Parenting UP! Caregiving adventures with comedian J Smiles

Comedians Care: Rodney Perry - Caregiving Full Circle; Giving and Receiving

• J Smiles • Season 5 • Episode 5

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Join us as we chat with the multi-talented Rodney Perry, who combines the art of comedy with the heartfelt caregiving journey. Rodney opens up about his personal comedy experiences and providing care for his family, from following in the footsteps of his idol Eddie Murphy to sharing the spotlight with him in "Coming to America 2." Through the lens of humor, we explore the impact caregivers have and uncover how family caregivers are the unsung heroes of our healthcare system. Perry also talks about his experience as a stroke survivor, and his journey to recovery, thanking those who cared for him along the way.

Tune in for a blend of humor, heart, and inspiration, and discover how the grace and laughter found in caregiving can inspire us all.

For more information on today's guest, visit RodneyPerry.com.

#RodneyPerry 
#ComingToAmerica2
#strokesurvivor
#standupcomedy
#CaregivingJourney
#DementiaAwareness
#AlzheimersCare
#CaregiverSupport
#HumorInCaregiving
#EndAlz

Host: J Smiles
Producer: Mia Hall
Editor: Annelise Udoye

This episode was shot at Cr8ive Souls Studios. 

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Speaker 1:

We took care of my mom. My uncle stood in the gap for my grandmother, okay, and he actually became her real caregiver in terms of you know, he started getting a check Like even now he's still a caregiver, with what he learned from the help of my grandmother, wow, so he's still a caregiver for older people.

Speaker 2:

So he turned it into a career path.

Speaker 1:

actually, he turned it into a career path because he had no job.

Speaker 2:

Well, come on now. Okay, we all got that out there.

Speaker 1:

He stayed at home so long. How long was it that people start commending him for being there? Oh Like, hey, man, you're doing so good with mom. I'm like that nigga never left.

Speaker 2:

Parenting Up never left. Parenting up, caregiving adventures with comedian day smiles is the intense journey of unexpectedly being fully responsible for my mama. For over a decade I've been chipping away at the unknown, advocating for her and pushing alzheimer's awareness on anyone and anything with a heartbeat. Spoiler alert I started comedy because this shit is so heavy, so be ready for the jokes. Caregiver newbies, ogs and village members just willing to prop up a caregiver you are in the right place. Hi, this is Zeddy. I hope you enjoy my daughter's podcast. Is that okay? Today's supporter shout out Tia Irvin, 6696. Quote. They loved on me, so I can love on them. End quote. Yes, when you return the love that was given to you, we agree. If you want to be the recipient of a supporter, shout out. Give us a review on Apple Podcast, youtube or IG the Comedians. Give us a review on Apple Podcasts, youtube or IG the Comedians. Care Series, rodney Perry's Caregiving Full Circle Giving and receiving Parents and our family. Here we go. It's about to go down, and what? Cut and start.

Speaker 1:

I can do either one, because it's my podcast.

Speaker 2:

I do whatever. Little shoulder, actually little shoulder. No, okay, now this ain't only fans not only not.

Speaker 1:

Please don't do it with me. I don't want to be a part of it.

Speaker 2:

I am here with my main guy, rodney perry. Okay, I'm before I I'm about to get emotional and start crying. He's supposed to be telling his story, but we know him from anything and everything Big screen, small screen, social media. What about that? Coming to America 2, though, man, that was sweet, that was nice.

Speaker 1:

Johnson's Family Reunion, medea yes, yes, yes, that was nice, I mean. The reason Johnson Family Reunion, madea yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, but go ahead. The reason no, I was going to say that the reason I do stand-up is because of Eddie Murphy, and I got to share the screen with this guy.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, it was that's heavy.

Speaker 1:

Pretty amazing couple of weeks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What Couple of weeks.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What many people don't know. They know you the funny guy, they know you can host, they know you can headline. Yeah, do it all. There's a side of in your life with care where you have been cared for by family members and you have then been the you carry and the carer.

Speaker 1:

That's a fact.

Speaker 2:

And that's what we gonna chat on on this episode, right here.

Speaker 1:

I feel like you gonna make me cry today. I feel like I'm gonna weep. Don't make me weep. Smile, please. I feel it coming, my heart is soft.

