What’s Next for CareLab? A Farewell and a New Beginning

Summary

In this special CareLab episode, Emilia Bourland and Brandy Archie reflect on more than 100 episodes of conversations, expert insights, and real-life caregiving stories. As Emilia says goodbye to the podcast, they revisit memorable guests, share the lessons that stayed with them, and offer three powerful reminders for caregivers: set priorities, protect your relationships, and don’t be afraid to ask for help. They also look ahead to CareLab’s next chapter and its expanded focus on the many ways occupational therapy can help solve everyday problems.

Key Questions Answered

Transcript

Brandy Archie 
Hi everybody, welcome to Care Lab. Today is a very special episode because it is the end of an era. We are making some changes, and Emilia is no longer gonna be a part of the Care Lab podcast, and we are gonna shift its focus a little bit. And so today we wanted to like reflect a little bit about our last what two years together doing this podcast and

talk a little bit about where it's gonna move towards and like what's coming up next. So yeah, here we go.

Emilia Bourland 
Yeah, let's let's do it. So

So yeah, it has been, it's been quite it's been quite a ride. We've been done we've done a lot of we've done over a hundred episodes together, which is

Brandy Archie 
Which is crazy.

Emilia Bourland 
which is crazy and a pretty huge accomplishment in the podcasting

Brandy Archie 
Mm-hmm.

Emilia Bourland 
world, actually. I think we've grown faster than what, like 90% of other podcasts out there, something like that. yeah, we've done a lot of work that I'm really proud of here

Brandy Archie 
Mm-hmm.

Emilia Bourland 
on Carolac.

But it is, it's time for me to go move on and focus on some other things. spend as much time with my kids as I can because they're growing up, we were just talking about way faster than I want them to grow up.

Brandy Archie 
Yeah.

Emilia Bourland 
they're not gonna be with me, it feels like, but not as long as I want them to be me with me, which is forever, because I'm a mother that would smother her children forever if they would let her.

But yeah, it's it's time time for me to move on. And I think, Brandy, you're gonna carry on the podcast in a new direction. And I'm really, really excited for that. I'm definitely gonna continue to be a listener, especially as an occupational therapist of Care Lab going forward. and always here to help and collaborate if you need. But should we should we do some fun reflection today since this is my last episode? Okay.

Brandy Archie 
I think we should. Yeah. Yeah, let's do that.

Emilia Bourland 
Okay.

Brandy Archie 
okay, so let's start with I think we should start with what we did have over a hundred episodes, and not

Emilia Bourland 
Yeah.

Brandy Archie 
every episode gets as much listenership as others, but I

Emilia Bourland 
Yeah.

Brandy Archie 
think we care a lot about the content on all the episodes and like having the

Emilia Bourland 
Of course.

Brandy Archie 
conversations with the experts and or the family caregivers and the speakers, I think is enlightening to us. So I wanna know.

What episodes did you think deserved more attention?

Emilia Bourland 
Mm, okay.

Brandy Archie 
Sleepers.

Emilia Bourland 
There, so I would say and to your point.

We've done so many episodes. I think I'm really proud of the content in all of our episodes. and we've done we've really worked hard to try to put out, you know, great education and have great guests on and tell and tell important stories. I think episodes that deserve more attention. anything with Lisa Kendall. I think that we had Lisa on like three times. She is

Brandy Archie 
I think we did.

Emilia Bourland 
she is absolutely one of the like wisest, most compassionate.

People and also just a fantastic communicator. So anything

Brandy Archie 
Yeah.

Emilia Bourland 
with Lisa Kendall. I loved our episodes. This is just me, like selfishly in particular. I found our episodes with Dr. Lawrence Schiller.

To be

Brandy Archie 
huh.

Emilia Bourland 
so fascinating. he

Brandy Archie 
Mm-hmm.

Emilia Bourland 
is like a gastroenterologist, and I am endlessly fascinated by the gut. So I thought talking to him was so much fun and like just so educational, and it almost made me want to go back to school to become a doctor and a gastroenterologist. And then I realized that I'm probably a little bit actually.

