Not On My Watch

[Jaunty Guitar Music]

Mike: Welcome, everybody. This is Avoiding the Addiction Affliction, brought to you by Westwords Consulting and the Kenosha County Substance Use Disorder Coalition. I'm Mike McGowan.

Mike: There are at least two sides to every story, sometimes more. A few weeks ago, we chatted with Chris Prochut, a mental health advocate and law enforcement suicide prevention trainer.

Mike: He told his story of his mental health deteriorating and making a plan to end his life. And, as you know, he didn't, because his wife Jenny, my guest today, said not on my watch and rushed to get help. We're going to pick up the story during our conversation today with Jenny.

Mike: Welcome, Jenny, and thanks for doing this.

Jenny: Hi. Thanks for having me.

Mike: Well, I'm so glad you can. I know you do trainings with Chris, but, you know, we started with Chris at a specific time period. Let's go before that, right? When he joined a police force in Bolingbrook, Illinois, I'm assuming they didn't hand out a spouse's guide to dealing with the daily trauma that happens with cops.

Jenny: No, no, they didn't. When Chris was hired on as a police officer, we were only engaged even at that time. So not even considered a spouse. And at some point somebody gave me a book called I Love a Cop. And at the very beginning when they're brand new, I Love a Cop means nothing. Like, it foretells and then, like, it's a great book, but at that moment, it meant nothing.

Jenny: He hadn't gone through any of those things yet, so it was, wasn't relative, I didn't feel like, at that time. So what I really wish we had at the time that it's starting up now is Spousal Academies.

Mike: Mm.

Jenny: Where they will actually spend so many hours in a week or over the course of a month where they'll go through and talk about like, Oh, what happens if your husband is or spouse is in a certain situation or things to look for?

Jenny: Why is your spouse sitting in a certain place in the restaurant and things like that? So like all things I never had access to. And now it's becoming accessible to spouses. So I really wish that we had that all those years ago.

Mike: Yeah, no kidding. Well, you know, those of us who don't live this life, I'm sure have questions, right?

Mike: Like, do the spouses share their anxiety with each other? Or is it a sense of, don't talk about what you fear?

Jenny: We didn't back then. We didn't talk about our fears. We didn't talk about our anxieties. When we were hanging out outside of work and things we kind of adopted our spouse's gallows humor.

Jenny: So if there was something that had come up, we would joke about it. And you know, there was one time, I don't know if I can tell stories, but like just some of the silly things that happen. Chris was part of the cops unit, so it was community oriented policing, and in his neighborhood they were, like, putting up drywall to make an office for themselves. And like, they got drywall dust in their eye, and they got workman's compensation for that, so, like, we would make, like, oh my gosh, look what our cops are doing. And you know, if somebody got injured on the job and like, Oh, somebody broke a thumb.

Jenny: Oh my goodness. You fell off your bike. Cause that's truly what they did, but it wasn't like, Oh my gosh, the anxiety of the situation that you were chasing somebody on a bike, it's that, Oh, ha ha. You broke your thumb. Like we didn't talk about what the fears were or the anxieties were we just kind of talked about like tried to turn the situation into a funny just to get through it I think.

Mike: Yeah. And we always hear about that cop humor, gallows humor. I think even counselors have that, therapists have that, right. Cause of what you deal with. Did you feel like you had to put a happy face on when he came home from work?

Jenny: Not always. Not until like more around the, the crisis time.

Jenny: Because I mean for a good five years of our marriage, it was just the two of us. So I worked, he worked, we had just like, and he was on rotating schedules back then before kids. So we might see each other in passing cause he, I would come home at six o'clock, he would be getting ready to go to work the night shift, things like that.

Jenny: So we were just kind of just living our lives until we had kids. And then it kind of became a little different where he didn't want that to spill over and have the kids worry about him being at work and stuff. So we both were like putting on a everything's okay face for the kids. But I think that's natural for most first responding jobs. Where they don't want their kids to feel like, Oh, dad's always in peril or whatever. But policing back then was way different than it is now too.

