Client Interview: How Nutrition Supported Her & Her Husband Through Parkinson’s

Transcript:

Leah: Welcome to Dishing Up Nutrition, brought to you by Nutritional Weight & Wellness. We are a Minnesota based company that specializes in real food nutrition education and counseling. My name is Leah Kleinschrodt, a Registered and Licensed Dietitian and your host for the show today.

We've got a very special show for you all. I am going to be talking with a longtime Nutritional Weight & wellness client who has worn many different hats throughout her personal and professional life, and I'll let her tell you a little bit more about those hats.

Background on Parkinson’s disease

But one of the hats we will be focusing on today is the hat of a caregiver for a loved one who is diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Just a little background on Parkinson's disease. It is the second most common neurodegenerative disease in the United States, so it's joined in the ranks with Alzheimer's disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. I hope I pronounced that okay. Most people know it as ALS, and multiple sclerosis, which is MS.

And these devastating conditions, they broadly involved gradual degeneration and death of the neurons in the brain and the nerves. In Parkinson's disease, people commonly struggle with disordered movements, so tremors, stiffness and rigidity, slowed movements and feet shuffling; constipation, memory issues or brain fog, sleep disturbances, fatigue, anxiety.

These are also common symptoms, and our special guest today is going to tell us about a couple others. Current treatments involve medications that provide or try to keep dopamine in the brain and help to manage symptoms, but unfortunately, there is no cure for Parkinson's disease at this time.

However, our special guest and her late husband did experience the power of real food and some targeted supplements to improve the quality of life for someone going through Parkinson's, as well as the power of nutrition to support the physical, mental and emotional demands of full-time caregiving. And I do want to pause on that because I want people out there to remember that caregiving can take a lot of different forms.

There's caregiving for a spouse with an injury or an illness, as is the case with our episode today. But there's also caregiving for just for children in general, caregiving for children with special needs, caregiving for an aging parent or parents. And even some jobs require an immense amount of caregiving, and the ones that come to my mind are nursing teaching, a daycare provider, and I'm sure I'm missing something in there.

So if you or someone you know fall into any of these categories or identify with that caregiving role, this is a great show to provide some strategies and just some hope or some lifelines that real food balanced nutrition can make an enormous difference for your own health as well as for those you care for.

Okay, so I think I set the stage enough for our special guest. I'm going to let her take the reins a little bit here. So I want to introduce you all to Mary McCormick. Welcome to Dishing Up Nutrition, Mary.

Mary: Thanks Leah. It's a pleasure to be here finally. Dar suggested this a long time ago.

Mary’s background

Leah: So we're, we're making due on that promise. Okay. So Mary, I want to just start off with you telling us a little bit about yourself. Like where, where did you grow up? What was your family like? What did you do for work? We talked about those many hats that you've worn and, and also what keeps you busy these days.

Mary: Well, I grew up on a beef farm in the southeast corner of Minnesota, just west of the Mississippi River. I was the oldest of seven children. I went to college in Winona, and I was an English major and a French minor. I worked for a year, and then that was back in the seventies during the Watergate era, so I sort of backed into law school.

I didn't dream of being Perry Mason like most of my classmates, but I got a scholarship to the University of Minnesota Law School, so went to law school and then I worked for a law firm for a couple years, and then I was Asia Pacific Council most of the time at Honeywell. And after that I went to Cray Research, the supercomputer company. And after that I had a solo practice when I was taking care of Mike.

So since 2001, I have been taking writing classes. I wrote an unpublished memoir. I've been on several nonprofit boards and over at the Celtic Junction Art Center I've been teaching the Irish novel writing articles for their arts review, and more recently, I'm on the board of a brand new Dublin based AE George Russell Society, which is a lot of fun.

Leah: Yes, so very good. It sounds like there's no shortage of things that keep you busy, especially these days. That's great. Okay. So you mentioned Mike, your late husband. You know, a lot of this conversation is going to focus around like you, both of you guys and, and his Parkinson's. So tell us actually, how did you guys meet?

Mary: Well, I worked at Cray from 1987 to 1996, and Mike was the vice president of international marketing there. So he was kind of my internal client. And of course I was single until that point. So I definitely didn't want an office romance. But he was divorced then. He was whip smart, he was witty, he was kind of shy, high in intuition, huge intuition. And he was kind, he just wasn't macho and he was an amazing salesperson.

