Care and Feeding | Slate's parenting show - Introducing Cared For: "There's no perfect caregiver."
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3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 9 July 2026
⏱️ 31 minutes
🔗️ Recording | Apple Podcasts | RSS
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Summary
More than one in five Americans are family caregivers. And this work, even under the most supportive conditions, can be really intense. This week, Kelli's offering strategies for family caregiving, in community. Because wherever you're at—in a waiting room, on hold with the insurance company, or making another pot of coffee after another night of lost sleep—you don't have to tackle this responsibility alone.
Cared For is executive produced and hosted by Kelli Dunham.
It’s executive produced by Erica Getto and Myrriah Gossett for Good Get, in collaboration with PRX.
For more resources, and to join the conversation, head to kellidunham.substack.com or @caredforpodcast on Instagram.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, care and feeding listeners. I'm Kelly Dunham. I'm a nurse, comedian, and ex-Nun. |
| 0:04.3 | And I'm so excited to share a special episode of my show Cared For, where we take on different aspects of caregiving. |
| 0:10.7 | From the big stuff, like aging and grief, to the stuff that can feel big when we try and tackle it on our own. |
| 0:16.7 | Today, I want to welcome you into our care circle with an episode about how there is no perfect caregiver. |
| 0:22.1 | Enjoy. |
| 0:23.6 | In, it was probably 2006, I had been taking care of my partner, Heather, who had ovarian cancer. |
| 0:31.2 | She was not really into me doing a lot of problem solving. |
| 0:34.9 | You know, I called her my queen, and that was the agreement. |
| 0:37.5 | You know, she was the queen of the relationship. |
| 0:39.7 | At some point, she made me take a marker and write on the back of my hand, |
| 0:43.7 | quit problem solving, which just made lots of interactions with, like, CVS clerks, |
| 0:48.9 | very awkward, you know, when you have that written on your hand. |
| 0:51.5 | But I wasn't quite getting it. |
| 0:53.6 | And so at some point, she was |
| 0:55.4 | taking methadone for pain management. And so her respirations were getting really, really low. |
| 1:02.6 | And so I was tiptoeing in to check on her like every 30 seconds, you know, and she was really |
| 1:07.9 | getting annoyed with it. And so later in the evening, I walked in, and she was not breathing at all. |
| 1:16.0 | And I, like, jumped on the bed and I was like, oh, my God, Heather, my queen, my queen, |
| 1:18.7 | what's going on? |
| 1:19.2 | Oh, my God, oh, my God. |
| 1:20.2 | And then she burst out laughing as she had been holding her breath to scare me into not |
| 1:25.9 | checking on her. |
... |
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