Mike: Seems like it.

Jenny: (laugh) I mean, just the changes in the last five years. We never had to experience what officers are going through now, or any officers, really.

Mike: Yeah, but that leads us to 2007 and the whole Drew Peterson thing, right?

Jenny: Right.

Mike: For those of you who haven't heard Chris's podcast, there's a link to it on the blurb for this, if you want to go back and listen to it, not that you need to right now. But you must have sensed that... Chris talked about he thought he could handle it.

Jenny: Yeah.

Mike: In fact, we joked a little bit. I don't know if we did it on the podcast or afterwards. We joked about, can you handle the Nancy Graces of the world? And he thought he could, right?

Jenny: He did. Yeah. The stress for him was kind of instantaneous. I had no idea. You know, he comes home from work and he's like Stacy's missing.

Jenny: And the department thinks that it's only going to be picked up by like the local papers. But I read about this in chapter 12 of my communications class he took for when the big thing happens. And he's like, that's not what's going to happen. We've already had one. One deceased wife. Now we have a missing one.

Jenny: Like, this isn't going to be good. And I'm like, okay, I really had no idea what to expect. But I could see that the stress was pretty immediate for him because he was really feeling like unheard. Look, I went through this training class and I know that this isn't just going to be swept under the rug.

Jenny: This is a big deal but he wasn't being heard at work and then that kind of spiraled into the crisis.

Mike: Well, and what did you see? How did you, and this, this goes to all partners, loved ones. How did you know that he was sinking into that deep depression?

Jenny: He had like this change in behavior that wasn't him.

Jenny: Truly, like, and his depression didn't present as like, Eeyore. Ohhhh, today isn't gonna be a good day. You know, kind of thing. He was agitated. He was angry. Irritable. So, you know, I talked to his sister and I'm like, are you seeing the same things I'm seeing? Like, she was really kind of my rock through this.

Jenny: Because I could bounce like, nope, that's not normal for Chris. I, you know, I'm seeing the same thing too. It's really been since October. Like, so that would make the timing right. You know, that kind of thing. And then I was like, you know, I started taking depression quizzes for him or anxiety quizzes online.

Mike: Did that help? (laugh)

Jenny: It helped me. Because he had no idea. I was totally sneakily taking these quizzes for him. And I was like reading the questions and, you know, it'll be range from like one to five. And I'm like, 3, 3, 3. He can't possibly be feeling this, I don't know, down, this angry, this, whatever the feelings were. I'm like, it's not possible for him to be feeling these ways and not really showing me, like he's not presenting all of these things. So when I finished the quizzes, you know, and then it comes out with generalized anxiety disorder with depression.

Jenny: Which everybody can have at any point in their lives, (laugh) you know, depending on what you're going through. And I really stigmatized, like, there's no possible way that he could be feeling this badly. So I'm going to knock it down a notch. And I dunno, it did lead to the discussion of Chris.

Jenny: I, you know, I need you to hear me out here you are really struggling with this. This is not going away and you're continuously amped up or, you know, unhappy. It's kind of leaking over into home now. So I really think you should probably go talk to somebody because you're not really talking to me anymore, which he always would.

Jenny: I always knew what was going on. And now he's just kind of like, when he would get angry, he'd go to bed. Which is amazing for us because he could have went into drinking or doing drugs or doing other things that you can't come back from. For him, he was like, nope, I'm going to go check out. I'm going to bed.

Jenny: I can't handle this anymore. I'm going to bed. So I think he really started to feel it too. And, you know, he was like, okay, fine. You know what, for you to get you off my back, I will go see somebody for your birthday. So not for him, but for me for my birthday. So his crisis started in an end of October, early November and my birthday's mid February.

Jenny: So we were kind of doing this alone up through the holidays through our son's birthday. Like all those times where he is feeling irritable and having to put on that happy face. We all were, like you said, putting on that happy face in front of, not in the privacy of our own home, but to other people.

