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Summary
This CareLab podcast episode features Carol Silvoy, an experienced end-of-life doula, discussing her journey into the field, the importance of open conversations about death and caregiving, and the unique role of doulas in supporting families and caregivers. The conversation highlights practical tools for addressing end-of-life issues and reframing self-care as a critical component of caregiving.
Key Takeaway
- End-of-Life Conversations: Tools like the Death Deck and Five Wishes are valuable for opening discussions about death and facilitating meaningful, structured planning.
- Role of a Doula: End-of-life doulas provide emotional and logistical support without fixing or dictating solutions, creating a safe space for families and caregivers.
- Economic and Emotional Impact: Incorporating doula services could alleviate caregiver burnout, improve mental health, and reduce financial strain on healthcare systems and employers.
- Proactive Engagement: Starting conversations about end-of-life planning early in life fosters comfort, preparedness, and stronger family connections.
-
Self-Care in Caregiving: Prioritizing self-care for caregivers is essential to maintaining their well-being and ensuring they can effectively care for others.
Transcript
Emilia Bourland
Hi, welcome to CareLab. Yay. Here we are.
Brandy Archie
We are here, I'm super excited that we're here today. We have an awesome guest in Carol Sylvoy, I'm so sorry, Carol Sylvoy. And before we jump into it, thank you everybody for tuning in. Make sure you download this podcast so that more people can know about it and you can have access to it whether you're online or not. And so let's jump into it. Welcome Carol. I wanna tell the people a little bit about you so that they know how awesome you are.
Carole Silvoy
boy,
Brandy Archie
as a former ASL interpreter. And after many encounters with death and dying, she learned that she can, companion people before, during, and after times of great transition in life. And that is actually a calling, which I love. She has trained as an EOL or end of life doula with the I N E L D A and also has a holding space consultant with the Institute for the Study of Birth.
breath and death. lives in Allentown, Pennsylvania and with her husband and her three cats. So thank you for joining us, Carol.
Carole Silvoy
It's my pleasure.
Emilia Bourland
I am so excited for you to be here. When I was first, so everyone, this is Carol and I's first time ever meeting. And when I was reading your bio and I saw that it started with ASL interpreter, I was like, yes. Before we even started recording today, I was saying, just, I love interpreters in the healthcare world. Honestly, I think that interpreters make the world go round because if you have ever tried to provide healthcare,
Brandy Archie
You
Emilia Bourland
or just probably any level of service or something with someone where complex communication is required and there is a language barrier, it's actually impossible to do without someone who's really, really skilled. And not just anyone can do it. It can't just be like, I speak this language and you speak this language. It's also like, have to have a really technical understanding of where both sides are coming from. It is such a skill.
Carole Silvoy
Carole Silvoy
Yes.
Carole Silvoy
Yeah. And the, yes, because people think, you're interpreting for the deaf person. No, I'm interpreting for you. You're completely clueless when it comes to sign language. So I'm sort of like the glue that makes the conversation actually flow.
Emilia Bourland
Yes.
Totally, totally.
Emilia Bourland
Yeah, and it takes so much skill. So first of all, we're not actually here to talk about that, but thank you for being an interpreter for so long.
Carole Silvoy
You
Carole Silvoy
It was a wonderful experience. I'm retired now, but that's okay.
Emilia Bourland
So before we get started talking about all of the wonderful things you do and your experience and how that relates to caregiving, though, we do have an icebreaker question for you. We always like to start that way to kind of get to know our guests a little bit better. And just so you know, you have to go first. So you get no chance to prepare for this at all because we're mean. So welcome to CareLab and yeah, right. No pressure at all. No sweat.
Brandy Archie
Mean and rude. Welcome.
Carole Silvoy
No pressure.
Emilia Bourland
So this is a fun one today though, I think. So if you didn't do what you do now or like what you have chosen as your career, your career path, if you didn't do that and you had to do something totally different, what would that other thing be or what would it have been?
