My name is Melissa and my mother has been in Assisted living facilities in Colorado for the past 15 years. She is going to be 90 years old in May 2024,and my story is a travesty and perfect example of why reform is desperately needed. I am 57-years old and because of our experience in the past 3.5 years I have made the decision to go to law school and specialize in Elder Law. I am so disappointed in the way our elderly are treated. And I’m going to be in her position sooner rather than later so I’m determined to help bring about some much needed change in the way we care for our elders and what facilities are not allowed to do. So here’s some highlights of what my story includes. If you want my full story please let me know. It’s worth the read.

My story about my journey with my mother starts in Colorado approx 3.5 years ago. I stated earlier she has been assisted living for 25/years after being run over by a van in a parking lot on her way to an AA meeting. She was working out 3x a week, roller blading and once the accident happened, breaking her hip and the drs fracturing her femur hammering in too large of a rod and not realizing it until I ordered an xray on Christmas Eve after fighting with the facility to get one performed and demanding the resident Dr., be on site by the time I arrived from Lakewood with them to get her to the hospital instead of bedrest until after Christmas and just Ambo cab it to her doctors office I mean it was ridiculous, but then she fell out of her shoes, turning her blinds at her house, and that’s when my brother and I had put up her house up for sale and put her in assisted-living so she could be monitored and then in the assisted-living facility they didn’t keep an eye on her and she got impacted a couple months after being there and so they sent her to the hospital to the emergency room and when I went saw her there, they released her and the facility wouldn’t come pick us up when come pick her up they said that they didn’t have any type of protocol and place to get the residence home after 6 o’clock if they’re at the hospital and I said you’re telling me that I pay $8000 a month and you can’t even get my mother home from the hospital which is right across the highway and they said yup and I was fit to be tied and I said OK I’m gonna bring her in my car and she’s going to the bathroom in my car so you better have a wheelchair ready and somebody to help me bathe her because I can’t do it. I’m just not that kind of a person so they better be waiting for me when I got when I get there and like I said, it was just cross the highway. I rolled up and nobody was there. They were all of the caregivers were sitting around talking to each other, and it was a glass door, and it was locked I was so mad and so they saw me and they sign. Oh yeah, I forgot and they got on the radio to get me a wheelchair and come unlock the door and that was a nightmare because if I could do that I would be caregiver, but I can’t do that kind of stuff. I’m not that kind of person
That’s why it was being $8000 a month. I noticed that her medication’s were not right and they were running meds out to people in the parking lot. They would come and pick her up and not even asking who they were and they were running narcotics out there so I brought this to the attention of the corporate office and they paid me $10,000 to go away and I accepted it and I regretted every day since and this was 15 years ago because all I could think about was all the people I was leaving behind, we don’t have advocates And that started our journey the next place we took her to. She was up for 10 years seven years and I became more involved in her care than I had been and my brother had been doing it and again I started noticing these medication issues, so I started collecting Namar and narcotic count sheets because of my experience at the other place my brother just wasn’t paying attention because it’s inconvenient and so sure enough I could I created a spreadsheet and I could see when her medication‘s were going missing and who was taking them by drawing correlations from my spreadsheet and I told my brother I said that’s it. We’re moving her and I contacted the district attorney and then we had instead of going into this detail I’ll just tell you 120 of her OxyContin went missing they were stolen the executive Director told us and I said well I called the pharmacy and I can tell you who signed for the medication and I can tell you exactly who took it. Here’s my spreadsheet I’ve been working on and she said oh it looks like you put a lot of working into it but yeah, no I don’t need to see that And so the district attorney looked up and said no there was no police report filed. She said that there was he said no she didn’t file one he said, but there is one in here for elder abuse and I was like oh my God and so I asked the executive director for copy she said no I couldn’t have one because other families are named in the Report and HIPAA I received internal emails from staff saying take this to a higher level, because for the residents had their narcotics, go missing as well. I went to Denver police and I obtained a copy of the police report and it was a completely false police report because nobody ever talked to us. There was nobody named in the police report. The facility was the victim and she put on there. The executive Director