Handicapped Husband Adjustments

Hubby and Walker

Saturday afternoon I had a date with my handicapped husband. Alzheimer's is not new to us, but physical handicaps are. It is hard for him to walk even though Extra Strength Tylenol helps the arthritis. I let hubby off at the movie theater with the walker and then I went to park the car.

When I got to the theater, he was inside sitting down waiting for me to buy the tickets to "The Butler". We both enjoyed that movie, but hubby insisted that he had seen it before--strange to me, but I didn't comment. Memory and dementia are strange bedfellows and produce different realities.

At the end of the movie he needed to use the theater bathroom--to pee. I panicked. I could not go in the men's restroom with him. At home he was using the urinal container we took home from the hospital.  I remember hearing a waitress say how a husband was allowed to go to the lady's room with his care receiver wife when the staff blocked off that ladies room at that restaurant. I didn't want to cause a scene. Our issue was not remembering what to do at this stage of the disease, but physically being able to use the facility with an arthritic knee. Somehow it worked out and hubby came out with his walker as if nothing was the matter. Then we walked across the street and hubby sat down on the bench pictured above while I did an errand.

My errand. I have been substituting for many days in a special education class and had promised students they each would have their own books to mark up and read. Although these students are in middle school, the reading level is much lower and I had to get what would interest each and I was able to satisfy most of them with their own book from Mrs. Johnson. Still there were three more books that I had to secure.  I went to Books-a-Million while hubby waited.  Bingo!  Within a few minutes I had a Goosebumps book, Dog Finds Lost Dolphins! and More True Stories of Amazing Animal Heroes, and Extreme Biology: From Superbugs to Clones. . . Get to the Edge of Science for those reluctant readers I am teaching this month--books to motivate them to read that they also can write in. Not only that, but I got a valuable phone number (1-800-353-7034) for those magazines that I wrote about earlier and hadn't been able to get rid of even after writing to the publisher. So far our outing as a couple was working.

Back at the bench, hubby and I went inside nearby Grillsmith Restaurant. These days I am holding the door open for hubby. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner inside the restaurant (me salmon and hubby beef) while he spotted a dog at the outside seating where leashed pets are allowed. We met that dog when we went outside after our meal.

Hubby again waited at the bench while I went to get the car. It is a little hard for him to climb up to our Expedition, but so far it is working. Then I stored the walker in the backseat of our car. (So glad I do not have to lift the wheel chair because it is very heavy.) Meanwhile volunteer caregiver Kenny is going to pick up an application for a handicapped tag for us that I can bring to my husband's doctor (the doctor that almost put him in a nursing home). We are both much happier with hubby at home instead of in a nursing home.

There are practical issues for a home bathroom when someone is handicapped. It was just hard for my husband to get the the bathroom in time when he needed to. We have had some near misses and misses in the bathroom with the result that someone had to clean up the floor and wash the rug.  I thought of a solution. It is so much easier to wash a rug that would cover the area, than to have to reach to both sides at the back of the toilet to clean up where that rug wasn't down. I cut up one rug to add to the commode rug with my Viking (quilting) sewing machine. I used hem facing to sew both sides to connect it.

Custom Toilet Rug

It is hard for hubby to sit down and get up from regular toilets even with the walker.  I purchased a Moen Home Care Locking Elevated Toilet Seat With Support Handles that I happened to spot at Lowes when I went looking for shower grab bars. This elevated seat can be removed when we have company.

Pictured at Lowes

With Total Coverage Rug 

It is crowded between two walls, but it works with the custom rug I sewed.

I also purchased the Moen Home Care grab bars for our shower to be installed by Plant City First Baptists "Second Saturday" volunteers that I found out about at our monthly Alzheimer's Association meeting.


Kenny has been so helpful. He knows just what to say for hubby's showers to help him get in the shower and even shaves him now since he can't stand. It was Kenny's brother-in-law who came over to install that Moen Home Care seat.

Let me bring you your walker, I say.

I don't need it, he says.

Let's bring it just in case is my reply. Most every time we need it because of that awful arthritis.

There's a lot of adjustment with dementia. Add another handicap that the care receiver forgets he has and more adjustments need to happen. I love my hubby, who would make all these adjustments for me if the situation were reversed.