For laundry, I use banana boxes. A full banana box is a full laundry load. The boxes are easy to carry, because they have holes for handles on the ends.
Recently I filled a box with freshly laundered towels, yet to be folded. I placed the box on the dining table, as I attended to something for my son. Suddenly my son said, "Mom! Dad!"
I turned to look at my dementia addle-brained husband. He had grasped some of the towels in his hands and was bringing them towards his face. I thought he was going to wipe his face. Quickly I stepped back to the table, took the towels from his hands, and whisked them away.
"No, dear. These aren't napkins. I'll get you a napkin."
He looked at me with an odd expression and said, "Why are you taking my cake?"
Years prior, layed cakes with cooked White Mountain Frosting were his favorite. Part of his brain still held those memories. But, the part of his brain that makes sense of his senses and surroundings often misinterprets the input of information... amazing what is produced.
Poor guy. No cake.
Monday, September 5, 2016
A Cow Crapped on Me
Monday, February 1, 2016
Recently my wheelchair-bound dementia husband called to me. "What's wrong," I asked.
He said, "A cow crapped on me!" (As his vocabulary deteriorates, his favorite word is "crap" or a form thereof.)
I had to ask him several times to repeat himself, because he has speech difficulties and I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
"A cow crapped on me! Get me out of here and clean it off!"
I couldn't help but smile and laugh. I said, "Sweetie, you're dreaming."
It took some convincing, but finally he realized he wasn't in a barnyard or pasture. He started smiling, although he was still agitated. We had spent more than our fair share of time living on farms, wading through and shoveling s--t, and getting whacked by cows' tails covered in liquified manure.
After he calmed down, I asked what happened. He said was on the ground and a cow was standing over his back, crapping on him. He said he could feel it, smell it, and see the texture and color. He was amazed at how real it all was.
These days he is often confused about what is a dream and what is real. Even when he is having a hallucination, it's easier on him to tell him that he is dreaming.
Stupid Death
Last night my dementia husband's passion for laxatives caught up with him. Luckily his pull-ups caught a good deal of the loose pudding textured outpouring. His pants captured most of the rest. Unfortunately, as he checked the damage by repeatedly plunging his hands down the back of his pants, he managed to shroud his hands with the stinky brown stuff and then finger painted everything within reach. Ultimately his electric chair, the toilet, walls, grab bars, standing bar, toilet paper and holder, door, and floor featured generous sloppy smears of excrement.
"Oh, my gosh! What happened?"
"I had an accident. It's your fault!"
I was stunned by the extent of the mess and smell. "It's okay. Let's get you cleaned up. Next time, don't do this. Just let me clean you."
I took him to the shower, trying to minimize the trail of excreta, transferred him to the shower chair, effectively covering a good portion of that with liquidy feces, and began a relatively long process of washing every nook and cranny of his being. His clothes, his hair, and every part of his body were not spared the ejecta. Eventually, after several full body scrubbings, while cleaning the shower area in between, he was clean. But, he needed to wait, while I cleaned his electric chair and enough of the floor to allow exit from the bathroom. Waiting is not his forte.
After not too terribly long, I stripped his chair and placed folded towels for him to sit on, so he could go back to bed, which I had also stripped and remade with fresh linens. I transferred him and he went back to his slumber. Now, in the middle of the night, I faced not only a small mountain of stinky laundry, but considerable scrubbing of the bathroom. I set to work.
Using what I had, I began cleaning in earnest. Because many of the cleansers were nearly depleted when I began the tasks, I used several different products. Finally, it was looking fairly clean. Because I like to walk around barefoot, I wanted the floor to be very clean. I needed to close the doors (the bathroom has two doors) to make sure every square inch was scrubbed and sterilized. The floor wasn't dry from the previous cleansers I had used, but I was anxious to finish and go to bed. I decided to use bleach to be certain the floor was clean.
While on my hands and knees, I poured the bleach onto the floor. A cloud of gas quickly arose, enveloping my head. I gasped. That breath immediately caused me to become severely light headed. When I was young, the news had prominently featured warnings about cleaning bathroom with the combination of Comet cleanser and Chlorox bleach. A young mother had used the combination in her toilet, passed out, and drowned. The second thought was of a person who had died by being squeezed to death by an elephant, like a peanut. While both instances of deaths were tragic, there was also something funny about dying in an unusual way. Simultaneously I had the thought that I didn't want to die having done something stupid. Although I hadn't used Comet cleanser, something reacted with the bleach. I didn't want to be remembered for that. Unable to get to my feet, I groped for the door handle. As consciousness was nearly gone and my vision faded towards black, I was able to get the door open for some untainted air.
The next morning, still shaken from the close call, I had to laugh. My main concern had been, and still was, that I didn't want to be remembered for a stupid death.
"Oh, my gosh! What happened?"
"I had an accident. It's your fault!"
I was stunned by the extent of the mess and smell. "It's okay. Let's get you cleaned up. Next time, don't do this. Just let me clean you."
I took him to the shower, trying to minimize the trail of excreta, transferred him to the shower chair, effectively covering a good portion of that with liquidy feces, and began a relatively long process of washing every nook and cranny of his being. His clothes, his hair, and every part of his body were not spared the ejecta. Eventually, after several full body scrubbings, while cleaning the shower area in between, he was clean. But, he needed to wait, while I cleaned his electric chair and enough of the floor to allow exit from the bathroom. Waiting is not his forte.
After not too terribly long, I stripped his chair and placed folded towels for him to sit on, so he could go back to bed, which I had also stripped and remade with fresh linens. I transferred him and he went back to his slumber. Now, in the middle of the night, I faced not only a small mountain of stinky laundry, but considerable scrubbing of the bathroom. I set to work.
Using what I had, I began cleaning in earnest. Because many of the cleansers were nearly depleted when I began the tasks, I used several different products. Finally, it was looking fairly clean. Because I like to walk around barefoot, I wanted the floor to be very clean. I needed to close the doors (the bathroom has two doors) to make sure every square inch was scrubbed and sterilized. The floor wasn't dry from the previous cleansers I had used, but I was anxious to finish and go to bed. I decided to use bleach to be certain the floor was clean.
While on my hands and knees, I poured the bleach onto the floor. A cloud of gas quickly arose, enveloping my head. I gasped. That breath immediately caused me to become severely light headed. When I was young, the news had prominently featured warnings about cleaning bathroom with the combination of Comet cleanser and Chlorox bleach. A young mother had used the combination in her toilet, passed out, and drowned. The second thought was of a person who had died by being squeezed to death by an elephant, like a peanut. While both instances of deaths were tragic, there was also something funny about dying in an unusual way. Simultaneously I had the thought that I didn't want to die having done something stupid. Although I hadn't used Comet cleanser, something reacted with the bleach. I didn't want to be remembered for that. Unable to get to my feet, I groped for the door handle. As consciousness was nearly gone and my vision faded towards black, I was able to get the door open for some untainted air.
The next morning, still shaken from the close call, I had to laugh. My main concern had been, and still was, that I didn't want to be remembered for a stupid death.
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