Louisiana Voice and Swallow Solutions | Local Leaders the Podcast #193

0:00 Hey, everyone, and welcome back to another edition of Local Leaders of the podcast. And we have Nicole Williams from Louisiana Voice and Swallow Solutions here today and she's going to tell us all about her business. First of all, welcome to Local Leaders. Thank you. We're excited to have you here in folks. When we met initially with Nicole, and incidentally, Cidy Everton sitting in on this podcast, so welcome Sydney. I don't want to be like rude or anything like that. Everybody already knows you, Cindy. So we when we sat down originally with miss Nicole, I was very interested to learn about her business. To be quite honest, y'all, I didn't know a whole lot about it, and that is actually what led us to where we are today. I had a little bit of experience with that, dealing with someone very close in my family that went through dementia and Alzheimer's and had had some issues with that, where what she does was a kind of a key to to a puzzle of of how to, you know, just swallow the simple things like having issues swallowing. But there's so many things outside of that that she does for people and the value that you bring to the community, to be honest with you, because they your type of business is not on every street corner, right, it's you know, I said, we're going to get into all that said. Before we do, I want you to

1:33 tell me a little bit. I know you have a large family, you have two step sons, and you're married, happily married by the way she put that in her happily. I love that because look, you there might be some people might not put happily there. So she's happily married. And one thing I really love about you is you uh you have a rescue dog. Really you love pets? Is it? Dogs in general? Are just all pets, all animals. I love that love that. I just recently got a Dotson and we had lost ours. We had a dotson for almost fifteen years, passed away. And you know how they are. They're like family, right, And you really don't realize it to you, to you lese one at in a late stage when you've had them extremely long time like we did. And so I told my wife, when you were ready for another one, just let me know. And we got another dots and puppy last week. And it is like having a baby again. I mean it really is. It is, you know, eight and a half weeks old and yeah, running everywhere everywhere, just like a baby. And we are having an unplanned litter of English Springer spaniels. So you can have all.

2:49 She doesn't give me ten weeks and you can have them all. She has about ten to twelve a litter. Oh my god. Wow what birdie rescue dog yet? So I do a man, it's a mix. I do have a seventeen year old docs and oh love that. Yes, yeah he has no teeth, yeah, and yes, but he is healthy and happy. Wow seventeen years Wow, that's amazing, very good. Uh you also like Crochetian I do. Yeah, Garden, I do what I have time, right, that's the thing with Garden, it's it's the time more than anything. And you and you're quite the baker. The rumor is on the street, what's your favorite thing to bake? Probably homemade cakes? Yeah, very good. Send me everything you like to bake. I love to bake.

3:32 What's your favorite thing? Bake cakes? Yeah? Yeah, I'm a brownie guy myself. I like Brownie. The worst decorator do you like to decorate? I've taken some courses, and I actually go to Louisiana Culinary Institute and do some of their leisure classes. Interesting. No, when it's done, I just slap everything on top. I have no patience, like the sewing. Like with sewing, if I can't have it sown in thirty minutes, I'm not doing it, just immediate gratification. I did it. So I give the things that you do take take commitment. Yeah, yeah, they really do in patience and patience and with what you do now, which we talked about in the in our little pre meeting, it requires patience, and you know, I describe it as a way. You've got to have a way in the healthcare industry. It not everybody's necessarily made for it, and it's a it's an industry in which people need to feel very comfortable around you, especially with what you do now. You opened your business in November of twenty twenty, So the first question I have for you is before you opened your business, what did you do prior to that? So I mainly did home health. I did some acute care, so in the hospitals, and I did some outpatient okay, very bit of everything, but always with adults. Okay, very good and uh And obviously in November twenty twenty, you decided I'm going to open my own business. Interesting time to decide that.

5:06 With COVID really at that time just being at the forefront of everybody's mind, the whole world kind of changed as we knew it. And first of all, shout out to you for having the courage. You know, it's hard to open up a business when everything's perfect, perfect and the world is just on fire with you know, the economy up when you chose to do it? What led you to that? What? So in twenty twenty, In January of twenty twenty, Medicare had made some changes, so patients weren't going to be able to get the services, the amount of services that they were getting before, right, and so in that speech therapy is normally one of the last things that they get, and a lot of my patients they didn't get the swallowing assessments that they needed in order to get adequate treatment.

