I didn't always talk myself out of making a little extra effort but I am ashamed of how many times I did just that. Probably the biggest turning point for me was the incident with the explosive diarrhea I wrote about in a previous post. As Paula said, she and I were probably the only ones mentally prepared to handle such an event. That was the first time I actually thought "If not me than who?" It was my shift and therefore my duty to handle it as best I could. Still it took a while for the extent of my obligation as a caregiver to sink in.
Rationalizing reasons to pass the buck was easy for a while. Hillary works from home, spends most week days with him, therefore, I rationalized, she should take Dad to his doctor visits. After all, Allison has special medical needs and I have to handle her medical appointments, I should not have to handle Dad's as well. Filling prescriptions...since I don't take Dad to the doctor I don't know everything he is taking. I give him the pills conveniently inserted into his daily med containers without questioning. Paula also takes Dad to medical appointments and handles finances. Again I rationalized that I have enough on my plate and since she was familiar with Dad's bills there was no reason for me to change the status quo. I try to make dinner, not just bring dinner whenever possible, and what I make is usually pretty healthy. Doesn't that show that I'm trying? I try to find fun movies or games for him. Isn't that better then just the bare minimum? Maybe...but only just a little better. My self rationalization, while based on fact, was truly a cop out.
Our most recent issue has been getting Dad to shower. This is rather disturbing since Dad was once clean almost to the point of OCD. He took as many as three showers a day. There are no half baths in Dad's house. All are full baths with either shower, bathtub or both. I don't recall exactly when he stopped wanting to shower but Hillary believes it began with a fear of falling brought on by the incident when he fell in the middle of the night and wasn't discovered until morning. She could be right, but it was not until about the past six months when the problem began to really snowball. No one could get him to bathe. We would tell him he needed to shower and he would promise to do it later...next time we came over he would be wearing the same thing with a few more stains and his thinning hair would look a bit more oily.
It got so bad once that his food encrusted shirt smelled. I insisted he needed to get in the shower or at least change his clothes. He ordered me out of the house. I tried pointing out the pieces of food on his shirt that were probably not even from that day and he deliberately decided to gross me out by picking the dried food off and eating it right in front of me. I was so disgusted I left. "Fine!" I thought, "Wallow in your filth like a damn pig! See what I care!" I was furious...but I was not the only one attempting to get him to practice basic hygiene. Everyone was trying to some extent to get him into the shower! Tom, Bradley, Paula, Hillary...all of us were engaged in this absurd battle.
One day I received a text from Hillary, "Dad's looking a little slick. I'm not leaving until he bathes".
I sent a text back, "I agree. I don't think he's showered for at least three weeks."
"Three weeks??? Try six!! No one can get him to shower. I think it's a deep seated fear that he will slip and fall." As unsteady as Dad has become, this theory was not at all unlikely.
Over the next six hours I received text updates from Hillary:
"Got him all the way to the bedroom. Started to get undressed."
"Damn! He's dressed again."
"Okay, he's in the bathroom. I hear the water running. Crossing fingers!"
"He's out and getting dressed. Hair is wet and he is happy. Woohoo!!"
"DAMN! He faked me out! All he did is wet his hair to fool me. He still stinks!"
God bless her, she did everything she could to get him to shower that day, even told Tom to delay his visit hoping all she needed was more time. The way Dad treated her during that time was deplorable. He tried to make her smell his armpits to prove he showered. He got a resounding "NO WAY!" to that. It was almost like Dad was punishing her for trying to get him to do something against his will. The more she insisted, the harder he pushed back until he got in her face and demanded that she leave. He then sat down at the kitchen table with his back to her as she did one last clean up of the counter. Hillary saw she was getting the silent treatment and approached him from behind. She hugged him gently and said "I love you, Daddy" and walked out. He sat there like a stone, wordless.
Hillary was very upset as she drove away. She stopped at Walgreen's to pick up a prescription. Suddenly her cell phone started ringing. It was Dad. "Hillary, do we have a problem?" he asked in a worried voice.
"No, Dad. We're okay. I'll still visit tomorrow", she reassured him.
"No, I mean did we have a fight?" he asked.
"Yes, but we're okay. I love you, Dad. I'll see you in the morning."
When she told me about it later we were both amazed and hopeful that the incident upset him that much that he was able to hold on, maybe not to the memory itself, but the emotion it provoked for a solid fifteen minutes.
The next day she decided to try again. It still took a couple hours but she finally wore him down promising a dessert if he would just shower. She followed him all the way in, put a hand towel on the floor of the shower so he might be less worried about slipping, started the water and made sure it was nice and warm for him and left him to do his thing. She occasionally peeked in just enough to confirm he wasn't faking her out again. He was really doing it...she could tell because of all the cursing when he would drop the soap. Mission accomplished! We were all so grateful to her for getting him to do the one thing no one else could.
