There are some things you never want to talk about, but we’re going to make you read about. I suggest you not be eating for parts of this one.
Yesterday was a typical Monday. After being a 99% vegetable on Sunday, Daddy…pardon me….Lewy was rip raring to go. I love days when Daddy is here and there are a few special moments to share. But I’ve got to be honest; I don’t like Lewy one bit. Lewy is an obnoxious, impatient, one year old. Only if he were one, I’d know to correct his bad behavior before the child turned two. How do you go about correcting the behavior of a one year old child that will be 6 months old very soon?
Lewy woke up early. “PAULINE!”……PAULINE!......PAULINE!
This is payback for going off with my girl friends over the weekend. All I wanted was to sleep late, maybe as late as 8 AM. But no. Hubbie leaves for work about 7 AM, Lewy starts hollering at 7:01 AM. This morning (for my –yes I know I’m late-post) Hubbie had not pulled the car out of the garage before the hollering started. Not being very happy in the early mornings until I SSS…I had not gotten my eyes open, much less to the first S.
Yesterday Nurse Goodbody removed the pump from Daddy’s right foot and ordered us a Hoya (sp?) lift. I love Hospice. Yesterday his meds arrived by mail, and his lift arrived just before dark, having been ordered no more the 5 hours earlier. So now we are free to lift Daddy up, but we need to practice doing it first on each other. The best part of the lift is if he falls on the floor, I can now pick him up by myself.
Or maybe the best part of the lift is the support sling with the bottom hole for going to the bathroom…..Yep OK the bottom hole wins. If I can just get Daddy back on a toilet seat!
Now this is where I wish to digress….We had moved Lewy into stage 7. I am now more convinced than ever that it was a massive drug dosage of whatever it was they gave him to put him in the ambulance to bring him home. At the time we thought that was probably a good idea. But just watching here and with the meds I’m giving….they must have given him enough too just not kill him. Now that I know what a drug induced sleep looks like…yeah, he was severely drugged. Way over drugged. Here we are thinking he might die within the month…well maybe…but now with his feet better, and once we get him in the lift and into a wheelchair…he might actually be in stage 6 again. I’m not the expert, maybe no one is, but heavy drugs to induce sleep are bad for Lewy’s. Really bad.
Not to say I have not given him my share of drugs to “settle” him down. I have to wonder are the drugs for me or for him? What does it matter if he throws off his sheets or chews his pillow?...Drugs for that….If he hollers at me incessantly to where I’m going crazy….drugs for that…If he gets a strained look on his face…drug for that. If I took the drugs we are to give him, I’d never be able to get out of bed…..
But I digress. We are going to get visual here today brothers and sisters. Visual. I want you to think about yours or perhaps some one else’s anal opening. Picture it in your mind. For those of you like me you might prefer to visualize your own as a matter of comparison.
Now I’m no anal coinsurer. I’m going on the assumption that most everyone’s is about the same.
Yesterday, being Monday meant that it was Hospice day. Dear Yvonne came early to clean Daddy. She is so good. Obviously her job has taught her many things…one being to wait to wash butt…last.
Lewy had been saying he needed to shit for about 3 hours, but so far there was nothing. I had been cheering him on, hoping for the delivery prior to Yvonne’s cleaning but it just was not happening.
Yvonne suggested we put on two diapers; one the top to catch it, the other to be overflow or if lucky the next diaper, already in place and ready to go, or so I thought. Brilliant.
So we proceeded to double diaper him. Yvonne cleaned his bottom and greased it with thick white cream loaded with zinc oxide.
Then the delivery came.
Yvonne was good… “Come on Mr. Lewy, push it on out”. I’m on the other side of the playing field rooting for the same team…Push it out, Push It out WAY OUT!” Just as we were about to drop back and punt, Mr. Lewy shoved the little brown odd shaped ball out past the goal line. There was an immediate whoosh of warm air that followed.
