Jeni H. - Non Participant

All right. Thank you for joining me today. Can you introduce yourself and tell me a little bit about yourself?

Sure. And thank you for having me. My name is Jenny Hazard. I'm 65 years old. I'm retired. I did retire early from a career in social work, mostly working with youth, and also worked a little bit with domestic violence and sexual assault recovery and prevention. So I've been on disability for about ten years now.

Okay.

And now I'm eligible for regular retirement. I don't know if that will make a difference, but I live here in River west, and I have two dogs and a lot of house plants and a garden. And I do work part time doing, like, cleaning and some caretaking with some elder neighbors. And that's about it.

Yeah. Did you always live in Riverwest, or did you grow up in other parts of Milwaukee?

We moved a lot when I was young, so I lived in several different states. Yeah. But since my own children were born 40 years ago, she'll be 42. So that's how long I've lived in River West. A little over 40 years.

Okay. Okay, cool. What are some of your interests and hobbies? I mean, you said you had a lot of plants.

Yes, plants and outdoor gardening as well. I like to write. I like to draw. I don't think I'm very good at it, but I enjoy it. It's something to do. Yes. Yeah, that's about it. I enjoy history.

I enjoy studying history, and as it gets a little harder to read older, but I can listen to audiobooks and watch a lot of documentaries and such.

Looking back, what are some of your life experiences that have shaped you the most?

Well, I had kind of a chaotic childhood, which I think probably led me to go into youth work when I was a social worker to try and, you know, assist kids who are going through some of the struggles that I had growing up. And I also ended up in a violent relationship, a violent marriage, and I really had to plan years, literally years, to get out safely. And I think that there are certain skills and things that you can pass on to other people that are in those situations that can help them build the strength and the resources that they need to get out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay. Thank you for sharing that. Talking about today, how do you typically spend a day, and are there any routines or hobbies that are particularly important to you?

Well, typically, a lot of my day revolves around my elder dog, and he needs medical care, so I need to make sure his needs are met first thing in the day. I do volunteer at a plant store a couple days a week. So that takes up some time and that's really relaxing and wonderful. And it's helping someone who has a new business to get established.

Oh, this is a new plant store.

Yeah. Well, he's been there a year now in Riverwest, Harambe border, kind of. And I really like to support the local. It sounds trite, but I think it's super important to support our local independent businesses, you know, in this area. And especially as changes happen and, you know, bigger companies come in and buy things off. And we need to maintain our own businesses that people can run and have their own life and create their own life and their own income. I think that's really important.

Yeah, that's great. Okay, now let's talk about your health and well being. How do you manage your health and wellness as you age?

Well, I try to stay active physically and mentally. Some days I do better than others, but I did just get a gym membership. I have the dual insurance that pays for the gym membership. So that's great. And, you know, even if I just go walk on the treadmill, you know, especially in winter, you know, I'm getting moving and keeping moving. And I think that's so important. It affects my mood and everything. It just greatly improves how I feel.

So that's really important to me. And in the summer, I try to be outside a lot.

We gotta make up for all that, Miss Sunlight.

Right? Exactly. Yeah. And so I just think, you know, keeping physically active is important and then keeping your brain active, you know, like I said, I'm really interested in history. And we finally now have access to, let's say, a deeper history than what we were taught in schools, especially in my day. Right. So it's really fascinating for me to learn and to learn, especially through people's stories and what they experience, you know, not what some academic is telling us that they experience, but kind of going off on a tangent. But learning something, learning new things is really important, I think, to keep your brain as sharp as possible. Yeah, that's good.

That's good. Are there specific routines or activities you find beneficial? So I know you said reading or listening to the audio books are beneficial for you, and then I'm assuming gardening.

Very beneficial. Yes.

Was there anything else you wanted to add to?

Um, I do actually play some of those brain games, you know, and crosswords and stuff like that. That, um, I mean, because it really forces you to think and sometimes you, you know, you're learning new words, you're learning new vocabulary and you having to reach into the recesses of the mind when you were younger sometimes, and that's good. You know, your brain needs a workout, too. Yeah, I think that's important.

Yeah. Can you describe any challenges you face in maintaining your health and wellness and how do you overcome them?

Well, money is always an issue. Yeah. It's hard living on a fixed income. Like I said, I do. I am able to work a little bit, you know, to help supplement my income. I think, you know, I pay probably half of what I make in rent, which is totally unreasonable. But I know I'm not alone. I know there's a lot of us out there.

Absolutely.