put that she caught in caregiver changing the labels from Aspirin to oxy and so she fired her which was not what happened at all and so then my mother started. I’m sleeping really late into the afternoon and my the facility started having meetings with my brother and I saying that it’s probably time for hospice and I just about fell out of my chair said no she’s not hospice material. I told my brother were moving her the DA told me get her out of there and then will start. You know working on a case and I said great so I found another place for her. All my brother tried to get me removed as the attorney in fact because he didn’t want to move her because it was too much trouble. I was assuming at the time and I told him he brought the executive Director in on it too, because she wouldn’t be at office POA as well because she knows that I know she follow false police report Anyway they couldn’t do it and I said no we’re not moving her into hospice so we moved her to a new place a really nice place. I’m on a golf course and we moved her in and for five days nobody even came and checked on her nobody came and gave her a shower nothing and she can hardly walk. She has a walker and they put her on the third floor About a mile away from the dining room anyway I had called and left the executive Director numerous messages. We were finally supposed to meet because I wouldn’t sign the arbitration agreement and so I had to meet with the executive director but she was a no call no show and three days after that she was leaving the property and somebody said her name and that’s how I knew who she was and I was like hi remember me I we were supposed to meet and you didn’t show up and she said yeah and I mean she just did not care and she was on her way out so she was mad that I had grabbed her on her way out so we went back into her office and I had scratch out a bunch of stuff throughout the whole contract and she said you have to sign all these you know I can’t change these and I said well I’m not signing the arbitration agreement and she goes. Yeah you need to sign that I said, in the state of Colorado, I don’t have to and I said, and I’m not signing away my mothers rights, and so she slid up next to me And she talked real low and she said let me put it to you this way if you don’t sign, you could have a very unhealthy relationship here I could not believe it. I was being threatened by the executive Director lol I felt like she was a Guido or something so then she proceeded to show me a flip around her laptop and show me this thing on arbitration agreements, but it was geared towards the facility not for the consumer and it was talking about how our but she goes. You know just sign it and then all it says is that we’re going to mediate I mean, don’t you trust us and I said well, that’s not That’s not what’s the problem here it’s the principal and I said yeah I trust you but you know I never know what’s gonna happen and she goes well if you don’t like with the mediator, if you don’t like the decision, they make you can always just take it to court, but I was reading on the website right there that it said the decision is final and you cannot take it to court and I said that to her and she goes yes so she was speaking and then it said the reason why they have the arbitration agreement is to cut down on the press it’s quicker so there’s not a lot of time for the press to get their stories together and it’s just better for the facility so I also saw that I had 90 days to resend it so I went ahead and signed it because my mother needed the whole reason why nobody had checked on her as they hadn’t checked her in because there was no contract so Then I started keeping an eye on her meds, and at the other facility I had run everybody’s names that were on these Yueting medication’s through the Colorado health departments website to make sure that they were all certified as QA and only two out of 10 of them were certified so I started doing that at this place too because they kept bringing in temporary help because they didn’t have enough staff and so this executive Director did not like that 2 1/2 weeks in she called a special meeting and they flew in the head of nursing from Utah And I had the head of nursing the executive Director and for staff people and me and they had a big cardboard box and the executive director looked at me and said I don’t think we’re gonna be able to meet your expectations here but I can arrange for a tour for you at a facility that’s right up the street she was I know it’s the same company as the place that you just left but I’m sure they don’t talk to each other And I was stunned and I said are you kicking us out and she goes no we’re not going we don’t we’re not turfing you I just don’t think that your mom’s gonna be happy here and I said I think you’re wrong I said you know I’m she goes. I heard that you ran everybody’s name Ran his background at the last place and didn’t run anybody background around their names through the Colorado and then she finished my sentence for me and she goes yeah and I go it’s public knowledge and she goes. Yes you’re right, but yeah we stopped taking care of your mom today at 2:00 PM and it was 2:30 PM and she pushed this cardboard box across the table to me and it was Full of my mom‘s medication‘s and she goes. I have another meeting to get to and I’m gonna need everybody with