Carole Silvoy
I completely know the answer. I always wanted to do voiceovers for cartoons.
Emilia Bourland
Yay.
Emilia Bourland
That's the best answer!
Brandy Archie
That is so interesting!
Carole Silvoy
There are so many, I did voiceovers, but there are so many people living in my head. And you let them come out and do that for a living. I would love, I would have loved to do that in particular.
Emilia Bourland
gosh.
Emilia Bourland
Carol, you are my people. You are my people. That is the best answer ever. Brandy, what about you?
Brandy Archie
nothing that's gonna follow to that in any kind of good way. Okay, so then I'm gonna just like switch it up a small bit. I'm gonna think about this like my retirement job. So I've done lots of cool things up until this point. And I'm always thinking about what am I gonna do when I retire? Why do people think, why do I think that? I don't know. I'm a ridiculous person that's always going. But I would really like to be a docent at a museum.
And whether that would be like in DC at a Smithsonian or at a place locally here that's small. I just love history and sharing that in a way that connects with other people. That sometimes, you know, history can feel dusty and sitting on the shelf, but if you have somebody bring it to life, that's cool. So museum docent, that's what I would do.
Carole Silvoy
Yeah.
Emilia Bourland
That's, see, that is a good answer though too. Okay, so I'm a little bit more similar to Carol actually. If I, I think there are two ways I could have gone. I would either be like a straight up researcher in something. I used to, in college I had like this really strong Anderson like language acquisition and how it affects the way we think in our brains and our cognition. So I would either be doing something like that or also,
totally different, I would be an actor. That was the thing that I thought I was gonna do when I was really young, in college, graduating and in my early 20s. That's the path that I thought I was gonna be on. And I still would love to, I'd love to do community theater someday.
Carole Silvoy
You and I are, we are definitely each other's people because my actual bachelor's is in theater and religion together. And so technically I have a degree in drama and my God.
Brandy Archie
Mmm!
Emilia Bourland
Totally.
Emilia Bourland
wow.
Emilia Bourland
I love it. Yes. Okay. Well, we can let's do some let's do some theater together sometime. my gosh. my gosh. Best day ever.
Carole Silvoy
So I have an icebreaker for you.
Brandy Archie
This is the first time somebody's came back at us with an icebreaker. I love it.
Carole Silvoy
From the death deck. From the death deck, okay. gosh, one of the fun ones. Well, the death deck is a tool that you can use to open conversations about the difficult stuff. You can get to talk about death. People always go, death, because they think it's something we can't talk about. So these are...
Brandy Archie
wait, tell everybody what the death deck is.
Emilia Bourland
Yeah.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Carole Silvoy
fun ways to actually open the conversation. It can be played as a game or it can just be used for conversation among family at a holiday or something like that. The other piece is the end of life deck where we help people figure out how they'd like things to be. I like pulling things from that to ask caretakers and people who are receiving that care. So my question is on the rack.
Brandy Archie
Mm.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Carole Silvoy
If your spouse died, which article of his or her clothing would you keep and which one would you be glad to never see again?
Emilia Bourland
That's a great question. my gosh. Okay. You know, I already have a habit of stealing my husband's sweatshirts. Like I love his hoodies and he's always irritated because he can't find them because I've always taken them. But they're just like, just the right amount of oversized and they're so like
Brandy Archie
Emilio, you gotta go first.
Brandy Archie
That's what I was gonna say.
Carole Silvoy
Yeah.
Emilia Bourland
comfy and cozy and they just like make me feel good because it's kind of like just like being wrapped up in him and and also i'm always cold so so that is definitely i would i would keep those absolutely what would i give away you know there's nothing of of his that i i hate honestly but i mean i wouldn't be sad to get rid of like his old undershirts or
Brandy Archie
You
Emilia Bourland
or I don't like I don't need his undershirts or underwear that that holds no. Yeah, that holds no particular, you know, emotional value for me necessarily. So I guess that's my answer.