It really was his job he said was sales, not really marketing, but his customers adored him. All the people that worked with him adored him. And it was just a really interesting company to work for. Everybody was younger, they were super bright, witty. All the meetings were fun. What can I say?

Leah: Yeah, it sounds like a great work environment.

Mary: Yeah.

Leah: Yeah. Okay, so you guys met at work, but he and remind me, had he been diagnosed with Parkinson's by that point?

Mary: Yes. He was diagnosed back at Mayo back in 1981, so he'd already had it for at least seven years by the time I met him. Yeah.

Leah: And his experience was definitely unique. I mean, everyone's experience with some of these chronic diseases are unique, but he definitely had a couple outstanding, kind of interesting pieces to his Parkinson's. So tell us a little bit more just what you remember and what you know from his journey, like about the diagnosis and some of his first symptoms and also, I mean, he had to tell you at some point too, right?

Mary: Yeah.

Leah: So, yeah. Yeah. Tell us just more about that.

Mary: Well, he did know how to set a scene, which I've since learned about in my writing glasses. Container setting is tied to emotion. But, so he asked me to go for a drink after work one time at the Monte Carlo Bar. So that was the scene with that gorgeous twinkling mirror behind the bar.

And he just said, my doctor says I have a mild case of Parkinson's. And I thought, well, why is he telling me this? And I just said, well, I don't know much about it. And he said, it's a neurological disease. I waited and he said, it's progressive and incurable. And in the back of my mind I'm thinking, well, we're work colleagues. We're not close friends. Why is he telling me this?

Leah: Yeah.

Mary: And then I just said, well, how long have you had it? And he said, well, I didn't know I had it in the beginning. I think they first thought he might have tennis elbow. He said, I began losing the card game concentration every time I played it with my daughter.

I couldn't turn the cards over fast enough. So it took a while, several years before, I think he found his way to Mayo and got accurately diagnosed. Which happens to a lot of people I've since understood. So he was kind of what I think looking for my reaction if I was going to freak out or something. So I didn't, and, and it was eight months I think, before I actually agreed to go out with him.

Leah: Yep, yep.

Mary: So I was fully conscious of the fact that he had this disease upfront.

Leah: And if I remember correctly, he, like his diagnosis, he was pretty young at that point. 30? Do I remember right?

Mary: 41, I think at the Mayo diagnosis.

Leah: Okay. At the Mayo diagnosis.

Mary: But he already had it for awhile.

Leah: Yeah. For a long time. Which again, is, I think very unusual for Parkinson's. And a lot of these neurodegenerative conditions, it's usually like a little bit later onset 50, 60, 70.

Mary: Michael J. Fox I think was 37.

Leah: Okay.

Mary: So he, they were, they were both kind of in that same range.

Leah: For sure. Yeah.

Mary: And he did tell me that he had a slow progressing form of it, which was true. Because his original neurologist later said, he probably held the record for the length of time he had Parkinson's for patients in Minnesota at least. And from beginning to end, it was 30 years.

Some of Mike’s Parkinson’s symptoms

Leah: Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, definitely a kind of a different experience compared to others, but you know, a lot of similarities too. You mentioned not turning the cards over fast enough, so do you remember, like especially when you guys were first meeting or maybe first dating, were there other symptoms that you noticed or other things that you had kind of picked up on for him?

Mary: Yeah, the very first time he walked into my office, it seemed like he was a little bit on his tiptoes, and he would put his hand in his pants pocket, and I think that was to hide a slight tremor in his hand. You know, looking back on it, he was on an airplane almost all the time.

You know, going to all these, I mean, Japan, Europe, Japan, all over the world. So I'm sure the jet lag didn't help either, you know? That must have been really hard on his immune system too. But yeah, when I first met him, I kind of sensed something was a little off, but I didn't know what, and then it took months before, he kind of revealed what it was.

Leah: Yeah. Okay. Thinking, you know, kind of thinking. Okay. Now we're fast forwarding maybe a couple of years or a decade or so, were there any symptoms that he ended up having that surprised you? Or were there things that, you know, maybe there's some symptoms that aren't talked about as much? I outlined a couple at the beginning of the show. But are there, is there anything else that kind of comes to mind?

