Why Nikki Gemmell is having the hard conversations now
Author and columnist Nikki Gemmell has never shied away from the hard conversations — and in this powerful episode of Agehood, she turns her lens inward.
Nikki opens up about the painful, unresolved grief of losing her mother by suicide, and the emotional aftermath of not being part of her end-of-life experience. She shares the guilt she still carries, how that moment reshaped her thinking around death, and why she’s determined to approach her own aging differently.
She also reflects on her experience supporting her father through the slow, confronting process of aging — and how witnessing his decline brought clarity about the kind of care, dignity, and control she wants for herself and her loved ones.
This is a conversation about control, courage, and care — and why planning for the end is one of the most radical acts of love.
Just a heads up, this episode deals with the topic of suicide. If you or someone you love needs help call Lifeline on 13 11 14
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If you’re caring for aging parents, navigating your own next chapter, or just trying to keep all the balls in the air—you’re not alone. At Violet, we offer free tools and support to help families navigate the last stage of life with care and confidence. Visit violet.org.au to start the conversation.
CREDITS
Host: Melissa Reader
With thanks to Nikki Gemmell
Executive Producer: Lize Ratliff
Find out more about Violet at violet.org.au
Agehood is the podcast that finally says what we're all thinking but rarely saying out loud. Hosted by Melissa Reader, CEO of Violet, we have the conversations that matter most: watching our parents age, being everyone's go-to person, the mess of love and duty, what it really takes to care for those we love, and yes, death, dying, and loss.
You'll hear Australia's most trusted voices, from beloved broadcasters to respected experts, vulnerably sharing their own stories alongside practical guidance that actually helps. This isn't about having all the answers—it's about asking the right questions and knowing you're not alone.
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Transcript
Foreign.
Hi, I'm Melissa Reeder and welcome to Agehood, the podcast for us midlifers who are quietly carrying it all. Aging parents, adult kids, our work, relationships, finances and our own next chapter. If this sounds like you, well, you are in your age hood, and it's time we talked about it. Nikki Gemmell has made a career out of writing the things that are often left unsaid, shining a light into the private, complicated corners of life. In this conversation, she opens up about one of her most deeply personal chapters. In 2017, Nikki published after a memoir written in the wake of her mother Elaine's decision to end her life after spiralling into unmanaged chronic pain and addiction. And then, just a few years later, Nicky and her siblings were thrust into another caregiving role, this time for her beloved father, whose death from lung cancer played out in a really different way. We talk about grief, guilt, caregiving and why so few of us feel in any way prepared for this stage of life, especially when the system just keeps pushing us towards rushed decisions in hospital corridors when we're stressed and we're at our most vulnerable, rather than meaningful conversations around our kitchen tables. If you've ever felt stretched too thin, held too much or wondered how to make space for the hard conversations with the people that you love, this one is for you. Age Hood is brought to you by Wellways Carer Gateway, an incredible organisation offering free counselling, carer coaching and peer support to people in the community who are supporting a family member or a friend with a disability, a medical condition, mental illness or maybe frail and elderly due to age. Just call 1-800-422737 or visit wellways.org CarerGateway Sad Men is the unexpected burden of endless bureaucracy during times of deep grief. Wills are important, but they don't give critical information like passwords, bank accounts and bills. For that, you need a letter of wishes from today's sponsor. Bill will go to billwill.com for a simple and secure way to reduce stress for your loved ones, share your values and preserve your voice. This episode deals with the topic of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, please Contact Lifeline on 1-3-double-114.
Nikki Gamble welcome to Age Hood. It is so lovely to have you on the show with me today. Can I go back to the years before your mum's death where you had four little kids?
They were a lot younger, they probably needed you a lot more.
Classic sandwich generation story. Tell me a bit about what life was like for you at that stage. How are you juggling everything when you had parents that, that needed you?