Carole Silvoy
Men wear underwear entirely too long.
Brandy Archie
I you that I'm not cheating off you, but both of those are my exact same answer. Like literally, I was gonna say sweatshirts because it feels like he's hugging me and then he keeps all of the undershirts and under clothes too long. And so it's like filling all the drawers. I don't wear them really, but they're just there. So I would just get rid of those. So yeah, the exact literal same answer.
Emilia Bourland
Yeah.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Emilia Bourland
Just there.
Carole Silvoy
The other kind of question that comes up in the death deck is three pieces to answer. My personal belief about hospice is A, it's a hope crusher causing too much focus on the end of life. B, it's a blessing allowing care and quality time at home. Or C, it's tough to beat that lazy river vibe of a morphine drip.
Emilia Bourland
Hahahaha!
Carole Silvoy
So it makes you laugh. You have something you can laugh about and then talk.
Emilia Bourland
This is amazing.
Brandy Archie
Yes. B is my answer to that.
Carole Silvoy
Hahaha
Emilia Bourland
Yeah, I'm gonna go with B actually for that one.
Carole Silvoy
I'm B2, I've seen that, that lazy river. It's just kind of, yeah, in the zone.
Emilia Bourland
So I have to say, I love this idea of having a way to introduce these conversations because I was just talking about this with some friends of mine the other day and we were talking about like the importance of advanced directives and advanced care planning and more than that, besides just having the legal paperwork done, also having open conversations with the people that you love who are gonna be responsible for making decisions about what you really.
really want. And sometimes though, some people are, it's really easy to have those conversations with, and some folks it's really hard and you don't know how to bring it up. And what a wonderful way to do that.
Carole Silvoy
And having a doula or someone to hold space with you with that, my comfort around those issues, end of life, any sort of transitions that people are struggling with, because I'm comfortable with it, it lets you draw on that comfort. And I can just keep the conversation flowing and help people hear what their answers actually are.
Emilia Bourland
Mmm.
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Brandy Archie
What do you mean by that? Help people hear what their answers actually are.
Carole Silvoy
Well, holding space is an important piece of what I do. And a lot of times I'm not asking questions, I'm asking about feelings and what that person says. If it's fraught and there's a lot going on, they may say something and there's silence. We can use the silence because other things come up after what they've said. And I'll reiterate what I've heard them saying.
Brandy Archie
You're saying it back to them.
Carole Silvoy
most often as a statement you're really feeling anxious about and then it gives an opportunity to go, yeah, I'm anxious. And where does that take us?
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Brandy Archie
Yeah, that's so interesting. like, guess I'm always thinking about how to operationalize things, like how to put that into action. And so while in many of my circles, I guess I would be maybe the person who feels the most comfortable talking about this because I have done it frequently. How would somebody who's not engaged with you, how would you recommend they listen to this podcast and they say, you know what, this is something that we need to have conversations about. How would
What kind of like first steps would you give them as a way to make progress here?
Carole Silvoy
I would actually say if you're dealing with stuff, especially around the end of life, because in caregiving a lot of times that's going to be part of the anxiety about where things are going. I suggest using something like the five wishes, which lets you look at end of life from a very specific, sort of like a menu. I'll take this one. I don't want that one. God, no.
using that to look at not just the legal and not just the medical, but the emotional and the spiritual and how you want to be remembered. That I think is a great tool for that.
Emilia Bourland
Can you talk a little bit more about that? Because I've never heard it framed in that way before. But again, I think that the way that you are providing scaffolding for these conversations is really, really helpful and unique as well.
Carole Silvoy
What I like about what I do is that it's not my job to fix anything. A doula doesn't come in to fix anything. We don't recommend, we don't do things for you or tell you what to do. We help you find what it is. We give you a framework to hang things on. I love the scaffolding idea. And in holding space, I think that just the whole idea of not
Emilia Bourland
Hmm.
