[00:00:00] Hi, I’m Rayna Neises, your host of A Season of Caring Podcast, where we share stories of hope with family caregivers pushing through the loneliness and busyness of caregiving to find God even in this season.

Rayna Neises: Today I am excited to introduce you to our guest, Lori Jones. Lori has personally experienced the effects of Huntington Disease in her family and was instrumental in starting a Team Hope annual event in her area to raise awareness and support for research and community programs.

She published Spared: A Memoir of Risk and Resolve in 2024. She’s been published in Wisconsin HDSA update newsletter and spoken in public schools about HD and genetics and pre-symptomatic testing. She’s contributed short stories for Women of High Def by Diane Markins. She’s a storyteller at heart, and she regularly writes and speaks about her experiences with [00:01:00] HD and many other topics to groups of all ages.

Lori has three adult children and lives with her husband, Chris, in Wisconsin, when they aren’t escaping north to the upper peninsula of Michigan. Welcome, Lori. So good to have you here today.

Lori Jones: Thank you so much for having me. I’m happy to be here.

Rayna Neises: So it stood out to me that you would escape north because most people want to escape south.

Lori Jones: Yes, it is a little crazy that we go north. people think we’re already north,

Rayna Neises: Yes.

Lori Jones: we continue to go

Rayna Neises: Okay. Well that was my thought when I read that. I’m like, that’s north. ’cause I’m in Kansas, so you’re definitely north of me.

Well, Lori, so good to have you today. Tell us a little bit about your experience with Huntington Disease and your caregiving. What that looked like..

Lori Jones: Yes, happy to. I grew up in what I call an HD family. Grew up in a family affected by Huntington’s Disease. My father, my grandmother, some great aunts cousins. It was a family affected by this neurodegenerative [00:02:00] illness with a 50% risk

Rayna Neises: Wow.

Lori Jones: so I both grew up. In the shadow of, of knowing there was something in the family that we didn’t always talk about, but was definitely affecting everyone involved. And then slowly piecing together what exactly Huntington’s Disease was coming to the understanding that I likely was at risk and my father wasn’t diagnosed until he went into care, but my grandmother was diagnosed in 93. Then my husband and I actually became caregivers and guardians for my father for the last decade of his life.

He passed away in 2013. So been through all of it through finding care homes navigating the paperwork and the legalities all the way to hospice, all the way to organ donation, and then. When it was over I journaled about it. I journaled about it for almost a decade.

At one point my husband said, I think what you wrote needs to go out there into the world. I think other people need to hear this story mostly to know they’re not alone, [00:03:00] but to educate provide hope, provide universal comfort. So out it went in 2024, I published the book, and here we are having these conversations.

I’m having them everywhere.I don’t get tired of talking about it because there is hope.

Rayna Neises: Yeah, well congratulations with the book. It’s a big step and definitely when it’s not your childhood dream, right? At least for me being an author was never really on my radar,

Lori Jones: I always love to write, but I think when I hit submit, I was like, okay, there’s no taking that back. Now it’s out there.

Rayna Neises: Yeah, there’s such a interesting piece with that genetic part of it. people ask me all the time because of both parents having Alzheimer’s disease, are you afraid you’re going to get it? I’m like, wellit’s a thought. It’s just one I try not to spend a lot of time with because at this point if that’s what happens, then the Lord knows, and we’ll walk through it. But it’s not an easy thing to know that’s hanging over your head.

Lori Jones: Exactly, exactly. There is a predictive test. The community itself has less [00:04:00] people that do undergo testing. More people who choose not to know. And I think a large part of it obviously is there currently is no cure. There are minimal treatments, but the more we learn and the more we know that you could participate in a clinical trial or there are medications literally on the doorstep of the FDA to be tested. So I think more and more people may choose to test. But my counselor said to me, are you prepared to know this? Because once I tell you, you can’t unknow

Rayna Neises: Mm-hmm.