Well, in the years before my mum's death, yes. I had four kids. I've got four kids. My oldest was in year nine and my youngest was still a toddler. And I was juggling full time, really work, even though I work from home, so it kind of appears to a lot of people. And Mum too, at the time, she didn't realize how hard it was to keep everything going and to keep all the balls juggling in the air. I have an incredibly supportive partner, which was the greatest gift of my life. You know, he still does the school lunches for me. He does a lot of the cooking. You know, just makes it easier. But back then, I can remember, you know, financially we were more stretched than what we are now, which creates a huge kind of. It's like this big thumbprint of pressure, you know, as much as any. Anything you're juggling to get your kids off to school, to keep everyone sane and happy and, and all the rest of it. So there was a lot going on. I was also traveling a bit. I still am traveling a bit with work. So that's always a huge juggle, leaving those four kids behind and you. The essay that I'd have to give to my partner before I left of, you know, who needs to be at what soccer practice, when and what time and what school notes need to be signed and just all that kind of stuff as I was trying to maintain my own career. My dad, at that stage, he was elderly himself, but he was a great blessing. Sometimes when I traveled for work, he would just move in, he would come and stay for the week or whatever and just to help and be that full time carer for the kids. And because my husband Andy, he would be, you know, away for work himself, you know, traveling every day, commuting. And dad could be at home because we did have the toddler in childcare, but not every day of the week. Cause we couldn't afford that. So there was a lot going on. I feel that so much, much back in those days we had three at school and one as a toddler. So it's, it's, it was big. It was big.
And when I was watching Australian Story, the episode you did a few years ago, you said, oh gosh, you know, I hate to say this, but Mum came sixth in my world at that stage because you had your husband and, and like, I just think that just sums it up perfectly, right? Hard to say out loud, but so true. How did, how did you Juggle it all.
Well, you kind of go quietly mad and you're very exhausted and you wonder how you'll ever get to the end of it. And you just get the feeling no one understands really, the incredible amount of pressure that you're under. I feel like my life's much calmer and smoother now. I'm somewhat out the other side. But just last week I had a really stressful work job and I could just, I. I could feel the cortisol kind of the clench in my body, the rest levels from it, and it was like, wow, back in those days, I, I existed like that all the time.
You're seeing this kind of sandwich generation situation in, in some of your friendship groups, even your work.
Yes. And, and you know, we've got teenagers and with all the hormonal huge changes going on with them, you know, we have to give them leeway. And I completely understand their, their world are turning upside down. You just want to be there to support them. I think the ultimate goal for me in life is just to have happy kids. You know, I kind of don't care now what they end up doing in life as well, as long as they're just happy. And you know, you're always trying to just keep everything on an even keel and then at the same time you're thinking about, you know, the needs of your elderly parents, which become huger as time goes on. My beautiful mom, she decided to end it before it became hard for any of us, which I feel in a way was like womanly selflessness. She didn't want to be a burden on anyone. My beautiful dad, you know, towards the end I was changing his nappies and you know, that's, that's just like, that's, that's the circle of life, you know, I, I just thought, well, he did it for me once, I do it for him, you know, and. And I just kind of stopped changing the nappies of my toddler boy, my youngest boy. So, you know, it's just like, it's the endless, the endless cycle of what we do as women, you know, we are pleasers, we are givers. Of course we do it. It's hard. You know, I, I used to, when I pre children and pre all of this existence, I used to write my novels until midnight, you know. Oh God, give me a 90 in bedtime because I'm just gathered, you know, I just, if I have to go out more than like once a week, it's like I just can't do it. I'm. I'm too tired. You know, the crazy world around me just demands a quiet life, which of.
Course is hard with kids, really hard.
And work.
Nikki, can we go back to your mum's story a little more and, you know, tell me a little bit about what her final years were like? Are you happy to talk to that a bit?