Carole Silvoy
fixing anything, that we're going to sit with these feelings. And when we sit with the feelings, we can then look at where we want things to be, where we are. And that incorporates the way that we talk with each other, the way that we interact with each other. So I think those are important pieces of that puzzle.
Emilia Bourland
How early do you work with people in terms of facilitating these kinds of conversations and how early do you recommend that these kinds of conversations be facilitated?
Carole Silvoy
I would like people when they are young and with little kids to start talking about this with each other and getting comfortable with it. Because the truth is that in the best of all possible worlds, you're going to get old and your kids are going to need to know information and they're going to need to learn how to be comfortable with all of those things. So getting comfortable with it yourself, that's
That's my dream of people actually getting comfortable with this, talking about it, getting things set up the way that they need to be. Because so many of us just put it off and put it off and put it off. And I think sometimes I get called in when people have gotten a terminal diagnosis and this all of a sudden becomes a reality. Having a doula to talk with and to hold space with that helps you navigate.
I'm a companion, I walk with people. some often that will start with something like a terminal diagnosis. And then sometimes people come to you when they're very close to the end. And you're jumping on a moving train and going from car to car and the train is getting faster and faster and then it gets slower and slower and people don't know what to do with that.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Carole Silvoy
So it can happen at any one of those times.
Brandy Archie
So that basically means all the time. So, okay, your icebreaker questions helped us jump into this very easily and I appreciate that, but I feel like we missed a step and I really would like to understand how you came to be, how you came to want to be a deaf doula. And so you mentioned a little bit in your bio that.
Carole Silvoy
Yeah.
Brandy Archie
you had multiple experiences with guiding people in death and dying. And was that tied to being a sign language interpreter and like all the conversations you having there or was this more in your personal life? Just tell us like how you got here.
Carole Silvoy
Well, I think it happened, I was never scared of death. I was always curious about it, even as a kid, not anything morbid. It's just, I always felt comfortable around it. And when my grandmother died in 1990, and I like to use people's names, Gladys. So when my grandmother Gladys died in 1990, we were the last people to get there. And when my mother and my aunt and my female cousins and I, all the men, leave the room.
But we were all with her and I ended up just talking with her and crossing her over, walking the walk with her. And yeah, I had my own personal grief, but it felt so right and so easy to be able to be with her and ease that transition. And then it kept coming up with people I either worked with or people I came across or had done theater with. And it kept coming up.
And I said to a friend who was a hospice chaplain, said, Mark, I feel like I'm a reverse midwife. He said, that's a thing. You got to check out Inelda. And the place that I first trained with is the International End of Life Dula Association, Inelda. And it was the first time in my life, honestly, that I went into something, the training for that. And it just felt absolutely right that
This is where I'm supposed to be in my life. And I have no, I never have imposter syndrome. I never wonder if I'm doing it right because I'm just sort of in the flow. Being able to step into the flow I think is what made me realize this was something that I could really be for other people.
Brandy Archie
and not just be for other people, it clearly is a calling, like a thing that you are already prepared to do and then were empowered with additional education maybe, but that it was already a part of you.
Carole Silvoy
Mm-hmm.
Carole Silvoy
And the other piece of it is that each doula sort of finds their lane. And I'm really comfortable in this milieu. And the last six years of my interpreting, I worked for a company that provided remote interpreters to elementary school children, to school children. And I spent the last six years of my interpreting life working from home on Zoom. I was carried around in an iPad by the student.
Brandy Archie
Mmm.
Carole Silvoy
and I had to work with the teachers and all the support people and the student and the students around them. And I loved working this way. And now I find that working with caregivers and people who are receiving care, I'm very drawn to the people who are away from that, but really draw on the heart of the person receiving the care and on the caregiver. And they're so focused on the physical,
center of care, that the sibling who lives in California or the sister who's disabled and elderly and can't travel and be there, how do they deal with this stuff? How do we keep them incorporated in what goes on? And I'm able to work with them remotely and hold space with that.