Lori Jones: And she wasn’t wrong, that that is a very heavy thing, and it’s a different answer for everyone on whether they can carry the load of risk or carry the load of that outcome, which is truly 50% for every biological child

Rayna Neises: Wow.

Lori Jones: of an affected

Rayna Neises: Yeah.

Lori Jones: So

Rayna Neises: And with Alzheimer’s in contrast to that, there’s a very low percentage of people who actually have a gene that is a dominating factor. There’s a very low percent, less than 10%, [00:05:00] and so many of the other cases are coming from other situations. which of course we can’t quite figure out, Initially. Word out there that it was genetic and it’s just not, the research has not shown that it’s the primary factor. So it sounds like with Huntington’s, it definitely is the primary factor.

Lori Jones: It definitely is the primary factor where it gets loose and gray is that the symptoms can manifest differently for each person affected, even though there’s a very clear line in how you get HD the mutation. Has a different score for each individual and they call it the CAG score. It has to do with the CY design, the adenine, the guine, and all the science.

But basically the higher the score, the thought is that the earlier you will have symptoms and potentially the most severe, the more severe symptoms with the higher score. So what was unique and challenging in our family is every person who eventually we figured out had HD up differently. And [00:06:00] that caused added confusion. I remember as a little girl thinking, well, my dad doesn’t look anything like grandma There’s something not right here, but I don’t know what it is. I had no language for what as happening

Rayna Neises: Mm-hmm.

Lori Jones: And we just didn’t know. And it made it very hard to piece together what was happening in the family to have conversations about it. the other piece I’ll say about that is the psychological symptoms. So prior to the eighties, Huntington’s was called Huntington’s Chorea because of the Choreatic movements.

Rayna Neises: Mm-hmm.

Lori Jones: what they have found since is easily a decade before a Croatia Movement may show up, there will be psych symptoms. And so my father was plagued with psych symptoms and that, created a tense home and we didn’t know why.

Rayna Neises: Right.

Lori Jones: And so I think now as the education and the awareness just continues to grow, so does the empathy and the understanding. When you have language and an understanding for why is dad acting the way

Rayna Neises: Yes.

Lori Jones: you can handle it so differently.

Rayna Neises: And I think even, again, I’m [00:07:00] relating a lot to Alzheimer’s because that’s my area of experience, but I think we have that in common, that there’s things going on in the brain so much earlier than we’re getting diagnosis. Over 80% of the people are not diagnosed until they’re in mid stage Alzheimer’s, so they’ve missed all these early stage things,

Medications are all for early stage at this point, and most people are not being diagnosed until they’re way past early stage. I know my mom was way past, early stage before she was diagnosed, and so there were all these behaviors that later as an adult I could look back on and go, oh, that was probably related to the dementia, not actually who my mom was. And then later in life. Over 20 years later, my dad is diagnosed and his looks totally different. His progression is completely different. My mom was nonverbal within three years of diagnosis, my dad talked to me on his deathbed. You know, it, there was such a difference in what it presented at, and that’s the brain. The brain is so [00:08:00] complicated and we’re,

Lori Jones: be surprised. We’re complex human beings, and yet we’re so surprised that it doesn’t run its typical

Rayna Neises: yes.

Lori Jones: But for me, it definitely opened the grace and the empathy. You know, no wonder that’s what I was left with no wonder dad acted like that his brain was being destroyed. No wonder

Rayna Neises: yes.

Lori Jones: so it has helped me and our whole family heal and reconcile some things that were pretty hard at the time they

Rayna Neises: Yeah.Thank you for bringing that up because I don’t think we talk about that enough with many of these diseases, whether it be depression that is brought on by some of these things ’cause they’re confused. They don’t know what’s happening to them either. Difficult to have compassion in the moment when there’s so many unanswered questions, but it is important to be able to go back and visit those things and extend grace even if they’re already gone because I think it is healing for us.

Lori Jones: [00:09:00] Definitely healing.

Rayna Neises: Do you have a favorite caregiving story that you would like to share?