Oh, sure. It was really. Look, she. She was amazing, Mum. She. I'm just looking at her photo now. So, Elaine, incredibly glamorous. She was the mistress of reinvention. She was born in Cessnock to a working class coal mining family. She left school at 16 because that's what you were meant to do in Cessnock back in the day. And she was just meant to marry a coal miner and live in the suburbs and have her babies. And that's exactly what she did. And then she got divorced from my coal miner dad when I was about 10, 11, and reinvented herself. And it was the most incredible journey. She ended up, she moved to Sydney. She ended up working at the old telecom, you know, Telstra now, but she worked in the corporate headquarters in Sydney. She. She was a very impressive one. But during her Cessnock days as a teenager, she'd been a dancer, she'd loved her ballet and she thinks she ruined her feet from that. In the last year of her life, it was the January of the last year of her life, she had an operation on her foot because she had a lot of pain in her foot. And I remember going to the hospital here in Sydney and she was as high as a kite after that operation. And what I didn't realize at the time was she was as high as a kite because she'd been given oxycontin for the first time in her life. So she came home in incredible pain from this foot operation with a prescription for OxyContin. And she loved that drug. And it's the most insidious, cruel drug in terms of addiction. So she suicided nine months later in October or ten months later, October of that year. And she had a spiral from that operation in the January of that year. She just completely spiraled. The opera, the foot operation. She was 79, 78 at the time, and then turned 79. It didn't work. I was furious at the surgeon. Anyway, she was in a lot of pain. It traveled up from her foot up through her thigh into her pelvis. And basically for Mum, she suddenly was living with chronic pain and she didn't investigate how to try and combat that. She just dialed up the OxyContin situation. She was doctor shopping all over the region to get more and more of the drug. And as I discovered, you know, it wears off. Its efficacy wears off, and so she had to get more and more of it. I wrote about all of this in my book after, because when she suicided, I didn't understand what had happened. It was the most enormous mess of a shock. You know, this beautiful, beautiful woman who'd been a model, just. Just gorgeous, just gorgeous and lovely, a lovely personality. But she was not telling us about the agony that she was going through with her chronic pain. So I wrote my book after to understand, really, and from that I found out, you know, I did my research on OxyContin and found out all about it and. And angry to this day in terms of the pharmaceutical company that supplies it and all the rest of it. But that's another story. So that. That, in a nutshell, is basically my mum's story. That drug in. In October of that year, in a very lonely death, but possibly an empowered death. She. She wanted to do that. It was her will. She didn't leave a suicide note, but, yeah, that's what she did.
Had you and your mum ever talked about the kind of later stages of her life? Did you have any conversations around that before her surgery or after? Did it ever come up?
Oh, yes, all the time. I mean, the absolute agony and the pain and the despair of the chronic pain. We talked about it all the time because I can remember just sometimes her weeping, so weeping. Pain and the despair and the helplessness and the hopelessness of Nikki. I can't make this stop. I can't make the pain go away. I don't know what to do. We also talked about a sister dying. She was a great supporter of it. And it should be noted that this was 2015, so this was before any legislation had been passed in Australia to make assisted dying legal. So what Mum was doing was illegal. She was a great, great supporter of Philip Nitschke. She bought his handbook, she attended his forums. She asked me to go along with her sometimes and I didn't want to. I didn't want to enter that world. I feel guilty now that I didn't accompany her more in terms of what she wanted to do. But in those days, pre assisted dying legislation, I think she felt trapped and there was no way she could not make the chronic pain go away. She did not want to live with it. She did not want to end up in a nursing home. She'd made that very clear to me and my siblings. And I think she Just felt this was the best solution, that, you know, she wouldn't be a burden on anyone if she just quietly went herself. What she couldn't have anticipated was by doing that, by suiciding the absolute mess that it created for my family and for my kids, you know, trying to explain that to young kids that Nonna, their beloved Nonna, who they adored, has left us and she left us suddenly without any explanation, you know, trying to pick up the pieces from that over the years following. It's. It. It's been really hard. It was just. It was. I think if she had realized the mess that left behind, she never would have done it. But it is what it is. Yeah. And.
And you've said how independent she was, you know, how much agency is she wanted to have throughout her life. So you can understand when she was managing levels of chronic pain that were beyond manageable.