me so we have to go and I wait a second how do I even order her meds and she goes we can call the pharmacy they’ll tell you what to do and that was it so I had to come home and make little packets out of wrapping paper And go through all of my mom‘s meds and create dosage, dosing packets, and for different times of the day and then my brother and I had to go and drive to the facility five times a day to dose my mother so we were paying 11,000 I think $9500 a month to do And so my mom couldn’t participate in anything there was nobody doing anything for her so then I started looking for another place and I found a place over this place was on Quincy in the new place that I had found the next new place was on Alameda so the new place that I found referred a moving company for us and I told the Moving I could talk to the moving company I said we’re gonna need help packing because it was a two bedroom apartment and the guy says OK so the day we’re moving out I wrote a scathing letter to The executive Director and everybody I CCed everybody in Utah in Denver. Oh my gosh and the mover comes in and he looks around and he’s like OK and I took him down to the loading dock and I said just bring your truck up to the loading dock, and then we can just take everything down this way And I’m standing there waiting for them and I see the truck driving down Quincy and I called them and I go. Did you just leave and he goes? Yeah that’s way too much work. I had to send two guys to another job this morning and there’s no way I can do it all and I said well that’s not my fault I told you and he goes. Yeah I’m not gonna be coming. Sorry about that and hung up on me and I’m like oh my God you don’t understand we have to get out today and so my brother found All my sons Moving that brought five people over with them to move us and they charged us $4500 to move my mother from Quincy to Alameda and they didn’t even finish and they broke the elevators and I was stuck in memory care with furniture and having to carry furniture over the peoples heads that were eating and having people walk up to me and asked me if I can put their dishes away it was absolutely terrible and nobody could get back up to their rooms on the upper floors after dinner and so they were really mad at me on top of the letter that I had wrote so I had to go back there by myself and move her the rest of her stuff because my brother is on oxygen, so he never helped and he was mad that I was moving her again and so he just sat and watched looked out the window while the movers were there, not even keeping an eye on them, and my mother wasn’t feeling well so we moved her into this new place and we had met with the nurse and I told her the issues that we were having so my mother got sick the first day we got there and announced to us the nurse had resigned the day that we moved in so another day goes by and I ask one of the caregivers if they could please take her temperature and they said no, we can’t do that we don’t have a thermometer on the property somebody stole ours and I’m like oh my God you only have one. Oh Jesus so the next day I’m at home and I called dispatch health to see if they’ll go check on her and they said let’s give her a call so we called her and we could barely hear her and the lady from the dispatch house said you need to call an ambulance right away and get her into the hospital so I did they went picked her up and by the time I got to the hospital one of the nurses was sobbing and I’m like what what’s going on and she’s like your mother she’s an angel and I go. Yeah I know what’s wrong And she goes I don’t know if she’s gonna make it. She had pneumonia and it was so bad that she went septic and they didn’t think she was gonna make it through the night but she did and she was in the hospital for two weeks and then she had to go on IV antibiotics for seven weeks and the place she was only up for two days doesn’t do IVs, so they discharged her from the hospital to Rehab facility out on Monaco and we were in Lakewood so she goes out to that place. I asked my brother to please get all of her meds and check them in at the new place while he didn’t do that so I get over there and there’s there’s people wandering around in the lobby screaming and rocking back-and-forth and and there’s no when you call for one of the caregivers there’s no sound so they look up on the wall like a waitress would for her number when her order is ready They have to look up and see if any of the lights are on on any of the rooms and whatever room is lit up there they’re needing help but if they don’t look up, they have no idea and it’s way up at the top towards the ceiling and the back of a hallway. It’s so crazy so my mom is not is incontinent as well and nobody was coming to help her so I would have to go over there and change her and bathe her and change her sheets and one time I’m changing her sheets in the caregiver stood there, talking to me while I change the sheets lol telling me that she has no idea what she’s doing. she’s an accountant I’m like please don’t tell me that lol anyway, her meds went missing again and then that rehab facility discharged her three weeks early back to the place that she got sick at that doesn’t do IVs so they tried to show me how to do it and there was no IV pole so I had to hang her bag on a hanger and hang it from her bed and I said I am so