Lets look at some things I now have beginning with some necessary things, such as a plastic urinary bottle. Yeah, a lot of your dignity does away. The bottle is just hat it sounds like it is. A plastic bottle with curved neck and a removable cap. It becomes your friend once you are bedridden and can't get up. Ir can be a bit tricky to use while laying down, but yay catch on. First remove the cap and place the bottle between your thighs and maneuver your...uh...member into place at the oipening and do what needs to be done. Hopefully an aide will come by and empty the bottle before it is half full. It gets above half and is hard to manage. You try to position stand old stuff easily splashes out over you. Cold, old urine is not pleasant washing over you. Most aides were good at spotting the need to empty, others were not.
I could use it fairly well, but my roommate often ended up cursing this process out. We were diapered up like babies, and constantly found they had made it too tight for him to get to his equipment in time. This is why I insisted they put me in pull-ups after that first week.
The companion piece is a bedpan for the other elimination. Fortunately I avoided this device, although I ended up constipated so badly they had to give me an enema. Every third day someone would ask if one had a bowel movement. I somehow managed this after my initial fail. One day I was suddenly struck by one so fast I could not stop it. The aide who came to my aid told me I should have went to the toilet, but I wasn't able to get out bed myself then. Besides, this is why we were in diapers. I also didn't know they were now giving me medicine to make we go, not had they informed the aide staff. I couldn't help and I did complain to the floor director about that aides treatment and got things straightened out.
My roommate was constantly going i his diaper, especially after the Physical Therapists had him down to the gym. As soon as I was able to get myself up and into the bathroom, I used the toilet. I did tell them the facility was too low for me with my ALS and they got a commode chair for the bathroom. I have a commode over the regular toilet in my home. You remove the regular toilet seat and then this chair fits over the bowl and you are set.
I also suggested the Therapist that a rope or something be tied on the back of the bathroom door to make it easier for us cripples to close. She went right out and came back with a resistance band and tied it there. It really helped.
A big change even before I went to rehab, was my bed. I got Lois a new Queen-sized bed earlier, and Bill Maher came and put it together for us. It has a memory foam mattress and she loves it. But I don't sleep in her bed because I move about to much in my sleep and keep her awake. We are in the same bedroom. I was sleeping on a futon, but it was too low and I became unable to get out of it. I got rid of it and now I have a hospital bed. Therapists, who have come, say I will eventually have to move it to the living room, but we'll see when such a day comes.
This bed is rented, but t doesn't cost much. You can raise the upper and lower parts individually. It has these metal bas on each side, which I keep hitting with my elbows. Once I got my right arm stuck between bars. I was trying to pick up something on the floor so I stuck my arm through the bars to reach, but I couldn't pull my arm back out. It was a very uncomfortable position to be in, but some Vasoline got me free. At least it wasn't my head.
In rehab I would slide forward until my feet were too far down in the bed. If the aide didn't come and move me back, I would, with effort, get myself back. I would tidy the lower part to give me some barrier from sliding. Only trouble with the bed s it made a load annoying noise when you raised or lowered any part of it. I had to lower the fat portion to use the portable urinal and then to gt from bed to wheelchair. I hated doing that in the wee hours of night, because I didn't want to awaken Frank if possible. He had enough trouble with me getting up early in the morning. He would tell everyone, "Larry got up at four o'clock."
Equipment to be continued.
No comments:
Post a Comment