Mary: Oh yeah, there were quite a few. You know, it's usually described like you said, as a movement disorder, and, but it is, I mean, the brain controls everything. So it isn't just physical symptoms, although those are the obvious ones, but there were little ones like sugar cravings.

I mean, nobody ever mentioned that. Took me forever to figure it out that it was tied to Parkinson's, but, you know, and he was, you know, from taking customers out, his mom and his aunt were great cooks growing up, and then he took customers to these really nice restaurants. So he was a bit of a gourmand, you know, gourmet eater.

And he loved Haagen-Dazs, so he always liked to have like one small cup of Haagen-Dazs in the evening. And then he loved Godiva chocolates, so there were sugar cravings going on. He was, you know very temperate about it. But, but yeah, there were definitely sugar cravings.

That was one thing. And then, you know, generally speaking, there was, like you mentioned, fear, anxiety. Even he kind of hid the, if his doctor asked him if he had, he was depressed, he would always say no. You know, because he didn't, he was high control being a salesperson. And there is something that over the long course of it, there is something called Parkinson's paranoia.

And so once in a while he would flare up and or just, you know, there would be different incidents where he would be mistrustful and I was, it was disturbing to some, you know, because I didn't do anything to deserve it. But now that I look back, you know, I see these patterns and I see that it was something called Parkinson's paranoia, but no one would talk about it. So that was the hard part.

Leah: Right. You didn't know in that moment like, where is this coming from? It came out of left field and it sounds like it kind of took you by surprise a lot.

Mary: So also there are a couple more, another thing I kind of noticed was the mind/body connection is huge with this. Like everything, but it's particularly big with brain disease. And so any external stress would immediately worsen his symptoms. Like he would freeze or, you know, stumble or whatever; hard, couldn't walk, whatever external stress, you know, mental stress would immediately increase the symptoms.

And then last but not least, and I won't go into great detail, but it took me, I think I calculated it once at least five years. No one would ever mention this. And they still don't talk about it. Even on Michael J. Fox's foundation, webinars: hypersexuality. And I finally, you know, we'd have friends over and he would start to behave inappropriate; let's put it that way.

It was very out of character too, because he was such a gentleman when I, you know, met him. I eventually had to stop having people come over. Because it was escalating and it was bizarre. And he didn't seem to, at first, I assumed, oh. This is a brain disease. It must be affecting his prefrontal cortex.

Because that's the seed of judgment and social control and things like that. I finally got this older nurse who came to the house just once to do an intake process for home health agency and I just asked her about it. You know, I was always looking for clue everywhere. I felt like Nancy Drew.

Leah: Yeah.

Mary: And she said, oh, that's the, that's the meds. That's the Sinemet, because what the main Sinemet is the main Parkinson's drug. And then there are other helper drugs, like you said. But basically they're all to replace the dropping dopamine in the brain.

Leah: Yes. Yep.

Mary: So you're flooding your brain with extra dopamine is what you're doing. And that is a key neurotransmitter as we know. Well, I read an article about it much later, and it was really interesting because it said it controls our feelings about the future.

Leah: Sure.

Mary: It's a pleasure inducing chemical. And unlike serotonin and the other endorphins that tell our brains to be satisfied with what we have, the dopamine desire circuit constantly scans the environment for new resources, such as food, sex, and ability to win competitions.

Leah: Okay.

Mary: Excess dopamine causes an endless cycle of chasing the buzz.

Leah: Sure. Yeah. I think what you said, the dopamine desire circuit. I think that sums it up right there. It makes you, it's like that motivation. You want to go do something or kind of like you said, kind of get that next buzz, that next hit.

Mary: Right. And so then I did, and this is back in the days when the internet was relatively new, but I did discover doing a few searches that it was part of a whole spectrum of risk taking compulsive behaviors caused by Parkinson's meds. So some people had affairs, some people developed shopping compulsions, or even became gambling addicts. And you know, this was huge effects on families and things.

So anyway, I just thought, well, this is an area people need to be aware of, need to be informed of. People need this information. And then of course, the one last thing I should mention is Parkinson’s affects the whole autonomic nervous system, which regulates all the involuntary body functions like blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, digestion, sexual function, and bladder control.