Brandy Archie 
For real? What

Emilia Bourland 
Yeah, but it's like I think I'm too old.

I would still have to pass OCAM.

Brandy Archie 
Right.

Emilia Bourland 
yeah, and then the other one that I would really okay, I'm gonna say actually two more. we did, did we do two or three episodes with Reshma Patel, Dr. Reshma Patel?

Brandy Archie 
I think we did three.

Emilia Bourland 
I think we did three. She is a pharmacist.

Her information is just like everyone should know what she's talking about. It's really, really helpful.

Brandy Archie 
Totally.

Emilia Bourland 
And then last one, I would say the episode that we did for Amber Olson about her

Brandy Archie 
Mm-hmm.

Emilia Bourland 
and her family story, her daughter's story, her foundation that she started, and really like the I mean, sh her story is just so incredible and inspirational and moving. I I think it deserves all the attention in the world. Okay, so

Brandy Archie 
Yeah, I mean

Emilia Bourland 
the so that's like half of our episodes that I think deserve more attention. Brandy, what about you? Yeah.

Brandy Archie 
More tension.

Emilia Bourland 
Yeah.

Brandy Archie 
so the answer is all of them. But

Emilia Bourland 
Mm-hmm.

Brandy Archie 
I think like for me, where I was just doing this work because we're about to bring on this adaptive toothbrush called SymplBrush into AskSAMIE And it made me think about Dr. Joy Poskozim And we had her on a couple of times and

Emilia Bourland 
yeah. Mm-hmm.

Brandy Archie 
she talked mostly about

elder care and oral care and you know like working in acute care that was the one that's like the one ADL, the one activity daily living that I tried to make sure I did with every single person because almost every

Emilia Bourland 
Same.

Brandy Archie 
person, acute and skilled, in any facility

Emilia Bourland 
Yeah.

Brandy Archie 
situation, because they weren't getting the help that they needed. And it also feels gross. If you wake up and forget to brush your teeth

Emilia Bourland 
It yeah.

Brandy Archie 
and you like you go on with your day, you're like, huh, feels gross. What if that happened like multiple days in a row?

And I just felt like her

Emilia Bourland 
Yes.

Brandy Archie 
science behind that and just like talking about that I think is a thing that we don't care enough about, frankly. And so I think those episodes are the ones that I wish it would that deserve more attention 'cause I think more people need to pay attention to that oral hygiene

Emilia Bourland 
Yeah, I I couldn't I couldn't agree more. Do you have any other ones? Or did I say all of the other ones already? Because I just verbal diarrhea my list to everyone.

Brandy Archie 
I think I think that's a good summary of the ones that I think are super important. Because the ones that the other ones that I like did get a lot of attention. Like when we had Harry on, he was talking about his wife and her brain injury and how

Emilia Bourland 
Mm, mm.

Brandy Archie 
he ticked out all those changes that were happening in his life and like turned it into charity and like raised

Emilia Bourland 
Yeah.

Brandy Archie 
money for brain research and so like

But that got a lot of views. So, and but I thought it was a really important story and like great for him to tell it. So yeah, I think that's good overall. So okay

Emilia Bourland 
Mm, mm.

Brandy Archie 
now, since we have interviewed a lot of people, were there any guests that you were nervous to interview?

Emilia Bourland 
Yeah, I was really nervous to interview Amber Olson. I

Brandy Archie 
Why?

Emilia Bourland 
I was so, well first, her story this is not like a spoiler alert. Her

Brandy Archie 
The episode

Emilia Bourland 
the episode already came out. You can go listen to it any time. And

Brandy Archie 
Mm-hmm.

Emilia Bourland 
if you if you like go learn about Amber, sh there's a ton she's a total open book. It's like there's literally a documentary

Brandy Archie 
Yeah.

