Wouldn’t shower this morning or even let me brush his teeth. But while I was on the phone with my mother this afternoon, he started taking off his jeans.
“Gotta go, Mom! He’s either telling me he wants a shower or is about to pee on the floor!”
Well, shower it was. Totally cooperative. Well, excpet he wouldn’t take his socks off. So I had to take them off wet after. This is how caregivers build strong bodies 
Afterwards, he put his bare foot on the chair one after the other and I cut his toenails while he held totally still. And cleaned his ears, brushed his teeth, combed his hair, and barely shaved him. I’ll take it! Second shower of the week!
=alstro, easily pleased. He also ate all his breakfast (fruit salad & walnuts) and lunch (cooked up miscellany from the fridge…1/2 lb ground pork leftover from the pound I thawed for ma-po tofu, last 2 mini-peppers, leftover half onion, 2 large cloves garlic, small can diced tomatoes, a little leftover riesling, oregano, pepper, garlic, and stirred in the trader joe’s mac & cheese w/hatch peppers he wouldn’t eat the other day. Not bad. Love using up miscellany. Think we’ll have --broccoli and crab cakes for dinner.
I had taken my shower this morning while he napped. He woke before I came back to the den. I was dressed and just combing my wet hair when he came into the bathroom, sighing repeatedly with relief at having found me. But then he’s just about always been pretty thrilled to see me from the early days .
I just got a wink & a smile 
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I just got a wink & a smile
Makes ME feel good too!..for you!
=sheila
OTOH, he couldn’t figure out how to pee in the toilet when I took him to the bathroom earlier (even though I pulled down his pj’s and, er, pulled him out and handed him over-). And so he wet his Depends. He does seem confused sometimes, but always managed till now. Anyhow, sure beats a puddle on the floor. I ripped the Depends right off, persuaded him to sit in his recliner (on a towel-), pulled up fresh Depends and his pjs, which I was smart enough to put him in following his afternoon shower. Now I know he’s sleeping in pjs tonight Maybe he’ll pee in his Depends one time in the night and give me 4-5 hrs in row to sleep…a girl can dream.
I used to think dealing w/Depends would be too much, but after handling puddles on the floor, Depends are a piece o’ cake (until poo, I presume). Getting fresh ones back on a little dicey, though–he doesn’t always want to let me remove his jeans/shorts/pj bottoms to get fresh Depends on. He’s probably unable to foresee pants getting pulled back up in half a minute.
He followed me into the bedroom when I was washing up and is sleeping in bed now.
A day where we both got to shower is a good day!
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alstro, can you get him on hospice? There is (limited) help available there. They don’t help with house cleaning, but they do help with the kinds of things you seem to need help for. Maybe someone here even knows how to get a little of that kind of help. Your insurance should oay for that kind of thing, no?
CNC
…Getting fresh ones back on a little dicey…
The ones with tabs are easier than the pull-ups: https://www.carewell.com/catalog/incontinence/adult-diapers-…
If link doesn’t work, go to carewell.com and search; or, google “Fit Right adult diapers.”
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…hospice?..
That’s for people who will probably die within 6 months. Alstro’s DH is physically healthy, might live another 10 years.
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That’s for people who will probably die within 6 months.
Troo dat. But insurance should cover something similar. It’s worth asking. (And I would suspect that question has already been asked.) I have just discovered the joys of a medigap (AKA medicare with supplement) and it covers just about anything a physician prescribes. The hooker is that if you aren’t on a medigap plan it’s hard to change into one.
CNC
But insurance should cover something similar.
We don’t have long term care insurance, which typically pays $4k/month and memory care costs 2-3x that. Even in SC. It’s more labor intensive than nursing home care.
Medicare pays for up to 100 days/year of nursing home care, but only under certain circumstances and AFAIK he doesn’t meet the requirements of physical disabilities. He doesn’t even meet the requirements for Medicare to pay for more than 6 PT sessions since he is ambulatory without an assistive device (wheelchair, walker, crutches, cane). I doubt most nursing homes would take him at this point either. He needs a 1:1 caregiver day & night and they aren’t set up for it.
I don’t want him in a facility. That would stress me out more than having him at home. Almost none of them have experience with his very rare form of dementia. Most in a facility for dementia are like DS’s GF’s grandmother. In their 80s/90s, can’t walk, trouble swallowing so need soft food and thickened beverages, hallucinate, often don’t recognize loved ones. The hubster isn’t like that.
He’s been a good husband and I’m doing my best to be a good wife.
I’m kind of tired becasue of getting waked up several times a night (and at least one time tends to leave me wide awake, like right now), but I’m OK.
People take care of pets all the time, even when very ill for long periods of time. I wouldn’t want that effort or expense–hence no pets. I’m as puzzled by people doing that as some people are by what I’m doing!
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Forgot to mention that we do have Medicare supplemental insurance. It’s a BCBS policy for retired SC state employees and includes drug coverage (such as it is–our 3rd medication has fallen off the formulary). DH taught at a state college for 10 years so just qualified for it.
I would not do Medicare “advantage.” The advantage seems to be to the insurance company, although I know some people happy w/their MA policies, even one who had melanoma and a heart attack and has been pleased with her care.
