From Aneurysm to Caregiver : A Journey of Purpose

Keywords

fatherhood, grief, recovery, mental health, resilience, caregiving, success, emotional processing, personal growth, life lessons

Summary

In this episode of Father's Refuge, host James Moffitt speaks with Andrew Davey, a musician and mental health counselor, about his journey through a life-altering brain aneurysm, the challenges of caregiving for his mother with ALS, and the lessons learned about grief, resilience, and redefining success. Andrew shares his experiences of recovery, the emotional complexities of loss, and the importance of being present for others in their times of need.

Takeaways

Andrew's life changed dramatically after a ruptured brain aneurysm in 2018.

He transitioned from teaching to becoming a clinical mental health counselor.

Caregiving for his mother with ALS provided him with a new sense of purpose.

The first year of recovery focused on physical healing rather than emotional processing.

Andrew learned to redefine success beyond societal expectations.

He emphasizes the importance of being present for those in grief.

Recovery is a non-linear process that requires patience.

Andrew's emotional processing was affected, leading to a blunted experience of feelings.

He found fulfillment in helping others navigate their own recoveries.

Andrew encourages listeners to focus on what they can control in difficult situations.

Sound bites

"I had a ruptured brain aneurysm."

"Success was just being the best version of myself."

"I owe it to myself to find something engaging."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Andrew Davey

01:24 The Journey of Recovery

08:34 Navigating Grief and Loss

11:51 Redefining Success

17:20 Acceptance and Moving Forward

24:19 The Role of Caregiving

34:39 Final Thoughts and Advice

Losing a child to cancer is a grief no parent should walk through alone. The Father's Refuge Podcast is a safe place for fathers and parents to share, heal, and find hope in the midst of heartbreak. If you are a father and you would like to share your grief journey with others reach out to me at FathersRefuge@proton.me 

Transcript

James Moffitt (00:01.368)
Hello and welcome to Father's Refuge podcast. My name is James Moffitt and I'll be your host. in each episode, we dive into real stories of faith, fatherhood and redemption. Andrew Davy, thank you for being here today.

Andrew (00:17.499)
It's my pleasure, thank you for having me.

James Moffitt (00:19.788)
Am I, am I saying your last name correctly? Okay, great. So, I'm going to read this little thing for you, Andrew. Andrew Davey is a musician and storyteller whose journey through fatherhood, marriage, and personal resilience makes him a compelling guest for Father's Refuge podcast. His experiences with love, loss, and growth align closely with the Father's Refuge mission of supporting men.

Andrew (00:21.808)
You are, you are.

James Moffitt (00:48.398)
their grief and faith-centered healing. Who is Andrew Davey? Lead singer, songwriter of Bear's Den. I also went to your YouTube channel and listened to some of that.

Andrew (00:57.372)
He

Andrew (01:01.069)
Yeah, so you can, there's another Andrew Davey, that's not me.

James Moffitt (01:05.43)
my goodness. Never mind. Well that's embarrassing. Anyway, I can cut all that out. Andrew, how are you doing today?

Andrew (01:16.209)
I'm doing well, thank you. How are you?

James Moffitt (01:18.168)
Good. I'm good. And so introduce yourself to the listening audience, please.

Andrew (01:23.334)
Okay, well,

Andrew (01:27.153)
I think it probably, in 2018, I had a ruptured brain aneurysm and that sort of set my life on a different trajectory. I ended up, I had been a teacher previously and a fiction writer and the aneurysm sort of forced me to reconsider what my future was going to include.

because suddenly things were very different. So I went back to school and I am now a clinical mental health counselor. And my thought was that I could help other people navigate through their recoveries with traumatic and acquired brain injuries. And then in 2022, after I was in school already, my mother was diagnosed with ALS and I moved back in with my parents to be her primary caregiver.

or one of her primary caregivers. And then she passed in 2024 and I moved back, I moved out of my parents' house after that. And that pretty much takes us up to where we are today.

James Moffitt (02:40.974)
Okay, well I'm sorry to hear about your loss. I know that that can be a very painful thing to experience and to talk about.