6:00 Yeah, so I kind of I just wanted to you felt a calling. Oh yes, I just I've always wanted to help those that needed help, so sort of going outside of my comfort area. And it wasn't about making money. It's just about making sure my patients are getting the care that they need. Yeah, that's just what I'm talking about with these these people in healthcare that you deal with that really really do it. They don't do it for the money. A lot of times it is for you know, it's just calling. It's it's what they feel like, where they feel like they need to be. And so tell me about what you do. What is it? And I'm sure you run into people and you tell them your profession and they're like, what do you do? What is that? So tell us? So okay. So originally, whenever I started my business, I wanted to do mobile fees, which is flexible and dyscopic evaluation of swallowing.

6:50 So it's just another way of assessing the swallow and it doesn't use radiation, so it's really good for head and neck cancer patients. Interesting, so whenever I started that, doctors started sending me orders for other things other way, you know, needing treatment for patients with dementia, cognitive issues, strokes. So some for some reason I was like, Okay, well, I guess if we're doing this and I'm not getting exactly what I want for the referrals, then I'll just open a outpatient clinic. Wow. So and mybile services included in that? Is that something that's pretty unique in your industry? It is? Yeah, makes it really convenient, I would imagine, Well, obviously it's going to increase the convenience, but uh, for someone that needs your services, and you got to is it nursing homes and things of that nature. So I go to nursing homes, assisted living facilities, l tax if they need swallow assessments, yeah, but as far as if they need treatment, So if they've been discharged from home health and they still have transportation issues, I can still I can go to them and it's still considered outpatient, but they don't have to worry about the transportation. Very interesting, Very interesting, and I'm sure is it something that you were kind of testing or you were just committed to from the beginning, you were just that was going to be part of what you did. It was and the reason so the reason I did that is probably about fifteen years ago I realized patients that were

8:26 born with disabilities they had you're given medicaid, and then so since you never work, then you're always going to have Medicaid. You're not going to have anything else. Wow. And so whenever you have medicaid, a lot of places they don't accept it, so they don't get the amount of services or the quality of the services that they should be getting. Yeah, and so that was my biggest thing. I just wanted to make sure that I was seeing people that would normally not be able to get treatment. I see, and do you is it typically off a referral basis? So it's doctors? You know? Do people have to have a referral to see you? I guess it would be my first question. So they don't. Certain insurances do not require a referral, and I think it started about five years ago, but you can treat someone with insurance for thirty days before you have to have a doctor's referral. I got you. Is it only dimension all timers and those sort of patients that you typically see or is it run the game?

9:24 And who? I guess If I'm a patient and I'm having what issues should I look for that? Hey? I probably need to call you to let you check that out. Okay, So as far as just the signs and symptoms, it could be difficulty swallowing, you have a hoarse voice, you may have a history of reflux. Yeah, so then your voice is changing. But also uncontrolled reflux can turn into cancer. So that's something that really Yes, I did not know that. That's interesting, and so don't ignore it. Don't just take ain't acid for it or something like something like that.

10:07 Miranda's dealing with that, that's what. Yeah. Wow, very scary. I didn't know that. Yeah, that is scary. Yeah, cognitive issues just any you know, cognitive voice swallowing communications. So if someone has a stroke and they're not able to communicate, you know, we can help them get communication devices, get them trained on them. Children that are autistic, even if they're teenagers so they're no longer in the school system, we can help them get devices so they're able to communicate. Yeah, And speaking of that, I'm glad you brought that up, and it leads me kind of into what I want to talk about next. You had shared a story with me initially when we met, and y'all when I when I heard this story, I'm like, we definitely need to say this on the show, So I want you to share that with you. You remember the story and told me, okay, share that with us. So this was a home health patient. I had gone out and I want to sales about two or three years ago. It was post COVID, and so I went out there and the lady she had right side paralysis, which is normally so if the right side of the body is affected, it's the left side of the brain that was damaged. The left side of the brain does control language, and so whenever I saw her, she was not able to communicate. She was very strong, she was able to get around even though she was paralyzed on one side. She was not able to make She was able to make one sound and it was like, oh and nothing else. So I had spoken

11:37 with her daughter, and I was just talking to them to find out how long it's been since she's had a stroke and since she hasn't been able to communicate, And she had told meals nineteen seventy seven, and it will always stick with me because that's the year that I was born. So basically she went forty five years without being able to verbally communicate. She could understand everything think people were saying to her, sure, but she wasn't able to express her feelings or what she needed anything like that. And so we were actually able to get her a device and with within six months she started communicating. That is unbelievable. I mean, it's it's sad, it really is.