Or even more, you know, for rent. Until recently, I didn't have a car. I got very lucky to find a car for really cheap and I had money left over from the stimulus. Yeah. So I just said, let's do this while we can. So having adequate transportation is huge, you know, because then you have access to many other things that can help improve your life or, you know, things if you have an interest, you want to go take a class or something, you know, not that we don't have a decent bus system, but the older you get, the harder it is to stand out there in the cold, you know.

Or stand in general in. A lot of these bus stops don't have, like, the little shelters.

Right, right, yeah, exactly. And I would imagine, you know, for people who have mobility issues, that's really a challenge. So I think, you know, access to safe, reliable transportation is huge. Access to affordable housing is huge. These are like two huge, huge issues for aging people. And then healthcare, that's a whole other topic. I feel like I do have. I have really good insurance and I'm really grateful for that.

I know a lot of people don't, but even with the insurance, there's so many restrictions, especially when it's Medicare or Medicaid, where doctors, primary care doctors are given a very limited amount of time to do an assessment on someone and it's not enough time. So I think that a lot of people aren't getting adequate medical care. I feel like I have access to a lot of resources as far as medical care, but I don't feel like when I utilize different medical resources, it's not like a team approach where, you know, you've got your different, you know, different people working together, different specialists working together. I think that's something that we really need to work on in our community. Yeah.

So kind of having that care team wrap around, right?

Yeah, it's kind of an approach. Yeah, yeah.

That makes sense.

Oh, and another thing too, and not so much for myself yet, but a lot of other elders I know, I think that more in home care, you know, like visiting nurses and maybe even visiting nurse practitioners who can do a little more than what they currently are allowed or able to do in homes. I think, like during COVID that was a huge thing. Nobody elderly wants to go out and risk their life by getting on the bus. And, you know, I kept saying we should have people going door to door doing testing, you know, and handing out masks and other supplies and things that can help alleviate the risk. So that's something I feel would be really important.

Yeah. In terms of diet, exercise and mental health, what strategies do you find most effective for staying healthy? Let's start with diet.

Diet. Well, again, gardening is great because you're getting freshen, fresh fruits and vegetables, mostly vegetables in this climate, but we have a lot of great, as, you know, markets. You know, I love the markets. I love the fact that they take quest cards at the markets. I was so happy when they first started doing that. Yeah, that's really big. And budgeting, you know, you gotta budget. Cause you don't get much.

So learning to budget properly and being able plan your meals in a way that like, you know, for the first half of the month you're eating like a queen, and then the second half of the month, you're eating raw like a peasant. Right, right. Yeah, exactly. So you gotta try to balance that out. And that can be challenging for sure.

Especially when you're on a fixed income.

Yeah, you get your food stamp card and you're like, oh, I'm gonna eat good tonight. And then you do that for a few nights and then you realize, aw, now I'm a peasant again.

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Yes, ma'am.

Even though I love peanut butter and.

Jelly sandwich, I do too.

Let's talk about exercise. How do you stay healthy? What strategies do you use?

Well, I do go to the gym. I don't know if it matters which gym. I go to planet fitness at my capital. And they're really wonderful there. I do like them there. And mostly I walk. I just, I love walking, like outside. Yeah, but I walk on the treadmill.

Oh, on the treadmill?

Yeah, so I can get my steps in in the winter. And so I do that and just trying to be outdoors. I just, for me, I feel healthier when I can just get out and be moving and get some fresh air.

Yeah. Let's talk about mental health. What strategies do you use there?

I do have a therapist yeah. And he's pretty helpful. I do reading. Sometimes I'll pick up a book, usually if someone's recommended it to me, especially if I'm dealing with a particular issue. Like now with my mother getting older and her best friend has dementia, and my mom's having a hard time dealing with that. So I'm kind of trying to educate myself on that so I can help support her, because that's a loss. She's going through a loss right now. Even though the person hasn't passed yet, they're not really there anymore, you know? So, you know, again, it's back to learning.

And a lot of, I think some mental health issues are physiological and, you know, diet and exercise and medication can help with that. But a lot of mental health issues are we create in our own mind because maybe we don't understand something and we end up filling in those gaps that we don't know with our worst worries, you know, the worst possible outcomes of. So it's helpful to have a therapist or a friend or maybe even a book that has some important life lessons that can kind of help you have a different perspective on things. I think that helps me a lot anyway.

Yeah, sounds good. Okay, let's talk about staying informed and engaged. Okay. With the amount of information available, how do you stay informed about the world around you? And then are there particular sources or methods you trust?

That's a good one. I watch a few different news sources. I try to read a few different newspapers. I try to get information from different angles because they all have their own perspective. I watch a lot of news.

What channels do you watch?