So, I'm just going to kind of put a quarter in you and turn the knob and just kind of let you talk about whatever it is you would like to talk about. You know, father's refuge is a podcast that, is there for, fathers to talk about their life experiences, their, their fathering journey, what it is to teach kids and to prepare them for the world as well as to discuss,

any kind of traumatic injuries or any kind of treatment journeys that they may have walked through. so I feel that your story is certainly applicable to our mission here.

Andrew (03:40.135)
Thank you. Yeah, well, I guess it's been a very interesting journey for me. I had my aneurysm right before I was about to board a plane in 2018. It came out of nowhere. This is before COVID. So the only symptoms I had were when I got to my gate and I was

getting ready to board the plane, I began to sweat uncontrollably. Which at the time I thought might just be a symptom of the flu or a cold. And then they called my group to board and I tried to lift my bag and it felt like it had cinder blocks in there. Which again, in hindsight was probably another serious red flag but...

At the time, I thought if I could just get on the plane, I'll take a nap. I'm sure I'll feel better when I land. And fortunately for me, I tripped and fell before I could get on the jetway. So thankfully, because I was at the airport and it was early in the morning, first responders could get to me and I was taken to the hospital. And that, the order of events,

and how they happened is why I'm here talking to you right now. Had anything changed, the first year of my recovery was very much physical. What I had assumed as I was going through things was that the physical and emotional recoveries would happen at the same time. And what I discovered afterward was that the first year

my mind hadn't really begun to unpack the emotional elements of it. So when I got out of the hospital, I needed to use a cane to walk and I had to build up my endurance. had double vision, so I wore an eye patch. My ability to make abstract connections wasn't really there. So the first year was a lot of work just developing the physical recovery.

Andrew (06:03.599)
It wasn't until 2019 that I began to think about a lot of existential questions, like what would my life now look like? I had been a teacher, so should I go back to teaching?

Andrew (06:19.088)
And then it took about...

three years to feel comfortable emotionally sort of moving forward. Again, the COVID pandemic wasn't fortunate for anything, but that also allowed me some time to, moved back in with my parents and I could focus exclusively on healing. And that's when I realized that counseling would be a better fit for me than trying to go back into the classroom.

and

One of the side effects of the aneurysm is that my emotional processing was affected. So I don't process joy or sadness the same way that I used to. It's more of a blunted experience. Which initially I thought was going to be a big hindrance because I wasn't able to process joy the same way that I used to. But it ended up being a silver lining because I could take care of my mother

which was a very overwhelmingly negative experience for everyone else, but I could sort of endure seeing her in such a compromised position without it really affecting me emotionally.

Andrew (07:38.973)
So that's pretty much what the last couple of years have been like in terms of managing the recovery. I've also had to address grief with my own transition in terms of becoming a new person and adjusting to that, but also grieving the loss of my mother.

And really just the dynamic that we had in our family has changed.

And I did take, I do facilitate a grief support group now where I practice and I learned a lot in school about managing grief in a different way. So it's been really helpful. Initially I had gone back to school thinking that because I could work, I should be engaged and try to do something that would be helpful.

but it's turned out to be personally applicable as well. So that's been really enjoyable.

James Moffitt (08:57.912)
One of the, one of the topics that we talk about on this podcast is loss and grief. And while I focus primarily on fathers and treatment journeys for their children and loss of loved ones, whether it be a child, grandparent, parent, wife, spouse, significant other, however you want to label them. There are other things in life that we experience grief.

because of loss and slight loss of the relationship with with your spouse loss of of apparent or loss of a job you know somebody that's been a job for twenty thirty years and they get laid off or they retire or you you're you find yourself

wearing a hat of identity or what, know, you're, you're like, especially for men, know, he, you, you're a, the protector of your family, you're the provider for your family. you, go to work every day and provide a paycheck so you can keep a roof over everybody's heads, food on the table and all of that. And then all of a sudden you, you're kicked to the curb because a company is reorganizing or.

The shareholders decide they want more money in their pockets. And so therefore the company downsizes and all of a sudden you're without a job, you know, and your, your, your identity is shattered. Right. And, so you experience loss and the, and, and of course, along with loss becomes, becomes grief. And, sometimes those guys don't know how to process that.

And, and so it's interesting to hear you talk about the, your brain aneurysm and the, the, how it all transpired. And, you talk about, you know, sort of your loss of identity, your loss of who you were before the aneurysm and your, your, your mental acuity and your, your, the psychology of who you were.