Lori Jones: I have so many, but I will pick one. I will tell you, my dad cycled through nine adult care homes

Rayna Neises: Hmm

Lori Jones: He was determined a difficult case. His go-to was anger

Rayna Neises: Yeah.

Lori Jones: Weren’t going well, when he was overwhelmed, when it was too loud, too hot, things weren’t right. He got angry and he was a tough guy. My dad was a tough guy and, and I think this whole thing was very hard for him to lose control. And so the go-to was anger. There were some, you know, destroyed pieces of furniture and some combative behavior and he would get booted. They would send him. To a facility to get medications regulated. And then, oh my goodness, his bed was full when it was time to go back to the

Rayna Neises: Wow.

Lori Jones: And so we went through a lot of that. I had no idea what I was doing. My husband and I were guardians and we were trying to figure this out together. But the last care home we found, I remember that the director, I met with him and his words were, [00:10:00] we get pretty creative here. I said, okay, keep talking. Tell me about creative. And he said, we’ve had HD people before. We know they need time. We know they need space. Uh, we get creative. And so I could tell you stories about that place, but I will tell you that was where he stayed until he entered hospice and his life ended. But my favorite story there is that the director himself took my dad to my grandfather’s burial service

Rayna Neises: Wow.

Lori Jones: It was about an hour and a half

Rayna Neises: Wow.

Lori Jones: He liked to go on rides but he often knew if he got in the van, he was going to the doctor

Rayna Neises: Mm,

Lori Jones: and he didn’t wanna

Rayna Neises: yes.

Lori Jones: So I don’t know how the director got him in the

Rayna Neises: Okay.

Lori Jones: Went on a drive and they showed up at this graveside burial service. And watch that director helped my dad out of the van. They stood at the back. My father was nearing, I would say, starting end stage. So he was still ambulatory, but his, he was unkempt. His hair wasn’t combed, he was staggering. and he needed the [00:11:00] director to hold his arm so he didn’t tip over and he let him, which was remarkable. they stood at that service and then the director gently took him over to my grandmother was there in her wheelchair, and the director brought my father over to grandma, and they were able to have a moment of hugging and talking.

Rayna Neises: wow.

Lori Jones: They hadn’t seen each other since he entered care. It just, it didn’t work. There was no way to get them together, and he loved his mother, so they had this tender moment. They spoke and then the director got him back in the van and they left together. And getting back in the van was always a struggle. He never wanted to go back whenever he went on a visit. And in the book I talk about this because it just touched

Rayna Neises: Yeah,

Lori Jones: remember how much he loved to drive country roads, and I imagine that they took some of those back roads on the way home.

Rayna Neises: that’s so amazing..

Lori Jones: It was,

Rayna Neises: That there are people who answer the call to [00:12:00] serve in those ways, because honestly, God didn’t equip all of us to have that amount of compassion and to have that countenance, that puts people at ease and allows them to trust like that. And so I’m so thankful that those people are there and can provide that support.

Lori Jones: They are, if you want a second story, I mean, that place just is in my heart because the other thing they did was dad had days and nights mixed up. At most of the care homes, that was unacceptable.

Rayna Neises: Yeah.

Lori Jones: There was a gentleman who worked the third shift who was a college student, and he was an art major, that young man would sit and draw at night on his third shift, and the facility let dad stay up. At night, as late as he wanted. He had no bedtime.

Rayna Neises: Right.

Lori Jones: can go to bed

Rayna Neises: Yes.

Lori Jones: Right. I love that. Gave him a bowl of ice cream and let him sit at the table and watch this man draw. the reason that’s so special is my father was a very [00:13:00] talented artist. He could no longer

Rayna Neises: Right.

Lori Jones: He could barely feed himself, but he got to sit at the table. Almost vicariously experience art through this young man. I’m told they didn’t talk much. They just sat there quietly. The young man would sketch and my dad would eat his ice cream. But that also is such a touching, creative way for that facility to serve

Rayna Neises: Yeah,

Lori Jones: a patient.