Speaker 2:

Soften it up, baby, just go ahead. We got butter over here for that bread. So before we even get to that, I have to let the whole world know that we are in our fifth season. The podcast is global.

Speaker 2:

We on all, all the little continents yes, well done and my comedy career started and got a huge thrust of energy. It's like a rocket boost custom because of mr rodney perry taking your improv class and then you actually answering, like when I call or uh, text you, everybody don't do that, everybody at his stage. When somebody is just starting, they don't. They say send me a DM or call me, you DM them for 12 years. How?

Speaker 1:

about that.

Speaker 2:

They ain't said nothing, they didn't even say stop, they don't even block you, they don't even give you enough.

Speaker 1:

Block me.

Speaker 2:

At least block me. That means you watched?

Speaker 1:

You watched me one time. I mean jay smiles this is my guy, though this is my guy.

Speaker 1:

Jay smiles was just dope to me, though, thank you. Like your vibe was dope, I mean, you know you, I don't want to make it sound like I just like everybody and some people might think that, but I'm really selected with other people that I really bring into my fold and it was an easy call for you because you was just your improv was so dope to me and you know you had that thing that says I'm a comedian, and that was at the very before I ever saw you perform.

Speaker 2:

You want me to cry or you gonna be like I gotcha?

Speaker 1:

You're gonna be weeping.

Speaker 2:

Wow, okay, alright. Well, that's the end of this episode.

Speaker 1:

Everybody wrap it up like that Roger Perry said I'm that fire.

Speaker 2:

Okay, you know that, but your story? I want to start with the caregiving that you all have been providing over the last few years.

Speaker 2:

We talk a bunch in the Parenting Up community about the fact that it is family caregivers that is really holding up the medical system, because if we all stopped doing what we were doing, stuff would implode. Hospitals would be overrun, the ER would be overrun. The doctors wouldn't even be able to handle it. We don't have enough nurses and doctors to do what my family is doing, what your family is doing. So share with them a little bit about what you and your wife and your kids have had to do to care for people in your family.

Speaker 1:

We've had to do a few things. First of all, our parents bring us into this world and nurture us and give us those things, those tools we need to live a life right, and then, if you're lucky, you'll get an opportunity to take care of them. If you're lucky, if you're lucky, you'll get an opportunity to take care of your parent. If you're lucky, if you're lucky, you'll get an opportunity to take care of your parent. And so I had that opportunity to take care of my mother who got. She had a condition called COPD yes, which is a breathing condition, and I didn't even understand the chronic nature of it when I look back, because you know it was always, the C of COPD is chronic, right, so that means eventually.

Speaker 2:

Okay, for real, I'm not even trying to be funny right now. Yeah, I'm today years old and my grandmama had it. Well, I thought that the C was chronic. I don't know what the hell I thought it meant. I just knew it was really bad breathing. Yeah, but chronic does. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Maybe. I mean my mother lived a pretty good life from a diagnosis till about maybe about seven, eight more years. Oh, that is good. So she had a good, decent run. Yeah, good run. You know I'm so easy, I talk about it so lightly now, but man, to watch her kind of deteriorate. And you know, provide the care Because she stayed with us for a point. And you know, to lose a parent is a whole other animal Right, because you know I remember cleaning up the house and I was cleaning up something and I found I came across a bottle of perfume that I had never seen. I was like what is this? And I opened it up. I smell it, this little perfume, and I was crying for six days that's your mama. That was mama perfume.

Speaker 2:

Mama in a bottle.

Speaker 1:

Who put this damn bottle out here, anyway.

Speaker 2:

I know y'all could have put that up.

Speaker 1:

Please somebody. But yeah, yeah, but we took care of my mom. My uncle stood in the gap for my grandmother, okay, and he actually became her real caregiver in terms of you know, he started getting a check, like, even now he's still a caregiver, with what he learned from the help of my grandmother, wow, so he's still a caregiver for older people. So he turned it into a career path actually, he turned it into a career path because he had no job.

Speaker 2:

Well, come on now. Okay, we all got that.

