When things aren’t being done correctly, Mike says you have the right to stand up and say “No, we have to find another way.”

Transcript

It’s okay to say no. I’ve read a lot of books about [caregiving], and that’s one of the books I read actually, It’s Okay to Say No. Everything comes in stages. That was brought up from another book that I read, and I saw that in here we all go through these set of stages of acceptance of the disease, denial of the disease, acceptance of the disease, then working with the disease, and working with your spouse.

That’s a hard one to answer. I guess because, I was going say standing up for what you have to do. But I guess that’s my background anyway because I was in sales and on my own for so long. I don’t know. I can’t get, fit into that answer. I don’t know. I am who I am and I stand up and say what has to be said sometimes, and I don’t upset, I think don’t I’ve upset a whole lot of people. But people will come to me when they want something direct and want to know the answer.

As an example, going back to my old job—and I do the same thing here with people that affect my wife and I with this MS—I was called by my manager, actually the VP out of Montreal, and said, “Well [Mike]—he says Michael, how did the meeting go?” and I said, “You were going to call Mr. X.” He said, “I am going to call Mr. X,” who was another employee, but he said, “I wanted to the answer from you because you’ll tell me exactly how it is with no icing.” Thank you. This is what happened and this is why it’s happened.

That’s what I’ve learned through life lessons, being a caregiver, is to stay with those things as you are a caregiver. Just because you become a caregiver you can’t look beyond and say, “Oh no, that’s okay. We’ll work our way through that”. No. If it’s not being done right, you have that right to stand up and say, “No.” Tell them, you don’t have to be nasty, but just tell them directly “I don’t accept it. We have to find another way.”  But I’m drawing that from my past experience as you get through life and that’s nothing… part of it has to do with caregiving, and that helps me get through on the caregiving side on a day-to-day basis because I know if I have to, I can do it. And I think a lot of people—and I shouldn’t speak for other people—but just from what I’ve seen, a lot of people are afraid to rock that boat. I don’t know if that answers your question.

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