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Hospice question already answered–you need a near-term “death sentence” to qualify.
I have once a month house cleaners and do the rest of the housework myself–I’m not too lazy or decrepit to clean. With the cleaners, I don’t need to wash floors or scrub the shower–the tasks I hate, but I don’t mind everything else, in fact I kind of enjoy housework (I didn;t when I was young). In fact my dishwasher’s been broken for ages and I’m hand-washing everything now. DH did the dishes for decades, and I had forgotten that I enjoy it–and it’s great exercise for hands/arms/shoulders, especially with my heavy Le Creuset pots. And our water bills are lower when I deal with the dishes I was told by the hubster’s visiting occupational therapist that my house was the cleanest she’s been in for a long time. (Remember, she’s mostly going to homes of the elderly-).
I would like more time from my aide. She’s really good and therefore fully booked. She keeps clients till they die or move to a nursing home/memory care or she hands them off to a fellow caregiver in favor of a different client. 10-15 hrs/week would be great such as 9-1 MWF. Meanwhile I manage with 3-6 hrs.
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I would like more time from my aide. She’s really good and therefore fully booked. She keeps clients till they die or move to a nursing home/memory care or she hands them off to a fellow caregiver in favor of a different client. 10-15 hrs/week would be great such as 9-1 MWF. Meanwhile I manage with 3-6 hrs.
Your aide sounds like an angel! The good ones are very hard to find because they get snapped up as soon as they become available. I hope you’re able to get more time soon. It will make all the difference in the world if you could nap or take a walk around the block or share a coffee with a friend or neighbor.
One of the toughest things for me when caring for my dad was the isolation. I couldn’t make plans, because he would call constantly and “need” something when I wasn’t there. I frequently had to drop what I was doing to drive over to his place. I even had to stop taking long walks around the neighborhood because twice I was over a 20 minute walk from home, had to run home, jump in my car and then drive the 45 minutes – worried and angry at the same time.
I had one friend who was willing to drive 30 minutes, meet me for coffee about 15 minutes from my Dad’s house, and was ok if I had to cancel or leave. She was a God send. That stopped with the Covid shut down.
Caregivers made all of the difference. I still had to drop what I was doing and race over to my Dad’s multiple times, but I knew someone was there to help him and call 911, if necessary.
And the really good caregivers see things with a different eye, from a different perspective. They have suggestions on new ways to solve problems and know when you need additional help.
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I would like more time from my aide.
Pay her more.
Hospice question already answered–you need a near-term “death sentence” to qualify.
Heh. 3½ years ago my FIL was sent home on hospice. The old goat lived another three years, the last year bed ridden. We were puzzled, but whatever works. Even MIL was relieved when he finally died.
CNC
With all due respect, it’s a little jarring to see your detested FIL compared to OP’s beloved DH.
That said, hospice does require a 6-month end date, and although there’s some flexibility, 3 years is an outlier. My mother was discharged after 8 months because she’d stabilized and was no longer “actively” dying. She died about a year after that, after refusing to go back into hospice because her feelings were hurt that they’d discharged her. My dad was in hospice for four months in 2020, and was discharged because he recovered, is doing fine now.
Yew: With all due respect, it’s a little jarring to see your detested FIL compared to OP’s beloved DH.
Well, FIL was not exactly “detested”. He did become a PITA, though. And MIL cared for him to the end.
CNC
That said, hospice does require a 6-month end date, and although there’s some flexibility, 3 years is an outlier
Hospice also means that most treatment other than palliative care is stopped. When my father signed himself into hospice, we were told they wouldn’t even cover a flu shot. Hospice nurses kept urging me to take my Dad’s vitamins out of his pill tray. My father chose to take a daily multi-vitamin, D3, and B12, all because he felt better when he took them. The nurses would roll their eyes at me and say there was no reason for him to continue them.
I always told my Dad that I would do my best to follow his wishes. Nurses were always pulling me aside and suggesting I do things without his knowledge. That used to really upset me. I was very concerned about losing his trust as he was dying. I knew it was very important for him to keep some sense of control. (often at my expense, but I understand)
Another crazy thing about hospice is they used a different medical supply company than my father’s Medicare. He was completely bedridden and we had to switch out the hospital bed. First, to prepare for the delivery, we rearranged furniture so there would be space to put a second bed next to the first. The new bed had an inflatable mattress that had to be plugged in. Of course it kept tripping the circuit breaker and I had to get an electrician to made some changes so he could use the new bed. Then we needed three people to hold onto the blanket under him and slide him over onto the other bed. He had cancer in his spine. We were worried about breaking his back. Then we had to arrange pickup of the Medicare bed which required someone to squeeze into the over-crowded room and disassemble the bed and carry the pieces out around my father.
Most of the home hospice employees were amazing, but there was a lot that did not make sense.
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"there was a lot that did not make sense. "
I have noticed that since the children have flown the coop, I do longer use the phrase,
“Because I said so!”. However, I think about the phrase whenever I go to the doctor or
read an insurance statement or Medicare summary.
Howie52
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