12:18 It's ultra sad. But it also shows the need for people like you on the other side of that. And that's the that's the part of that story. Uh, that's most important, I guess for me, and the one that had the most impact on me is that had you not done what you did, she still wouldn't be communicating, I know. And that's what I try to teach, you know, future therapist whenever they're going through school, if they don't know who they need a contact in order to get the resources that they need, they need to find other therapists and ask them, you know, what's available. Yeah. Yeah, that's what sticks out to me the most in our pre meeting and then just thinking about it afterwards or you know, reading on your website the and like I said in the pre meeting, when I was so frustrated, because why don't families just reach out and do people just accept it? You know? And where I said, well, why don't you just keep fighting fighting for that answer? Because not everybody is like you that's going to advocate for them and So that's if I can get anything out on this podcast today, it's find someone, like you just said, find someone else to give you answers, you know, if that person doesn't answer, or find another person exactly you know. I mean because the stories that you told, you told the story about the vet the veteran, the vet veteran, and that really stuck out to me how you were able to get him services and way beyond your scope of you know, and

13:50 all how all that came in to be. So it's just so interesting what you've done and how you've just taken it on too much of a broader scope than just voice. And yeah, and you mentioned that, and people are gonna be like, well, I want to hear that story. Do you mind sharing that? Not at all. So I have a friend who is a smoking cessation officer at Aushner. Now she is a speech therapist. She was basically tired of the system, so she stopped practicing and whenever she had met a new patient that she had, he had a peg tube and so she was talking about the nicotine issues. But she found out he had a peg tube and so she wanted to see, Okay, well what's going on?

14:35 How can we help, and he hadn't eaten in three years, and so he had gone to a bunch of doctors. He went to surgeons. There was one surgeon that wanted to really try to help him, but they said there was really nothing that they could do. And so my friend gave him a business card, and he didn't do anything with a business card. And so my mom passed away a few months ago, but she ran an assisted living center and whenever, so his father in law was admitted into my mom's assisted living facility, and so my mom started talking to his wife, and his wife was telling her how her husband was having problems, and Mom said, well, if anybody can help, it's my daughter. I just I don't quit with anything like I just have to go and I just I just I don't know why. I just want to make sure people get better and they get the things that they need. So his wife brought the card home and he said, oh, well that's the second time I've seen this card. And she said, okay, well this is like God, you know, sending us a message. We need to do something about it.

15:50 And so they called me and I'm actually helping do training courses for fees now and then so a person that I met at one of the courses is a rep for an electrical stimulation company, and so I was explaining what was going on with a man and he said, well, you know, I think this would work for him. And so I went back to my patient and I said, Okay, well, you're going to be a guinea pig. I said, but you know, if it doesn't work, then we're going to try something else, and we'll keep on trying something until it does work right. And we didn't go up on the intensity as much as we probably should have in the beginning, but within a five month period, we had him eating a regular diet and he no longer has a peg tube. That's hug yes, aase bumps, I mean, that's yeah. Yeah. And then also though me being a veteran, I always find out, okay, have you served in the military, and if you served in the military, and all of the medical issues he was having, you know, I'm trying to figure out are those associated with your military service? And in his case it was so I actually was able to get him connected to somebody and we were able to get him one hundred percent service connected disability. Yeah. Wow, that's amazing. I can't get that story out of my head. And and the fact that you served in First of all, thank you for that service military, your military service, and I'm sure you were like that your

17:21 whole life. You didn't have any quo in you. But it's it's great when we have former military that did not have quit in them, whether it was before or during, some people learn in that military service. That's one of the things they developed. Just depends. But thank God for you that you you crossed paths and uh, just an amazing story. You mentioned mother, and I asked you a question in your question that was who had a big influence in your life and why? And you you said, mama. And she was a nurse. Yes, so growing up she worked in nursing hall. Yeah, and so on weekends and holidays we would always go to the nursing homes and spend time with the patients. Yeah. And then later on she became a director of an assisted living center. And so whenever I was actually going through school, whenever people had different things that they were diagnosed with, my mom would always say, Okay, well you see this person, so if they have these these signs, then you know that's what they have. Yeah, so, and she went above and beyond helping people, and I just wanted to do the thing. I wanted to do the same thing that she was doing. Yeah, yeah, well you certainly are and and apples don't fall far from trees, right. I had a professor say that, Yeah, well, it's very true. It's very true. And sometimes things are in the blood. And you're obviously a very empathetic person and that runs in families. I believe that you know. Another thing with you