So he would get spatial distortions and like freeze on a threshold of a doorway, which is very common I guess. And we had to buy an electric lift because the regular Hoyer lifts they use in hospitals put people in a sling. Well then they Parkinson's people just became terrified in that sort of a situation, so anyway, so there were all kinds of implications of the mind/body connection here that people don't get educated about, and that's kind of, that kind of drove me nuts, to be honest.

Leah: Unless you're, yeah. Unless you're probably like literally living in that world. Right, so you're getting unfortunately, getting the real life education right in front of you. So you mentioned home health intake. So at what point did he have to stop working? Like where did, like for you, where did the caregiving role do you think really took off? Or where was like, kind of like that transition period for you guys?

Mary: Yeah. Well, he kept working. I think he didn't, he took early retirement, of course, but not until 91, I think. So that was, he worked for 10 years past that official diagnosis.

Leah: Okay. So he was early fifties at that point?

Mary: Yeah, well he was born in 1940, so yeah.

Leah: Okay.

Mary: Yeah.

Leah: Yep. Yeah, early fifties and yeah, when did you end up needing to bring in more help into the home? Or like, what did that look like for you as that caregiver role? How did that impact your work? And things like that.

Mary: Well, I stayed working at Cray because he was still fairly independent.

Leah: Even after he retired.

Mary: Yeah. Yeah. Until 1996 when Cray was acquired. And that was very sad. Mike said it was like having his favorite rows run over by a garbage truck.

Leah: Oh no.

Mary: So, yeah. Anyway, so that was sad, but at that point I realized I can't find another corporate job because he needs more; he's going to need more and more of my help. So that's when I decided to just form a small home office business, solo practice. And, you know, I did, I had a few clients, not a lot. But I got referrals from people who knew me. And I did some training sessions and I was active in the Bar Association section, you know, international business law section, you know, stuff like that. So, I kind of kept the career going, sort of.

And in the beginning it was nice because then I could, you know, work for a few hours a day and then do other things with Mike. And being the farm kid slash oldest child, you know, I tried to do, in retrospect, probably more than too much myself. So we didn't get home health aides until, I think it was eight years before he died. So that would've been about 2003 or four, something like that.

Leah: Mm-hmm.

Mary: So yeah, from 96 to 2003 or four, I was kind of on my own. But yeah, it got scarier and scarier because leaving him alone, you know, worrying about him falling and, and it does control autonomic stuff, so he would eventually faint.

Good news is he'd usually collapse and didn't break anything. You know, and remembering to take his pills and all that sort of thing. So yeah, over time then he resisted the idea of having strangers in his house but eventually he realized that it was not safe not to have coverage. At least when I would go do the errands and things like that. So we kind of slowly worked up to more and more coverage and then you find out that you don't get the good home health aids, unless you offer lots of hours.

Leah: Yeah, and I'm sure that's a common scenario where caregivers, they might find themselves a little bit in deeper water before actually being able to, or accepting help or, or even realizing that actually we need to take that next step.

Mary: Right.

Leah: Okay, well great. We do need to take a quick break. When we come back, we will actually start making some of those nutrition connections and how you got connected with Nutritional Weight & Wellness. So hang in there and we will be right back.

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How Mary got connected to NWW to support Mike’s Parkinson’s, & some changes they made

Welcome back. We're back to Dishing Up Nutrition, and we're talking with our very special guest, Mary McCormick today about her caregiving role with her late husband Mike. How did you get connected at Nutritional Weight & Wellness? There has to be a nutrition component in these podcasts, right? So, how did you get connected with us that Nutritional Weight & Wellness? Where did you start that journey? So tell us a little more there.

Mary: Well, it was another one of those fortuitous synchronicity kind of things. I was in a support group and the only good thing really for me that came out of the support group was I made friends with a lady named Annie whose husband had Parkinson's.

And she just popped up one day and I think it was about January of 2007, and she said, I really want to take this nutrition class. Would you please go with me? And so I said, sure. You know, I'm always looking for information. And so we took an evening class and it was the basic Nutritional Weight & Wellness class.

And, it wasn't taught by Dar, but she did speak at the last class. And the thing that I remember from it was she said, if you forget everything else you learned here, just remember to eat like your grandmother, or better yet, your great-grandmother.

Leah: Oh, there you go.