Jenny: Everything's fine. Nothing to see here. But then once he started seeing a counselor, I got a little fussy with him because he would come home and have these like revelations and told me this today. And I'm like, I told you that for free, (laugh) but to hear it from somebody else, you know, like, it's like listening to your parents or your teacher, your teacher can get you to do something, but your parents can't, okay, fine.

Jenny: As long as you're listening to somebody. But that quickly wore off. Cause he saw a therapist. You know, probably starting end of February, early March, and then by his birthday in April, he was done. Like, he had tried a couple weeks of medication, he had tried therapy, like, he's done. I'm out.

Jenny: For my birthday, Jen. I am flushing my meds down the toilet.

Mike: None of this is unrecognizable to people that have been through this. Okay, I'll go to counseling for you. Now I've done it. Now it's over.

Jenny: Yep.

Mike: Right.

Jenny: See, it didn't work. Nothing's changed. I'm done. I can't do this.

Mike: Well, it's good. You know, I didn't know what you would answer when I asked you about support.

Mike: It's good that your sister in law was supportive. So many times people going through this. The family of the partner goes, Oh, you're overreacting. It's you. So.

Jenny: Yeah, I never got that from Chris's parents or my own.

Mike: That's great.

Jenny: Like they were always very supportive, but like Chris's parents always knew this is what he wanted to do.

Jenny: Like, so whatever they could do to support us continuing that dream or, you know, providing support because of that dream. They were totally on board.

Mike: You know, Chris said that you and I don't know how it came up, but he said when you heard him mention his will, your brain went light bulb. Oh, and then he, and this, I didn't even ask him this, but he decided I think I'll go take a nap and talk about that day.

Mike: Talk about your scrambling.

Jenny: So that was a wild day because he called me before he came home from work and he's like, my psychiatrist wants to talk to you. Okay, fine. You know, whatever. Not a big deal. So I talked to her she called or I called, I can't remember how that went down, but and she's like, you know, I think Chris is kind of, he's kind of said goodbye, dropped off the books that I gave him.

Jenny: And yeah, you know, if I don't think it's gotten to that point, but if it ever does, please give me a call. And I said, okay, sounds good. Yeah. I don't think we're at that point either, but. But I will definitely hold on to your number and call you if we need anything. And so then he comes home. We have dinner.

Jenny: He's agitated because of the phone call. He's not really sure what he's walking into when he came home. And he threw his dinner away. Like, I'm like, dude, like, It's going to be our 10 year anniversary in August. Let's plan an Alaskan cruise. He got to go to Alaska years prior to that for a training.

Jenny: They got to choose between Kentucky and Alaska. And of course he picked Alaska. So it, you know, went to a like firearms training up there and it was gorgeous. And we had always planned to go back, but now we have two small children. And I'm like, you know what? Let's do it for our 10 year anniversary. Let's do it.

Jenny: And he's like, Oh my gosh, I'm going to be busy. Why don't you go? And that's kind of where like this confrontation happened. And I'm like, how can you be busy for our anniversary? You know, and just started spewing between the two of us. And he's like, well, I, I said, Oh, I said, if you're going to kill yourself, so am I, I'll kill myself too.

Jenny: Then what? And he's like, I've got a will. I just need to pay for it. It's all in there. I go, you go, the kids are taken care of. I'm like, Oh, this is real. Like this, this is beyond something that I can manage at home. So I excuse myself. I'm in the bathroom crying, praying like this, this can't be real. Like God, what do I, what do I do? Cause I can't do it on my own. I know what I have to do, but I can't do it on my own. I'm going to need some help. So luckily Chris took Ashlyn up for a bath and she's nine months old at the time. So like she has a bath and goes to bed. He took her up to upstairs for a bath.

Jenny: I went downstairs into the basement stairs, texted Erica, his sister, and was like we are not good here. I might need you. She says, you know, I'm on my way. I call his psychiatrist and say, well, this is how the night went when he got home. And she said, okay, so we are there then. And I said, yeah, I think we are.