I am sure we all secretly feared all shower battles would be like this from now on. We brainstormed ideas for helping Dad to not be too afraid of falling. I figured the main issue was the dropping of the soap. That in itself was a legitimate hazard. "I know it's usually a gag gift but what about soap-on-a-rope?" I suggested. "Actually, that's probably a great idea!" Hillary said. So I set out to find some and actually found something even better: the SoapSaver. It was basically a mesh bag for soap that cinches closed. I bought one and lengthened the cord using the drawstring from a pair of sweatpants. We attached it to the shower head and put the soap bag on his shower chair. With that issue addressed, guess who was assigned the next shower attempt? Yep...yours truly.
My Aunt in California died a week after Dad's last shower and Hillary was nominated to attend the funeral as our family representative. The night before she had to leave she sent me a text right before I arrived at Dad's house begging me to get Dad to shower as she had to take him to the doctor in the morning and then hop a plane that afternoon.
Admittedly, after hearing how it took her two days to get him to shower only a week before, the idea that I could do it in three hours seemed a bit unlikely. I promised to try, braced myself for the storm and started my visit.
I made dinner and put The Avengers in the DVD player. Dad finished his dinner and I stopped the DVD.
"Okay, Dad, the movie is about to get really good but you promised Hillary you would shower tonight so let's get that out of the way", I said enthusiastically. "I have an apple pie in the oven. If you shower now, it will be ready by the time you are done and we can have apple pie and watch the Hulk beat the shit out of Loki!"
He protested a bit, "Okay, I'll do it later".
I bounced around like a fitness trainer in front of him, "C'mon, Dad! You promised Hillary...and how can you say 'no' to fresh out of the oven apple pie?" (Apple pie is his favorite. If any bribe was going to work, that would be the one.)
"Well, that's true..." he said, his stubbornness starting to crack.
"C'mon, Dad! Heave HOOOOO!" I cheered, "You can do it, Daddy! HOOOWAA!!" bounce-motioning him to hoist his aging keister out of his favorite recliner.
"Why are you such a PEST?" he demanded.
"Pie and Hulk for shower, Dad. How can you pass that up?" I cheered.
"I'll just take the pie", he said.
"Nope! No shower, no pie. I'll take it home to Mike if you don't shower", I threatened. "Come on, Dad. You have a doctor appointment in the morning. You don't want to be stinky for a colleague, do you?"
He sighed. I could tell he was ready to give in.
"Pie is in the oven, Dad", I reminded him.
"What kind of pie?" he asked.
"Dutch apple! How can you say no to that?" I demanded.
He sighed again but I could tell I had said the magic words.
"Okay. PEST!"
He hauled himself out of his chair and I bounded down the hall into his bathroom as he shuffled into the bedroom. I set up the SoapSaver on the shower chair, put down another hand towel and started warming up the water. Then I went back into the bedroom insisting he hand each item of clothing to me as they were removed. He tried to keep his undershirt on but I felt if I left him in anything more then briefs he would just get dressed when I left the room. I grabbed all the clothes and threw them in the washer and returned to the bathroom where he was standing in his briefs.
"I don't have to give you these, too, do I?" he asked.
"No, I'll leave you your dignity", I replied. Then I showed him the safe setup in the shower; No reason to worry about slipping and the new soap rope would help should he happen to drop the soap. I also pointed out the clean clothes I laid out for him on the counter so he could dress before even leaving the bathroom. He seemed much more comfortable with the idea after that.
"Okay, now GET OUT!" he demanded. I worried that he might try to fake me out but after peeking a few times I realized he was really doing it...and in record time, too! It took approximately half an hour from the time I stopped the movie and started my strategy to him stepping into the stall. Big win!
I sent messages to Hillary and Paula and they sent lots of thank you's calling me "The Bomb" and asked how I had done it. I explained: cheerleading, bribery, potential embarrassment and a well placed guilt trip.
It took a while for him to finish, dress and comb his hair and my visit ran quite long that night but I didn't mind. He deserved his pie and movie for not giving me much of a fight.
I have decided to commit myself to one shower a week as my duty, but I noticed something else that night. The pile of "clean" laundry on Mom's side of the bed was questionable. Although I found clean clothes for him to wear I also discovered that some of his dirty over shirts had wandered into the pile. It dawned on me that I could not tell with any certainty how clean most of the clothes in the pile were. Not my job? If not mine, then whose?
As I caregiver, I submit that every job is my job whether I think so or not. The next week I assigned myself the bed pile. Paula and Hillary are doing enough. Lightening the load IS my job. I spent a whole day just washing the "questionables", putting away the clean items, changing and washing Dad's linens and turning his room back into a bedroom. He sat and talked with me as I worked, I sang silly songs like Iko Iko, causing Dad to call me a weirdo. The time passed quickly. When I was down to the last load I took a picture of the bedroom with Buddy smiling in the foreground and sent it to Paula and Hillary. I captioned it "Buddy wants to know which side is his". They were so happy!
I finished the final load and sent Paula one last text.
"Well, it turns out I owe dad three white shirts...and a pen :/"
"Lol! That's okay, we needed Christmas ideas for him anyway. Thanks for everything, Erin!"
"My pleasure. It's my job", I responded.
(To be continued)
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