Abby Fox (Intro): Welcome to the Still Caring Podcast, presented by Stillwater Medical.

Joe Akin (Intro): Here, community is at the heart of healthcare.

Katon Lunsford (Intro): Through honest conversations and shared experiences

Abby Fox (Intro): we explore what it means to care for our health—

Joe Akin (Intro): and each other.

Katon Lunsford (Intro): Because better health takes a village and you're part of ours.

Joe Akin (Host): Hello, I'm Joe Akin, and I'm glad you're part of this conversation. Today, I'm joined by Lori Hunter. Good morning, Lori. Glad you're here.

Lori Hunter: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

Host: You bet. This is part two of a very personal story. In our last episode, her husband Vance shared his journey through cancer from the patient's perspective. Today, we're going to shift the lens to the caregiver. Vance has been battling an aggressive form of prostate cancer, facing repeated emergency situations and living with constant uncertainty. But this didn't start there.

Years earlier, a routine gallbladder surgery turned critical, and Lori found herself at his bedside as he fought for his life in the ICU. This has not been just a one moment of caregiving. It's been years of showing up, navigating crisis after crisis and carrying a weight most people never see. At one point, Vance said to me, "That was Lori's journey." So today, that's what we're here to understand. Lori, thank you so much for being here, your willingness to tell us the story. Your story from the caregiver's perspective is going to help a lot of people.

Lori Hunter: Thank you for having me, Joe. I hope I can give some insight on some things about a caregiver.

Host: Oh, I know you can. So, let's start with the journey. What has the journey been like for you?

Lori Hunter: Which one? There's been a few with Vance Hunter, from the life support to the broken ribs from motorcycle rides. He's had a few episodes in the hospital since we've been married. It's been tough. You know, just the worry. And this is both Vance and i's second marriage, and we have a really, really strong bond. I think I was too young in the first marriage, and it was nothing like it is with Vance. So, I'm real protective of him. He's protective of me. And then, when these things happen, I just go into Mama Bear mode, I guess.

With his journey, one of the first big episodes was—Vance, we were on a business trip. We made a weekend of it, and we were in Texas, Houston Way. And on our way back, he started having severe pain in his abdomen, uncontrollable. And he's got a pretty high-threshold of pain. So, it was really concerning. We ended up stopping at some little hospital in the middle of Texas. I can't tell you where it is even anymore. They admitted him for pain management, and this hospital only had ultrasound on Thursday, so we had to wait till Thursday to get him seen. It was a gallbladder stone. We flew him back home to Tulsa, had surgery. He popped a clamp and bled out, had to go back into surgery. And because of that, they had to give him blood, and he had to go to the ICU. That was just protocol. The next day, he still had low blood numbers. So, they gave him more blood and platelets and plasma, and he had a reaction to that. It's called trolley. And he went into full pulmonary arrest and had to be intubated and was on the ventilator. For one reason or another, they couldn't wean him off of it for 11 days, and then three more days in the hospital after that.

So, the only time I ever left the hospital was they took him for a scan and they told me it'd be an hour. So, I ran home and got clothes. I spent that entire hospital stay with him watching his oxygen numbers. I didn't watch the TV because he was in a state of twilight almost. We could wake him, but not completely. They kept him that way so he wouldn't pull the ventilator out. People would come in, and he would get very emotional because he could still hear them. And so, I just really had to lock it down and not allow visitors, caused some conflict. But, you know, I just felt like I needed to protect him. So, Mama Bear, I guess, is how It affected me. I just go into protective mode.

Host: Right. So, people in these situations, obviously, they see the patient. But they rarely see you, they rarely see the caregiver. What are people missing about what you carry with you every day?

Lori Hunter: I tried to think of how I would answer that. Just protection. That was my biggest thing, and that's still when he has his episodes now, you know, you just want to protect him because he's laying in a bed helpless, can't do anything. And you just want to do what you can to protect them and manage people after that.

Host: So, would it be safe to say it's kind of like a light switch going off in your head? You just change modes and you go from—

Lori Hunter: A hundred percent. Absolutely. Yeah. And in fact, you know, we both have very busy schedules. And to try to schedule in a hospital stay, you'll never get it done. But everything falls away when this happens, and you just take care of what has to be done.

Host: So, we had those emergencies. And then, fast forward into the prostate cancer and everything we talked about in Vance's episode. So, these are ongoing, it's not just a one-off, like I said earlier. So, walk me into one of those emergency moments, and I know you say you go into Mama Bear, but what really is going through your mind when you know that Vance has to get to the ER? So, he's not there yet, but you know he's got to get there,, what runs through your minds in those moments?