James Moffitt (11:13.198)
physiology of who you were and how you lost all of that. And you had to, kind of had to sort of, uh, remake yourself and you had to re acclimate yourself to things that you'd normally, uh, would experience. And it was just normal to you. You know, you, you'd go from situation to situation and you knew how to handle it. Now, all of a sudden you're having to learn how to walk again and you're, you're having to learn. Like you said, you had to learn how to process.

emotions, you know, common emotions that we all deal with. And yeah, if you could talk about some of that, that'd be great.

Andrew (11:51.261)
Sure. Well, I think, so I had had certain life goals, I think, that, you know, I grew up in New York City in the 80s and 90s, and it was very much, I think the brass ring at the time, which is probably still very similar, but to be very successful financially, to be married and have a family.

to have children and pets and a car and a house in the suburbs and all of these sorts of things. And after the aneurysm, some of the goals that I'd had suddenly either didn't seem attainable or they didn't seem as important. So a lot of what I had to kind of consider was, since I had projected so much value,

onto what I had hoped to do, could there still be value if I changed direction? So for a few years it was finding that yes, there were, I didn't necessarily have to have the life that I had anticipated in order to be successful. But that took a lot of time to kind of feel comfortable with. One thing that the aneurysm did,

that was unexpected is it sort of gave me an opportunity to take a step back and reevaluate everything in a different context. whereas I had assumed that success had to include a couple of things on the list, I realized that success was just being the best version of myself that I could be. And that may not look like

what I had anticipated or include those things, but in time I was able to feel more comfortable allowing them to sort of be discovered later on.

James Moffitt (14:01.762)
Yeah, I think our, I think the world around us and the culture that we're in kind of, dictates, to us what our value is and what success looks like. Right. And that's why it's so important that as individuals and as fathers that we don't compare ourselves to others. Right. Because that's just so detrimental in so many ways. And, and, I think a lot of that's deeply rooted in our childhood.

you know, and how our parents raised us and how our parents responded to external stimulus and their lives. Right. And, and I think there was a song, back in the, I'm a child of the eighties, seventies and eighties. And I think there was a song that I can't sing it and I don't know what the, the lyrics are, but basically it was talking about keeping up with the Joneses. Right. And, we.

You know, if the Joneses have a brand new car, then we need to go get a brand new car. If they have a better house than we do, then maybe we need to learn how to figure out a way to make enough money to get a better house. Right. And so, and the list just goes on and on and on. And, the advent of social media has made just made it acutely, more of a problem than it ever was before, because you know, people have online personas. You know, you see these influencers and you see, you see these highly.

successful people on, on Instagram and Facebook and YouTube and all these different social media platforms. But that's not really a reality, right? That's not to say that what they're presenting to the world, like if they have a talent, if they're a singer or dancer, whatever their, you know, artist, whatever their, you know, their entrepreneurs or creatives. And it's not to say that what their, their talent is, is not invalid. It's that, is that.

people like to put their best foot forward. Right. And that's not necessarily, you don't see what the garbage is going on in the background. You don't see the struggle. You don't see the, all of the different things that has to happen in order for them to get to that place. Right. And, and life is just not a bed of roses. It's not, you know, life is not happy, happy, joy. You know, that's every, every day we just don't sit in a room and go, I'm just so happy about everything. Right. And that's, that's not reality.

James Moffitt (16:25.324)
And so it's interesting that you talk about how your vision or your...

your, what's the word I'm looking for? Your example of what success would look like, right? Everybody, know, especially in the seventies and eighties, you know, our, our vision of success was, you know, getting through school, going to college, getting a degree, getting a corner office job, making 30,000 a year and, marrying a, you know, a beautiful wife and, having a house with a picket fence and lots of kids and dogs running around and.

You know, that was, that was the American dream back then, you know, and I think, I think over the years, the American culture has changed so radically that maybe that's not the, that's not the picture of success anymore. And, and so when external things happen to us and internal things happen to us, it forces us to, to take a serious look inside and go, well,

It's like you said, what does success mean for me now? You know, it's not necessarily a picket fence in a house with a wife and kids. Maybe it's the ability to just, um, survive and to, walk and talk and process emotions and, and, and be able to face the trials of the day without falling apart. Right.