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Emilia Bourland
I'm so glad that you brought that up because that's a question that I wanted to ask. You we think of these ideal situations where everyone can be in the same physical space, sit around the table together and have this kind of intimate conversation. But the reality of our world is actually that more and more that's not really possible. I mean, I think about my own family and I have siblings all over the country and my parents live in two different states and
Carole Silvoy
Mm-hmm.
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Emilia Bourland
As I think about, you know, as we all get older, these end of life issues and conversations, they're just more likely to happen. They will happen eventually, right? And we're getting closer to those times. So how are we gonna deal with this in a way that makes everyone feel included and...
Carole Silvoy
and
Emilia Bourland
respected and like there's dignity for everyone and also so the people who maybe are physically there actually dealing with what's happening in that actual physical space so they don't feel abandoned and and like it's on their shoulders too.
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Carole Silvoy
They can feel heard and like they don't have to listen to everybody else and try and fix it up for all of them too. And I think creating safe space is more valuable than people realize and being able to sit down with somebody if you're in a really stressed caregiving situation and sit down with somebody who's gonna listen and
Emilia Bourland
Yeah, yeah.
Carole Silvoy
listen deeply with no other things going on. We're not trying to solve. We're not trying to move anything forward and to sit and let the silence happen and let that be a safe place. And in the silence, it's comfortable and it lets other things come up. And then that becomes something that you've dealt with and you don't have to keep walking in that space. But having that space is a luxury for most people.
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Okay, I have like an out of the box question. So Amelia asked this very key question about where do we plug in conversations with a doula or conversations about death and dying? And you basically said all the time, any time, any season of life, if you got to remake our society or wave a wand and have it be different, how would you want for doulas, death doulas to be weaved into our society? And by that, mean like,
I go see a doctor, I use my health insurance, there's this process, we go through these steps and we end up with an outcome, right? But it feels like doulas are not new, but also not incorporated into any particular flow. It doesn't like automatically happen when you go to a funeral home, it doesn't automatically happen when you do a estate plan. Like there's just like no automatic trigger for using a deaf doula. Where would you want that to be in our society?
Carole Silvoy
The first thing that comes to mind, I think is the most important, Medicare needs to cover this. Medical insurance needs to cover this. And I think having it become something that people see as comfort as they walk this walk and after through this major life transition, wherever you are in that transition.
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Carole Silvoy
to recognize that there are people who specifically walk that with you. I think that would be something that I'd love to see be more familiar in our society, more accepted in our society and in our medical situations and our end of life situations and welcomed. Something that people end up finding and welcoming and afterwards are able to say to other people,
Brandy Archie
Mmm.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Carole Silvoy
This was so much better for me than I thought it would be because I had this person walking with me.
Emilia Bourland
Can I piggyback on that just a little bit to kind of reiterate why I think that point was so important about why payers should cover this kind of service and how important it is? know, we're here, we're talking about quality of life, quality of transition. And that of course is like top of the food chain. That's the most important thing. But payers are thinking about money, right? That's the number one that payers are, to ROI, what's the ROI on this? Yes.
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Carole Silvoy
Return on investment. This person is dying. They're going to be gone soon. Yeah.
Emilia Bourland
And then one of the other topics that we have talked about here on Care Lab and that is a huge, big topic of conversation often in the medical community is, you know, what end of life quality of life looks like, especially when it becomes when it comes to life sustaining measures and what is, you know, what's appropriate to do versus what is maybe not actually helping someone have their best quality of life.
to the end of their life, right? So like these are big topics of conversation. How much money do we think we save? And again, I'm not trying to be, I don't think that money is the most important thing here, but let's face it, like money is how our healthcare system works. That is what we prioritize in our healthcare system. So we have to make a money argument if we're gonna get these kinds of services. How much money would we save if we had,
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Emilia Bourland
folks who were able to help facilitate these conversations and increase people's comfort with the process and this idea of having a good quality of life slash quality of death all the way through that transition, right? Because one of the things, I mean, we spend most of our healthcare dollars, right? Is it in the first two weeks of life and the last two weeks of life? So.
