Dealing With Doo Doo

October 12, 2011

I spent an entire week buried in feces recently… and dealing with dementia. My mother had her knee surgery, finally. I went to stay with her and my grandmother to care for them. I was home for a week and it’s the longest I have been home since my Granddaddy died in the early 90’s. I can’t begin to explain how much things have changed there.
Grandmama is 92 now and her daily routine consists of being physically lifted from the bed in the morning to be stripped and bathed while she sits on the potty. For a tiny little woman that can wet herself from head-to-toe during the night, she can still be impressive before bath time is over. Really, the volume of liquids she loses puts a lot of beer drinkers to shame. While she is being bathed, all of her bedding and sleepwear goes into the wash. She is dried thoroughly, medicated and bandaged as needed (her skin spontaneously breaks now and causes bleeding which creates a huge risk of infection. All potential bedsores are treated at first sign and constantly).
When she is dressed for the day, she is moved to her recliner and handed a cup of coffee (1/2 decaf) and she takes her 1st pill of the day. She has a good breakfast (seriously, she really eats well for somebody so little), which she feeds herself. It takes a while, but she does manage to do it on her own most days. When she is done, she usually sleeps until lunchtime.
Lunch is served in the kitchen and Grandmama is wheeled to the table in a wheelchair. At this point in the day, she has to be helped to eat. It is a combined effort between her, Mama (me if I’m there) and the certified nursing assistants (cna’s) that come in for part of every day. She is fed more than she eats on her own at lunch. After lunch, she is put to bed for the rest of the day… and night. Bless her dear heart. She can’t handle being up any longer than that. For all intents and purposes, she is bedridden now.
I was startled at how alert she seemed early in the day, most days. As the days progressed, she became less and less coherent. Near bedtime, she was completely out of it most of the time. Yet again, I was seeing another form of dementia. I can’t help wondering how many different types I will be exposed to in my lifetime… how many types there actually are. Never mind, I don’t want to know the answer.
One morning in particular, she managed to cover me, the floor, herself, the potty chair and everything else within reach in feces (she had a raging case of diarrhea). In all fairness, I deal in blood and all other bodily excrements frequently. They are a nearly daily part of my life. I handle it pretty darn well. But, I must admit, I have an extremely weak stomach 1st thing in the morning. I got Grandmama up (wet head-to-toe literally, the odor was beyond belief) and to the potty, gagging the entire time. No sooner was the diaper down than she pooped all over the floor, my leg and foot. There I was desperately working to get her cleaned up, gagging to the point my stomach was killing me while apologizing over my shoulder to Mama for my reaction. I felt completely overwhelmed and helpless in the moment.


It has hit me quite hard that I am deeply frightened by that which (God willing) is yet to come here with Dad. Mama has 2 cna’s, Hospice doctors, nurses and cna’s, and a sitter to help her out (THANK GOD!). I have nobody. Melissa and Richard will help all they can but when it comes to the worst of it, I will be on my own. The best I can hope for is bringing Hospice in at the end and I know exactly how much help that is. Wow, I said it out loud, “I’m really scared!”
Being with Grandmama made me realize so much. Mostly, I have discovered I am not afraid of my own failures. I am terrified of letting them down, all the people I love and feel the need to take care of. I don’t want them to feel for a second that I can’t take care of them properly and with due dignity. I felt that I wasn’t taking care of her properly when I was holding Grandmama to my heart as my stomach lurched beyond my control. I felt that I was stripping her of her dignity because I couldn’t control my reaction to something so basic.


The day after my return home, Dad had an unusually bad attack of irritable bowels (with Crohn’s Disease this is VERY common). He excused himself from the dinner table to go to the bathroom and was gone for almost 20 minutes. When he came back to the table, he hung his head like a shameful child and told me there was a big mess “in one of the bathrooms up here”. I asked which bathroom and he mumbled, “Mine but I’m going to clean it up.” I assured him I’d take care of it and told him to finish his meal.
His bathroom looked like a war zone. Every available surface needed to be cleaned. He had attempted to do it himself. As a result, every towel had been used to either try to wipe up places or simply laid over some of the worst of it. I was shocked to realize it was even on the ceiling.
Holding my breath, I was on my hands and knees cleaning the floor when I heard someone behind me in the doorway. I turned to see Dad standing there with tears in his eyes, “I’m sorry. I tried to clean it up. You shouldn’t have to do it.” I jumped to my feet and washed my hands before gently guiding him back to the table. I assured him that it was alright. Accidents just happen sometimes. His loss of dignity in the moment crushed the breath from me.
I couldn’t stop the tears of frustration that slid down my cheeks as I resumed scraping and scrubbing the mess up. And another little piece of my heart broke at the reality of what we are facing here.
On the bright side, when I returned to the living room, Dad looked up from his chair, “Where have you been, Sweetheart? I was sitting here missing you.” Sometimes the best part of this disease is the ability to forget…