Mary: And I thought, yes. That's right. And then I, I did look it up. It took me a year, till 2008, I think, before the light bulb went on in my head and I thought, oh my God, I could consult with Dar for Mike. You know? Not just for me. So that's how we got started and then much later, he died in 2011, and so later in 2016 and 17, I think I took the basic class again twice in a row just to cement all the habits and stuff. So that's how we got started.

Leah: Yeah, I'm sure that kind of rooted you down in those old farm roots to hear that message of like your grandmother, your great-grandmother, things like that. And obviously that message stuck, you know, however many years later. So that's great. Do you remember what some of those first shifts were for you and Mike? Like what did, what did you start with? What kind of changes did you have to make? Were you, or were you guys pretty on point, I guess, and what did you just think about that protein, carb, fat approach? You know what, and you know, just tell us a little bit more about just getting started with changing your nutrition.

Mary: Sure. Well, like you said, you know, growing up on a farm, my mother did have this thing about balanced meals. It wasn't like, well, we, we didn't eat a lot of junk. My dad didn't want us to eat junk especially. So we had, you know, a beef farm. We had lots of beef. And we had a huge garden, so we had lots of fresh vegetables.

So it wasn't that foreign to me, frankly. And so it wasn't a huge dramatic shift after I took the class, but we were already eating, you know, pretty quite a few vegetables and enough protein but, I started tweaking things like putting in more healthy fats, you know, focusing on the butter, the olive oil and things like that. And we had been eating a lot of pasta, I think. So I kind of dialed back on the pasta; way back on that if I could.

Leah: Yep, that makes sense. I would say, yeah, you probably hit on some of the two bigger things that people tend to shift right away is like just kind of shifting out some of those more refined oils and upgrading the quality of the fats, and also kind of having a closer eyeball on what those starchy carbs or the more concentrated carbs look like.

Mary’s go-to meals/shortcuts during the caregiving role

Absolutely. Do you remember, especially as you got further into that caregiving role, like what were some of your go-to meals and actually I'm curious more about like with you having to balance that demand of, you know, you still had some work that you were doing, your consulting, and now we've got the caregiving, but also just trying to put real food on the table still. What kind of balance was that or what did that look like for you?

Mary: Well, I had a huge wok and so I used that a lot. So I guess over time, I did a lot of stir fries. I was using, I think it was the Lean Chin, Betty Crocker Chinese cookbook. I am trying to remember back, and of course, Mike was such a gourmet eater. I got a rice cooker and I made this beef stroganoff recipe out of that cookbook. Later on there were like the Big Bowl cookbook, so he loved Burmese shrimp and chicken curry out of that. He wasn't afraid of spices either.

And sole filets and tomato cream sauce I used to make and the clay cooker so that, you know, I tried to jazz things up a little bit. But over time, I think for, for time saving, I, I'd started buying like bags of frozen veggies, so I wouldn't have the prep time for the stir fries and you know, other frozen things like that.

You know, Trader Joe's, I think I, one of my favorites was their scallops and peas and cream sauce frozen thing, which was fast to make with rice on the side. He didn't like brown rice for some reason I didn't realize until much later that if you spend the money on the really good organic brown rice, it's a lot tastier just regular old stuff. So anyway. Yeah.

Leah: Okay. Yeah. So you had a couple little shortcuts or a couple little, kind of tips or trick that just helped manage that time a little bit more as things got a little bit more intense, it sounds like.

Mary: And of course, those protein shakes that I learned from Dar from her, from her cookbook too were a major time saver. And you can make them in advance. And he loved them so it was great.

Leah: Okay. Well if there's listeners out there that haven't heard about those protein shakes, tell us a little bit more about those. Like what goes into that? Or like what were your guys' favorite concoctions?

Mary: Yeah. Well, I'm trying to think back now because I still make them for myself now. But I did get out of him. He was very, very quiet. And of course with Parkinson's, he got more quiet over time, but he did tell me a little bit about his own childhood and things like that. And I did meet his aunt who was still alive, who was a short order cook for most of her life, and a lovely person.

So. He had a reminiscence of loving Ovaltine when he was a kid, so I thought, okay, and he liked vanilla shakes or malts or whatever. So I came, I used the protein recipe and I just tweaked it a little bit. Sometimes just, you know, I didn't put the frozen fruit in which I do now, but I'd add some Ovaltine powder and, and it made, it, you know, people eat out of their memories a lot too, you know, from their childhood. So he just absolutely loved those, you know?