Rayna Neises: Well.

Lori Jones: can’t say enough about that

Rayna Neises: How beautiful that God put them in the same place that he brought an artist so that your dad could watch the artistic process happen. Because I can, being creative myself, I can see where there would be pleasure in just watching someone else’s creativity come to life right there before his eyes.

Lori Jones: yes,

Rayna Neises: That’s so beautiful.

Lori Jones: It’s beautiful.

Rayna Neises: And I wanted to kind of just go back to that anger response. I wanted to just kind of throw in there, we often forget about the amygdala and that the [00:14:00] amygdala is our native part of our brain. It’s there all the way through the end, and it’s the part that has that fight, flight, or freeze going on So many times people forget that that fight, that unkindness is coming out of fear and out of self protectiveness, and it’s one of the hardest things about caregiving because you can’t have a logical conversation with someone who’s amygdala has triggered and it takes 20 minutes on its own for the, all of the chemicals and the things that are happening in our bodies when our amygdala is triggered. And so it takes a long time for that to come back down unless we do some definite interventions in that. That’s one of the hardest things that providing care for someone who is. Fearful, which is what they’re experiencing when they can’t control it, when it doesn’t make sense, when they don’t understand. And that I think can be one of the biggest things for us as family caregivers, to understand that those responses are not choices, but rather they’re [00:15:00] primal reactions that are built within us.

Lori Jones: Yeah. And it’s difficult because in the home and as a young girl, you know, there’d be an explosion, there’d be a, an emotional outburst of some kind, and then everyone would go to their separate corners wait it out and then everyone would come back in. We never talked about the implosion that happened. But often, you know, once everyone had calmed down, things sort of went back to normal. But I see now. That it was that cooling off period that was

Rayna Neises: Mm-hmm.

Lori Jones: And that often my dad didn’t even remember that he had gotten so angry. It was just how he was coping with what was happening.

Rayna Neises: Share with us a time that really stands out to you when God just showed up for you in your caregiving.

Lori Jones: Oh, absolutely it for me, and it’s back at that same facility, but through a kind social worker my husband and I were able to survive our caregiving decade. I found her through the Huntington’s Disease [00:16:00] Society of America. She’s alive today. I actually sent her a copy of this book and I wrote on the inside, Jean, you’re the social worker in this

Rayna Neises: Hmm.

Lori Jones: You saved me. So we stay in contact today, which is lovely. had no idea what I was doing. I would call her in panic. He’s, he’s getting they’re telling him he has to, to leave this facility.

Rayna Neises: Mm-hmm.

Lori Jones: She always had an idea, but the one in particular that comes to mind is, there was a chapter in my dad’s life where he would not go to the doctor. so I mentioned he didn’t wanna get in the van he thought he was going to, the doctor didn’t wanna go, but he needed his medications renewed. The medications were crucial for keeping him on track, keeping him as steady as he possibly could be, but the doctor would not renew the prescriptions without

Rayna Neises: Right.

Lori Jones: And so there weren’t any house visits in that area. this was the battle. And my, my dad was dug in. He was not going

Rayna Neises: Hmm.

Lori Jones: This social worker said, I’ve got a crazy idea. There’s a retired doctor who might just pay a house visit now he won’t be able to prescribe anything, but he’ll be [00:17:00] able to see him and give him some attention. Okay, sure. So my husband and I drove down. This doctor met us. What she didn’t tell me was he was a retired head of the neurology department in this

Rayna Neises: Oh wow.

Lori Jones: a renowned specialist in Huntington’s Disease. I looked at his cv, I had no words. I mean, this gentleman

Rayna Neises: Wow.

Lori Jones: was ridiculously qualified and he showed up with a bag of McDonald’s.

My dad was outside sitting on a picnic table, and he showed up with this bag and he offered my dad a french fry. That’s how they began their conversation and he listened to him. He taught my dad, let him examine him, let him, you know, whack his knee with a hammer and talk about reflexes.

this doctor said, you know, you, you really ought to go in. That medication will help settle you. but you could also do this and this, and it talked to him, right at him eye contact. My dad felt, heard, seen.

