The Healthy Advisor: The Toll of Caregiving with Melissa Caro

About this episode

Melissa Caro shares her experience as a caregiver while managing her career and discusses the importance of financial literacy during challenging times.

In 2018, Melissa Caro’s perfectly healthy 72-year-old mother was suddenly diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer, and within 24 hours she became her sole caregiver, her financial planner, her life coach and her healthcare advocate. At the same time, her 87-year-old stepdad was falling apart and spiraling into dementia, and her husband was in the hospital with severe back problems. As a Type A personality, she struggled significantly during this time. During one doctor’s visit for her mother, a nurse reminded her to take care of herself. In this episode of The Healthy Advisor, host Diana Britton speaks with Caro, founder of My Retirement Network, a financial education resource for clients and the advisors who serve them, on how she navigated caregiving while managing her career and other responsibilities. She discusses the emotional complexity of caregiving, the gap in financial literacy for those without advisors, and how her experience shaped her mission to help people understand their finances during life’s most challenging moments. She discusses: Her journey into financial services The sudden shift from professional routine to full-time caregiving The financial, physical and…

People in this episode

Host: Diana Britton

Guest: Melissa Caro

Topics covered

• caregiving
• financial literacy
• emotional complexity
• healthcare advocacy

Keywords

• financial education
• My Retirement Network
• Type A personality
• dementia
• lung cancer

Mentioned in this episode

Products: My Retirement Network

Books & works: The Healthy Advisor: The Toll of Caregiving, The Healthy Advisor

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