No big deal. I’ve seen this before. My Dad’s asshole. I’m sorry; there is no other way to get the visual. A normal butt has an aperture sort of thing going on that opens and closes when debris moves through the hatch. Not Lewy’s butt. Lewys butt has been permanently set on “open”. I don’t know camera speak, but if you could open the lens full open and let it stay there. No doubt like an observatory….
So here I am peering down the telescope straight into blockage just below the rim.
I looked at Yvonne. She looked at me…Oh…..Oh….I know that look…That’s the…This is YOUR JOB honey….look. Hubbie uses it at times just like this.
I put on the rubber glove…asked Yvonne if I had to go in. She shrugged her shoulders…”That’s what the nurses do.” Oooooooohhhh…..nnnoooooooo….
She pulls him farther over to his side. I now have a full face to butt hole up close and personal viewing experience. The actual opening that does not ever close any more is relaxed at about a half inch (1 cm) opening. There is no more pucker around the hole…it’s just kinda limp. The darker ring around the anal opening, at least as far as I know, does not extend out a full 2 inch radius from the edge of the anuson a normal butt - however with Lewy, it's pretty far out there. It too, was flattish with no muscular structure.
Yet I could also see feces sitting right there in the hole.
So with glove on and pulled as far up my arm as it would go….I did what Nurse Goodbody had done, I stuck my index finger in for a poke-see.
There were lumps, hard ones soft ones….Daddy was not appreciating the adventure at all. “Wooooo! Oooooooo!!!”
I bent my finger to make as much of a spoon shape as possible and scooped. A large finger full…well a palm sized finger full. Yvonne wiped my gloved hand. I went in again and again and again, until all I was getting was thick oatmeal consistency; or for you Southerners, lumped up - sat too long grits. Thick enough to hold together, but still easily squished by hand.
This was disgusting. I lost my cool and started my uncontrollable gagging. Poor Yvonne probably thought I would vomit right there, but I’m good with deep lower stomach heave –hos. Merely painful, not productive.
And there it was, the “Fecal Salute”……I found myself with my ¾ length sleeves, attempting to wipe my brow with my gloved hand at 90 degrees from the forehead with fecal matter on the palm an at least two fingers. It’s then that you realize there comes a point where you just have to stop. Getting a clean run is not happening. Then the gas, and the ooze, gas, ooze, gas, ooze. We wiped him up over and over. We had to remove and replace that extra pair of diapers.
Finally, he settled down to just farts. Yvonne was gone and Lewy and I were home alone. It was a beautiful spring day; I had flowers to set out and the front porch to clean. So I gladly started into my chores.
PAULINE!
Trotting back into the house….”Yes Pappy, what do you need?”
I just wanted to know where you were.”
“I’m right out side your window. If you will look outside, you can see me. I’m going to go clean the porch now, OK?”
“OK.”
I get the broom and the leaf rake and decide to start in the corner.
“PAULINE!”
I sat down the broom and went inside. “Yes Daddy?”
“I wanted to know where you were.”
I’m right outside the window. I’m cleaning up the front porch. You can see me through the window.”
I go back out and I get the two corner chairs pulled out and begin to sweep.
“PAULINE!”
This went on for four hours. He would give me just enough time to get my tools in my hands and to begin using them, when he would holler. I just got to where I hollered back rather than go back in; which made him holler more.
Now I have to think to myself. I could drug him to shut him up. That’s Lewy, it’s not Daddy. He has a short term memory of 5 minutes tops. I need to get this porch finished and it’s a big porch that is very dirty. The summer of 2007 killed almost all my permanent potted plants, so there were these huge dead plants to take out of pots and toss the dead and replace with annuals.
“PAULINE!!”
That’s it!... I’m drugging him.
The persistent hollering increased in frequency, so I gave him an anti anxiety drug. He started twisting his sheets and chewing on his blanket. Then the spasms started. I gave him an anti spasm drug. If I had all those drugs, you would have to scrape me up off the floor, but no; Lewy was getting rowdier.
It got too dark to work out side, Hubbie was home and it was time to settle in for the NCAA Championship Game that Memphis threw away.
Daddy had finally settled down after the over time, and was looking out the window toward the porch. I had to wonder if he could finally see me out there working.