Jenny: And she said, okay, well, you can call or I can call what do you want to do? How do you want to handle this? And I couldn't be more grateful for having choices at this time, even though a lot of people might go just take the choices away from me. It gave me a little bit of sense of control over the situation.

Jenny: And I said, I need you to call. I can't call the police department where, you know, the ladies in dispatch are his subordinates. Like, he's in charge of them. He's their boss. And say, hi, it's Jen Prochut, and your boss is in a bad way. So I'm like, I can't call them. Can you call? And can you talk to Deputy Chief?

Jenny: Because Chris has confided in him. They've had some chats. Is it possible that you can ask for him when you call? She's like, no problem. I'll call you you know, when I'm done. So while I'm waiting for her to call back, I'm like calling and texting our pastor there in California. So they can't really help.

Jenny: You know, just offering support, like, Oh, you know, you, you've got this kind of thing, you know, what you're doing is right. So then she calls back and she's like you know what, Jen, they're asking that you and the kids leave. I'm like, leave the house? She's like, yeah, I said, okay we will, as soon as Erica gets here, we'll pack up and we'll leave.

Jenny: So that's what we did. Chris had taken himself to bed after he gave Ashlyn a nap and put her down. So she's upstairs in like two doors down from our master bedroom where Chris is sleeping. So I have to sneak up there and get her when Erica came over, pack up the diaper bag, get Cubby our dog and Chase.

Jenny: And we had all just gone through two rounds of strep throat. So I was kind of, Chase was three years old and easily manipulatable. So I said, buddy we can't sleep here tonight. Daddy's too sick for us to sleep here. So we're going to go have a sleepover at auntie Erica's house. And you know, three year old's like, sure, no problem.

Jenny: Sleepover at aunt Erica's, no problem. So we all scoop up, leave the house unlocked and hop in her car. And then my phone rings in the car. And I'm thinking, Chris just watched us leave. Luckily it was Cantrell saying, you know, Dr. Cantrell was his psychiatrist, luckily it was her just saying, you know stop at the police department they want to talk to you.

Jenny: So on our way out of the neighborhood we came across an unmarked car. So we stopped and I told the guys I'm really sorry.

Jenny: He does have a duty weapon in the house. I hid it. It's, you know, in this location and just take care of him. He'll be really ashamed that he has to go through this. And they assured me, really like, Jen, we're here to take care of him. We're not going to let anything happen to him. And then we got to the police department and they, you know, had me come into the chief's office and I had to tell him everything again.

Jenny: And then I had to draw a diagram of the house. I had to explain everything that they would encounter. The front door's unlocked. You'll hear the tv on in the family room. I left everything on, all the lights on, all the tv on, just as if Chris were to wake up and just kind of see or hear like, oh, lights are on, TV's still on, there's nothing going on here.

Jenny: You know, nothing, nothing to be alarmed about. So, you know, I explained how they could find where I hid his gun. Explained how to get upstairs through the baby gates, down the hallway. You know, we have a hope chest at the foot of our bed. We have of the ceiling fan should be going. You'll hear an air purifier in the room.

Jenny: He sleeps on the left side. Like here's where our closet is. Here's where the bathroom is. Here's where the windows are like where everything is so that they go in knowing exactly how they're going to go wake him up. And that's what they did. They went in, they woke him up and said, you got to come with us, buddy.

Mike: Up until they said, get out. Had you thought about, I mean, the implication is you're all in danger. Had that crossed your mind?

Jenny: Not at all.

Mike: Right.

Jenny: Not at all. Because I didn't feel like we were in danger. So when she said we have to leave, it was a complete surprise, but I wasn't thinking that far ahead.

Mike: Sure.

Jenny: I was literally moment to moment and I kind of felt like a puppet at the time, like literally just one little move at a time. Okay. We got out the door, now what? Where are we going? Thank goodness. You know, she called and said, head to the police department. Cause we would have probably just gone back to Erica's like, I don't know what to do, where to go, what to expect. Seeing the car out around the corner from our house.