Just like thinking about that, if we could help people transition.
Carole Silvoy
take that in a direction that really feeds into CareLab is if we were supporting caregivers. And caregivers are usually people who are also working and are pulled in all these directions. My friend Mim will be talking with you, I understand. And from her, I've learned that $50 billion a year is lost in American
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Carole Silvoy
business by people having to leave work or not being able to take care of the things that they need to take care of because they're pulled in this other direction and they don't have support as caregivers. So if you have people that are walking that with you and that's something we see as an investment in that person, they feel valued as an employee, as someone who does what they do well.
Brandy Archie
Yeah.
Carole Silvoy
and also has to do this other thing, honoring that they have to do this other thing and creating support for it. There's a huge return on investment because that person stays with the company and that person has less pulling on them anxiety-wise and caregiving-wise than they do when they're trying to keep it all going and juggling all those balls and maybe quitting because they can't do it all and that takes priority.
It allows for balance and there's a huge return on investment when we invest in how we care about people, how we care for people and how we prepare for the end of life and making it a good death when we can.
Brandy Archie
So just in case somebody didn't catch that in dollars and cents, literally if you think about one caregiver, if they can continue to work, they continue to make money, they continue to pay into the tax system, and then they also care for their person probably longer because they're supported and they can keep them at home, which means that there's better care, less drag on the healthcare system for sending somebody to the hospital and coming back and going back. And then if they...
Carole Silvoy
You
Brandy Archie
But if they don't get that support and quit, not only are they not producing for the American economy, but they also might be ending up needing support and being on a social service program because they don't have a job anymore because they care about caring for their person. And so that's like ROI in so many different aspects, even if you don't want to care about that person directly, the caregiver. And we didn't even talk about, you know, the person who's receiving the care. And so there's just like so many ways.
that I'm sure a very frankly compared to that inexpensive doula visit would make.
Carole Silvoy
And yeah, yeah. And the stress level, when you're able to just share what's going on with somebody, your stress level can come down. And that stress doesn't stay with just you. It translates to the person that you're taking care of, the people around you who you don't get to take as good care of because you're focused on that person, the people that you work with because you're pulled in those other directions and they don't get as much of you.
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Carole Silvoy
all of those stressors, they just go out like tendrils to everything. And we only see the one thing, not all the places, not all the ripples that happen that we're paying for all the time in so many ways. Emotionally and financially.
Brandy Archie
And the ripples that are happening in that person's, yeah, I mean, that stress builds up over time and turns into chronic disease, right?
Emilia Bourland
That's exactly what I was gonna say. then exactly, people who are caring for other people are more likely to have chronic medical conditions. They're more likely to have other diseases and develop their own disabilities because they don't take care of themselves, because they don't have... We only have so much energy to give. And if you're giving all of your energy...
Carole Silvoy
and you end up needing a caregiver. Yes.
Brandy Archie
And then you need a caregiver.
Emilia Bourland
to someone else and nothing else is pouring energy back into you, well guess what? We get sick.
Carole Silvoy
And I like to help people look at, I don't have time for that. Self-care, self-focus, so that I'm doing the best that I can for myself. And we'll say, no, I can't do that. I don't have time for that. Switch that and say, it's not a priority. And looking at, yeah, if I can't take care of this person, if I get sick, yeah, taking care of myself and being good to myself is a priority.
because it lets me do all the other things. It's not selfish, it's required.
Emilia Bourland
I like how you, I think it can be so powerful to change the language that we're using and just talking about the same exact thing but changing the language that we use can be very, very helpful in guiding ourselves and that's such a great example.
Carole Silvoy
which is what we do in holding space is helping people hear what they're saying. I'm reframing it and they get to hear what they've said in a fresh way and perceive what they've said and what they're feeling and maybe discover what they're feeling because we've reframed it and said, why don't we try looking at it this way? How does that work for you?