Lori Hunter: Vance and I are very different in the way we handle emergencies. I'm not going to say he's pessimistic, but he is what if—"What if I don't get there? What—you know? And I'm like, "What if you do?" Everything kind of slows down for me, and I just try to figure out what the next steps need to be. And he does too, but he does it in a little bit more of a panic. And I understand he's the one going through it. Usually, we're not together. I mean, there's been every scenario in this bleeding situation with Vance. More times than not, we have been together when it starts. I mean, you sat there and took care of him until I could get there one time, which I'm forever grateful to you. And that was our first meeting that I remember, and I'm just so grateful for that. That meant a huge amount to both of us. It's just getting him there. These are emergency situations to get Vance in and get him treated.

Once he's there, I sort of calm down because I know we just got to get this done. And then, he'll get home. And usually, the next day he goes back and gets on his tractor and takes care of cows. I mean, it's that simple. It is so urgent to get this care. But once it's done, it's done. I mean, he's sore, and it's an ordeal. I think I calm, especially once he's in. And, I mean, he has to deal with all the pain and the treatment.

Host: Right.

Lori Hunter: And I think the calmer I can be, the better it is for Vance.

Host: Right. Yeah. And that totally makes sense. But you, know, in my talk with Vance, he mentioned the what if, and you kind of did, but in a different way. With what Vance and I were talking about, it's the what if based around the scans and the checkups. In those moments when you guys are going in to get another checkup to make sure that, you know, the numbers are what they need to be, he talked to me about what he's going through in those moments, but what's it like for you sitting beside him as he and you are waiting for those critically important results?

Lori Hunter: I'm nervous for him, because I know what it does to him and I know how it affects him physically to worry. I am forever optimistic. I'm not going to anticipate anything negative until it's in black and white. And then, I'll deal with that. That's kind of how I manage it, because I'm not going to deal with a bad diagnosis until I got one. And I haven't had cancer. So, I can't begin to tell you what he's going through. I can see how it affects him, but the way I have to process it is I can't go there until I'm there.

Host: Yeah. Kind of optimism is your superpower in these situations.

Lori Hunter: Yeah. And, you know, he works in a pipeline construction, high pressure, things blow up. You know, he's got to always be one step ahead of the what ifs with safety, and that's just how he's wired. It's not a bad thing, but this is how I'm wired. And maybe that's why we are such a good pair is because we—

Host: It's a good contrast.

Lori Hunter: Ying and yang. Yeah.

Host: Yeah. So, what do you carry emotionally that you don't often say out loud to him?

Lori Hunter: Probably my what ifs, you know, I can't fathom him not being here. He is my person. He is my rock. I also don't want him stressing. I wish that I could help with that. All I can do is just be calm, because the more you say—I mean, you don't tell a woman to calm down. You don't tell Vance Hunter to calm down either. Nobody wants to hear that. But that's what you want for them, is to just find a way to just calm down. And when it's bad, then we'll deal with it.

Host: Right. So, Lori, after one of those really intense moments when things finally settle down how do you decompress? In other words, what do you do to care for you to help you recover?

Lori Hunter: Well, when he was on life support, I think I went a year after that, because it was over a month after he was out of the hospital before I could leave him alone. The propofol is what he was on, and it just gets in your body and it takes a while to get out. And he was just so emotional and just almost childlike —not mentally, but I mean physically, just I couldn't leave him.

Host: The care required.

Lori Hunter: The care. And I think that whole ordeal, I think I probably had a little touch of PTSD after that for maybe a year. And I finally just sort of like, "You got to snap out of this," and started doing things to help me get out of it.

Now, how I decompress, once he's in there getting treated, my worry stops going away. I start worrying about his psyche, but I know he's getting treated. And I know when this is done, it's done. Like I said, he's usually out on the tractor a couple days later. I just drop it there kind of in the hospital because my relief is the nurses are taking care of him and doing what we got to do to get through this. Once he's treated, the catheter has to go in. Once that starts, I know we're on the downhill.

Host: This ties back into something Vance had mentioned last time, but it was trust in the staff, because I don't think you could relax like that if you didn't trust them that they could do it.

Lori Hunter: Absolutely. The Stillwater Medical Center staff is spot on. They've always been wonderful. Not just the ER, but up on the floor too. He's been there too. And it's just been a good experience.

Host: As good as a bad experience can be, I'm sure.

Lori Hunter: As good as the bad, yeah. Yeah. As far as care, no complaints.

Host: Well, that's good. But what could people around you do after those moments that would actually help you, the caregiver, recover?

Lori Hunter: I don't know. I don't take help well, Joe. I mean, while it's happening, feed the dogs, bring the packages in.

Host: Right. It's all the things in life that keep going while your life stopped.

Lori Hunter: Exactly, yeah. Check on the kids, things like that.

Host: Yeah. You forget, or people that aren't in the moment forget that while you're away from home and doing everything else in your life that was already on auto is still going. And That is where they can help. That's why so many times after an event, people go to, you know, bringing you food. But there's food, like you said, there's packages, there's kids, that there are a lot of things. So, yeah, that really resonates with me.