18:56 that's kind of a separator, you know, for you is your experience. You have a master's degree and we've already mentioned you've been in the military. I think those things are huge just for businesses and your community. Minded you're on this show, and that shows that you're wanting to make a positive impact on your community and and you certainly are doing that. Let me ask you this. So you have a website I do, and people can go to that website and of course they can learn obviously more about what you do. But we discussed a little bit of do you need a referral and you said no, not necessarily. You don't have to have a referral. If someone is having an issue with either communication or swallowing, and they just want you to kind of check that out for them or see what's going on, because if they have that issue, something's going on. Is there do you have to call? Or is there a book form on the website or how does that work? So they do need a call, once they are an established patient, you can schedule online. You can fill all the paperwork out online.

20:12 I do have people that call whenever they have issues, and I never actually see them as patients. I was on the phone with a girl Valentine's Day and she was having issues. She was in Bosuer City and she was having a whole bunch of issues swallowing, and nobody was listening to her, and so I kind of just gave her all of the information that she needed to get the help. You know where she's located. I love that, And you know, you're kind of a here's the thing. I call it doctor Google. But even like she's like, because yeah, now it is. But people get sick, okay, just an illness in general, whatever it is, and the first thing they're doing is googling symptoms and then it'll come up with this is what's wrong with you? And they go by that, and it may or may not be accurate. But what makes you unique is even if you're let's say you're a nurse and uh, you've got some medical training and experience, you don't specialize in like swallowing issues. You don't specialize in voice issues. And that is why you're so important because you're specific to that. You know, I don't want a heart surgeon delivering my my wife's well, my wife's baby. I can't do that, Cindia, but I don't want you know what I mean? Like, you want someone that specializes in exactly what you're dealing with. And you are a specialist in your field something that oh it could be this or it could be that. And

21:45 you know, your friend that's a nurse at X y Z hospital might say, guess what, she probably knows that answer right off the top of her head, uh, and can tell you exactly what you need to do to start working on fixing that issue. My my major question along those lines, though, is before you get to a fixing point, is there any preventative Let's say, in Jem's father in law's case of dementia, or if someone has als or something, you know, is there anything preventatively to work muscles, to train them. You know, once a diagnosis, it's not it's not preventative, but it just basically it can slow the progression down. People with als, you want to make sure that they know how to use a communication device that they you know, that you have like the eye tracking system and everything together before they're going to lose their voice. Right, People with Parkinson's, as long as you do exercises to continue to maintain that strength, you know, you do prolong their ability to eat mm hm, I mean they're eventually going to have issues. One patient that I had, he actually had him eating safely with Parkinson's and Louis body dementia until he passed, but his body's stopped absorbing the nutrients. Okay, So I mean there are things that you can do m ms. I mean basically anything that there is.

23:10 You're able to do things to educate the family to make it easier on them, to make it to where they're able to ensure that they're communicating the best that they can, or that they're eating as safe as they can even if they're having issues. Right, and you've probably already answered this, but is there any like certain like Let's say right now, I feel like I'm producing a lot of saliva, and it's probably because I'm sitting next to you and I'm focusing on swallowing, you know what I mean. So there are certain illnesses where people do produce too much sliva and they can call it can cause a lot of drooling. So als is one of them, blu Gerrig's disease, Parkinson's multisystems atrophy. They have a lot of those. And so there are things that you can do to decrease the amount of saliva that's being produced, okay. So and that's normally a scapalamine patch which is ordered by a doctor. It's basically a dramamine patch, okay. And then there are if people have dry mouth, there are artificial saliva sprays and different types of dental products that basically decrease the amount of dry mouth that you have. Okay.

24:18 Interesting, there you go. And so look, you move along in your business. Twenty twenty comes and goes, and you're still out there rocking and rolling. I found something interesting in the next question that I asked you, which was what was the most difficult thing that you kind of had to deal with to get your business going as business owners when you first open, and everybody in this room's a business owner. That's the nerve racking part for you. Is Okay, now that I'm open, how do I get people here? Right? And I found it extremely interesting in your case that it seems like you you did everything the right way. You were you were focusing on referral sources that would attract clients. Look, everybody you know should know what you do for a business and how you can help people in need, right whatever whatever business it is. Uh. Word of mouth is also one of the best referrals you can ever get. People trust what their friends tell them.