Andrew (17:56.028)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew (18:00.123)
Yeah, no, I think that's exactly it.

James Moffitt (18:07.438)
So, um, so you had to learn how to walk again. You had to, know, you're experiencing loss and grief and, maybe were you ever angry about what happened to you?

Andrew (18:23.325)
Not so much angry, I think...

Andrew (18:30.577)
there was a of a radical acceptance that this just sort of happened.

I don't know if I was ever angry about that. I was more focused on what am I going to do to move forward rather than how did this happen? think typically what I had, so I had an aneurysm ruptured on my brain stem, is not...

It's not rare, but it's less frequent. And typically, it can be exacerbated by certain things. Certain drug addictions might do that, which I don't have. It might be genetics, but there's no history of that in my family. So for me, just happened to take place.

you know, is a random sort of thing. So, but again, my thought process was just kind of like, okay, this happened, how do I manage from here?

as opposed to dwelling on, know, I think probably there was a certain amount of time where I was just more overwhelmed emotionally about it, you know, sad and sort of questioning like, okay, well now what? Rather than thinking about being angry about it.

James Moffitt (20:14.498)
Did you go through a period of time where you were...

questioning why it happened. Like why, why me Lord? Why did, why did, why did this have to happen to me?

Andrew (20:27.651)
Again, I didn't really take the time to look at it that way. I sort of feel like...

these things happen pretty frequently, you know, time. There was really nothing that I did to put me in this position. So I just sort of figured, like, okay, well this happened, you know, again, like, sort of now what? Now what do I... how do I make...

How do I make the best of this situation? I started to, you know, think of it sort of like I was playing poker. You know, I was dealt certain cards that I had nothing to do with, and I have cards in the middle of the table that we can all use to try and make the best hand. So how am I gonna make the best hand? And that's where I focused most of my energies instead of reflecting on what had happened.

James Moffitt (21:40.835)
Gotcha. Well, and I think that was an advantageous to you as well. If you didn't have to wade through, I think some people get angry. A lot of people, get angry about the hands that they're dealt in life. Right. And I think we, I think, I think sometimes I like to tell people that, that one of my attitudes towards life is,

Andrew (21:59.569)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (22:08.812)
I want to do the best I can today with what I have. Right. I have, I have what's going on inside my head, my heart, and in those external circumstances outside of me that I have no control over. Right. So I'll just try to do the best I can with what I have. And, and I think that, I think sometimes there's a conflict there. I think there's a conflict with, these external things are happening to me. have no control over them. So where do I go from here?

Right. And I think, I think that's where, resilience comes in, you know, and I think that's where some people struggle because they don't have that resilience and they don't know how to overcome those external forces that are affecting their lives. Right. Or, or having an aneurysm or a heart attack or some, some, you know, physical, you know, issue or problem or ailment that happens just out of the blue. Right. And you're like, great. Now what?

Andrew (23:09.341)
There's a movie that I like called The Edge with Anthony Hopkins, and there's a scene where he and Alec Baldwin and Harold Pirineau are lost in the Pacific Northwest. And Anthony Hopkins says, most people in the woods, lost in the woods, die of shame. And then when they ask him what he means by that, he says, you know, they...

James Moffitt (23:14.594)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (23:22.934)
Okay.

Andrew (23:34.705)
They spend all their time thinking, what could I have done differently? How did I get into this position? Instead of spending time doing the one thing that would help them get out of there, which is sort of thinking, okay, well, what do I do next? So I adopted that approach rather than, you know, I would give myself time, certainly, to question what happened. I think it was important to put into context the fact that

had anything been different, it would have been a really horrible situation for me. But things ended up working out the way that they did. So I made sure not to spend too much time thinking about that, but I gave myself a sort of requisite amount of time to think about, okay, what happened? How did this happen? Why did this happen? But mostly it was just, okay, this happened. How do I address this?

in a healthy way moving forward.

James Moffitt (24:36.59)
That's awesome. That's great. Now, I just went to your pod match profile and looked at your profile. And I want to read this little blurb here for the listening audience. About Andrew Davey, I can discuss my experiences growing up in New York City teaching, working in finance and theater, writing, brain aneurysm, recovery, co-hosting a music review show, in Hong Kong. Did I say that right?

