Caregiver Connections

Good morning, you guys. Happy, happy Thursday. This is my first Cadre live, so I'm grateful to be here with you guys today. My name is Stephanie, also known as Steph Irwin, and I come to you from Sunny Savannah, Georgia. I want to thank you guys. Hi, doctor Charryse. Thank you guys. Thank you to the Cadre team for having me here and thank you for all the work you do for so many people in the world. Hi. Speak wonder and Kelly and Christine and Luke. Oh, my goodness. Good morning, you guys. I'm so thankful to be here with you guys today and thankful that doctor Charisse led me to the Cadre sphere.

Hi, friends. Oh, it's so good to see all you guys. Thanks for popping on my live this morning. So, as I said earlier, I'm in sunny Savannah, Georgia, and my name's Stephanie also. Goodbye, Steph. And I am going to tell you guys a little bit about myself. I am a mom of two. I have a ten year old Patrick and a seven year old Anna Marie, who was diagnosed on the autism spectrum. I have been working as a certified child life specialist for a little bit over 16 years with children and their families in the hospital, providing psychosocial support and helping them cope with a hospitalization and a diagnosis, as well as providing developmental support for them.

So the past ten years, I have been working for a nonprofit here in Georgia. Good morning. Hi, Colleen. And through that nonprofit, we work with kids with cancer and their families and really help them to connect with one another. So we do programs in the hospital as well as in the community for them. So it is a really rewarding, a rewarding thing. I also have had in touch with taking care of my mom recently and helping my dad out. So I have been driving down to Jacksonville and St. Simons, and she's been in and out of the hospital, so I have been helping out with that.

So just experiencing the caregiver world in so many different facets lately. So it has been a wild ride. Um, and so I I, um. I'm happy to be here with all you caregivers. Um, I have this morning my coffee mug that I chose. I have anxiety. So this is my mug today that says great things never came from comfort zones. So to remind myself to get out of my comfort zone and to be here today, and I like to think of my coffee in the mornings as my little hug in a mug. As a caregiver, I have to remind myself to take care of myself and find that little piece in the day and give myself that little hug.

Hug in a mug, whether it be coffee or tea. So if you guys find your little hug in a mug today, although it is hot here in Savannah, so sometimes I need a little bit of ice in there. And anyways, so talking about getting outside your comfort zone and finding your people, so I'll have to tell you guys a little story. And Anna Marie was diagnosed with autism back in the fall when she was age six. And at the time, we just felt like we were so struggling so much, and she had been having behavior problems and aggression, and everything had just increased.

So we went and got an evaluation done for her, and thankfully, we're able to find answers and are very grateful for that. She was set up with multiple therapies, including Aba and speech and occupational therapy, psychology, psychiatry, the works, so to say the least. It has been a little overwhelming, but we are navigating that journey and making our adjustments and just, you know, so happy to have answers and to be able to move forward and have the resources that we need. So that's. That's a little bit of the backstory.

So come march, I was like, I need to take care of myself. So, honey, you take the kids, and I'm going to go to the recalibrate retreat with doctor sharese and all of you wonderful people on the Cadre team. So I went up there, didn't know anybody, and stepping outside in my comfort zone and was so grateful to really find my people there. I was telling Luke a little bit about my story and what was going on, you know, what we were going through with Anna Marie, and he was like, oh, Shannon's here. I have to connect you with her.

So I got to connect with Shannon. Shannon and then through her, learned about Colleen and Miss Shannon Paul, who are going through similar situations. So that was just a really wonderful way for me to find some of my people. So I'm just grateful for that experience, and I'm still finding my people here in Savannah that are going through similar situations. But you know what? I have found that as a caregiver, and truly everybody is a caregiver in some way, shape, and form because we are all entrusted to care for one another and to care for ourselves as well, which sometimes is hard to remember, but we have to do it.

And, you know, I found that sharing my experiences and just being open and honest and vulnerable, I have found my people, and I feel like just my little nugget of truth today. You know, if you share the good, the difficult, and the in between with friends and, you know, people you meet and just be the best, authentic version of yourself that you can be. Your people are going to come to you, and you are going to find, you know, the people who are there to support you, people with maybe shared experiences, people that are there to help you out, and that maybe one day you would be helping out, too.

So just be open, be honest, and, you know, look for those people. Look for your people. And I am an introvert, so getting outside my comfort zone is it takes a little extra effort. But you know what? I still need my people, and I still need that type of support. So I have this awesome song for you guys. If I can pull it up. It is by Drew holcomb and the neighbors, and I love it. It's called find your people. So if you guys haven't heard it, I'm gonna play a little clip. Let's see if you can hear it.

Here we go. It's a great song. You guys need to look it up. Okay, so, you guys, I'm gonna cheers you from my hug in a mug to yours. I hope you all have a fabulous day. Bye, guys. Happy Thursday.