opened up for me, Iwould not have done the research
, I would not have been anadvocate for affordable housing
in the same way that I was,because I wouldn't have been
able to have the time to do thatwork.
And so I'm thankful for for theopportunities that I had, even

(15:13):
though they came throughcompletely unexpected doors.
One of the other things thatthese unexpected activities
created for me was theopportunity to be able to speak
to you and to share with you andto teach those who are around

(15:35):
me about ways to stay quiet.
No more You've been listeningto Quiet no More, where I share
my journey.
So you can be quiet.
Let's connect atwwwcarmencoffincom.