Yeah.
You know, that she. She wanted to have agency over. Over that, that phase, I guess, that chapter. But, gosh, must have been a lot for you as her daughter and. And for your kids, because the police arrived at your door, didn't they, after. Yeah, that's how it happened.
Yeah. That's what having her bathroom renovated. And that was another thing that really pissed me off. Excuse my language, but you know, those tradies, you can just see it from their perspective. They just said, oh, little old lady, we'll just come and go, you know, at the end of her life, she was showering at our place. We don't live too far or what. We didn't live too far away from her because the tradies had basically turned up, ripped out all her fittings and not put anything back so that she did not. I think she had a toilet to use and she wash her hands in the laundry sink and, you know, brush her teeth in the laundry sink, but she didn't have a shower or a bath to wash herself because the tradies would get another job and they'd go off to that. And this was going on for months, so I think knew exactly what she was doing. And the night that she chose to leave us, the tradies were due to come the next morning. They had a key to continue with their work. They hadn't been there for a couple of weeks and they let themselves in and they were the ones who found Mum. So I think that that was a final kind of up yours to them of, you know, you have driven me to absolute despair. It's like they just did not see her as an elderly woman, just did not See how difficult they'd made it for her. It did not meet their needs. And so basically the tradies found her in the lounge room with the telly still on and the pill box of OxyContin next to her. And she was just sitting there in her armchair in front of the television. She was dead. And that became a police investigation. And so an hour or so after she was found, I had two police officers knocking on my door, not only telling me that my mother had died, but kind of inferring, wanting to know where she got the oxycontin from, had I supplied it. And I can remember going, what, what, what's Oxycontin? I, I, that stage in my ignorance, I had no idea what it was. This was 2015, so, you know, 10 years ago, actually a decade ago. So it, I just found it just so discombobulating and shocking. And so that's why I wanted to write about it, because it was like they seem to think I've had something to do with this, that I've somehow aided Mum in this whole thing. Mum knew through all her reading with Philip Nitschke that, you know, back in those days, if you assist someone to die, you could be, you know, implicated. Yeah. You know, so she was, I think that was her being very, very careful with all her three children. She did not tell us what she was doing to save us and protect us. So it was just a very complicated situation all around.
And it's 10 years this year. Is it since your mum died?
Gosh.
I mean, it's big, isn't it, to reflect back on that now we have a sister dying legislated in majority of states and territories. It's, it's progress and I would say.
Just having gone through it, in a way, involve your family, you know, it's just so hard, I think you have to involve your family, but it's so hard to just do it secretly. It's hard for all of them.
Well, maybe, maybe I can ask you that in a slightly different kind of broad way. So given all of that experience with your mum and also what you've kind of talked about a bit with your dad, do you think there are bigger conversations that we should be having between the sandwich generation and their parents and their in laws about this stage of life?
Oh, look, absolutely. And I think very much in terms of nursing homes. Neither of my parents ended up in nursing homes and I know they would have been hugely relieved about that. They were both of them absolutely dreading that situation. My dad, he he died from lung cancer at 86, so he ended up in palliative care. And that was another horrendous, just heartbreaking story in itself. Very different to mums. Um, but, you know, I've had grandparents who ended up in nursing homes. One of my grandmothers skipped in, there was as happy as Larry found these beautiful nursing staff who, you know, put makeup on her and they'd sing karaoke songs together. And she had an absolute ball in the last, like, eight months of her life. And it was a good nursing home. And my other grandmother, she just did not want to leave her beautiful little flat, her world that she created. And in the end, she had to go into a nursing home. And I just feel like there could have been more of a conversation there. So it's just hard.
So, yeah, but we got it. We've got to have the courage for those conversations, I think. I often think about birth and birth planning, and, you know, most people would have some version of a birth plan now, and it'd also be pretty reasonable that. That that might have to change because.
Things may play out differently to what.
We hope or even expect. But we just aren't having these conversations, and we aren't creating any kind of meaningful plan together for this whole life stage. Yes, it's about time we did.
