I often think about what it means to be “ready” for life’s most unexpected moments. As a young Boy Scout, the motto “Be Prepared” stuck with me for most of my life. But can you really be prepared for anything life throws at you, especially as you get older and life becomes more complicated?
A few years ago, I was forced to test that question when I got the call that my dad was in the hospital after having a stroke. In that moment, my whole world froze. I was caught completely off guard and didn’t know what to do next.
It took a few moments to fully process what was happening, and I agreed to meet my mom at the hospital where he had been taken. I don’t remember the drive there, but when I arrived, my mom was already waiting to hear from his doctors while he was in surgery to remove a blood clot from his brain. After a few minutes, they came to update us: the surgery had been successful, and he was being moved to recovery.
When I was finally able to see him, I felt relief because he had made it through. But the next few days and weeks were challenging. While he was physically there, mentally he wasn’t fully himself. He struggled to remember key details like the current date, and he kept calling my mom by my sister’s name when she was in the room.
It took a while for him to come back to the person we knew, and it required patience from everyone involved. Meanwhile, outside his hospital room, the world went on as if nothing had happened. I still had to go to work, although my employer was very understanding and gave me the flexibility I needed to work through everything.
As time went on, the hospital staff asked many questions about my dad’s past, including his medical history. I knew some of the information, but there were many questions none of us could answer because we didn’t interact with him on a daily basis. Before the stroke, it had probably been at least a few weeks since we had talked, and our conversations weren’t about anything major.
Eventually, I started thinking about the bills that would soon be due. I knew he had a couple of credit cards, a cell phone, and rent, but beyond that, I didn’t have much insight into his financial life. Initially, I didn’t even know where he banked or which accounts held his money. To make matters worse, he had just gotten a new phone on the day of the stroke but hadn’t fully set it up. Throughout his recovery, he could never remember the PIN to unlock either of his phones. That mattered because so much of his life was stored on his phone, either in apps or email.
A few months into the recovery process, he came to live with me while we continued working through everything he was facing. One day, I sat down with him and thought through every detail I could. Somehow, I finally unlocked his original phone, which contained most of his important information. It felt like a moment of divine intervention because, to this day, I can’t remember the code or what led me to figure it out.
The next few days were spent digging through everything and figuring out where all of his accounts stood. His phone had been deactivated for nonpayment, and so had a few credit cards, since no payments had been made on anything since before the stroke. Thankfully, he was able to reach out to the companies, get things cleared up pretty quickly, and eventually return everything to normal.
We are regularly encouraged to prepare a will or trust in the event of our death. But we are rarely urged to prepare for the kinds of life emergencies we survive, even though they may leave us unable to manage our normal daily responsibilities for a period of time. This is where the idea for Lifecycle was born: a family readiness product for adults managing both their own household and aging parents.
One question lies at the center of everything we do:
“If something happened tomorrow, would the people you trust know what to do and where to find everything?”
I learned the hard way that I wasn’t prepared, and neither was my dad. The biggest lesson is that you don’t know what you don’t know until you’re thrown into a position where you need to know it. And this was just the first layer of things I had to learn to navigate. Next came Medicare and Medicaid, nursing homes, insurance, and all the other medical realities that surfaced during the rehab process. Much of it was something I had never thought much about because I didn’t have to when everything was “normal.”
Like me on that spring afternoon, many of us will one day get the call that flips our normal life on its head. I built Lifecycle to help you prepare for that moment, while also helping you better manage life while things are going well. Preparing the people you trust to help you when you need it most is one of the most responsible decisions you can make. I hope you’ll join us in making the process smoother for everyone involved.When Life Changes in an Instant