Lori Hunter: Yeah. Well, when he was on life support, I had a huge amount of friends. One was she was the general manager of McGill's on 61st, but now she's the owner, brought me food constantly. I had another friend that brought me food. And they didn't come to visit because it's a horrible time to visit somebody when they're in the ICU, unless you've been called in. it is just not a place to hang out. But I was just forever grateful of that. I bet I didn't eat one meal, maybe two meals from the hospital food. Not that it was bad, but it was just more comforting, you know, and that was a nice gesture. Snack boxes they sent me. I just really had a good set of friends help me out there.

Host: Did you ever feel like you stopped being a spouse and became, you know, just a caregiver?

Lori Hunter: Yes. I think probably that month that he couldn't be left alone probably was the most, because he needed so much help, just day-to-day things. And he was emotional all the time as that medicine was purging from his body. I could say I probably felt more like a caregiver than a spouse then, yeah.

Host: So when you're shifting between two dramatically different roles in that relationship, how do you protect the relationship itself? Because it's so dramatically different in those moments. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Lori Hunter: Tolerance. Just tolerance. I don't know how to answer that really. I think it's just tolerance. We have such a strong bond. I'm not saying we've never argued, but I have no trouble telling him exactly how I feel about something. He struggled with it a little bit more than I do. But I think that's just the way we've come into this marriage and, I don't know, I've forgotten the question now.

Host: That's okay. It was how do you care for the relationship? You know, the marriage, if you will, because you're jumping between roles and they're so dramatically different. But yeah, I hear what you're saying. It's difficult, but you lean on the relationship and the trust you guys have with each other.

Lori Hunter: Yeah, you just have to lean on your relationship. The whole thing is difficult.

Host: Right.

Lori Hunter: I can't imagine being a caregiver like that for a child or long-term, never-ending in the hospital care, because that was a three-week ordeal for us, and it was pretty brutal. I don't think it affected our relationship negatively in any way. Once he's back, he's back. And that's the same with these episodes, but it just ravages his body with stress to go through these bleeding episodes post-cancer. And, you know, if I could help him in any way, it would be helping manage that.

Host: In preparing for this, the thing I kept getting from people that have been in your situation was there are so many people that say, "Let me know if you need anything," and you, don't really know how to, deal with that. Because, you know, after the 10th, 12th, 14th time of someone saying that/ because you're in such an emotional situation, sometimes you go, "Yeah, whatever." But you kind of addressed this, but what would actually help? I mean, this is strange, but is there something else that they could do that really could help?

Lori Hunter: Things that actually help are, as I mentioned, check on the dogs and bring the packages in. Just drop off of snack box, drop off something at the hospital, especially if it's an extended stay. I've had people just drop me little things that just tell me they love me. And it just means so much.

 My personal opinion, a hospital is not a place to visit, especially in Vance's case, in all of these situations. Because when he was on life support, I didn't want anybody seeing him like that. We didn't feel he was going to die after we got intubated. We just knew it was going to be a long journey to get him through this. And I didn't want him emotional. Every time somebody came in, he would get emotional. So, I told people to stay away. I hurt a lot of feelings, but I was protecting Vance.

And it's the same when he is in the ER. I mean, he's got a catheter, three-way catheter in. And he don't want to see anybody. You know, he barely wants me there. So, I just don't feel like coming to the hospital for a visit is a good scenario in Vance's case. Helping is go feed the cows, you know, go make sure the cows have water. Those kind of things. Those are the biggest. But the words of support, they mean so much. They really do.

Host: Lori, this is really helpful because most people sincerely want to help. And just like you said, we just don't always know how, and conversations like this with you that give us just such better, clearer path and understanding of, you know, how do we show up for the caregivers, for you.

So, we close every episode with what we call a challenge to care. So if someone listening right now knows a caregiver, what would you want them to understand?

Lori Hunter: We're struggling too. You know, we're not the patient, but we are struggling and we are dealing with time and emotions just like the patient. And don't take anything personal, you know, if something doesn't feel warm and fuzzy because we are in protective mode. You know, I did offend a lot of people when I wouldn't let them come to the hospital. And I'm sure it'll happen again. But that's protection, and just understand the caregiver is caregiver. They're not just a gatekeeper.

Host: Right. Yeah. So, do what you can to not put them in the position that they have to be the gatekeeper.

Lori Hunter: Right. Right. And they're stressed too.

Host: Yeah.

Lori Hunter: They probably had less sleep than the patient because the patient's a bed, right?

Host: Good point. Yeah.

Lori Hunter: We're up doing for them.

Host: Yeah. Well, Lori, I sincerely can't tell you how much we appreciate you doing this. Your perspective is one we just don't hear about often enough, and I know this is going to mean a lot to a lot of people. And then, to everyone listening, think of someone in your life who's caring for a loved one right now and reach out today and remind them that they're not alone, because better health truly does take a village, and caregivers are a critical part of that story. Thank you so much for listening to Still Caring.