Comments on: Blog 22: April Showers

By: Fay

Fay — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 02:24:07 +0000

At that stage, Matt, the beginning of 2010, it really was a matter of Bill thinking: “I don’t know how to do it any more so I just won’t do it.” But as time went on and he could no longer think ahead or understand the consequences of actions, keeping Bill clean became more and more difficult.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 00:20:02 +0000

In his confused state, not understanding how to control the water in the shower, there was no question for him – he simply didn’t need to shower and he wasn’t going to. We found it difficult to comprehend – why this man, who for the whole of his life to this point had been so dignified and competent now refused to shower, but I suppose for him, now in his state of decline, the way he controlled the water in the shower was to leave it turned off.
What a journey.
Matt

By: Fay

Fay — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 11:47:12 +0000

You are so right, Nola. Bill, in his right mind, was always the first to shower. He had started his working life as a tradesman and, in those days, having come home from work covered in dust and grime, would have often had his shower even before dinner. And all our married life, until dementia, I never knew Bill to go to bed without having a shower. But, just as dementia stripped Bill of all the learning that he had acquired through years of education, so it stripped him of all the habits of personal hygiene that he had learnt from a dutiful mother. How to shower and accepted reasons for showering just disappeared from his mind, never to re-appear. So, when we tried to get him into the shower, he did not fight against it because he didn’t want to do it, he fought because he saw no rhyme nor reason for it.

By: Fay

Fay — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 10:37:12 +0000

And you would think, Louise, that after that January shower, Bill would have willingly showered every day from then on. But it wasn’t a matter of Bill re-acquainting himself with the joys of showering any more. The fact was that the part of Bill’s brain that governed personal cleanliness was fast shutting down and getting him to have a shower, from that January on, proved to be such a major battle that we …. the nurses and me ….. often let it pass, being over-the-moon happy if we managed to get Bill to shower once a week.

By: Harold and Nola

Harold and Nola — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 22:30:29 +0000

This is not the Bill we know, people, already we see him slipping away from us. We suppose there were times when he would come in from work a mess and all dirtied up, but that was work, that was living, and would’ve been very soon put to rights with the shower. Now things are different and it has to be supposed was to become more horrifying as time went on. Still, we have to insist, people, this was not ‘our Bill’ in this state . . . Nola and Harold.

By: Louise

Louise — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 06:29:25 +0000

Shower spaces! Had a cousin fall and seriously hurt herself. Got my husband to change out the hoses and taps in our shower and then got the plumber in to do them all again correctly. Of course there is all the cleaning, especially after all that time without a full shower. Must have been hard not knowing that wonderful feeling of having a nice long shower after a long day.