Speaker 1:

He stayed at home so long. How long was it that people start commending him for being there? Oh, Like, hey, man you doing so good with mom. I'm like that nigga never left. He ain't staying with mama, he's just still here and she happens to now be sick.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, all right, I know we got some of those.

Speaker 1:

So we did that. And now my wife we're taking care of her mother and she's dealing with some dementia. You never know what day it's going to be. She get up 4 o'clock in the morning ready for breakfast, because they said breakfast was ready. They said it. I don't know who the hell they is, but somebody in her head is like look, it's time to eat. Breakfast is ready, miss Karen. Go, lay back down.

Speaker 2:

Please, does she believe you when you say lay back down, she will, she'll do it. Okay, but she do it.

Speaker 1:

She'll do it. Okay, all right, but she was drinking so much water it was making her sick.

Speaker 2:

Well, you got to explain that, so you can drink too much water.

Speaker 1:

You're essentially kind of drowning yourself. So she would drink and we don't know. No, we don't, we don't know. I mean, we's give her some more water, she wants more water. She make that walk all day, every day, and so she might drink a hundred ounces a day. What? And it caused her to go into like like a shock, okay, and so we had to figure that out well, what did it look like, though, though?

Speaker 2:

Because, first of all, I had never heard of this.

Speaker 1:

It looked like sitting on the floor. She didn't fail, okay, you know, because she didn't drink so much water throughout the day. That's crazy. And so it was a thing that, and even when she went to the hospital, they didn't know how to curtail it, and so we kind of figured out. Now, you know, we just got to keep her in that room. She can't be moving around, walking around all day, without one of us sitting in the living room because her room is right off the living room.

Speaker 2:

It's not funny. I know exactly what you mean, but listen, that's why I have a comedian of your stature here, so that people can understand all around the world.

Speaker 1:

It's so much nuance man.

Speaker 2:

Isn't it?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's so much nuance and when you're a family caregiver.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and you're a family caregiver. We ain't never been trained. None of us are trained in any of this stuff?

Speaker 1:

They ain't told me none. I ain't read no book. I ain't took a class. I ain't took a class. I ain't been on YouTube and I call you. Yes, you gave me some insight. You know, dealing with your mom and what, but everybody's different, very so. Marvin Hunter was a fabulous comedian. He dealt with dementia with his parent and his mother was really ornery. So my mother-in-law is not ornery. You know she's still the kind lady, okay. But you know my wife tells stories about like it's stuff she eats now that she never ate or cooked Really. Yeah, it's like she won't like fry chicken and steak. She's almost a vegetarian.

Speaker 2:

Like when you start liking this, you ain't supposed to eat that. Man but those are the points that I'm so happy you're making, because I don't think the medical system always listens to us. Rodney, as family caregivers, you know they look at you, know our loved one, and they're looking at all the little stats and the numbers. We can say, okay, yeah, the blood pressure's fine and maybe the cholesterol is okay, but something is off, because my mama is now eating chicken and steak and she was almost a vegetarian for 30 years.

Speaker 1:

So I'm telling y'all this ain't right Right, and they almost don't believe you sometimes, like we had. So she goes to the hospital for the water thing and you know, of course they start giving her caregivers to come by the house and check on her because they thought we was hurting her. And I'm like man ain't nobody hurting this old lady, y'all. She thirsty all day.

Speaker 2:

And why? And why is she thirsty? We don't know.

Speaker 1:

Right, I mean not y'all.

Speaker 1:

But maybe the doctors could know, but they don't know they didn't understand why, and so they treating her like she a regular person and don't have something wrong with her, and so it's really interesting to watch. You know it up close. You know it's different and you need your caregiver to set in the gap to, even if you go to the hospital just to have an advocate, because what you don't want to do is go to a hospital and know nobody when your ass is asleep. Somebody needs to be spent. Spend him. Right, let me lay on the same ass cheek for five days. Somebody spend him.

Speaker 2:

Okay, parents and up community Y'all who don't know what a spend him mean is your loved one is laying in the hospital too long and if they can't move they're going to get bed sores, they're going to break down and hip hurt and all of that. So you need to spin them over.

Speaker 2:

Turn them over, spin me, spin me. But if your LO doesn't have enough cognitive function to say hey, you know, my side is hurting. I've been on my left side too long, put me on my right. I've been on my back too long, put me on my side.