Rayna Neises: Yeah.[00:18:00]

Lori Jones: He went to the doctor

Rayna Neises: Wow.

Lori Jones: Got his meds renewed. I had no words, I couldn’t believe that this doctor

Rayna Neises: Mm-hmm.

Lori Jones: pro bono later finding out just how extremely qualified he was and how he came out of the goodness of his

Rayna Neises: Wow.

Lori Jones: And it was all orchestrated by this social worker. Those were the things that happened that when I talked to readers and other people, even in the HD community or other people struggling with neurological illness, I say you just can’t make this stuff up.

Rayna Neises: Hmm.

Lori Jones: The stuff that happened, you just can’t make it up.

I had to write it down. I had to share it with you because you just can’t make up how God showed up that day to meet so many needs.

Rayna Neises: Yeah,

Lori Jones: Yeah.

Rayna Neises: it’s so amazing. How he just puts those people in the right place at the right time, and we are those people as caregivers, we are the people that he’s using in other people’s lives to encourage them. Sometimes we don’t even realize how much, what we’re sharing, how we go [00:19:00] out of our way to encourage a caregiver. We just don’t even realize how much of an impact that can have on someone else’s life. So remembering those people who have done that for us and knowing, how God had just those little appointments, he has those same things for you to share with others as well. It’s amazing.

So what would be one thing that you feel like you do to live content, love well, and care without regrets?

Lori Jones: Yeah, and I talk often with people about survivor’s

Rayna Neises: Hmm.

Lori Jones: so I wanna bring that up with you because survivor’s guilt for me was the obstacle me giving back for quite a while. it isn’t a secret. I don’t, you know, make a, a spoiler or spoiler alert. The book is called Spared. I did test gene negative. I tested gene negative in 2004. My father was still alive. We were still caring for him. I made the decision after multiple years and bouts of vacillating between testing and not testing to go [00:20:00] through with testing, receiving the gene negative test result. You would think you’d be over the moon

Rayna Neises: Right.

Lori Jones: And you, you’re free. You and you cannot pass it to children. You, you’re done. It ends right? but then you feel, why me? Why not dad? Why did dad get this and not me? Why did grandma get this and not me? Why do all these other people have this and not me? And then of course, that that guilt. hammers you down, it puts you in this black place.

You feel, I shouldn’t go out and talk about this because I have no seat at that table. I don’t know what those people are experiencing. Who am I? so then you go, then you feel guilty for feeling guilty, it’s ridiculous. We decided to that we should give back. We had already been, been active in the HD community to some extent, but we went the next step to actually set up a fundraiser local in the community.

And so I was going around to the support groups. I was telling people [00:21:00] about the event that was gonna happen. It was a 5K walk/run, those types of things. I left the support group shaken because when I went into it, and I hadn’t gone to many support groups during the whole time I was dealing with dad. When I was there, I saw symptomatic people, caregivers. The whole gamut was in the room and it, I was a little triggered. I left and I said to my husband, I don’t know if I

Rayna Neises: Mm-hmm.

Lori Jones: I don’t even know if I’m supposed to be in that room. I don’t know that I’m supposed to be running this event. I feel inadequate in every way. He said to me, I will never forget. He is very supportive but also very frank. And he said. Lori, if the gene negative people don’t help the gene, positive people who will.

Rayna Neises: Yeah.

Lori Jones: All right. There’s some sense in that.

Rayna Neises: Yeah.

Lori Jones: So I got over myself and we held the event and I’ve continued to go. So you ask, how to live content, love well, and care without regrets. To me, my big monster was [00:22:00] overcoming the survivor’s guilt. It still hits me off and on. I sit on events like this and think there are people who have it so much

Rayna Neises: Mm-hmm.