Emilia Bourland 
about her and her family and her daughter story. So her her daughter

it gets a- it has a very rare illness and she passes away. And I was basically terrified that I was not going to be able to hold it together during

Brandy Archie 
Mm-hmm.

Emilia Bourland 
the interview. Like just, you know, it just hits like way too it hits so close to home as a as a mom, it's like your worst fear, right? And I was

Brandy Archie 
Yeah, yeah.

Emilia Bourland 
just really afraid. I was afraid to watch the documentary because I thought it was gonna be

like too sad for me to watch. Which by the way, it's it's not.

You should watch it. Like you can handle it. in an like like I don't say like you can watch like you sh you should go watch her documentary. You can handle it.

Brandy Archie 
Yeah.

Emilia Bourland 
It's not as as difficult. I mean it is difficult, but like y you'll be able to manage it. And it's worth seeing and her cause is a cause that's worth supporting. But I was really nervous to interview her because I thought I was just gonna like

be totally unprofessional and lose it. What about you?

Brandy Archie 
Well, I I was I will second that. I was nervous in there too. Not for the same reason though. For the reason that like I was worried that I might say something that would be perceived as insensitive. I just didn't

know how to like deal with like I don't know how I would deal with that. Right. And so I'm trying to be sensitive in the way that we one talk about the story and bring those things out, but also just like

I don't want to talk about a death of a kid, you know? Like and and she has been such a professional in the way that she like took her sorrow and grief and turned it into like improving other people's lives and like, yeah, that takes a real intentional step because I personally would not want to talk about nothing to nobody, you know? And

Emilia Bourland 
Yeah.

Brandy Archie 
so I was I was nervous about like saying something that might be perceived as being insensitive in this like prescriptive way that we're talking to people about facts, but

That's also our text of feelings. But she made it really easy on us. And it was like a really great,

it was a really great conversation. I learned a lot. the other one I would say, and I was nervous about interviewing past Governor Schreiber because that was really all early on in our podcast life,

Emilia Bourland 
Mm-hmm.

Brandy Archie 
and to have somebody who ran a state for a long time come on our podcast, I was like,

I I'm not a journalist. I listen to journalists. I'm not a journalist. So,

Emilia Bourland 
Right.

Brandy Archie 
you know, so having a conversation, he's just a person just like anybody else. But

Emilia Bourland 
Right.

Brandy Archie 
I don't know, I felt like it had more gravity and weight. And he also made it easy. He's really easygoing.

Emilia Bourland 
my gosh, so easy to talk to the best storyteller. I mean, probably of all of our guests, the best storyteller we had on by far. And

Brandy Archie 
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Emilia Bourland 
like, I don't we- you didn't even get to

if you heard the episode, it's a great episode, but you didn't get to hear all his stories. Like,

Brandy Archie 
We didn't talk that much. yeah, that's true.

Emilia Bourland 
like, we got to hear stories before and after. He's just like an incredible person, an incredible man. And also, what that was so surprising. We were very early on. And to have

A former governor like reach out to say, can we be on the podcast? I think that was something that was surprising to me actually was the number of people that we had reach out to ask if

Brandy Archie 
Mm-hmm.

Emilia Bourland 
they could be on the podcast. Because, you know, like who are we? Right? Yeah,

Brandy Archie 
Right. Two O Ts. Talking.

Emilia Bourland 
we're just two OTs talking. So I th I thought that was always really cool. But I think, yeah, Governor Schreiber was absolutely a highlight. That's that's a good one.

Brandy Archie 
Yeah. Okay, so

so the whole goal of starting

Emilia Bourland 
Mm-hmm.

Brandy Archie 
the podcast was that, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but this is how I perceived this, is that we share a lot

Emilia Bourland 
Okay. Wouldn't it be funny

if we disagreed at this point?

Brandy Archie 
That would be funny. That would be very funny.

I was I was setting this up for some controversy. I think we both have both and probably many other clinicians have had the same experience of like having to educate family caregivers around the same subjects and challenges and

Emilia Bourland 
Mm-hmm.