Jenny: I'm not even sure why we stopped. I don't know if Erica stopped or if I was like, hey, that's Ozzo. I don't remember. I mean, it's been a long time, but I don't remember why we stopped. And I'm so glad we did, because then I could tell them like, take care of him. He's hurting. He is not a danger to anybody, but he could be, you know.

Jenny: I mean, if we were still in the house when they confronted him, could it have gone sideways?

Jenny: Could be! And then the kids and I would have had to witness that. So I'm thankful that they, you know, had us leave so that they could, you know, give him some privacy.

Mike: Do you remember the first conversation that you had with him after he was hospitalized?

Jenny: He was mad.

Mike: I was figuring that.

Jenny: He was mad. I mean, we knew, we had talked about it a little bit.

Jenny: Like, if I go to the hospital, I lose my job. Because in Illinois, they have a firearms owner identification card, which you have to have as a police officer. So they will take that if you go to the hospital. And we both knew that he could lose his job, probably will lose his job, but I didn't care about the job.

Jenny: I cared about my kid's dad. I cared about my husband. If he wasn't going to be my husband anymore after this, that he's still alive to be healthy around his kids if that was a possibility. And I'm not really sure where I was going with that, but.

Mike: What did you tell people? Cause you said he was being embarrassed.

Jenny: When he was in the hospital?

Mike: Yeah. But you know, you had to experience a little bit of that too.

Jenny: I didn't tell anybody anything other than keeping the garage door closed so that nobody could see his car was still in the garage. He was in the hospital for 15 days. So this was hard. I did some babysitting in our house.

Jenny: So I had kids coming as early as 6 in the morning and leaving at 6 at night.

Mike: (laugh)

Jenny: Yeah. So, and, you know, we lived in a very tight knit court of four houses where we all looked out for each other, and saw me mowing the grass and like, that's... Chris mows the grass. Why is Jen mowing the grass? There's been family over a lot and like, oh no, you know, everything's fine.

Jenny: Nothing here. Chris is working a lot, you know, which was true, but before he went to the hospital he was, you know, probably working 12, 15, 18 hour days, depending on what's going on. So yeah, I just kind of just brushed it off. He's at work. He's at work. He's at work and they bought it because it was kind of the new normal since October that he was at work for the Stacy Peterson case.

Jenny: And then we had to come clean when he came home. Because he was home and visible at home. Like when the kids were being dropped off or picked up, Chris was home.

Jenny: Why did Chris go from being gone 15 hours a day to being home every day? So that was interesting. It came out, like, person by person, like, Okay, so I just want to let you know that if you don't want to send your kid here anymore, that's okay.

Jenny: Because my husband's home and he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and he's now stable and on meds and, you know, is working his way back to trying to get back to work and whatever. And everybody was like, yeah, sure no problem. We know Chris, he's fine. Like...

Mike: Wow.

Jenny: We're not feeling any, you know, danger to our children or anything.

Jenny: Now these were already like close friends of ours to begin with. So they already knew Chris. It's not like, you know, just some random moms that brought their kids to my house. And then our court friends, they were like, why didn't you tell us? We could have helped you. And my brain, even at that time was like, what could you have done other than come mow my grass?

Jenny: But they're like, we could have sat with you, so you wouldn't be alone. Like, why didn't I let them? Because was I ashamed? Or was I afraid of what they would think of Chris? I think it was more about the judgment, like, would they judge him? And I couldn't handle that because I knew that, you know, he's a great person and this doesn't define who he is.

Jenny: This is a crisis he's going through and this is our path through it.

Mike: Yeah. Our own thoughts get in the way so much. You know when people go through any of this and even like substance use disorders, there's a period of time where they're recovering.

Jenny: Yup.

Mike: Where they feel fine.

Jenny: Uh huh.

Mike: But you're like, yeah.

Mike: So was there a sense, how long did you feel like you had to walk on eggshells? And when he said, yeah, I'm good, let's do this. How much did you have to slow the roll?

Jenny: We slowed the roll from the beginning. When he came home, we were both walking on eggshells. I think he kind of felt like a guest in his own home.