Leah: Yep. Okay. Yeah, so it's a, again, most of the time we've got like a, we want that balance of some protein. Was there protein powder in there?

Mary: Oh yeah, I used the whey powder.

Leah: They whey powder. Yep. So a mix of little Ovaltine in there.

Mary: Coconut milk.

Leah: Yep, canned coconut milk. Right. Especially, it's like that thick, creamy kind of coconut milk. So you get those healthy fats. And then you said he didn't necessarily always care for the fruit in it, but that's something that you, you incorporate for yourself.

Mary: All the time. Yeah.

Leah: So it's like we get that carb component in there.

Mary: He ate a lot of fruit separate from the shakes too. So yeah, it was fine.

Leah: Yeah, that makes sense. There was one particular event where nutrition and those protein shakes really came to the rescue for Mike. Can you tell us just a little bit about what happened there?

Mary: Yeah, that was pretty dramatic. He was also subject to chronic, you know, urinary tract infections and things like that. There was an incident where they tried a drug on him, a new one that was really for Alzheimer's, not Parkinson's, but the net result was he got C. diff or Clostridium difficile, which is a horrible, horrible digestive tract.

I don't know if you call it an infection, but it's, it's really serious. There's only one antibiotic, and it's a super powerful one that is effective against it. It's a super bug, basically. It's not a virus or a bacteria. It's a spore.

Leah: Yeah. And it causes a lot of diarrhea, like, people are miserable.

Mary: Horrible. Horrible stench too. The only thing my brain could find that was comparable was like moldy hay or something. You know, it was just gross. So the problem is the antibiotics got him into that by killing off the good, you know, bugs in his system. And then the Vancomycin, the Vanco, as they call it, wipes him out even more.

Because it's a super powerful; so his immune system was barely functioning and I, I, you know, did some searching and found that there, there was one probiotic in particular, saccharomyces boulardii, that was a tropical yeast discovered by a Frenchman back in the 1920s.

But my chiropractor had some in stock, so I got it and I put it in his vanilla malts, his vanilla protein shakes. So he drank them down without any urging, but over time on this Vanco on this treatment, he became literally anorexic. He would refuse to eat anything except those protein shakes. So, you know, for weeks, I mean for weeks.

Leah: That's how he survived for few weeks was those protein shakes. Yeah.

Mary: And then I was also adding in other probiotics into the protein shakes too, to build up his immune system again. Because it was wiped out basically.

Leah: Absolutely. Yeah. So protein shakes to the rescue and it sounds like they were a great vehicle to get some of those other, like good probiotics, the good gut bacteria in there to try to help it rebound. Yeah. Okay.

Mary: Yep.

Supplements that were helpful for Mike

Leah: Okay. So then that actually brings us into one of the other questions I wanted to ask. So besides the probiotics, were there any other particular supplements that were helpful for Mike? So again, you were kind of like heading up the nutrition front. Was there anything from a supplement perspective that was helpful for him?

Mary: Yeah and this, this is where my consults with Dar came in really handy and it was great. He also was subject to, they call them wearing off dyskinesia, which is involuntary movements where the nerves jerk the muscles around and it was mostly in his legs. It was painful and disturbing for him because he couldn't control it of course.

His sleep was often disturbed and his muscles were stiff and Dar suggested using magnesium powder and cod liver oil. And they both helped, I think. They didn't completely, you know, wipe out these dyskinesia, but I think the severity was lessened.

So I think that helped a lot and just cutting back and all that sugar kept from feeding the bugs in his bladder, I think over time too. And eventually she also recommended cranberry juice and I think later some cranberry capsules to prevent, and again, getting ahead of things, I'm all about prevention. To prevent these urinary tract infections. So that was all very useful.

Leah: Yeah. So like you, it sounds like you stayed connected with Dar especially and just kind of stayed connected with Nutritional Weight & Wellness through this time and like there were definitely some key players that helped Mike out, helped you out during these times.

Mary: And later I found out too late really, that a couple of the drugs he was given the prescription meds, well, actually they weren't, they were causing Parkinson's like symptoms including loss of appetite, two of them.

Leah: Wow.