not comfortable with us. I mean people go to school a really long time to learn how to do this and I don’t want to do this and so I told my mom I loved her but I was gonna have to send her back to the hospital so she said that’s OK honey I understand so I send her back to the hospital she was in there for four more days and they discharged her back to the rehab facility that had just discharged her. It’s so crazy so anyway She finished her IV antibiotics and the facility that she was up for two days that they discharged her to and and didn’t do. IVs told me that they did not want her back because her level of care had increased too much and I said it was just IV antibiotic. She’s not on them now and they wouldn’t accept her back so before she discharged from that rehab facility we had to find another assisted living facility so we found a residential assisted living, which was new a new concept for us I had made my brother go out and look with toured every single assisted living in Denver and but he hasn’t. He was just leaving that up to me so I made him look at a couple, and he looked at some that had cement walls and ceilings, and one little closet and he was like oh my God no I got I know it’s you have to it’s not as easy finding a place as you think and we want to make sure that it’s appropriate so anyway we found this assisted-living residential place so my mother went from a two bedroom apartment to a bedroom And they charged us $12,600 a month for a bedroom and what she got served for dinner was baked beans and chicken nuggets or salad. The caregiver that worked during the day her and her husband lived in the basement the owners owned six of these houses here in Denver. There was nine people at this house, and it was a nice house, but what they would do is Wake my mom up and have her walk 1015 feet to a chair and put her in front of the TV all day long and that was it. They had an activities Director that I saw maybe four times and the first six months they lost three people three people died and so I texted the owner one night asking her what the heck was going on over there because we come from a place that has three or 400 people and in 10 years maybe lost four people my mom‘s been there for six months and there’s only nine of them and they lost three And she said to me in a text well I understand death is hard for a lot of people to accept but that’s what happens in hospice and I go hospice. Oh that’s another thing so when they wanted to put my mom in hospice back at the place downtown and I said no and moved her out. I looked back through and the narcotic count sheets for that period of time and they had stopped giving her her Ritalin. She’s on Ritalin. She takes Ritalin three times a day, and they had stopped giving it to her but yet they were filling out the narcotic count sheet as if they were giving it to her for three months And that’s why she was sleeping but they wanted to move her into hospice and I thought wow I wonder if they’re doing that to other people you know not giving them their meds and so their bodies start to shut down and so they recommend their own hospice or memory care, and that’s more money, and then they create a new revenue stream by renting out there Apartments again and I thought no that’s really reaching so at the place that we got kicked out of on the golf course. I became friends with the head of the dining room because she and I used to be flight attendants together for American 20 years ago and she told me one day she said melissa you wouldn’t believe the amount of people they’ve been moving into memory care and I go really she goes. Oh it’s so sad and I go. Oh my God that’s what they’re doing. I was thinking about the other place so anyway The owner of this place says that’s what happens in hospice and hospice. My mom is not in hospice I go your science is assisted-living your paperwork says assisted-living. We just had a care meeting and you never mentioned anything about hospice and none of our doctors are on a hospice regimen. She’s not in hospice and she goes well yes melissa that’s what we do. We specialize in end-of-life care And I was like oh my God so they’re not giving her meds and her body shutting down is that what’s happening so I started doing med counts and taking pictures and her pain doctor prescribes her oxy they gave her a urine and she ended up with a drug in her system. That’s not on her drug list that when combined with oxycodone is lethal, and so That can be explained then then one day I walked in and this is about a urine because she was there for year and a half and my mom and one other resident or ambulatory one of the residents that was not only ambulant ambulatory, but paralyzed from the neck down She had a black eye she had stitches above. Her eye in the whole side of her face was black and blue and I was like oh my God what happened to Victoria? They told me she fell out of bed that night. OK I turn around and the other another resident who is who walks around she’s got a black guy and I oh my God what happened to Dot and they said she fell out of bed and then I turn around in the third lady that’s in a wheelchair has a broken arm and I’m like oh my God what happened to Billy she fell out of bed three people at the same time fell out of bed so I was like oh my God two of those three people are not here anymore the time that my mother was