Lewy had been sleeping all day until just a few minutes ago, when he woke up and became very alert. He started talking to me, all in mumbled up jumble. I squirted his mouth, which he welcomes. It helps him talk a bit better. “Are you hungry?”
“No.”
“Are you thirsty?”
“No.”
“Don’t you want anything?”
“No.”
“How ‘bout if I get you something to drink?”
“No.”
I got him a bottle of Ensure, chocolate flavored. After he quickly took the entire bottle from the turkey baster, he said he had to spit.
OMG! My stomach! Hubbie is asleep…Ohhhhh…Daddy starts coughing up the phlegm. Hubbie had laid out several separate folds of toilet paper for such emergencies. I went through the entire stack. The phlegm just kept coming and coming. I would shut my eyes, tell him to spit and hold the paper. I could feel the warm globs through several layers…each time it seemed like the globs were getting bigger and bigger. I’m gagging. There comes a point where I have to go stand on the porch and breathe some fresh air.
After he thought he was through with that for a while he took some water and two spoons of yogurt with his pills crushed in them. Then more water to kill the bitter taste. During the drinking of the water Lewy said “You wouldn’t know it if you saw it.”
“What’s that?”
“The big magnet; the one that holds everything up.”
“The magnet?”
“Yeah, you’d have to be an engineer to be able to see it. There are all these particles, these things and they all go to it.” Everything goes to it”
“You mean the big magnet that makes everything fall?”
“Yeah.”
“You mean gravity?”
“Yeah, you can see it. It’s everywhere. The particles are everywhere too, all going to the magnet”. The particles all glow.”
“You can see gravity?”
“Yeah.” He looked at me and grinned real big. “Yeah, I can.”
“That’s cool…but it’s time to roll you over.”
Hubbie came over and we straightened out the pull sheet and the pee pads, changed Lewy’s diaper that now is just stuffed up under him to catch drainage. There is still some, but the antibiotic must be doing the job, the stench is almost gone. Only problem is, he is not eliminating.
I got on the gloves, left hand first, and pulled the plug to insert the irrigation gun. “Water” squirted out. Ha Ha! I had on my gloves! You did not get me this time. For some reason though, I thought I could set down the open tube while I went to get the gun and the saline solution….WRONG! It was draining out all over the pee pads. I got the irrigation gun in the hole and started pushing. It was harder to push this time. When I got ¾ of the way down the tube, it sprayed back out at me. In this case, gloves did not matter…..
Again it was deemed time to roll him but his right foot and the sore was exposed, so I decided to peel off the bandage, clean the wound, and redress it. OK, Now It was time to roll him and he was saying he was hurting. Hubbie got on the side Daddy was facing and I stood on the receiving side.
Hubbie started to lift and roll. “Stop!” Catheter bag…Once I got that repositioned, then we started the roll again. “Stop.”
I noticed Daddy’s but was needing cream. So I got the zinc oxide cream that is so incredibly thick and smeared it all over Daddy’s butt.
“I need to shit.”
Hubbie responded “Well do it now.” Daddy responded with a series of farts. I responded by turning on the ceiling fan.
We waited a bit and nothing happened, so we rolled Daddy over and got the king size pillow up under him to keep him in place. I then cleaned and dressed the other foot, repositioned the catheter and Hubbie and I covered him up. He should be going to sleep soon. This episode of being awake was lasting pretty long for Lewy.
Hubbie went to bed; I was turning off lights and getting ready to go mess with the computer when Lewy announced “I got two!”
“You got to what?
“I got two!”….“I got two turds!” (in his best New Jersey accent).