Andrew (25:04.197)
yeah, Macau, Macau, but it's...

James Moffitt (25:06.178)
Macau, Hong Kong, that's interesting. Playing the guitar, attempting to make a documentary film about a former middleweight boxing champion, teaching in the US and abroad to middle high school, college, English as a second language, students with ADHD and learning differences, caregiving for a parent with ALS, practicing mental health counseling as an LGPC. What is a, what is an LGPC?

Andrew (25:34.671)
It's a licensed graduate professional counselor. when you, it's very similar to if you go to medical school and you become a doctor, you do a residency afterwards where you're technically a doctor, but you're sort of still under supervision. So I'm not independently licensed. I'm licensed in the state of Maryland, but I require a certain amount of hours of supervision.

James Moffitt (25:53.56)
Gotcha.

Andrew (26:03.857)
before I can be independently licensed.

James Moffitt (26:06.978)
I got you. Well, it's very admirable that you went to, went to college and got your, got licensed to be a professional counselor. So, so then, so you're paying it forward, right? I mean, did your, did your experience, motivate you to do that?

Andrew (26:26.233)
Absolutely. Most...

Andrew (26:31.485)
Most, I'm not sure what the statistics are, but most people who had what I had either don't survive at all, or if they do, they end up having a very serious cognitive issue for the rest, or physical issue for the rest of their life that sort of precludes them from either returning to work or being able to pursue anything.

So I sort of looked at this like I owed it to myself to find something engaging that I could do that I would really be passionate about. But I also owed it to a lot of my friends who can't go back to work. Not to mention there wasn't really a lot of information out there for people like myself with regard to how to manage the emotional recovery. There are plenty of physical

supports that are in place with different therapists that can help you physically recover. But I sort of thought I have this unique perspective. I've lived a very interesting existence. I should try to use that to help other people. And that will be one of the fulfilling things that I had assumed would be

taken care of by my previous schools. But instead it turned out that the path that I forged ahead didn't look like anything I had anticipated it ever would, but it's become something that I've really gotten a lot of pleasure from.

James Moffitt (28:19.086)
That's good. That's awesome that you're paying it forward and you're in a position now to where you can help others that are kind of walking the path that you are on and are probably still on to a certain degree. So can you talk a little bit about caregiving with your mother?

Andrew (28:38.781)
Sure, so I guess sometime in 2021, my mother broke her ankle and that was probably when her symptoms really began to show themselves. She had been a tennis player and noticed that she wasn't moving the way she had previously been able to on the tennis court.

So she went to a few doctors and was misdiagnosed a couple of times until sometime in 2022, they diagnosed her with ALS. And for the first year, I would say, she could still pretty much take care of herself in terms of getting, she had a cane and a walker.

but she could still drive, she could still speak, she could still move basically. And then sometime in June of 2023, I went to go visit my parents for what was going to be July 4th weekend. And my father told me that he was having real difficulty. So they would have an aide come in to help my mother during the day. And then

in the late afternoon, early evening, my father would take over and care for my mother by himself. And he told me that it was really becoming too difficult for him to do that anymore.

So we sort of both decided that I would move back in and continue to go to school part time since I could do so virtually. basically, so I was there for about a year and a half. And while I was there, she plateaued a little bit and then sort of lost the ability to move, to speak, just really, you know, she,

Andrew (30:43.933)
had a feeding tube, so all of these things that really required someone be there full time. What's really nice that I can always look back on is that I was able to help provide her a quality of life that she wouldn't have had had I not been there. So, plus it was not, know, very few people get to spend quality time with their parents.

later in life. was very fortunate that I was able to do that. And I had a great relationship with both of them. it turned out to be a really wonderful time. Again, it looked like nothing that I would have anticipated or ever thought, hey, I know it'll be a good time. Let's move back in with mom and dad and take care of mom when she gets sick. But

Also, I guess because of what I had already been through with the aneurysm, I was ready for it.

James Moffitt (31:50.136)
Yeah, I would imagine that you had a heightened sense of compassion and empathy for your mother.

Andrew (31:58.973)
Sure. Well, and also taking care of her became a profound satisfaction that I had sort of been looking for. You know, after the aneurysm, was kind of like, okay, well now what will I do that will give me the same satisfaction that I thought writing and publishing would, for example?

and it turned out to be taking care of her was really worthwhile.