Mary: So yeah, it was a complex interplay of stuff. And I, you know, my doctor says there is no drug without a side effect. So I think that's one thing I'd like to stress is pay attention. Don't just throw away those inserts with all the side effects listed, because if they develop over time, you want to be able to trace back what the causes are too.

Leah: Yeah, even if it, even if you just plant that seed in the back of your brain, hopefully you can forget about it, but you can retrieve it if you need to.

Mary: Right.

Leah: Yeah. Okay. So we're fast forwarding a little bit, but. you know, Mike eventually did pass away. How old was he? What did those final years look like for you guys?

Mary: Yeah. He was 70, so I was kind of proud that I got him to 70.

Leah: Yes.

Mary: Yeah, he was 70 years old. He died on Valentine's Day in 2011. At home. That was my other big goal, so I kind of felt like I won. I kept him at home.

Leah: Yeah.

Mary: Back at the end, you know, he was most of the time too weak to talk and he slept most of the day, you know, for the last several years. Every once in a while he'd wake up and say, I need to get going or I need to get to the airport. So all those years of all that flying, you know, so one day he said it again and I just said, you know, where are you going, Mike?

And he said, he looked out the patio window, door, window, and he said, over the rainbow, and later, I had slipped in the closet upstairs and broke my arm and I came back with a cast and that evening he looked at me and he just said, I love you now and I'll love you forever.

Leah: Oh my gosh.

Mary: So despite all these difficulties, all this other stuff, you know, toward the end, people know when they're about to go and he wanted to make it clearer at the end. So that was kind of cool.

Leah: Yeah, that is cool.

Mary: I mean, the two great themes of literature and I was an English major, are love and death.

Leah: There you go. Love it. So after he passed, how did you manage and just process everything, you know, and what were just some of the [00:33:00] important things or helpful things for you as you as you kind of make that big life transition?

Helpful steps for Mary after Mike passed

Mary: Well, I knew again, as the Irish say, we're not here for long. You know, it's like inevitable. Even though it's a bit of a shock when it does happen, even though you've had all this time to process it, your brain still kind of box. But I just sat with it. I was in the middle of taking a meditation course. Ironically, I think it was at the Penny George Center. It was like a six week course.

So I skipped the week that Mike died, and then I went back and finished that course. I also finished off this large box of Godiva chocolates I had bought for him, but I didn't buy anymore. I just had one every night until they were gone and that was it. So yeah. And then spend more time with friends and stuff like that.

Leah: Okay.

Mary: Yeah.

Leah: And in terms of your nutrition, did any of your approach with the nutrition have to change? And I specifically, I'm just thinking from the outside in. Okay, now we're going from food for two people down to one. Anything that stands out there that you just had to kind of account for?

Mary: I think, when I took the course again, I got a whole lot of great tips. And I think I began doing more batch cooking. So now I'm in a regular habit of like Sunday mornings, I turn on the Sunday morning recorded shows and watch them, and then I can have that on in the background while I batch cook for the rest of the week.

Leah: Yeah that’s great.

Mary: You know, so, you know, like the hash for breakfast for the rest of the week, which I can freeze, or chili, which I can have for dinner multiple times during the week, that sort of thing. I kept going with the protein shakes, of course, and I continued regular appointments with Dar and we never lacked for things to talk about.

Because I'd always make a list of my questions before I met with her or talked to her, and I'd listen to this podcast, Dishing Up Nutrition, and I'd almost always get a tip or two in most episodes. So yeah. And the great thing about talking to Dar was I could read something somewhere or hear a bit of nutrition advice somewhere, or just new research and I could verify with her whether this was real or not, or misinformation. So that was really great too.

Leah: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Because you kept it, I mean, you've kept in touch with Dar for what at least 15 years now? I can’t, I know I can't do the math right out of my head, but I mean, there's something that keeps you coming back for more. So again, it sounds like just kind of like even that curiosity for you, like the learning, just wanting to know a little bit more.

And Dar as a natural teacher, well she was a teacher, you know, in a prior life too, but just that natural teaching tendency. It sounds like, again, like a really good fit for both of you.

Mary: It was, yeah.

Leah: So you do a fair amount of traveling these days, and one thing that you mentioned to me when we met before, as we were kind of talking about and planning the show is the resiliency of your immune system. Like, especially with that traveling. So I thought maybe that would be just something quick that we could touch on, especially as we're rolling into another cold and flu season.