there any year and a half they lost seven people seven and I started getting really nervous that my mom was going to be next and I got really sick over there over right before Christmas and I was complaining to the owner and all of a sudden they tell me that my mom has Covid and I said OK so what do you do for people with Covid well the nurse they have a nurse that comes and does rounds and they call her a doctor. There is no doctor on staff at this place Even ask them, so do you do what happens in a fire I mean do you do fire drills or oh yeah, we do them once a month we have to OK. I’ve never seen them do a fire drill. I never saw them give my mother any medication either and that’s what really started getting me concerned I saw the caregivers packing up their cars with people who passed away with their and the owner not professional take that with that the lady she drove around a brand new Corvette. The husband drove around the brand new huge truck, so she said the nurse put her on something some kind of Covid medicine medicine so the next day I asked if she got started on it and she said no we went ahead and gave everybody a Z-Pak and I go my mom sounds really congested and she needs to be seen immediately because she is predisposed for pneumonia, and the owner says no The nurse isn’t gonna be going out there because there’s an active Covid case and I got oh my God I go off I need to make sure she doesn’t get pneumonia and that I’ll check in on her for you the next day. I asked how my mom was doing and nothing I received no response. The next day was Christmas I said merry Christmas. Have you checked on my mom she responded with merry Christmas that was it so the next day I said that’s it. I’m calling an ambulance so I called an ambulance and They told me that they had just done a chest x-ray on her and I asked why nobody told me that, but I sent her to the hospital anyway and sure enough my mother had pneumonia. She was dehydrated and her kidney functions had gone through the roof because of her dehydration, I said that’s it she’s not going back my brother was beside himself. He said I’m not helping you at all I said that’s OK. I had to move my mother out of her second floor, two bedroom apartment at the place where she got pneumonia last time I’ll buy myself into a U-Haul. It took me two times when I went back to the facility on the golf course to finish moving out the rest of the stuff they hated me so much they locked up all the Bell carts so I had to string together, wheelchairs to move her stuff out and a trashcan on wheels. I used as well and then I couldn’t get my trunk closed one time so I had to go to lost and found and tie. It closed with a sweater I mean it’s just been a ridiculous journey anyway so this time my mom is in Highlands Ranch Hospital she’s there for a week and they discharge her to a rehab facility in Lafayette and I have made the decision to bring her home. I’ve just had it with these places and the only thing is if she couldn’t fit into the bathroom with her walker so I said that’s OK I’m gonna remodel the bathroom real quick. I’ll be done by Thanksgiving and she she’ll be home Well she still up in Lafayette today. Her insurance kicked her out of the rehab two days after she got there when she was supposed to be there for three weeks giving me three weeks to get the bathroom done yeah, no two days later so they were gracious enough to let her move into their assisted-living upstairs from their rehab. Well now I have structural I’m in a 1956 home And doing this bathroom I’m pretty far in but now I’ve created I’ve found all kinds of stuff wrong with this house, so I have a structural engineer coming out tomorrow to look at the foundation. Meanwhile, my mother also has dementia and all of this moving is not been good and I understand that, but I’m just trying to get her the best care possible and I have an in-home care agency lined up to help me when I bring her home but I don’t know how I’m gonna get her home and that’s my story so far so I am so frustrated with everything that I have enrolled in a prep course for the LSAT I’ve been talking with DU law and I plan on Starting my schooling for my JD degree in the fall of 2025 and like I said I will be specializing in elder care because for one I’m gonna be very relatable by the time I graduate I will be 61 years old when I graduate but wanna make sure that I’m not gonna get treated like this and We’re gonna need me. I’m gonna make sure that some changes happen I talk to a lawyer about all of this. Oh the DA dropped me just like a hot potato never returned any of my calls. Once I moved my mom I couldn’t believe it so yeah we definitely need to change and people should not be able to get away with anything close to what we’ve been through And there’s even more issues at the place that she’s at now I mean somethings gotta change and that’s my story pretty much the whole thing I left some stuff out it was like a domino affect and she just never was able to get back to normal. We tried to keep her at home ySo after being at one facility for 7/years, I became more involved with her care due to my personal life changing and that’s when I started noticing discrepancies in her medications. She is prescribed roughly 35 different medications and is dosed 5x a day. Yes it’s a lot.,she suffers from a multitude of issues from mental health to physical.