I think it's a great idea. And I also think, you know, doctors should be involved, too, because in both of my grandmother's cases, it was really the medical system telling us, as the children and grandchildren of these wonderful women, that we. They could not stay at home anymore, despite, in one case, you know, my grandmother going, no, I can do it. I can do it. And doctors saying, no, no, you can't. You have to stop going to hospital for constipation. You know, then we have to stop this. Just. You have to go into a nursing home. You can't look after yourself anymore. And she had carers coming in to help her. And it was really the medical profession, the hospital. I can remember we had to go into a roundtable at a hospital for her, for the doctors, kind of telling us what we had to do as the relatives of this woman without her being in the room. And I feel like we were kind of railroaded into a nursing home situation because the hospital didn't have the beds or didn't want to look after this elderly woman anymore themselves. And it just felt. It just felt off to me. So, yes, I just feel like we need to talk more. But I think, you know, it's an excellent idea in terms of having. We have birth plans. We've all had that as mothers. You know, I know my mother had do not resuscitate a situation with herself. I think it's really good to have an end of life plan and to be able to talk about that with our elderly relatives before the stage is reached where we have others around us making the decisions for us.
That's right before we're making those really rushed and panicked life altering decisions in hospital corridors.
Yes.
How do we bring that back to the kitchen table where we've got time and space and love and familiarity to talk about this whole chapter of life?
Exactly.
Because, you know, the overwhelming majority of people want to be at home for as long as they can be. But you know, there's a circle here because that then goes back to the carers of those people. What does that look like for that sandwich generation? How do we get real about what's involved and how possible that might be.
For a family to come together for.
A person in that chapter?
I was very lucky because I have great brothers. It wasn't a gendered thing with me. So it wasn't that the burden was left just on the daughter or the granddaughter. I have wonderful brothers who both stepped up in, in all those instances with dad, with mum, and my two grandmothers too, so. But I know there are others who feel like, particularly as women, that they're just burdened with the lot.
Coming up, Nikki talks about caring for her father during his final months. And the reality of, of helping someone who needs to be in hospital maybe, but does not want to be. Season one of agehood is brought to you by Wellways Carer Gateway. Dad's fallen again. The kids won't listen. Your boss is really losing patience. And that voice in your head is saying, you're failing everyone. Hey, you're not. You're human and you don't have to do this alone. Wellways Carer Gateway, know that caring for someone that you love, it can be really tough, whether they have a disability, a mental illness, or being elderly and frail. And Wellways are offering free counseling, coaching and peer support because you just shouldn't have to do this alone. Call 1-800-422-2737 or visit wellways.orgcarergateway and find the support that's really right for you. If you're out there caring for someone that you love and you need more help with this chapter of life, you can also access Violet's support programs. They are fully funded through the Wellways Carer Gateway.
Has Your experience with your mum and your dad changed the way you think about your aging and the way that, you know, you might talk about that chapter of life with your children.
Oh, look, it's made me just want to seize life, really. You know, both my parents were such vivid livers, and it was heartbreaking for both of them towards the end of their lives that they couldn't stride out into the world. They both had an intense curiosity about other people and places which kept them young. And I think, you know, physically, both their bodies gave up on them, and there was a rage at the fact that they couldn't control the physical symptoms of aging. So for me, looking at that, it's like, I just want to seize life as much as I can between now and before I become incapacitated. You know, we've got a jokey situation, my husband and I, with our kids. Now. It's like, oh, they'll put us in the nursing home. Ah, which one will do it out of the four of them? You know, I mean, all of that. But I know we will try and hold on to our independence for as long as we can.
Yeah, it's what most of us want, isn't it?
Yeah. I've just started pickleball, and it's with an older cohort of people. And it's like, oh, my God, the personalities in that. I'm playing with a school friend, so we're like the youngest there in our 50s, and we just think what it's like being in a nursing home. Prickly characters and the aggressive characters, and there's some lovely people, too, but it's forced to live with these people and these personalities. It's just like for both of us, all we can see is the horror. The horror. I shouldn't say that, but, you know, I. I hope it's a long way off for me.