Jenny: He had to kind of pick up the new rhythm because with me being home and my job at home, like he had to find his way into that. And then he wasn't sleeping. He was always having dreams of like the guys coming in and waking him up and saying Chris, chief's downstairs, you know, so kind of reliving that night, a little bit of post traumatic stress going on there.

Jenny: So his doctors put him on some Ambien or something like that. But he was still kind of afraid to go to sleep. So I would sit up with him. We would color at the kitchen table. We would play the Wii. Chris's mom bought us a Wii. Not for the kids, but for us. And we would be playing Wii Tennis at 11:30 at night.

Jenny: Because he was, I don't know, not necessarily afraid to fall asleep, but just he would always go to bed when he was frustrated and irritable, and he would lay in bed and watch the ceiling fan. The blade spin and just have all of these thoughts in his head. And going back into that would just be like reverting back to before he was hospitalized.

Jenny: I repainted the walls in the room, bought new bedding, a new ceiling fan, and put a picture up on the wall, trying to make the environment. I can't move our master bedroom, right? So I can make it look a little bit different, feel a little bit different than the room he left and was taken from. So that helped.

Jenny: But it was about a year that I stayed up with him every night, even though I had kids coming at six in the morning and staying till six at night. And then I ended up getting a job, a seasonal job at Target to help pay the bills now that he hasn't been working. So that was probably, let's see, he came home in May and then, so I probably picked up that job around November, October, November.

Jenny: So working all day, then going to Target and working until midnight and then doing the cycle around. So maybe it was more like nine months that I was like, okay, we got to, you know, I got, I have to get some sleep here. But I still, I filled his pill bottle or we had one of those, you know, daily pill organizers and I would fill that and I would check that every day just to make sure that he was taking his meds.

Jenny: I would check his prescription bottles to make sure, okay, so you have two more refills left or you, you're on your last refill. You need to, you know, make sure you get an appointment or whatever. Less wife and more caretaker...

Mike: Mm hmm

Jenny: At this point.

Mike: How long did it take before your relationship got back to where you wanted it to be?

Jenny: We went to therapy and that helped a little bit. Because we got to say some things that were safe to say that weren't said around children and in our home and that really helped. So probably right about that year, like where I started to relinquish the caregiver hat and put my wife hat back on and like, let's, let's be back together.

Jenny: Like, you know, not that we were not together, but just like getting those roles back in order, I think. And that, that helped. I mean, it's not like we weren't close before, but I feel like we're like, we've been even closer since, and especially after that.

Mike: Yeah. It's a different relationship, right? After trauma.

Jenny: Yeah.

Mike: Chris said you journal.

Jenny: I don't. So he's misspeaking, but I was told to journal by one of our officer friend's wives, she said during like, I don't know, probably day three or four while Chris was in the hospital. She's like, you're going to want to remember this. You're going to want to be able to reflect back on this time.

Jenny: You might want to journal this so that you have it. And I'm like, I don't write. I don't, I don't sit and reflect.

Mike: Well, we won't tell Chris that.

Jenny: No, but so, but he's, I think it was one of his ways of just being able to say, Jen journaled this event. And I did. Like when we present together, I read from my journal and I credit Missy in it saying, thank you for telling me to journal this because I never thought that I would be telling this story to strangers, you know, this is our private stuff. This book should just be for me, for us. And, but now it needs to be out there. People need to hear what we went through. So it doesn't become their reality. Or they know what to expect if it does. But so it really helped. Reading it back, like not so much now.

Jenny: But there was. a few years between the time that I wrote it and the very first time that I cracked it open to present it. And I was like, who is this?

Jenny: This happened to me. Like I was reading it. It was kind of like an out of body experience a little bit because I kind of put that I think in a box and just put it away. Like yes that happened but it's over and we've moved on and this is who we are now and this is what we do and you know it's just this is the our normal lives.