Lori Jones: There were people two days ago that went to Washington to bring. the FDA, the, the uni cure results and they’re heroes. But what I can do is tell my story

Rayna Neises: Yep.

Lori Jones: and I can cross post and do all the things to support them. Don’t let the survivor’s guilt get in the way of telling your story. Everyone has a piece in the story to share and encourage others, and so that’s where I find my balance. yeah, the gene negative people need to speak. I just recently met with a gentleman who’s gene positive and I told him about the survivor’s guilt and how silly it feels when he is out there as a positive person. And he said, don’t feel that way. Thanks for not dipping out. Thanks for not saying, see you later. So we were able to encourage

Rayna Neises: Yeah.

Lori Jones: That’s what I do now. So as continue to give back, I volunteer my time, I’ll speak anywhere. I never say [00:23:00] no and just share that human struggle with

Rayna Neises: I think one of the things too that is beautiful in that is by being quiet, you would’ve erased your family’s history, and you’re not only.

Lori Jones: you said

Rayna Neises: Sharing your own story, you’re sharing your legacy, their legacy, their journey. That was difficult with all the unknowns, and you’re helping to open people’s eyes to what they don’t know so that their family legacy might look a little different even if it has HD in it.

Lori Jones: I couldn’t agree more. It was when the book was ready to be published. I had obviously the close family members read it. And I had said, is there anything you would omit or add or edit? The goal was to be authentic and yet preserve

Rayna Neises: Right.

Lori Jones: So that was the balance. And so the response from my mom was the best one. She said it was hard to read.

Rayna Neises: Mm-hmm.

Lori Jones: Everything is true. Don’t change anything it [00:24:00] needs to be told.

Rayna Neises: Hmm.

Lori Jones: And so she was very courageous and supportive of the project, which I loved. But with my editor too, the charge to her was, must remain dignified for my

Rayna Neises: Yeah.

Lori Jones: It must remain authentic so that people know it’s all real and all true. And so she helped me with that balance, and it was remarkable. So I was recently at an event and I had a gentleman come up to me.

It was an HD specific event, and he came to my table. I was standing at the table. He came up to me though, and I will never forget it. He said, thank you for your book. I read it. He goes, I felt like you had been looking in our window

Rayna Neises: Mm.

Lori Jones: Thank you for putting into words what happened in my family

Rayna Neises: Mm-hmm.

Lori Jones: And so now I don’t feel alone. I could have hugged him.

Rayna Neises: Yeah.

Lori Jones: I think we did. That made all the difference. That made it, those kinds of interactions that that makes it worth it.

Rayna Neises: It is always hard to keep that respect and dignity at the same time. Like you said, share truth, and

Lori Jones: Yes.

Rayna Neises: [00:25:00] it is a balance that’s so important. But it’s one that also, because we have been brave enough to do that, there are other people that feel seen and, and feel. I’ll never forget my mom.

One day my sister and I had been somewhere, my mom didn’t remember where we were and she was yelling at us, we were in trouble, and she said to us, you are just trying to make me think I’m crazy. And I look back on that now and realize how difficult it was for her to not remember things and how she felt ganged up on.

But at the same time, that’s how I felt. As a teenager with a mom who was telling me I didn’t do what I thought I had done, I really struggled with, I feel crazy because I really, I’m sure I said that. I’m sure I told her that. so much of this struggle is that feeling of who’s the crazy one?

Well, the truth is

Lori Jones: [00:26:00] Mm-hmm.

Rayna Neises: there’s an illness. It’s not necessarily just crazy in the fun sense of it or in just that way that we might say that, but.

Lori Jones: Mm-hmm.

Rayna Neises: It does give us that grounding place to understand that there is something wrong. This isn’t just about feeling crazy or feeling like nobody can understand, and that’s what stories do.

Lori Jones: I call them isolating illnesses because you hunker

Rayna Neises: Yeah.

Lori Jones: in your home and if you do not reach out and get community around you,

Rayna Neises: Mm-hmm.