Mary: Yeah.

Leah: You know, just tell us for you, like what are the, you know, some of the biggest factors for you that keep your immune system in the best shape that you can?

Mary: Sure. Well, I did take a lot of time off during, during and after the pandemic, because all my friends were out there traveling their little heads off and coming back sick. So I didn't want to get sick, but I did go back to Dublin and France in July and I took all my probiotics with me: the L-glutamine, the Bifido, the Biotic 7.

I kept up my vitamin D and my zinc, and then Dar suggested taking this Wellness Formula before, during, and after the trip. So I did all that and I didn't get sick.

Leah: Yes. That Wellness Formula.

Leah: Yeah, I mean those, all of those are very like key foundational nutrients. But the Wellness Formula, I mean, I had talked to a lot of people that like for them it kind of just not nudges that immune resilience even a little bit further up.  

Mary: Cool.

Leah: Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so as we're wrapping up our conversation today, you know, Mary, do you have any words of wisdom, words of advice, or, any kind of seeds you want to plant for people who might be listening. Maybe they are in that caregiving role, maybe they're kind of seeing it on the horizon. Maybe they've been there, they're nodding their heads along with you. I guess any, any parting words or thoughts that you want to leave?

Parting words of wisdom/advice from Mary

Mary: Well, I think education. Well, I'm big on prevention even, you know, like I always take my car in and get a service. You know, if you can prevent things, it's much better than trying to address a crisis later. And education like, like you said, Dar was a teacher. I just really think the more information, good information you can get.

And I always was appreciated that she always based whatever she told you on the latest research. So it wasn't, you know, strange, bizarre things. And these days it's even harder to get good information because of all the misinformation and misinformation out there.

And people having all kinds of motives to give you bad information. And I had a wonderful counselor that my support group friend Annie told me about, and he was a professor at the U and he had worked in nursing homes in high school and college, and he was in the family science, social science department.

He said, take a break to relieve stress and avoid burnout. Well, that I felt was hard for me to do. But even, you know, just taking some time to read a book or something, just to get or meditate. I started getting massages for Mike from a lady who would come to the house because of his, his circulation wasn't good. So all that sitting.

And then I eventually, you know, got them from her too. So that was good. Anything to get out of the stress loop. One of the home health aides recommended a woman who does acupuncture and body work, so I'm still seeing her all these years later for tune-ups.

And you know, if you get, do, get injured, you know, do the physical therapy, that sort of thing. So don't assume that pills fix everything; look widely for answers. You know, our bodies are so complex and like I said, that mind/body connection is so powerful. So yeah, maybe because I grew up on a farm, I just think, you know, you can't rush plants, you can't rush animals.

It, in our culture is so much, oh, overnight fix. I want something right away. I want it to be all fixed. You know, it's not, that isn't how our bodies work, and so nutrition is so key to support our systems. So just avoid the overnight miracles and the online snake oil if you can, and get some good information.

Leah: Perfect. Love that. And I love that, that farm analogy coming back to again, I know like there will be people out there that absolutely resonate with that also. Yeah. Well, Mary, thank you so much for being on Dishing Up Nutrition today. I enjoyed learning about your journey; All those unique hats that you've worn in your time.

And I think as we close out here, hopefully, another hat that came across in our conversation that I think you really excel at is that lifelong learner hat; again, we said that's probably why you and Dar connected and have stayed connected so well, and just for our listeners out there, I want to remind you all that when the demands on your time and your energy are so great, like when you are in the throes or kind of in the deep water of caregiving, you're not expected to be able to know it all, to be able to do it all.

And so if you are curious about real food specific nutrients that may be helpful for yourself or your loved one, you may also feel like there, like you said Mary, there's a lot of information out there. You may feel like that you're just stuck in place. Let us be the ones that walk that path with you.

Let us be that compassionate, reasonable voice that just helps move the needle in the right direction with realistic plans for you and your family and your loved ones that involve real food in balance. We work with clients and their families through their unique journeys with Parkinson's, with MS, dementia, cancer, autoimmune conditions, and so much more.

So for the listeners out there, do not be afraid to take that first step and get in contact with us. Our phone number is (651) 699-3438. Or you can visit our website, which is weightandwellness.com.

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