Brandy Archie 
have them deal with the same kinds of emotions and

also be overwhelmed of having all this dumped on them at at one moment, oftentimes.

Emilia Bourland 
Mm-hmm.

Brandy Archie 
That's usually where we're getting involved at. It'd be great if OTs were being involved much earlier in the process. But most

Emilia Bourland 
Sure. Yeah.

Brandy Archie 
of the way most of the way the medical system works, if you have an acute something happening, then that's when you would encounter an occupational therapist and then we're gonna do our best job to try to help make you get help you get back to life and that often includes the caregiver. And so having had that experience so many times

and people feeling so overwhelmed, it would just have been, in my opinion, easier to deal with, especially when you know somebody has like a progressive diagnosis, right? And you're not full-time caregiving now when you find out about it, but you might be later. To just be able to take in that information a little bit at a time, right? And so we wanted

Emilia Bourland 
Mm-hmm.

Brandy Archie 
to bring that to the world essentially in a bite-sized format so that you know, you you're learning along the way.

And that maybe at some point when you need that information you can recall it or re at least remember that it was here at CareLab and come back and review it. And so we have passed a lot of knowledge and

Emilia Bourland 
Right

Brandy Archie 
gotten a lot of experts to come on, a lot of caregivers to come on and talk about their story, which is also a a really great way to learn about caregiving from other people. And so I wanna know like if we can come up with just like three takeaways for caregivers if you remember nothing else. Because if you happen to be listening to this.

And you are fully overwhelmed at this moment, like what are the couple of things that if they remember it, that'll help them be as successful as possible in caring for the person that they're trying to care for?

Emilia Bourland 
Mm-hmm. Okay. And there are there are so many. There especially like throughout the course of CareLab, we've given out so much advice. We've

or information, education. We've tried to bring on lots of people who know more than we do about certain things too. three big takeaways. I would say one of my things that I would want people to take away is

To really set priorities. Like prioritize

Brandy Archie 
Hm

Emilia Bourland 
because when you are overwhelmed and you have 5,000 things to do, and you know all of life seems to be like coming in at you like this big tidal wave, and it's crashing over your head and you don't know what to do. I think setting priorities is a really, really great way to start to manage that. And

You know, you can think about how you're setting priorities in in a couple different ways, but you know, what really matters to you at the end of the day, like this is such a cliche to say, but like if your life was over tomorrow, what would you have wanted to prioritize getting done today? And that could

Brandy Archie 
Mm-hmm.

Emilia Bourland 
be making sure that you are spending time with the people that you actually care about. could be making sure that you took a moment to yourself.

Could be making sure that you had all of your paperwork in order. Like it could be, there's no right or wrong for how you're prioritizing things. But really think about of the 5,000 things that you've got to do, there's probably actually only a really small handful that are actually gonna matter. And that certainly are gonna matter like right now.

Brandy Archie 
Mm-hmm.

Emilia Bourland 
So setting priorities, I think that that's a a huge, a huge takeaway. What about you?

Brandy Archie 
Then priorities is a great one. I'm I'm good with that being number one. the other the second thing I would say is

If you can just remember that

it's really important to maintain your relationship with your person as the relationship that it was. And but what I'm saying is that if you're a daughter taking care of a mother, you are a caregiver and that's a role, but you're also a daughter. And if you can, even if you can't do it all the time, but you can carve out time where you do things that you would normally do, whatever kind of a accommodation you need to do to make it happen. Because

because of your role as a daughter and that's your mother, it's so important to prioritize that, I think. Because otherwise it becomes a job and emotions get mixed up because you're doing a job and that person you're caring for is not doing the job. And they still see you as the person that you, the relationship that y'all have and then they're grieving the loss of that and feeling guilty that it has to be this way. And so to make some intentionality around

keeping something, something normal, I think is really important. And that's different for everybody. I think we had a guest on one time we talked about not wanting to help it was a son helping a dog a mother, not wanting to help her with a shower. He was completely capable of doing so, but he

Emilia Bourland 
Mm-hmm.