Lori Jones: you know no different. So you’re just hunkered down in this survival place and it’s, it truly, when I was young, only when I went out and about that I saw. Other families are so much different than mine, and so it’s how do we break through that? How do we get the support we need, especially if we’re young, we know no different and we don’t have language for what’s happening and yeah. What is happening here? It’s not, it’s either me or them. Something’s not right.

Rayna Neises: Exactly.

Exactly. And I think like we said in the beginning of this, is [00:27:00] those symptoms start so much earlier Nobody really is understanding what’s happening. And I know even after my mom’s diagnosis, things didn’t really change in our house. We just kept going. It was like, okay, well, so she has Alzheimer’s, you know, and we just kept moving and

Lori Jones: you’re

Rayna Neises: looking back later, then it’s like, oh well. That should have triggered that. My dad should have understood that my mom wasn’t always telling him the truth instead of that he thought she was. It’s just interesting that even the diagnosis didn’t change the dynamic within our home.

Lori Jones: change the dynamic of a family. You’re in this pattern

Rayna Neises: Yes.

Lori Jones: and it’s pretty ground in

Rayna Neises: Yeah.

Lori Jones: in this

Rayna Neises: Yeah.

Lori Jones: Yeah.

Rayna Neises: And so that can continue to lead to those misunderstandings that can continue to cause those wounds that we aren’t even aware of. And so I think what you shared about just being able to get that understanding at whatever point can bring that healing that we need. So, well, I’m gonna [00:28:00] wrap up our time here. We have one more question. Is there something specific you would like to share with caregivers? Just encouragement or something that you learned that they can walk away with today?

Lori Jones: Yeah, I get asked a lot readers all across, everywhere I go. What would you have done differently? That’s kind of a loaded

Rayna Neises: Yeah.

Lori Jones: I usually answer it this way. I say there were probably a lot of things I could have done differently, but the one thing I know for certain is I would’ve talked about my situation sooner.

Rayna Neises: Hmm.

Lori Jones: I would’ve found someone to talk to because that’s my goal. Now, my goal is to give language to isolating illness, to situations where people are hunkered down. And how you reach out beyond your, your state of isolation is up to you. And today with virtual resources, my goodness, you can go online at any given point. but whether it’s a social worker, a school counselor, a coworker a religious. Person in your community, [00:29:00] whoever you need to go to, just start talking. about what you’re going through. I guarantee you there will be somebody out there who is walking a similar path or know someone who is and will hook you up with them, and all of a sudden you have community

Rayna Neises: Yeah.

Lori Jones: and it’s amazing what community can do to overcome obstacles.

Rayna Neises: Very wise, we don’t have to do this alone. We often think that we do, but we’re actually choosing to, there are support groups. There are so many different things out there, and like you said, just starting the conversation, you’re gonna be amazed at how God’s gonna connect those people that can help to bring you together with someone who can make a big difference, who understands beyond just loving you, but just actually maybe he’s been there or has some professional experience to be able to help.

Wise, wise information. Lori, tell us how we can get your book and stay in touch with you. Learn more about all your speaking events and things.

Lori Jones: Of course, of course. So Lori Jones wrights.com is the website. You can find all of my [00:30:00] connections there. I’m on all the socials as exhausting and lovely as it is. You can find me on Facebook and LinkedIn and Instagram and threads. The book is available online at all, the online retailers. And I do virtual appointments, so I will speak anywhere. If you have a group that needs a speaker, I am happy to share experiences and encouragement to any groups. I do not charge for this. I’ll show up and speak for you. So yeah, check out the website, www,LoriJoneswrights.com.

Rayna Neises: Great. Thank you so much for joining us today, Lori,

Lori Jones: Thank you for having me.

Rayna Neises: and thank you listeners for being here today for Stories of Hope with Lori on A Season of Caring Podcast where there is hope to live content, love well, and care without regrets. If you have legal, medical, or financial questions, be sure to consult your local professionals and take heart in your season of caring.

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*Transcript is an actual recount of the live conversation