Sunday Stroke Survival: Time to Flip the Wardrobe

With the cooler days and nights, it's time to flip the wardrobe. Gone are the easy days of T-shirts and shorts which comprises the bulk of my dressing options for these north Georgia foothills. They are exchanged for sweaters, sweatshirts, and long pants.

This year in thinking of this change, I'm facing a new complication. Adult diapers, more exactly changing them. It's more complicated than with shorts which slide off and on easily over my AFO and shoes. With long pants, it mean taking off my shoes, sliding my pants off, changing my pull up, and repeating the process in reverse before leaving the bathroom. I'm basically getting halfway undressed and redressing every time I do this. The few times I've done this in the spring and summer months showed me it's going to be a long, hard winter. Sure you can rip the sides to get out of them easy enough to do with two functioning hands, but more difficult with only one. It still doesn't alleviate having to undress to put on the clean one.

I've been researching patterns to make durable options like I did with the pads.  Unlike the pads where I could trace the disposable pad I liked the best, full "panties" are different and I'd need a pattern that don't come cheap.  Then comes the problem of size. While regular underwear patterns patterns go by waist size, while my normal waist size is is spot on a size 7, there are extra seam allowances for the snapping portions. several small elastic placements at the waist to hold up a wet diaper. It's not like sewing regular panties because of the absorbent padding makes for extra bulk. It'll take a lot of elastic work to accomplish.

 Sewing elastic onto fabric with two functioning hands is easy. I've just got to figure out a way to do it with one hand. It may be as simple as using a dozen pins the maintain the stretch while sewing and a loop at the back of the sewing machine to hold the fabric straight while sewing or a  lot more complicated. I honestly haven't tried to do anything but flat, straight stitches yet.

I've already know how to attach the snaps through trial and errors in making my own pads. So that won't be a problem. That was a challenge and a half when I was trying to figure out how to do it.

Currently, I'm roughly going through a case of disposable diapers in a month. That's 54 of them to the tune of $22.50. That's about 12 per week. At $0.41 a piece, it's a decent price, but I'm trying for the ease of changing them without having to undress and redress each time. The cost difference will eventually save me money in the long run. The same was true for the chucks pads I use to protect the mattress or even the pads. Yes, I could buy these ready made, but they are cost prohibitive or it would take longer to reach a break even point.

But then on the other hand rethinking this, I'd go through acrobatic feats of wonder trying to do up all the snaps or Velcro with each change. It's a no win scenario for 6 months out of a year all to keep from undressing during the cold parts of fall and winter. I guess I grin and literally bare it, quite literally, until I get my somewhat bladder control back. Sigh!  This too is living post stroke.

Nothing is impossible.

Thursday's Tumbles and Stumbles ~Stop Helping Me!

The stumble of the week is being a caregiver to a man with a caregiver/helping spirit. This has actually been going on for over a year now, but it almost made me loose my cool this week.

Credit

As my husband becomes more debilitated and helpless, he continues in wanting to assist me and the hospice aides in his care. He'll struggle to change positions in the bed for better access for us while we are attending to him. This increases his pain levels and leaves him gasping for breath. Reminding me of a fish out of water. It would be funny if it wasn't so serious.

No, I don't want to disable him or hurt his ego, but things would go along so much smoother if he'd stop helping me or us.

He had an accident over Thanksgiving weekend not the spilling something or falling kind, but a bowel issue, of the runny kind. Now mind you, I only have one working hand, but I'm changing pull-ups on a 60+ year old man. He raises his bottom for me to slide a disposable pad underneath him. I was thankful for this even though I could have slid it under him without his help. I grab the wipes, scissors, and a clean pull-up from their bags and I'm ready for action.
Hubby:"What do you want me to do?"
Me: "Nothing. Just be still. I got this."
He grabs the bed rail and rolls. "Well, I could roll on by side."
Me: "No, roll back the way you were and stop trying to help me."
He lets go of the bed rail and flops on his back again. A brown stain appears underneath him.
I grab the scissors preparing to cut the sides of his pull-ups. "Don't move."
Hubby turns towards me, "Huh?"
I just manage to pull the scissor tips away from his belly as he turned. "Don't move!" and I show him the scissors. He nods and turns back onto back. The brown stain is now larger underneath him. I'm beginning to wonder if he really was easier to change a diaper on than my two-year old grandson. If this continued, I'd have to change his sheets too.

I cut the sides of the pull-ups and lower the front half.
He lifts his rear end up before I'm ready. The back portion of the pull-up clings to his buttocks for a moment and then flips mess side down onto the bed.  It was then I noticed it was only half on the pad. The other half landed on his sheets. Just as I had suspected each time he had raised and lowered his rear end, the waste was creeping up over the waist line of his pull-up. Now, both sides had mess on it. I'll have to bathe him to get it all off of him.

I let out an aggravated groan. Now I'd have to change his sheets too. I threw a blanket at him to cover up. "This mess will take a bath to clean up."
Hubby: "Okay."
I returned with a basin of warm water and soap. He had pulled his bedside table next to the bed to make it easier on me."It's warm so it shouldn't be so bad."
I pulled on the bedside table so there would be enough room for me to get close to him for the washing part. It resisted. I pulled harder. The table tilted and the bath water slid off the table. When it hit the floor, the splash upwards soaked my jeans and my shirt. Now I'm cursing under my breath as I pick up the empty basin. "Don't touch the table again."

I cleared it from the bed power cord and positioned it where I needed it. Now not only did I have to clean him up, change his sheets, but I had to change clothes too.
Once I returned with more warm soapy water, I bathed him clean. This time he didn't move unless I asked him to. I pulled the soiled pad out to cover the messy pull-up and put clean pull-ups on him. Changed the sheets before he even realized it.
Hubby: "Do you want to help me into a chair while you change the bed?"
Me: "It's done."
I picked up the soiled bedding and put them into the hamper, changed my clothes, and plopped into the chair by his bed exhausted.
Hubby: "I'm sorry, honey. I was just trying to help."
Me: "Babe, I love you, but please stop helping me!"