Speaker 1:

You're right, you got to have an advocate. Some people are just lazy and don't get me wrong there's some great medical people in America. You know we got the best medical system in the world, but at the same time, just like any other job, it could be people that aren't the best.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and they could give your loved one substantive care if you're not advocating on their behalf 24-7. Yes, and I don't mind saying this, piedmont Hospital did not give my mother that premium care. How about that?

Speaker 1:

And they should have.

Speaker 2:

We were paying premium prices. Yes, sir, at that Piedmont. Yes, we were paying premium prices at that Piedmont, but because my mother was not complaining or saying anything, her Alzheimer's is advanced enough. They're like oh well, miss Mouse, we put the buzzer on your mom's lap. She don't know what that is, she don't know the difference between the TV remote or the call the nurse button.

Speaker 2:

And why would she know when she needs to call a nurse? She don't even know what's hurting. What are you talking about? I need y'all to go in there like every hour on the hour, check on her, just look at her, touch something, poke something and see how she responds. But they don't always do that. They don't always do that.

Speaker 1:

They don't always do that.

Speaker 2:

The squeaky wheel gets the oil.

Speaker 1:

Can I ask you this? Yeah, like dealing with your mom, like I was thinking recently, like they must be in bliss, like they don't know that they're not bad Right. They don't know it's bad Right. I mean, you know that she's maybe deteriorating, but does the person with the affliction Alzheimer's or with the dementia, do they know that they're?

Speaker 2:

not what they once were. Well, first thing is I don't know.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that was just a great answer. That was a great answer I damn sure don't know.

Speaker 2:

I damn sure don't know. I will tell you. What my advocacy and research and digging has shown me is that it depends on where they are in the spectrum of the Alzheimer's progression.

Speaker 1:

Okay, Early on they know and they're pissed or sad Right, because they're trying to collect those thoughts and they can't.

Speaker 2:

That's correct. And why me and why this happen? And heaven forbid if they somewhat lived a healthy air, quote, clean life, and they're like I don't know what the hell happened to my brain. I ain't smoke, I ain't drink, I slept eight hours a day. What in the world?

Speaker 1:

So there's a little bit of woe is me Because they're calling it type 3 diabetes.

Speaker 2:

A lot of the upper scientists. You better be on it. That's what I'm trying to do Look at you.

Speaker 1:

I'm trying to understand. I really have been trying to understand. You ain't seeing just jokes. Well, you know, I try to be a good advocate.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but that is seriously. That is a thing that the research scientists are investigating. Is dementia, diabetes, type three. Now the practitioners haven't all gotten on board because they don't have enough data and enough research studies. Blah, blah, blah. But anyway, just for me and you and for everyone else out, there is a good rule of thumb that they are believing that, yes, it is a problem with our brain processing the glucose that it needs. Yeah, and when that gets off, there's a problem.

Speaker 2:

Um, so so maybe in the next 20 years there'll be some medication for it maybe yeah, or they could even tell us what to not do, because I wonder, like, how we have, like, alzheimer's is acting a fool right about now. It is 50 years ago it wasn't acting a fool. People just got older and got senile, but they wasn't. This Alzheimer's thing is different.

Speaker 1:

But it also wasn't as many special needs kids either, that's true. Well, maybe well, we don't know you know what?

Speaker 2:

Because we, but they wasn't in our classroom. They might have been.

Speaker 1:

Might have been me man. I might have been, I might still be a little slow.

Speaker 2:

They might be like Jay. You ain't know, because it was you.

Speaker 1:

And you know, this whole thing really concerns me as a stroke survivor. Yes, so that's one of the questions I ask my docs. I'm like, look, am I predisposed to you know, know, because I had a traumatic brain issue am I looking at?

Speaker 2:

scared the shit out of me by the way. I got things started popping through and I was like this is a joke and I was like he ain't even home. How dare you get sick on the road. I'm in a hospital, going viral, going viral. Somebody cover up my ass. I'm going viral, right, please? Yeah, going viral somebody come up my ass. I'm going viral, right, please, yeah. Yeah, that was serious.

Speaker 2:

That was I mean, we were laughing through it, but it was very serious indeed it was a point where it was touch and go and speaking of pairing it up.