25:26 If they say go to you, they're gonna go to you, uh, because their friend is kind of vouching for you. And y'all. Y'all have survived a lot on word of mouth as well as other other sources, which tells me you do a really good job and people are referring you to friends and family. Uh. That's a great thing. Now. Uh. Another thing that you said in there, because I don't want to I don't want to go verbate them on it, but you said that it was very important to educate the community, and that's what we're doing today. A lot of that is just telling them what you do. And you chose who Gonzales area as your is it Prairieville, Gonzal? Okay, so you it's actually good? Yeah, Burnside, So that's writing Gonzales. You chose that area and you're actually a very well trafficked location. But how hard was that decision to make? Like, I'm sure you were like, do I want to open in Baton Rage or do I want to open in Gonzales or do I want to open in Living Parish? Where do I want to go? Well, I mean my five year goal is to have another clinic, even Laffyet or Lake Charles, But for now, I think just Gonzalez. My mom was raised there. I live in Santamal And basically there is not a freestanding adult speech therapy clinic in Ascension Parish. They have that's unbelievable to it is they have physical therapy clinics, a few of them that do offer speech therapy services, and the speech therapist normally has to work at multiple jobs in different locations because you can't get a large enough caseload. Yeah, but I just

26:56 wanted something that focuses strictly on adults. I don't know how I came up with a name of it. Yeah, and I did just take a shot in the dark, and I think I got it. So I think you did too. And look, I mean that area has been growing for years. It's obviously still growing with your plants and all of those sorts of businesses out there. I mean, Gazalees has been grown for twenty years. So it was a good call. And a lot of people now moving out that way from that marriage. So I can just only see you building. And you said your five year goal was to have several locations. Very good and laugh. You had another good call, grown area, Lake Charles another grown area. So look this, she knows a little bit about business. Hey, y'all, there's a reason that I podcast indoors. I don't want to be outside in the hot summer heat or even in the whole winners in South Louisiana, And that's why I let Landscape King handle all my landscape needs.

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29:42 a lot about it. You're not only in uh An industry where you own your business, and that's a form of leadership. But you also served in the military, as we've talked about, and you learn a little bit about leadership there as well. And I ask you how you would define it, and you set a person that leads by example yet ensures their employees are always taken care of before they are. In the military, I was always taught to lead by example. You know, It's funny the majority of business owners that I see, and I sit down with hundreds of them in here, most of the successful ones, it's always their employees they're concerned with first.

30:22 Yeah, they'll pay themselves last. Everybody else gets paid first. And so no one led you to put that. You just put that, and that's that's typical of leaders Well, what things. So whenever I was in the military at I was an officer, yep, so we were always told, you know that your soldiers have to eat before you do. Yeah. So yeah, that pretty much explains it. That's good stuff. Now, something that people may not understand about your business one hundred percent is what do you do right when you came in here and you said you were a speech therapist. The first thing I'm thinking of is at school when you go to speech, right, and they teach you, you know, when you're in elementary school when you have to go to that speech, deal with the speech there.

31:11 That's what I'm thinking, you know, off the top of my head as to what you do. You run into that pretty often, very often. Yeah, are they just the same. You're a nurse and you can call me anything they want. Yeah, as long as I'm able to help them. I love that. I love that. That's awesome. I love that. Social media. How important has that been to your business? I think it's been extremely important. We're doing a lot of social media. We do a lot of giveaways. I think that helps some. Yeah, I do to Yeah, yeah, you brought us T shirts today. I did in a whole mug of goodies. That's right. Yeah. And it's funny though, because whenever I run into past patients, they're always like they're wearing the shirts and they're like, I'm representing yes and yeah. And I even I had somebody that went to a Lie's Club event and there was somebody that needed speech and they're like, oh, look at that shirt, and yeah, so there's a referral. That's right, And I tell people all the time. That's probably the best form advertising you can ever do is give out T shirts because people wear those every they cut the grass in them, they get a Walmart in them, they get you know, not Walmart, but of course a local family owned store like Corse. Who are you? What did you do a jump? They did? They wear them out in the community and people see that, and that's like almost like a walking billboard for you. But also if people are willing to wear that and fly your colors, it means they had a good experience typically, so so shout out for