Brandy Archie 
wanted to maintain that barrier and

Emilia Bourland 
Mm.

Brandy Archie 
that and that he hired somebody or

somebody else came over that was a woman and did showers. And that was actually kinda a little more work for him than it than not. And he still did that because he wanted to continue to have that boundary and to feel some sense of normalcy. You know, and I think that's really important.

Emilia Bourland 
Yeah, I think that that's I think that that's really good because it's so easy to lose yourself in this role of caregiver and lose the importance of the the roles that you had before in your relationships. Like it's a different role be being caregiver versus the role you have as a mother or daughter, right? And so I

Brandy Archie 
Mm-hmm.

Emilia Bourland 
think that's I think that's a really good point. And you know, to try and kind of maintain those relationships as as much as you can. okay.

Another one that I would say, and it's actually really hard to choose because I'm like sitting here going in my head, I'm like, well that's important, and that's important, that's important. but I think an important takeaway is do not be afraid

To ask for help. Or maybe afraid

Brandy Archie 
Mm-hmm.

Emilia Bourland 
isn't even what you're feeling. Whatever your emotion is that is stopping you from asking for help. Maybe it's afraid, maybe it's pride, maybe it's shame, maybe it's anger, like whatever it is. There are lots of reasons that people might not ask for help. Set that aside and go ask for help. because

Especially if you can if you can be s if you can tell someone what you need. I need you to go to the pharmacy and pick up this medication. I need someone to confirm this doctor's appointment. Like if you can be specific in the help that you're asking for, most people are more willing to help than you think they are.

And if they're not, then there are community resources that are out there that can help you to find the help that you need. So don't- whatever it is that might be standing the way of asking for help, If you can, try to set that aside and go ask for help. It is help, getting help does not make you weak. Getting help makes you stronger.

Brandy Archie 
I'm so glad you brought that up as the third one. I think that's a great one to end on because even if you're not for all the same reasons you just said, plus, maybe you don't have an emotion around it. Maybe it just feels overwhelming to

Emilia Bourland 
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Brandy Archie 
organize yourself and thoughts to then dole out appropriate tasks to people, right? And because one thing I'm always recommending is people use this platform called Lotsa Helping Hands

Emilia Bourland 
Mm-hmm.

Brandy Archie 
Because if you've ever signed up for a meal train after somebody has a baby or something, and instead of texting back and forth with the person who is supposed to be resting because they just had a baby, you just get on this platform, you sign up for a date that you're gonna bring a meal, and then it reminds you to bring the meal and the person needs to log in when they feel like it and see what's happening and like it just seem makes the whole process a lot more seamless. Lotsa Helping Hands is a free tool that helps do that for caregiving.

And so, so many times I've even heard it happening, you know, like the primary caregiver is there with the person and somebody's heading out while I'm heading in the door and they're like, just let me know if you need any help. And that's just like so nebulous. And you have to sit and think about like, well, what could she do? What is she willing to do? What would fit her abilities, you know? And now you can just

Emilia Bourland 
Mm-hmm.

Brandy Archie 
be like, let me think. These are all things I could delegate. Picking out the medications, confirming the doctor, but whatever. You can just do all these delegations.

put in that thing, send it out to everybody, and they just sign up for the stuff that they can handle. You know, and like including like sit with mom for two hours on Wednesdays so I can get my hair done or I can get grocery shopping or whatever. And just doing that, taking the investment and doing that just one time, could bring you so much more help and then people are willing 'cause then they're like, I can do that. That's that's what she needs done? Easy. You know? And

Emilia Bourland 
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Brandy Archie 
so, so yes, then you can

then you can be strong, like you said, like because you're you're doing the things that you need to do, but all the things are actually getting done still.

Emilia Bourland 
Mm-hmm. Okay, those are three pretty good ones, I think. And you know

Brandy Archie 
I think so. Yeah.