Speaker 1:

My brother, my brother Ryan Evans, he stood there for me, man. I just ran into a picture the other day that almost made me cry because he was, you know, shaving me. You know, during those times, man, and I never forget, just him just going. You're gonna beat this, you're gonna be all right. Come on, champ, go through there being a carry.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for this segue being a carry. Such an independent man you are you. You served our country. Thank you very much, navy.

Speaker 1:

Eight years yes.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and to know, alright, my body won't do what I tell it to, but I have loved ones, my brother. What I can't do is wipe my butt.

Speaker 1:

Right now. My left hand was a little afflicted. I couldn't do is wipe my butt. Right now. My left hand was a little afflicted, I couldn't walk. You know Well who wiped your butt. I had a lady. So my CNA it wasn't your brother. My brother wouldn't do it, he wouldn't do it.

Speaker 2:

He'd do the line at the end.

Speaker 1:

And no, but my CNA was a wonderful wiper. Let me tell you something this lady would wipe my butt with the precision of a professional. She was so thorough.

Speaker 2:

Like right now, my butt is nowhere near as clean as that lady had my butt, but that's also what.

Speaker 1:

I had to learn. I had to learn over time to go to the bathroom alone again. And to appreciate it Okay.

Speaker 2:

For a minute. You weren't going to the bathroom by yourself.

Speaker 1:

I needed some help, needed some help. I had to lean.

Speaker 2:

Left side, right side.

Speaker 1:

My hand was flicked Like even now. I was at the gym yesterday and I was lifting weights and my hand looking a little a little a little handy right is it a little too handy.

Speaker 2:

I like my hand a little bit, a little bit like a gravy later.

Speaker 1:

it look a little, it look a little. I'm like I gotta get this strong, okay, but it's also the connection connection between your brain. So my breakthrough came. So my hand is, my left hand is flicked, I can talk to it, but it wasn't responding to my brain and so my occupational therapist come in with a box and on each side of the boxes mirrors. So the idea is you put your, your your broke hand in the box and you look at your good hand in the mirror. Okay, and maybe, if you're lucky, you could trick your brain to think that the hand in the mirror that's this hand, is really this hand and that sucker worked.

Speaker 2:

Are you?

Speaker 1:

serious. It worked immediately that day.

Speaker 2:

That's like at the county fair with the house of the mirrors.

Speaker 1:

It tricks your brain and it made me think. I went to my hospital room that afternoon and I masturbated did it work.

Speaker 2:

It did okay, thank you for that I mean I don't know about you. Every time I try, it don't always work sometimes. I'm like what the hell these fingers, these fingers ain't what they used to be trash.

Speaker 1:

Throw these fingers away, get out of here.

Speaker 2:

Hilarious when you were Trash, throw these things away, get out of here. Hilarious, when you were preparing after your stroke. Right, we're talking about you being a Carrie now. And you're like, okay, I'm walking, I'm talking. How do you know, alright, I can get back on the road, I can start performing again? Where is that mental strength that lets you know, all right, I can get back on the road, I can start performing again? Where is that mental strength that lets you say, all right, they say I can leave the hospital, but can I get back to being Rodney Perry?

Speaker 1:

Well, I'm having those thoughts before I even leave the hospital.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker 1:

Because I'm processing this and it's not funny. No, it's not funny. No, it's not funny. I mean, you are literally. I don't know if I'm going to stand again, let alone do stand-up. But part of my therapy was, before I left the hospital. I did a set at the hospital for my caregivers Are you serious? My physical therapist, my occupational therapist, my speech therapist. They sat in the room and they watched me perform and that was part of my therapy. I had a goal to perform before I left, and so that was the beginning of it. I mean, did I know I would be back on the road flying and stuff again? I wasn't thinking about that, I was thinking about standing. I know that's right. And my big adjustment is, of course, I'm like I've always been super physical, and so when I first came back, I didn't have it. I couldn't be as physical and my long-term memory was damaged so I could only remember stuff that I had made up in the hospital. So I had no material. You owe me money.