I tend to watch not the major networks usually. Sometimes I'm SMBC. I like PBS and the local. Why can't I think of it, you know what I'm saying? And democracy now. And I tend towards the more left leaning, I guess they would be considered, but I feel like they also give you a better picture picture of what's going on.

Just in general.

In reality. In general, yeah. Yeah. And sometimes I can get into information overload and I. For my own mental health, I need to take a little break.

Going down rabbit holes. Going down rabbit holes.

Yes. I'm real good at that. So, yeah, sometimes I. But I think I'm pretty good at recognizing what I need to take a little break. Yeah.

Okay. How important is it for you to keep up with current events and why?

It's very important to me. Although like I said, I can get overwhelmed. I just think it's really important to know what's going on in the world. There are a lot of things that we don't think affect us directly, like maybe a war in another country, but it does, it affects supply chains. You know, it's like, why is everything so expensive? Because supply chains are blocked. You just gotta trace back, you know, where did this problem start? And everything really is interconnected and it's really important to see how those connections work or don't work on a global scale as well as a local scale. That's super important to me.

Yeah. What about like local, local news?

Yeah, I probably have been kind of slacking in that area more, so. I don't know, probably because I get overwhelmed with the bigger picture. Yeah. And I don't, I need to find some good local news sources. I think sometimes it's hard to find a good reliable news source. Sometimes I depend on friends that I know who are still working in fields like social work or, you know, maybe legal assistance and things like that, and they might have a little more knowledge about what's going on locally.

That makes sense. How do you feel about using technology to access news and information? Do you find it easy or challenging?

For me, I find it easy.

Okay.

Yeah, I do. But I do know, you know, I think my generation was the last one to grow up without any Internet, you know, until we were fully adults. Right. And I think for older people, it's really, really challenging to cross that line into, you know, using, you know, the. Just, even just browsing the Internet and finding what they want to find. But I think it's extremely important. To me, it's, it's a miracle because I saw it happen, I saw it evolve, and it's like it has opened so many doors, and you have the opportunity to talk to people from other countries and not just hear secondhand, you know, oh, Norway has this great health system or whatever.

You can talk to someone.

Right, right. And to me, that's just amazing. And I love it. I think it's great.

For sure. For sure. Let's talk about interest in evidence based programs. So you remember what we talked about, right? Have you ever participated in any structured programs or classes focused on health and wellness?

Probably not recently, no.

What about ever?

When I was working, we did some things that were, you know, they were like, you had to do your yearly trainings and things, you know, but I can't hardly count those. They're not usually great.

Okay. Okay. Evidence based programs can offer structured ways to improve health and wellness over an eight week period. Okay. What are your initial thoughts on joining such a program, what would make you interested or not interested in participating?

Possibly, yeah, I think it would depend on the. I guess on the focus. I mean, is it that you're talking about pretty holistic kind of idea, like, just general?

In general? Well, so some of the programs are really specific. Like, for example, for the diabetes management. Right. Okay, so some of them are really specific. Some of them might be. I don't want to say general health, but it might be something around diet and nutrition. Like, it might be something around fall prevention.

Right.

So all of that aside, just in general, what are your thoughts about joining an eight week program on health and wellness?

I think it could be helpful, for sure. Especially diet and nutrition is an area that gets overlooked a lot, and I don't think our doctors and our medical professionals take that into consideration enough. And even though I think I do eat pretty healthy, and I was raised to eat pretty healthy, they're always learning more about how different foods interact, you know, together and what foods have what amino acids that are good for this or that. I mean, there's a lot of scientific knowledge now about diet and how it affects people. And so something like that would be really interesting to me, actually, and probably really helpful.

What would make you disinterested in enjoying a program like that?

I have a little bit of social anxiety, so, yeah, it's a little hard to get started, but usually once I get my foot in the door, then I'm okay.

Okay. Understanding that these programs require a weekly commitment, what potential barriers could make participation difficult for you?

For me, I can't really think of any as long as my cheap car keeps running. Motivation. Sometimes I have a hard time with motivation, but I've kind of been working on that. But for me personally, I don't think there's any really realistic barriers other than my own, my own hesitancy.

Well, what would incentivize you to do a program like that?

For me personally, if I knew somebody else that was doing it, like, if I had, like, the buddy system that works well, for me personally, that would help. Yeah, definitely. Cash rewards are always good. There's some kind of a reward. I guess they are something, you know, in addition to the knowledge and experience that you're getting out of it. That's always cool, too.

Yeah, it is cool.

I mean, it's realistically, bottom line, we all need it, right? Right.

Okay. Well, Miss Jenny, that is all that I have for you today. I appreciate you coming through.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Thank you.

All right.