Of course. Was your dad at home for a long time with his illness? Like, how did that work for the.
Family for nursing home? He. Towards the end of his life, he'd. His second marriage had disintegrated. My mum was his first wife. So he ended up the last couple of years of his life just going from child to child and staying with a lot of us, not all of them, but certainly probably about four or five of us that I can think of. Out of his seven kids through two marriages, and he didn't realize he's old. Coal miner, never smoked in his life. We think it was the black dust, you know, through a lifetime of coal mining, he was diagnosed very late in his life. I think it was really only in the last year of his life. It was like August, September of the year he died. He went in for some chemo at the Martyr. I remember taking him to it. I used to drive up from Sydney to Newcastle to take him to his appointments. And he was told he had something with his part during that round of chemo and that he would have to stay in hospital. And I think that was a mistake. From that point, the hospital didn't want him to go. And basically, five or six weeks later, after really aggressive radiotherapy combined with chemotherapy, we just saw him deteriorate so heartbreakingly. And the last slight five days of his life, he ended up in a hospice and a palliative care unit. It was great. You know, it was during COVID though, so there was a lot.
Oh, gosh, so complicated. Nikki, you've talked about your experience with your dad, where he had was a, you know, incurable cancer and he was really told he had to stay in hospital for five or six weeks right towards the end of his life, which I just don't think is ideal in that situation where he wanted to be at home and there was nothing beneficial to be gained from him being in hospital. Tell me a little bit about what that might have looked like if, you know, the clinical team might have had conversations with you and your family about his options, the potential to bring him home and how that might have been shared with your siblings.
Look, you know, I think in hindsight we should have pushed back on the hospital. You know, they were. I can remember going into, like a side room with this young doctor who was. He felt like he was in his late 20s or something. And here I was, a woman in my 50s, being kind of quite sternly told, he has to stay in hospital, this is the only option. It felt really brutal and like they were just determined to do it their way. And it was like. I kept on thinking, but really is radiotherapy, you know, with this elderly man in his mid-80s, he's so frail as it is. It feels just so tough and brittle. In hindsight, I think I should have pushed back against that young doctor who was just ticking boxes, ticking people off a list. And I didn't. But I also know I would have had, you know, six bewildered kids going, well, we need to listen to the hospital. He's all my other siblings and all that kind of thing. But in hindsight, I think we could have given Dad a joyous end of life by bringing him home surround, putting him in a, you know, a Lovely comfortable bed, feeding him ice cream and all that disgusting stuff. You know, he was diabetic at the end, but he loved his ice cream and, you know, who cares towards the end anyway, and just giving him just fun and just wonderful, rather than being stuck on a ward with all these people and big fluorescent lights, you know, in a place you couldn't open the windows. I just feel like we could have done it differently and better with dad, but we had the weight of a kind of impersonal, indifferent medical system bearing down on us. We didn't have, as children, we didn't have the medical knowledge to push back on that. But, you know, my brother Paul and I, we just think his life, his death, was accelerated by going into hospital. We just think he could have just ambled along, keeping on, keeping on the way he had been, and it was really just the medical process suddenly speeding, speeding up the death. I mean, I say this with no medical knowledge whatsoever. That is just our gut feeling. But Dad's death was a brutal death in a different way to Mum's. But they were both horrendous and just completely heartbreaking as the children, to have to endure that with both of them because they were both just dearly loved.
Nikki, I don't think it is about medicine. I think it's about people and people's choices and preferences and where they want to be for that very precious chapter where time is actually the most precious thing, you know?
Yes. And.