32:45 that, and we're gonna wear ours proudly. I asked you about promotions and h you said, you're going to be at the Alzheimer's Services Educational Conference on April seventeenth at the Crown Plaza. Pretty big, pretty big conference there. And is it like both say set up and in these big shows. I guess you could call it, well, you just have to exhibit hall and then you have the training session. Yeah, yeah, very good and CEU critit's continuing education important to facts like you. I would imagine medical stuff changes constantly, constantly, yeah, and very important. Yeah, that's one of the things that I do want to say something that was something that really stuck out to me. And the answering of your questions is how important it is for you to stay up to date on technology. And when people look at you as just thinking you are a speech therapist, what would just for the general public to understand because my both of my sons had to go to therapy at school. One you know, they both one had a horrendous speech impediment calls by ear issues that we talked about, and the other one was just just he couldn't say so and sounds and a squirrel he couldn't say and and he ended up getting it in the end. You know, he's just a little bit older. But what is the difference with someone going to school for therapy and then finally reaching out to you, maybe they're not having success,

34:16 Like where's that where? I know it's got to be like on some type of spectrum if it's I think just whenever you're in the school system, it's basically speech production and then you're looking at comprehension and expression and then as and they can have swallowing issues. If you have somebody with cerebral palsy or anything like that, you know, that can be causing some swallowing issues. But as you get older, basically the focus is cognition, some communication speech if they had a stroke and they're having like slurred speech. But basically a lot of swallowing swallowing difficulties or dyspasia is actually a normal part of aging. People don't realize that, and so that is one big huge thing I think, right that people I've had so many people in the past that their family members have died of aspiration, pneumonia or just you know, Alzheimer's and they just didn't know that there was help that they could get right, and so they passed. And they're just like, I wish I would have known that you were here twenty years ago, right, And I think that's kind of the ultimate question that I had, is I was blessed that both of my boys grew out of it or once you know, my youngest had tubes, he was fine, But I could be in a much different place, you know, So they would this be like, if let's say they were thirteen and twenty two still having issues, would you be someone that I would go to just for speech? Yes, okay, okay? And what about like constant

35:51 clearing of the throat. Is that something you know? You get the people that sometimes they'll say it's just habit they all the time, but sometimes there might be an underlying issue, would you agree, Yes, So that normally would be either post nasal drip or acid reflux. And so whenever a person has acid reflux, it basically you have acid from the stomach that burns the lining of the esophagus and it can actually burn the vocal cords. And so a lot of times whenever people have reflux, they'll just have constant throat clearing. And that's definitely something that needs to be looked at because it might not be anything. It might just be a habit, but it could be something a lot worse. Would that be something you would definitely look at. It's something that I would look at, and if I saw things that I would just refer them to the doctor that they needed to in order to get treated.

36:44 Gotcha, Okay, yeah, because I know someone that does that, and they're listening right now, so it's not me. It's not Sunday, but they know who they are. And what about like coughing constantly, just constant coughing. I noticed that with a lot of our older crowd, it seems like charts or something like that. They'll cough a lot and they might just be sick a lot of them. But again is something management of secretions. So if you can't manage your secretions, and this sounds crazy, but if you're not able to manage your secretions, most likely you're not going to be able to manage you know, food or liquids. And so you can get your swallow assessed and then we can basically say, okay, well, you know you'd benefit from exercises. We have to exercise the muscles in the throat like we have to do with the legs in the arms. But it could be just compensatory strategies tucking the chin, or just modifying the diet, maybe thickening the liquids a little bit, chopping up the food. And that doesn't mean that it has to be permanent, but just until we can get the muscles strong enough in order for them to be able to go back to where they need to be. Yeah, and there's actually supplement I don't know what you would call, but it's thicking it that you can add to foods and things like that that will make it thicker. For people with that issue, yes, And a lot of people though they don't like that one because

38:16 it's extremely grainy. Yes, so they don't want to follow the diet that they're prescribed. They do have a gel thickener. It's called simply thick and you put the smallest amount in it and it doesn't make it grainy. I always want to try the things that I'm giving my patience. And if you do like the thicken it or whatever, they have one in a yellow can. And if you put a little bit in and you drink it, it basically tastes like sandy water. Yeah, and you're more thirsty after you drink it than before. Well, there you go. But they have a gel one, So you have an option out there other than other than that now.

