Cindy and I used to joke about our reading materials at night. I would curl up with Dilbert or Calvin and Hobbes. As a visiting nurse, Cindy would curl up with books like Fecal and Urinary Incontinence. I marveled at how she still slept well at night.
Because of previous experience I’ve apprehended the brain dysfunction symptom of incontinence over all others. I began to hold out hope that Cindy might never develop this symptom. In truth, she might have already, providing two lessons to be learned.
Last week we had accidents on two successive days. The first day I made Cindy laugh so hard she peed her pants, not entirely a bad thing and something that could happen to anyone. Indeed, emotional intensity has had this effect on Cindy before, particularly during our Pacific Crest Trail journey.
The next day was our first to explore adult day care (ADC) at Geer. I was told to expect the bus for pick-up at 9:30; I would be called if the real time was different. Well, the real time proved to be 9:18; the call was made to my cell instead of the landline and my cell was charging. With the bus appearing outside our window I had to rush us to get ready. The last thing I was going to do, a visit to the bathroom for Cindy, did not get done at all.
Cindy was sad during the bus ride. This emotional intensity led to soiling, which I did not discover until we finished our toast and tea at the ADC. Having not foreseen a need for a change of clothes I did my best to scrub and dry her underpants in the bathroom, but I’m sure the experience contributed to some continued sadness while at the ADC.
The experience led me to reflect that if I handled Cindy like I did my Mom perhaps she would have manifested incontinence by now. Mom already was in Depends when we moved in to take care of her. In other ways she functioned a lot better than Cindy does now. Yet with Cindy I make sure there are frequent trips to the bathroom; with Mom already in adult diapers I figured that meant the soiling was unavoidable. The lesson here is that incontinence as a brain dysfunction symptom, as opposed to other causes for incontinence, may be avoidable.
Mom’s ultimate decline started on one fateful Christmas day. She was released from the hospital, having recovered from a very mild stroke. I thought she would be picked up by one of two brothers, with whom she would be spending Christmas dinner while we celebrated with Cindy’s family. My brothers thought I would pick Mom up before leaving. Instead, Mom was left waiting at the hospital, sitting for much of that time in soiled pants. She lasted only a few months after that, after five years or more of less degrading experiences with incontinence.
This suggests something else to me in regards to incontinence: it might happen early enough as a symptom to initiate action against further cognitive decline. Part of that action should be encouraging frequent trips to the bathroom rather than adult diapers for your loved one, along with following the other brain health tips provided here.