And that's the whole point here. How can we have those conversations and look at the options and build a plan together? So I'm right there with you. You know, when I was caring for my first husband with cancer, he just went through a ton of treatments that he should never have had. He should have been at home with his three little kids and his wife showering him with love and making memories, but he was having ridiculous interventions that actually cost a ton of money, by the way, to the health system, to no benefit. So the whole premise here is how do we gently accept and acknowledge when people are entering the last chapter of their lives and talk about it and actually have a meaningful plan that gives them and all of us the best experience that we can possibly have.
Exactly. And I would also say I'd make a demarcation here between the general hospital and the palliative care unit. Yes, I would too.
It's a really good point.
Yes. As soon as dad went into the palliative care unit, we suddenly felt like, oh, God, I'll cry that he was cancer and that People saw it happen really late.
It's often really late.
It was too late. But the people saw him as an individual. And, you know, I took up my. My kids, they. They let us bring the dog in. We had the dog on the bed with him. My dog Chloe, that Dad just adored. You know, my kids were with him all day singing songs to him on the ukulele. And there was a wonderful, like, counselor who saw, you know, that I had a toddler and I had a. I think was seven. My daughter. And, you know, she got them draw. She said, let's decorate this room. And she got them drawing love hearts and notes to grandfather Bob, they called him. And she stuck them all over the walls. So he was basically surrounded by love. And it's like, finally he was honored. He wasn't honored in the general hospital system. And we certainly had been at home through those last, I don't know, five, six weeks of his life. We would have honored him the whole time and given him the most beautiful death.
Of course. Of course. And, yeah, palliative care is best for everyone, but the reality is only about 40% of people get access to PAL care, and most of them get it in those last days or even hours.
Yes. Yeah. And then in the last day or so, he was slipping in and out of unconsciousness and then was completely. So. Yeah.
But I'm really glad that you had that experience and had a great healthcare.
Team wrapped around you.
Yeah, shut up. Palliative care team at the MARTA hospital in Newcastle. They were great.
Beautiful. Hey, thank you for taking the time. I know it's not always easy to go back into those really tough stories and chapters, so I'm really grateful for you doing this with me, and I hope, like, we can help others.
Yeah, exactly.
Who are in this now or who have it ahead of them.
Yeah, look. Thank you. That was a really rich conversation. I felt.
You can read Nicky's book after by following the link in our show notes. At Violet, we believe that this chapter of the life, the last stages of life, deserves the same care, the same planning, the same attention as every other life milestone. It's why we're providing support and guidance and tools for people like you, for families like yours, so that no one has to face this stage of life unprepared or unsupported. If you'd like, help making a plan for this chapter of life, help starting important conversations, maybe ones you've been putting off for a little while or simply you just need a bit of help, feeling less overwhelmed. Head to violet.org au and you can find lots of things there to help you. And if this episode really, you know, touched a chord, please share it with someone who might need to hear this story story too. We'd love you to follow Agehood. Leave us a review and please join us again next week where we chat to Dr. Catherine Mannix. She is arguably the UK's leading voice about this stage of life and we have a really important conversation around why we need to talk about the end of life.
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If any of today's topics brought up difficult feelings for you or you need some help with this chapter of life, Violet is here to help you with free phone chats to connect you with the right support. One on one support programs from trained Violet guides help with care, emotions and having those important conversations as well as online tools for healthcare wishes and decisions. And remember, you don't have to figure this out alone so startwithviolet.org AU Today's episode of Agehood was brought to you by Wellways Carer Gateway. They're offering free counseling, carer coaching and peer group sessions to people out in the community who are supporting family member or a friend with a disability, a medical condition, a mental illness, or who is maybe frail due to age. And this is all provided by an incredibly caring team team who understand what you're going through. You don't have to do this alone. Just call 1-800-422737 or visit wellways.org carergateway this episode of Agehood was brought to you by Bilwill Sadmen is an unpleasant, often unexpected burden during times of deep grief and lightening that burden for those closest to you with a letter of wishes from Bill with Will is really an act of love. Help navigate the tangle of passwords, the bank accounts, the bills and more, all while expressing your personal preferences. Reduce stress for your loved ones, share your values and preserve your voice@billwill.com au.