James Moffitt (32:29.784)
guess it gave you a new sense of purpose.

Andrew (32:32.335)
Absolutely, that's a great way to put it.

James Moffitt (32:35.202)
Yeah. I, you know, the circle of life for most people, nobody, nobody wants to bury children, right? And unfortunately I've had to bury two and typically in the circle of life, it's, you know, get married, you have kids, you raise your kids, watch them grow up and then you grow old, right? And then we enter into our second childhood as we become elderly. And then our, and then our, hopefully

our children are there for us and can help take care of us in our old age, you know, when we need it and, some, some people are blessed to have a good relationship with their children and that happens. and I think that's a, I don't know. I think that's a, a good thing. And I think it's, something that, that, that should happen. It should be, I think expected. I think parents do expect that because you know, you spend a good.

I don't know, you know, I don't know the percentage is, know, 45, 50 % of your adulthood, uh, bringing new life into the world and raising them or protecting them and providing for them. And you do, you sacrifice a lot, you know, for your, your children to grow into teenagers and preteens and adults. And, and, you know, you would hope that they would, uh, that your relationship with them would be such that, that they would feel.

Not necessarily obligated, but they would want to take care of you. You would, they would want to be there for you and provide as much as they can, you know? and so anyway, it's great. It's great that you were able to step in and, help your dad with that.

Andrew (34:19.389)
Thank you.

James Moffitt (34:20.898)
Yep. So, do you still co-host the show Happy Hour with Heather and guest?

Andrew (34:28.157)
I don't, the show is on hiatus right now. We haven't recorded an episode probably in about six months to a year, I would say. I should probably update that.

James Moffitt (34:31.883)
Okay.

James Moffitt (34:38.728)
okay.

Andrew (34:44.465)
But yeah, that was a fun, we both.

Heather and I are both fans of heavy metal music, so this was an opportunity for us to help some, we would showcase the music of lot of underground bands that were trying to get better well known, so we would help sort of market and promote them by talking about their music.

James Moffitt (34:53.888)
Okay.

James Moffitt (35:09.964)
got you. That's awesome.

James Moffitt (35:15.945)
I like I wasn't as prepared for this interview as I should have been, but that's okay. I think we've had a good conversation and, I certainly appreciate your time to come onto the podcast and to talk about your, experiences. And I'm glad that you, have been pretty successful in overcoming, that aneurysm and

And you're able to take care of your mother and you're showing a lot of emotional resilience. And, and I would say you're probably a success story compared to maybe some other people that haven't been able to successful.

Andrew (35:56.615)
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate the opportunity to speak. And I'm grateful for the chance. And I appreciate the kind words. Sorry.

James Moffitt (36:06.424)
So, amen. No, you're fine. So I want to give you like a five minute elevator speech opportunity to where you could talk to the listening audience and talk to them about whatever it is you would like to talk to them about.

Andrew (36:24.475)
Well, I would say for anyone who's recovering from anything, be it a traumatic or acquired brain injury or just any sort of experience, to remember that recovery is usually in a spiral. It's not a straight line. So to give it, just to give it the patience that it might need, it's going to, you're going to heal on

different timetable than the one that's in your mind. So just be cognizant of that. For people who are caregiving or helping somebody through grief, I would say being present is probably the most important thing you could do rather than try to fix a problem, for example. So most people just...

benefit from somebody listening. So I would say those would be my two, my two, for people who are recovering from something themselves or trying to help other people, typically it's just being present and being empathetic are the most important things you can do.

James Moffitt (37:42.744)
Thank you, Andrew. I appreciate your time and to the listening audience, would say thank you for the privilege of your time. Thanks for listening to the Father's Refuge podcast. If today encouraged you, share it with someone who needs it and...

You can go to fathersrefuge.com. It's our website and you can see all the different podcast episodes that have come out and I have a lot of resources on there as well. You can reach me via email at fathersrefuge.proton.me. That's fathersrefuge.proton.me. So anyways, if today encouraged you, share it with someone who needs it. And until next time, keep walking in faith and hope. And Andrew, thank you again for being here.

Andrew (38:25.991)
Thank you, it's been my pleasure.