Jenny: So to pull that back out again was like ripping off a band aid. And it's hard reading it sometimes in front of people. There'll be people in the audience who are triggers for me. Like there was one presentation in Wisconsin Rapids or Mauston somewhere over there. And there was a chief, his name's Brian.

Jenny: He was there and he's bald, beautiful, bald man sitting there. And our chief was bald. And saying all the things that the chief did for us in the office. And I stopped and I was just shaking. I was pouring tears. I'm like, Chris tried to climb up on stage to come get me. And I said, don't, because if you come touch me, I won't finish this.

Jenny: I will just break down in tears. I will be done. So I was able to go through that. But so there are triggers sometimes where I will see people that look like somebody who was part of our journey. That just kind of brings it all back, back to that time. But the journal also moves on, I don't tell this part in, in our trainings, but like we bartered while he was in the hospital. He needed appropriate shoes or pajama pants that didn't have strings, shoes that didn't have shoe strings.

Jenny: So he needed like his slides or, you know some shorts or something that didn't have anything that he could use to hurt himself with. And it had gotten to the point, you know, when you're gone for two weeks, you have bills to pay. And in the olden days we wrote checks and mailed them and at, in 2007, we had started doing online bill pay.

Jenny: I don't know how to do that. I don't know the passwords to, you know, pay the utility bill that's due and you know, things like that. So I'm like, I'll bring up the things that you need if you give me the bank codes or whatever, . So we learned a lot about you know, I learned a lot of adulting and in that respect, and he learned how to ask for help.

Mike: Wow. Wow. And what do you do? Cause triggers can come out of everywhere. Even today, this is a long time ago, but it can, like you said, you do presentation. It can come up. What do you do to take care of yourself now?

Jenny: I don't know. (laugh) Honestly, I watch a lot of Netflix, I read, I have wonderful friends at work.

Jenny: I work in a school. So I have wonderful friends there that I can tell anything to. So, you know, I can still...

Mike: That's a lot.

Jenny: It, it is, I mean, we don't have, we're not in crisis mode anymore. So I'm not on edge every day like I was. So I don't have to be always watching his mood. I do. But not on that level. I'll be watching him when he goes back, like they're going back.

Jenny: Kohl's is having their employees come back to the corporate office, October 1st. So that's going to be a change in schedule and everything for him. So I'll be watching him a little more closely just to see how he handles that. And that's not because he needs it. It's just going to be because that's who I am. Change, you know, affects people differently and he may not have an issue with it at all. But just like every school year, I watch my kids closely when they, you know, take on a new grade or new classes and things like that. So but for myself, I have, you know, I read, I watch Netflix, I chat with my girlfriends, you know, we go out, we were just at a football game on Friday.

Jenny: Like, so we just, you know, I don't have to be in support mode. So it's really nice to just be able to be with me.

Mike: Yeah. Jenny, when my mom was recovering from her alcoholism she asked me well down the line, she looked at me and said, how long was it before you stopped tasting my Coca Colas?

Jenny: Yeah.

Mike: And I looked at her, I said, how do you know I did that?

Jenny: (laugh)

Mike: She said, because it's you. And I said, well, what about my brother? And she goes, oh, he'd never do that. (laugh)

Jenny: (laugh)

Mike: So and she's right. He didn't. Yeah. That's her life. Everybody comes at it in a different way. I lied. One more question for you before I let you go.

Jenny: Yeah.

Mike: Did you ever get to Alaska?

Jenny: We did. We did for our 25th.

Mike: Oh, how, what a great way to end that! And was everything you thought?

Jenny: Everything I wanted it to be. Yep. Everything. We took a cruise. It was spectacular. And that was just last summer, not this past one, but last, yep.

Mike: Oh, that's great. Well, I'm so glad I ended with that.

Mike: This is so delightful. I know that this is always difficult to talk about, but I think it's so beneficial to those people listening. So thank you so much.

Jenny: Yeah, thanks for having me.

Mike: You're welcome.

Mike: And for those of you listening, this is why we do this, so please listen in whenever you can. Until we talk to you again, stay safe.