Caregiving and Incontinence

In the corner of our bedroom lies a box of absorbent mattress pads and adult diapers. They were purchased shortly after had an accident at night and during the day within the same 24 hour period. I embrace the use of the mattress pads; the adult diapers, not so much.

If this blog was to just tell the inspirational aspect of our final journey this post certainly would never be made. Yet Cindy and I agreed shortly after her diagnosis; others were to benefit somehow from her affliction. That requires me to share information that might make caregiving a little better in at least one household somewhere, sometime.

I embrace the use of the mattress pads because they are not intrusive. I place them in between the bottom bedsheet and the mattress cover, protecting what matters most in terms of clean-up. With this approach I clean the bedsheets after every accident, perhaps once a week or so. Which means I go from never cleaning the sheets to cleaning them at the same frequency of normal folks. No big deal.

The adult diapers I still shy away from. Much of that has to do with a dreadful experience with my Mom that led to her final decline. Fortunately, accidents at night and during the day usually can be prevented with attentive care. If Cindy hasn’t been to the bathroom for awhile, I better not make her laugh too hard. If we’ve gone out of the house and she becomes dazed or tired, I better get her to the bathroom soon. I better not let more than five hours pass between visits.

Yet accidents still happen occasionally despite attentive care. The first thing I do in response is to emphasize that the accident was my fault. “I’m sorry, Mom, we should have used the bathroom as soon as we got home.” Is it really my fault? Usually not. Yet accepting blame makes Cindy feel better about the situation, while providing some therapy for me. I benefit from the humility of accepting blame once in awhile.

Because Cindy is not wearing adult diapers, I know when the accidents during the day happen right away. That’s a good thing. I suppose the absorbency of diapers go a long way towards protecting from skin irritation and infection; yet removing the source immediately has to be even better than allowing it to linger in minimal form.

When combined with my acceptance of blame the no diaper approach also provides more dignity. It may be more humbling to have an accident without adult diapers, but people with Alzheimer’s have very short memories. Unless constantly reminded about the accident, or any other memory, Cindy will forget within minutes. Wearing a diaper, even a super-duper absorbent one, may provide the constant reminder that prevents forgetting.

That leaves cleaning the floor as the one drawback to the no diaper approach. Fortunately, we don’t have carpets, while cleaning our wood and tile floors after an accident merely means I clean our floors at the rate of most normal folk instead of, well, never.

The fact that I am sharing this with you so freely amazes me a bit. There was a time when I thought I would not be in this position; that incontinence meant Cindy was so far gone as to not be living with me. To get to where I am now required three stages, much like the well publicized five stages of grief.

My apprehensions about incontinence were replaced by the courage to deal with them as I suspected Cindy still would be with me under those conditions. Now that incontinence is a fact of life in this household, courage has transformed to acceptance. I’ve got my routines in place and this is really no big deal to me. That’s the main reason why I am writing this post; to help others move from the initial stage of apprehensions to a final stage of “no big deal” in terms of handling the incontinence of a loved one.

There really is only one situation with Cindy left for me to work through these three stages. I’m still a little bit on the edge, a little terrified, of waking up with Cindy having passed away during the night. The courage phase has started, though. I am feeling like I can make it, that I can keep her here until that happens.

Perhaps even with this, too, the acceptance phase will come. Acceptance will replace courage as I enable Cindy to pass away in the home she loves, with the people she loves. Perhaps I will experience gratitude even in years to come that I worked through the stages of apprehension and courage to accept this way of passing for Cindy.