Sitting Down to Shower

"Sean," I told him in earnest on the phone, "we are senior citizens and both of us need to sit down in the shower. Hubby doesn't like me bossing him around, so when you come I just know that you can do wonders, because he doesn't want me bossing him around. I think he will listen to you."

Knight Sean (Occupational Therapist) drove up in our circular driveway to our door in his Hummer-looking large black four-door jeep. When Sean came in the door, Sean told hubby, "Mr. Johnson, I am here to have you take a shower." With one command at a time, Sean skillfully broke down the process and hubby took a sit-down shower! He raised the sturdy shower bench I couldn't raise and was using in the yard for weeding.  He remarked that the port-a-potty we have would also work in the shower.

Solution One. Sean told me to get grab bars installed for the shower. I once had bought them when the shower was retiled by homeowners insurance for a mold problem we had maybe six years ago before dementia entered our household, However, the construction crew did not install them and I had taken them back. I surmised that the grab bars were not part of the original construction and not needed in the repair. Bummer.

Twice as good a deal as six months ago

I have just paid off our interest-free six month Home Depot credit card balance and now I could take longer for the interest free loan.  So I went online and chatted with Tiffany to see if I could get grab bars installed.

Tiffany: Welcome to the Home Depot! My name is Tiffany and I am a Bath Product Specialist. How may I assist you today?

Carol: I need a grab bar installed in our shower.

Tiffany: Hello, Carol.

Tiffany: In regards to installation/remodeling, please contact our At-Home Services at 1-888-480-9500, press "1", and then enter the three-digit code "267." You will be asked to put in your zip code and then will be connected with a representative who may better assist you with your installation/remodeling questions and concerns.

Carol: Thanks.

When I called, I found out that they sell grab bars, but do not install them.

. . . But, Home Depot doesn't do grab bars!

So I decided to still try to obey the knight with the four-door black jeep and see about getting grab bars installed from Lowes. Lowes also does not install grab bars, but they did have something that might work--Safe-er-Grip, Balance Assist for Shower or Tub. The Lowes clerk knew what I was talking about, as his own mother had fallen and had to have surgery for a broken hip and with the anesthesia her dementia had gone downhill. If hubby can avoid falling, he can avoid the possibility of anesthesia for surgery and the accompanying decline of dementia following anesthesia. If I can avoid falling as I have done twice recently, I can continue to take care of my hubby at home. Physical therapist Susann talked me through the installation of the two Balance Asists and the best use of them--for balance, not for pulling oneself up. One fell down that first night, however.

Two large bricks covered by a rug
and Safe-er-Grip on toilet

Solution Two. I put two 8 inch by 8 inch by 16 inch bricks on top of each other between the shower and the toilet with a rug on top of them. Hubby has a counter on his right and the bricks on the left to get off the toilet. Those bricks now hold his soap and shampoo for a sit-down shower. But guess what! He moves the soap dish to where it was at the back of the shower and stands to take his shower. You know what they say—you can’t teach old dogs new tricks.

Just as Physical Therapist Susann left, Occupational Therapist Sean came. The timing corresponded with another event.  Sally and I were having lunch with another friend. Jake came over to have his lunch with my husband and Susann left and Sean was there with Sally and my Alzheimer's husbands.

The two balance assists in the shower

Sean liked the two brick idea between the toilet and shower. Sean asked if they would be okay when he left and I told him the two Alzheimer’s buddys would be fine. The two men love being together and are so funny together. When hubby sat and waited for me at Best Buy recently, he said to me that it felt strange not to have Jake by his side. These men have a unique bond and fantasy life about things they have done together. When Sally and I came home from our lunch date, the hubbies were indeed happy and had planned the four of us would go to dinner and we did that. We women can’t do all the planning!

So it has been up to me to persuade hubby with our new sit-down shower arrangement. Getting him to shave is easier because he can feel his beard. He thinks he showered yesterday, when he hasn't. Alzheimer's patients need a routine and we just have to manage somehow so he can remain in our home without falling and with strengthened muscles.

Solution Three. Now hubby had injured his knee taking socks off to put in the hamper. This is how the last hospital trip happened. I got him new socks that are easier to take off. Hubby is not using this walker now, but I put the hamper between the legs of that walker so he can carefully balance himself as he takes off his socks. I notice he does hold those handles on the walker when he uses the laundry hamper.


Laundry basket in walker



Sitting down in the shower is not an embedded solution yet, as hubby  takes a stand-up shower in his sit-down shower. Calling Knight Sean! Need another lesson in sit-down showers! And hey, Home Depot and Lowes, with our aging population we need you to install those grab bars.

Another Hospital Trip



Picture of sitcom from link below

I got one of those cries this morning from the bedroom:

I've fallen and can't get up.

It was 6:30 am approximately and sure enough he was on his rear end. I put in a text to my back yard neighbor Kenny who came over. I got on the computer and canceled substituting for the day. Two hours later hubby was in a non-emergency ambulance on the way to Plant City Baptist Hospital ER again.

I drove to ER and I went into ER Room 7 with my iPhone and charger and had friends all over praying. I texted hubby's adult children. I posted a status on Facebook. I texted people who do not do Facebook. I chatted with Facebook friends who play Words With Friends with me on the iPhone or on Facebook. Kerry from church put out email prayer to every one at church.

Again many things were checked out. Hubby had a head scan which is standard procedure for falls with seniors and he hadn't fallen because of a stroke. Xrays revealed that there was no broken bones. His urine was checked and not another UTI, although I didn't think so because he wasn't acting like he had in April. Near noon hubby was released to go home. A nurse helped get hubby into our gas guzzler car--so high up.She went to get someone else to help.

Nurse: How will you get him in the house?

Me: That’s why we came to the hospital.