38:57 And I don't know if back when I was free with that, if if that even existed. Very interesting now. We talked about social media a little a little earlier in the podcast. But how do so you have a Facebook, you have an Instagram, all these sorts of things. I'm sure if they search your name, it's gonna pop it up. But we're gonna make it even easier than that for you. What we're gonna do is in the description of this podcast. We're gonna link your Facebook and Instagram whatever whatever else you have out there. But the most important thing is your website. Yes, because it is a we went and looked at the websites, very nice and easy to follow. Explains definitely you know in detail what you do and and those sorts of things. Uh So we'll also link that. So if you're driving right now and you listen to this, no worries. We're gonna link in the description. And Sinny, you got some fun facts I think for our favorite podcast here, So let's go through them. You ready, If you purchased a yacht, what would you name it? Slow and Steady? And that reason is because I love turtles. So whatever I'm driving on the road and I see a turtle, I have to stop to move it over. You Really, every single turtle that is awesome. And I have taken some turtles to l Ashue that have had crack shells and they fixed them and they let you go bring them back where you found them. Really interesting. So on that there you go, turtle folks out there, But

40:30 you didn't know that. Now we'll be stopping at every turtle. I'm serious. I like turtles to I love turtles, which brings me to a fun fact that's not on here. But what did you want to be prior to what you are doing now? Because I love this story? Okay, Yes, so I wanted to be a veterinarian whenever I went to Lshue when I was in an undergrad I wanted to be a veterinarian. But I could never see myself putting an animal to sleep if so, therefore I just needed to find something else to do that. Well, you knew that will be required at some point, yes, And the last question is if you could travel anywhere in the world, where would it be. Okay, so this is a fun fun fact Lancashire, England, because my maiden name is Townly and there's actually a Townly castle there. Oh wow, I think you're related about twelve You have to be just about twelve generations, Matt, I'm your cousin and I KNEI there had to be a story to that one because you were so specific. You didn't say anylan you set up a specific place in England and U. Yeah, well, I'll have to check that out because every time people do that particular fun fact if I'm not familiar with it. I gotta check it out and look that out. I've seen a lot of beautiful places that people have come up with that way, So very cool. All right, Well, I guess that about wraps up another one advertise. I think. So I just wanted to again thank you for your service, but

42:04 I also didn't want to interrupt Jim at the beginning of the show. But I love your focus on the elderly and that your mom influenced that in you, because this is a segment of society that's lost and they don't have a voice. And that's why, I mean, they don't have a voice. A lot of times, even if they still have a voice, they just give up, pushed aside, not you know, respected, They're taken for granted, left alone sometimes, you know. And so I am, I honestly christ saying it. I feel better knowing that there's somebody like you in this world because I know if I need someone, I'm just calling you, you know, like in your and it could be for any position, you know, and you're gonna be like, no, Cindy, you need to go find this person. And I know that you're gonna help, and that gives me. That has given me peace since I met you, and I mean that. That is why we have our guest guests here today, Miss Emma, that is studying to do what you're doing and it just is amazing.

43:05 That's right. Yeah, well that was sweet, Missake, and the turtles love you too as well. That's right. Well, thank you for coming on today. Look y'all, we're linking all the information you need in the description. We're going to have the website as well as the social media. You can go check them out, give them a like on Facebook, share them with anybody you think may be in need. If God forbid, you have somebody struggling with one of the issues that we brought up today, you know, refer them. Refer them to Louisiana Voice and Swallow Solutions, and uh if I don't want to say if she can't help you, because I get the feeling you can help anybody with anything. I feel like, if I break my leg, I'm gonna come see you. But don't do that actually, but she would absolutely help you as much as she could.

44:01 I definitely have that feeling even in that situation. Thank you for coming. Did you have funk? I did all right? And for all of you out there, please continue to like, comments, subscribe on this podcast. We're coming up on a million downloads. We're really really close, and all of that is because of y'all out there and the businesses that we cover has nothing to do with me or Cindy, but we sure do love it that we're able to feature businesses here every single week. And until next time, I'm Jim Chapman and who are you, I'm Cindy Overton with Local Leaders the podcast. We'll see you next time. Love your community and support local business.

44:44 Thank you,