Speaker 2:

About I think about $12,000. Yeah, that was before the stroke, though it happened before the stroke.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I lost some of that. Yeah, okay, all right, but I had, so I only had. I knew how to tell jokes, right, I just couldn't access any old jokes and it took me probably about a year to be able to access my older material.

Speaker 2:

Were there techniques that your therapist gave you to access that memory, or did you just have to wait for it to unlock?

Speaker 1:

Not so much techniques, but he did give me like brain stuff. Like my speech therapist, he would constantly give me like brain teasers and tools to kind of strengthen and I even do them now, like certain games I play on my phone. It's just to sharpen my brain, okay, and so I'm kind of always working on that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, what's your favorite? One of those or one of them?

Speaker 1:

your brain games. I play Domino's. That's a brain game. I'm still an old black man, yeah, absolutely Counting and winning.

Speaker 2:

Counting and winning, winning.

Speaker 1:

Winning is important. It's a very important part I beat my brother while I was in the hospital at Madden, Really, and that was a huge breakthrough because I mean he was so mad.

Speaker 2:

That's a lot of I mean, madden is a lot of going on. That's 50,000 decisions you're making in every play and clicking and pressing and so.

Speaker 1:

Madden helped me with some of my motor skills Okay, and my brain, and I remember I was telling my buddy I was like I whooped your ass while I had a stroke.

Speaker 2:

Shit, he feels like hell don't he, he should. He should, he should, I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have played. Well, he thought he was helping, but he did help you. He did, he did, he did, he found out. He's, you know, horrible. Yeah, second is the first loser. See that, ricky.

Speaker 2:

Bobby that is a fact. This has been for me with you, rodney. It is personal what you've shared with me about your family, your life and what your post-stroke advocacy. I know that you also, you speak and you go and you tell your story with honor and with humor so that others can benefit from it. So I want to, I want to commend you for that and I want to ask you if what is, uh, something like, particularly maybe with your mother-in-law, um, that you have found great humor in like I can't believe this lady is. You know she's this age and she is struggling, but this is still funny and this is still kind of cool and at least we got this.

Speaker 1:

Well, this is the thing. So you know. You just never know what day she's going to wake up on. Okay, you know, sometimes she wake up 20 years ago when she worked at Dillard's. Okay, you know, and she be talking to these people. I'm like Miss Karen, who you talking to? She said I'm talking to Diane. I said who is Diane? She's my supervisor, dillon. I'm like well, what you going to do? I got to clean up this place. I ain't going to lie. Will she be on that cleanup shit?

Speaker 2:

I let her clean up, because she really cleans up.

Speaker 1:

Listen, she will sweeping that motherfucker's back porch. My wife, be like. You're going to stop making my daughter, my mother, clean up.

Speaker 2:

Right, and you're like she wanted to.

Speaker 1:

She thought that she was a dealer in stockbrokers.

Speaker 2:

Well, because they do say in everything with dementia you're supposed, you know it's like role playing You're supposed to let them go, and you're supposed to let them go and you're supposed to follow them, so that's what you were doing.

Speaker 1:

She's still funny, though. Like what did she tell me? Like, oh, we was talking, we was talking and I said where you about to go, miss Karen, she got up, you know. I said where you about to go. I'm about to roll out like Ludacris. I'm like what, what?

Speaker 2:

What you know about, what you know about what you know about. Little Prince, let me find out, miss Karen, in these streets, miss.

Speaker 1:

Karen, miss Karen's still funny, she's still that's beautiful.

Speaker 1:

And you know I dread the day when she begins To really deteriorate, right. But you know, I mean, at the end of the day I mean, you know, so I'm the oldest, I think birth order matters too Okay, like I'm the oldest, I think birth order matters too Okay, like I'm the oldest. So to care for my mother was nothing for me. My wife is a middle child, okay, and you know, middle children don't really be trying to take care of nobody but her oldest and her baby. They're not stepping up, so she kind of default to the caregiver she the second oldest, she the second oldest, she's the middle child. And so she's a reluctant caregiver. She's like yo.

Speaker 2:

What is this, but you went through it already, right?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but you know, walk up out of my shoes.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. This has been such a phenomenal conversation and you know I'm going to have you back. I'll give you the topic later. We ain't going to tell you Whatever you want to talk about, I'm game Before we go. There's one question. I end each segment with it's called a snuggle up Okay. There's one question. I end each segment with it's called a snuggle up, okay, where the idea is if a caregiver could just snuggle up to this idea, you know, just kind of go ahead and go ahead and snuggle up to this idea, just like ease on into it.