At home hubby deboarded the car and used the walker and painfully made it to a spot on the couch where I usually sit which has a pullout for elevating one's feet.

Left spot has leg elevation pullout,
Right spot is hubby's Archie Bunker spot.

Later in the afternoon, hubby longed for his Archie Bunker spot. He got stuck at the end of the pullout which we can't get to fold up. There was about an hour of debating how he would get up. 

My husband has a favorite spot across from the big TV like Archie Bunker had above  in the 1970s sitcom. See Archie's chair HERE.  Archie's  son-in-law Mike "Meathead" once broke it, or once sat in it, etc. This sitcom chair was legendary and I believe is in the Smithsonian. Even though hubby could have been comfortable watching TV with his leg elevated at the left spot, it was not his spot opposite his special coffee table with all his stuff. He felt he had to move.

Kenny was not home because he was volunteering elsewhere as an Alzheimer's caregiver, but Kerry had kept in touch with me by text and had her husband Dave come by after his work to help hubby get up and over to his spot. In addition to the walker Dave helped him use crutches which I happened to have to move the few inches. Now teaching someone with Alzheimer’s something new like the use of crutches is difficult. Thanks, Dave.

It was time for bed and Kenny's brother-in-law came over to get hubby off of his spot and into bed. Unlike the whole afternoon, however, suddenly hubby was able to walk. I think it was the magic of his Archie Bunker spot which he insisted on sitting in and of course the prayers of you all who knew of this ER trip. And the ice and the elevation somehow made hubby's right leg better and this morning he is walking. I wondered why in the ER they didn't elevate and ice right away.

This brings up the point of falls and avoiding them. I have put a chair by the bed where hubby fell yesterday and he has accepted this change of furniture. He still has an ace bandage on his knee to remind him of the fall and limps a little.

Chair by bed for safety,
Almost looks like Archie's chair.

Habits



From Facebook

 

 The more you do something, the more it becomes a good or bad habit. I teach about habits when I teach a class for DUI offenders. I often use this anonymous quote.

I am your constant companion. I am your greatest helper or heaviest burden. I will push you onward or drag you down to failure. I am completely at your command. Half the things you do, you might just as well turn over to me and I will be able to do them quickly and correctly.

I am easily managed—you must merely be firm with me. Show me exactly how you want something done, and after a few lessons, I will do it automatically. I am the servant of all great men, and alas, or all failures as well. Those who are great, I have made great. Those who are failures, I have made failures.

I am not a machine, though I work with all the precision of a machine plus the intelligence of a man. You may run me for a profit or run me for ruin—it makes no difference to me.

Take me, train me, be firm with me, and I will place the world at your feet. Be easy with me, and I will destroy you. Who am I?

I am Habit.

So I worked on a new habit today--getting to my substitute job ahead of time. It felt good. But it is not a habit yet. Often times there is a situation at home such as my husband taking his morning pills and I barely make it to school in time or have to call to say I am on my way. They are happy that I call and that I come to cover a class. But how much better to get somewhere on time! I am also realizing when hubby and I go somewhere and have to be there by a certain time, plan to leave in plenty of time. Time means so little to him--I have to be the time keeper.

Today I substituted in a Math in high school. After taking roll in first period I noticed a young lady in the corner of the room and noise was coming from an obvious cell phone. I went over to her, observed that her cell phone was plugged into the wall to charge it and asked her to put it up. She said she couldn't turn it off or she would lose her game. It turns out that she entered my classroom and acted like she was enrolled in that class.  After she was removed the other students said that she must be a new student and one reflected that she only comes there when there is a substitute! Her cell phone is her habit--a bad one. She may skip her first period to go find a substitute, park herself in that class, and charge her cell there. Hopefully her bad habit was busted today.

21 days to change to a new habit I have heard. When someone has Alzheimer's it may be more than 21 days. I put a little love note in my husband's morning pills now to get him motivated to take those pills before I leave the house. I also take my pills at the same time. He does remember that I ended up in the hospital when I took his pills, so I say take you pills so I don't accidentally take yours again. This habit is a constant struggle.

I have also heard to establish routines early in Alzheimer's. I got my husband an electric shaver for Christmas. Now getting him to use it is a real struggle. It would be safer for him to use this instead of shaving with a razor. He doesn't always want to shave every day and it seems to me that he can use his charged shaver while he sits and watches TV. This is not his habit, but my struggle. He may win this one, like he keeps winning not wanting to mow the lawn. My patience is tried again and again.

But then, again, I struggle with some of my own habits, like recording the food that I eat ("tracking") for Weight Watchers and my housekeeping habits.

People in the classes for DUI offenders that I teach get the following quotes about habits on my Power Point presentation:

• “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence.Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are alone supreme.”               --Calvin Coolidge

"We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons."-- Jim Rohn

• "The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail."--Napoleon Hill

• "This one step—choosing a goal and sticking to it—changes everything."--Scott Reed

• "Things start out as hopes and end up as habits."--Lillian Hellman

Lord, give me patience with my husband
and persistence with my own habits.
I can change more than he can.

Safety and Guns

An Alzheimer's patient is like a child. We need to protect them--protect them from wandering, protect them from weapons. This morning I read this poem and got permission to post it.

It's Time to Heed the Headlines

A plea to gun-toting parents

by Greg Asimakoupoulos

March 16, 2012

If you love your daughters and your sons,
you can't be careless with your guns.
A weapon left in easy reach
can be the death of them.

The tragic news we've read about

should undermine whatever doubt

may yet remain concerning what's

the loving thing to do.

A grownup gun is not a toy.
And little girls and little boys
can't differentiate what's what
except when it's too late.

So please lock up the guns you own

before you hear your child moan
while bleeding out before your eyes
that can't hold back the tears.

Originally published at www.partialobserver.com .  Used by permission.