Emilia Bourland 
what? If you if you need more, you know we've got more for you because there are over a hundred episodes that came

Brandy Archie 
Ha ha

Emilia Bourland 
before this one where we talk about all kinds of things. We talk about

Driver rehabilitation assessment. We have episodes, like you said, about oral care and dentistry. We have episodes, tons of episodes about fall prevention, aging in place, home modifications.

The whole goal of creating CareLab was to put good information and education out into the world, to let people do with what they wanted or needed to do with it, but really just try to be a voice that was informative and positive and helpful.

And I think that we I think that we've done that. And I'm so excited for this next chapter that you're gonna take Carelab on. Do you wanna talk about that a little bit before we wrap up here?

Brandy Archie 
Yeah, that would be great. So I don't think we have been shied off on the podcast of talking about how occupational therapy is a profession of unique qualities that mixes like medical knowledge with real everyday life and finding a way to make those things work together. And that

Emilia Bourland 
I don't

know, I think we could have been a little bit more forthcoming about that. I'm just kidding, obviously. We'd just like beat that horse. We yeah. Uh-huh.

Brandy Archie 
We're always talking about how great occupational therapy is.

and we're gonna keep talking about that. So there is actually a very wide breadth of ways that occupational therapists work in niche industries and make such a big difference in people's lives. And the challenge is that you just don't often know that. And so you don't know to go looking for them for solving XYZ problem, right?

and that you're capable of doing that without having a doctor like send you there. And so what I want to put more into we put a whole canon of care lab caregiving information and into the world. And so I want to continue that mission, which I think is still the same, so to help support caregivers with the information that they need, but with slightly different focus on like ex understanding like all the different ways that occupational therapists are serving in across the country.

there's a even in just my own little network, there's a whole canon of OTs who have created products to solve pro particular problems. OTs who have startup practices that do pelvic health and perimenopause care and but just like all these things that we talk about in the world having challenges with, but like finding them and knowing that they exist is more of the problem. And in talking to OTs, I think,

People with challenges, family caregivers, occupational therapists themselves, the medical community overall, and the social service community will get to understand like the uniqueness of people's individual problems and the breadth of solutions that there are to solve for them. So while we'll be talking to OTs and that'll be our primary guest, the goal is to explain and share more about problem solving methods, you know? And so, 'cause that's really what

all of this is about, right? Like how can I find answers to the problems that I have, right? And so we're

Emilia Bourland 
Mm-hmm.

Brandy Archie 
hoping to put out that information so that you can solve a problem you have now. or have the knowledge that, you should go see an OT to go do X, Y, or Z thing because they can help you solve that problem.

Emilia Bourland 
Okay, well it's gonna be it's gonna be fantastic. I have no doubt. I like as as I said, I'm I will continue to be a avid listener of CareLab. Can't wait to hear the new episodes as they come out. thanks so much for doing this podcast with me for the last couple of years, Brandy.

Brandy Archie 
I'm so glad that we got to do this. And also it's just really cool that we were connected in a way that we're just like we should just do a podcast. It's not even like we

Emilia Bourland 
Yeah.

Brandy Archie 
were like friends for a long time before we decided to do the podcast. We're just aligned on trying to share this kind of information and do it in this medium. And so I'm so grateful that you jumped into this with me. And I can't wait to see what comes next for you.

Emilia Bourland 
Same. Okay, well

Dear listener, if you made it to the end of this episode, then please, even though I will be leaving, please still take a moment to like, share, subscribe. Go check out some of those episodes that we were talking about from before. I promise there's good stuff in there. leave a comment, leave a review. That's the best way for CareLab to continue to reach more people with the education and information that we worked so hard to put out and that Brandy's gonna continue to work so hard to put out. So

So until next time, I guess I won't, but Dr. Brandy Archie will see you right back here next time on CareLab. Bye everyone.

Brandy Archie 
Bye everybody.

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