Emilia Bourland
It's a good way to get unstuck. If you're stuck on something, you can't move forward. How can we reframe it? I really, I'm enjoying this conversation so much. I can only imagine how incredibly helpful it is to have a conversation with you or another person who does what you do, you know, where the rubber's really meeting the road and seeing like, okay,
Carole Silvoy
Yeah.
Emilia Bourland
We as a family, we've got to talk about these things.
Carole Silvoy
And we as doulas are built to focus on things without an agenda. People say, well, how do you do what you do? Well, it's going to be different with every single family, every single situation, because we're not coming in with a goal or an agenda or any of that. We take everything about our stuff and we set that aside often, most often, just before you go in to be with somebody.
focus on your stuff and say, okay, that's what that is. And you leave it in the car or leave it at the door when you go out of the house or leave it outside of the place that you're going into. Because when I'm not holding onto my stuff or an agenda or a need to move things forward, what other people need can flow through and allow those conversations to happen.
Brandy Archie
I think it's super interesting that you said that you leave space kind of in yourself for the conversations to flow through. How do you make sure that the conversations flow through and don't stay stuck and get built up in you, right? You're there and you're doing your work, but then you also go home and you still hurt all that, right? And so like even as healthcare professionals who don't always deal with like so directly with death and dying, it can be very hard to leave.
the situations at the door. And so like, how do you handle that?
Carole Silvoy
I had a really hard time with that. learned about that as an interpreter, as a sign language interpreter, because you're not allowed to be part of what's going on. You have to be completely detached. can't give advice. You can't comment. You can't share anything outside of what's been going on, except maybe with another interpreter as you process that stuff, because you share that confidentiality. And as a doula, yeah, it,
gets on my heart and it gets on my brain. And something I really love about what we do as doulas is we communicate with one another. And I have specific doula friends that I'll say, I really need to process this. Do you have the bandwidth for this right now? Because I don't. And just getting it out. And also with Enelda and the National End of Life Duel Alliance, both wonderful supports and webinars, but
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Carole Silvoy
opportunities to gather and ask questions about how would you guys deal with this? I'm struggling with this with this person. What would you do? And my heart hurts because this isn't going anywhere or it's so fraught and tight that when I leave there, when I'm trying to unravel that knot, I get knotted up. So I talk to other doulas who do what I do and they do that with me.
and we do that for each other.
Emilia Bourland
This has been an absolutely incredible conversation. Thank you so much for being on. I want to make sure though to let people know where they can find you, where they can find your services, learn more about you and what you do. So where should people go if they want to connect with you?
Carole Silvoy
I do have a website if you Google Good Heart Companion. My website will come up and it's carolsilvoy.com. But it's all focused on the work that I do as Good Heart Companion. And the International End of Life Dula Association is anelda.org. And I believe that Nida is nida.com.
Emilia Bourland
And we will make sure to link to your site in the show notes so that folks who are interested in learning more, just go ahead, look at those show notes just as soon as you download this episode, obviously. And then you can find that link to Carol right there. Thank you again, Carol, so much for being on this episode. It was really, really such a pleasure to meet you and talk with you today. If you made it all the way to the
to the end of this episode, dear listener, and you still haven't downloaded it, then take a second to make sure and download the one that came before, maybe the next one, if you are listening to this one late, because the more folks that we have downloaded this, the easier it is for us to connect with other listeners who would really benefit from this information. And I think we can all agree that this was a really incredible bit of information to listen to have. Maybe it's a good way for you.
to start having some of these conversations with your own family. So make sure to share it too. Subscribe, like, follow. You can listen to us wherever you get your podcasts. If you're watching on YouTube, make sure you hit that like and subscribe button. And we will see you next time right here on Care Lab.
Brandy Archie
Bye everybody.
Emilia Bourland
Bye!
Carole Silvoy
Bye.
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