Speaker 2:

baby, your role as a family caregiver will be easier or less stressful. As a caregiver, as a caree, what this is symbolic of saying we're going to snuggle up let's snuggle up, then I'm ready.

Speaker 1:

What is your? What would?

Speaker 2:

be a snuggle up. That Snuggle up, then I'm ready. What is your? What would be a snuggle up that comes to mind for you?

Speaker 1:

Oh wow, what a great question. I mean, you got to snuggle up to the fact that your loved one isn't doing whatever they're doing, deliberately, that's a word. There's no malice, it's just a part of their life and it feels like they get it, but they don't.

Speaker 2:

You better say that.

Speaker 1:

It feels like they get it and you can tend to be like I know you fucking heard me, you be like nigga, they didn't, they didn't, they did. She don't get it at all. She's still at Dillard's and you got to snuggle up to the idea that wherever they think they are, they are.

Speaker 2:

And they are not trying to piss you off and ruin your day. Not at all. Not at all.

Speaker 1:

Not at all. They probably don't even feel that it's bad. Right, all, not at all. They probably don't even feel that it's bad. We're living the bad part, maybe, if it's bad at all, it's true, it's our interpretation and maybe somewhere on a different time, plane everything is okay.

Speaker 2:

Y'all didn't know comedians could get deep, did you, my man? Just did it, my man just did it, my man just did it. Plato Socrates, Nostradamus on us.

Speaker 1:

I mean, what if we were all wrong? What if we're the one that's fucked up somewhere, absolutely Laying there looking out the window? It's possible, you never know, it's possible.

Speaker 2:

I think it's possible, it's possible.

Speaker 1:

I think it's possible, it's possible.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much, rodney. But listen, share with everybody what you have going on currently, what's coming up in the near future, where they can follow you, where they can find you.

Speaker 1:

Rodney Perry live on all social media and I'll be directing my first movie, my first feature film this year. So I'm excited about that. It's a thriller.

Speaker 2:

Me too. I know I'll have a part, even if it's no speaking right. Hold, on.

Speaker 1:

No, I just don't want to lie to you because you know I picks up my DMs, just like that. I'm not the producer, but I'm definitely directing. But I mean, you never know If you ain't busy. We shooting in Raleigh.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I ain't busy. All right, raleigh, here we come.

Speaker 1:

Here we come, okay. So I'm looking forward to that. It's exciting and you know I've had a pretty lengthy career because I kind of understand how to reinvent myself. So we're always trying to stay connected to the young people.

Speaker 2:

Love it, I love it. Roddy Perry, everybody, the Snuggle up. Rodney Perry. You notice I didn't put an ass on it because stuff got a little wonky in the studio, so we're going to get one big summary snuggle up for him.

Speaker 2:

This man has been a caregiver and a caree. He cared for his mother, he is a assisting his wife with his mother-in-law, and then he was the caree and through it, all the amount of humor and grace that he used, that's what stands out the most and that's what stands out the most and that's what I'm hoping everyone can use in their journey as a caregiver. Give yourself grace, give those around you grace, because as you heal and take your medicine and do whatever the doctors say or the experts, stuff can get better. There can be a light at the end of the talk. What's up y'all? I'm over here just mixing and scratching up stuff and reminding y'all. Patreon is open. It is open and ready for you, you, you, you and you, and your mama too. We are loading up things. All things Zetty, all things podcast, all things caregiving behind the scenes, extra stuff.

Speaker 2:

J Smile's comedy is dropping with her own little collection within the J Smile Studio Patreon. Very, very soon. It'll be less than a month, but you want to go on and get in there because there's exclusives. That's kind of time sensitive to whoever is in there first. We've already had live broadcasts for people who are already in and I'm going to be honest because of, you know, branding matters. So there's some stuff that I just can't say and do on the World Wide Web that I can do in the Patreon pantry. So if you want to see and know and hear and experience more of what's happening between my ears, come to the J Smile Studio, my Patreon pantry.