Elder abuse is rampant and it’s not just in facilities it’s even at home kids taking advantage of their elderly parents or you know neglecting them and spending their money. I was driving around one of my father‘s friends who is 98 years old and he’s getting ready to drill an oil well lol and he’s jumping in and out of my car on the way to Nebraska at these farms looking at drilling equipment Because he’s very thrifty so he’s buying used equipment. He’s so funny but he was living by himself and his son lives in Washington and they just found him wandering on Valentine’s Day. I just found that out today and so the sun came out and packed them up and moved them out to Washington in the last three days And I was heartbroken and her son, his son hired some neighbor to go through all of the house and get rid of everything and I don’t even know if the guy remembers what was in his house he didn’t he but he told me today on the phone that he’s coming back to run the Boulder Boulder lol so More power to him but it’s everywhere and people turn a blind eye to it because they’re not there they’re not at that stage in their life and they’re gonna be, and they better start paying attention because it’s terrible right now, and if you don’t have an advocate, you’re at the mercy of these corporations and of these people that are in the wrong positions as far as career goes a lot of them. Are there some good ones but the good ones are overworked and taken advantage of and they end up quitting

My hope for the future is to create communities of support and giving advocates or families more rights to hold these places accountable, and to keep them from taking advantage or neglecting or doing anything that is inappropriate or you wouldn’t do to anyone I mean the stuff that I have seen you wouldn’t do to an enemy much less you’re an elderly person People can add so much to offer and everything that they’ve seen all the changes that they’ve experienced over their lifetime can add so much value to our society or community or nation or world and I would like to see programs implemented where they are a part of what’s going on people act like they’re already dead and they’re not they’re many are lucid even the ones that aren’t lucid still have something to offer we can’t just throw them away when they reach you know 70 years old my God that only gives me a few years left lol but we can harness some really good power. We can harness some great ideas we can harness some lessons we can harness some thinking out of the box or going back to basics type styles of approaching our problems are our community problems or who knows they’re so many there’s so much potential that , our elderly can do for our communities that were not paying attention to and we’re not taking advantage of and and I hope to be a huge piece of change for all of this for all of us and I hope my story makes some people pay pay attention to what’s happening and want to want to see this change and there’s plenty of revenue streams. You don’t have to make revenue streams out of peoples death or such extremes. There’s plenty of revenue streams to support a community. I’m even thinking about turning my house into a residential assisted living for me and my friends so I know where I’m gonna be going, and I know it’s going to be good care because I’ll hire everybody you know I even know if people that are buying land and creating communities for all their friends for when they get older some ladies out in Oklahoma. I mean that’s a great idea to get it all set up now you know make some gardens and have it self sustaining and my son tells me all the time I can I can build a granny pad out here you and grandma can come stay at my place where he lives, and I just think that’s so sweet .

I also took care of my father before he passed away eight years ago by myself and I work I had to stay home and I didn’t realize hospice only came an hour a day, and when I researched in-home care agencies, it was gonna cost us $1 million a year and I was like it’s OK. Dad don’t worry about it all. I’ll stay here and it was, an amazing time because it gave me time to make amends and it gave me time to talk with him and tell him how much I was going to miss him and I really had no idea how much I was gonna miss him. I miss him every single day, but You know there’s gotta be some thing that we can design. They can keep people at home but not put such a strain on the family or I don’t know I just know that there’s so much potential and it right now it’s archaic. It’s like an orphanage where these people are and nobody , the staff and most of the staff is not there because of the job they’re there because of the paycheck and when you’re working with people that’s not that’s not how it should be can’t just fill positions to be filled so you can get your tax credits or whatever that should be illegal or enforced something that residential assisted living to she was certify her own caregivers as QMAP. I watched her son one time the lady that was paralyzed pick her up. She was slumped over in her wheelchair at the dinner table. I saw him pick her up by her head I mean , it’s just ridiculous. What happens in these places and I’m not really sure how much I can share. I probably should’ve shared all that but people need to know because I was gonna report them. I haven’t reported them yet because I literally just moved my mother out of that place again by myself with a U-Haul at midnight , not even a week ago so I just haven’t had time. I have a lot of other issues going on in my life but I’m bringing my mom home. Yes use me all you want because like I said, I’m determined to make a change in all of this, but I’m not gonna graduate until 2028 lol and if I can be a catalyst for change now, I’m in! I also saved every single text from the owner of the last facility so you can how self-absorbed and felt like she was un-touchable. Really, that’s how many of them acted, like they were untouchable. And little did I know they currently are. I was also wondering if the Governor was involved somehow in the desires of the communities to keep families from their loved ones and from monitoring their health and medication management on purpose because if some of the mandates he was enacting at the time which didn’t fit the environment. And please remind me to tell you what happened during Covid when the facility left the front door unlocked, when my mother would get her oxygen delivered by a man who would not be escorted into her room while she was sleeping numerous times, how my mom watched a caregiver stealing her silverware and wanting a nanny cam and my brother and I blowing it off thibkjbig she was going crazy! Hurts my heart I did that. If their store stories sound off the wall, they’re probably true and we believe the children we need to believe our elderly too. Thank you for wanting to hear my story.