Thanks, Divvi. I'll save your helpful hint for later. My husband's aim for #1 is OK. Not so great for #2. Once, he aimed #1 at/in our bathroom waste basket. What a awful smell and mess that was! I thought that was the beginning of a trend, but he hasn't repeated it. Makes me wonder what he does in the public restrooms, though.
just wanted to add for the guys out there, not addressing you as well on this 'aiming' issue as with wives i would hope this isnt an issue...:) dont want to leave any of you out of the thread! divvi
DW can use the toilet appropriately most of the time, although she does deposit some urine in her Depends at least once a day and once a night. Thank goodness they hold!!!! Occasionally I have caught her sitting on the toilet without lowering the Depends - maybe that's where the urine comes from. She seems to be OK with bowels since the only thing I find in the Depends is if she didn't wipe enough. The biggest problem from my point of view is that for some reason she will not put the toilet paper in the toilet. She insists on putting it in a waste basket, no matter how dirty it is. I tried taking the waste basket out of the bathroom, but then she would wander around the house carrying the dirty paper and looking for a place to put it. The problem with that is the odor that builds up in the bathroom if I don't empty the waste baskets often enough. Add to that the dirty Depends and it can get quite odoriferous.
My patience ran out this evening...and I have been doing so well. However, my husband would not get in the shower for some reason, didn't want to take his underwear off, just stood there staring at me with the shower water running. After about 10 minutes & turning water off and on I just lost it. As I screamed at him we have been married almost 40 years, there was nothing I had not seen on his body. I know, I know, that was not the right way to handle the situation, however, I started screaming before I ever had time to think not to do it. Of course all it accomplished was upsetting me & him to the point of crying. I pray & pray for patience, and God is answering my pray, but tonight I just had no more patience.
Been there, done that, Kadee....it happens...you are only human. Don't beat yourself up, there is no training manual for dealing with this stuff. I keep waiting for someone to write "AD For Dummies"!
Kadee, sometimes the right way to handle the situation is the way that is right for YOU. There are two of you involved, you know. If your stress had to come out that way that particular time, well, that's that. Tomorrow is another day.
Next time, just forget about the shower. Try getting him to shower in the morning, when he's less likely to be tired and cranky. A few extra hours without soap won't hurt.
Kadee, sometimes things just are out of control and you lose it no matter how rational you have been previously. I have always been a screamer:) ask my son. i havent changed just cause its my DH now:)ha thats the bad part of my personality i guess, and then its over and done and i let go and move on. same way with anger issues. huge outburst then the quiet calm 'intellectual' part kicks in. just my way of coping. in an uncanny sense of relief the screaming bouts in my particular case go and come at odds and my dear dear spouse, never holds it against me and remarkably allows me to disinflate and regroup- this is the only good thing about AD, they dont hold any of it against you mercifully. so dear Kadee, let it go and hopefully like in my case, you will learn more patience and control as time moves on. divvi
Kadee, the release of the stress is so important to our survival that explosions are necessary every so often. Please do not feel any guilt. Understand that now you are good to go for another few days! We all will blow, sometimes over something so trivial that we do feel guilty (remember the straw that broke the camels back?) when our minds and bodies are really relieving the tension that has built up (like a pressure cooker).
Some relieve pressure by crying, others by yelling, others by writing (or typing here), and still others by gardening or cleaning out cabinets. Slamming doors is always good too! <grin>
Regarding screaming as a stress reliever - Some years back, when my mother was dying, I went to stay with my sister to help care for her. It was incredibly stressful, and when my husband called and told me that he had lost his job and we were going to have to move, I felt like my head was going to explode. At the time I was alone in my sister’s house with her three small children, so I knew I couldn’t have the hysterics I desperately wanted to have. I asked them if they would like for each of us go into one of the farthest corners of the house and scream as loud as we could. They thought that was a great idea! So we did that, and after getting together and laughing about it, we all liked it so much that we went right back into our corners and screamed again. (I realized then that they had also been feeling the stress of the situation, and didn’t have a really good way to express it, either.)
Later my sister’s children gave me a keychain that says, “It’s been great, but I have to scream now.” It’s one of my most treasured possessions, and I’ve relived that sentiment many times during these caregiving years.
My husband told me recently that all I do is gripe. He is right. I told him he had to choices, listen to me gripe or listen to me cry. I do not want to be this way but I feel at times I am in over my head. What you have is a 59 year old woman taking care of someone with dementia and trying to learn to work on a lawn tractor (used to be his job) at the same time . How can I learn to try to do things that I have no idea what I am doing and try to keep him out of trouble and smile and keep my mouth shut? Any suggestions would be helpful. I hate that I have become such a gripe. PS, I want to introduce myself as soon as I can. He's always looking over my shoulder to see what I am doing. I can't tell him because he is in denial and says there is nothing wrong with him. So I wait till he goes to bed to visit this site. Which, by the way, seems the best one I have found so far. Maybe because I feel I have so much in common.
We have a tiny lawn and an electric mower (which my husband can still use when inspired to do so, although the day is clearly coming when it gets turned over to me), so I can't help you there. But we do have several members out in the country dealing with huge lawns. I'm sure they'll be along shortly. Don't listen to New Realm, though -- she and her mower do NOT get along.
Re the denial issue ... my husband is sublimely unaware he has any difficulties at all. He doesn't argue with me, he accepts that he has AD. He just never notices when he has a problem. This actually isn't denial, this is a symptom, called "anosognosia." There's a great article on it, at:
FayeBay, we've had other threads where we've talked about having to take over all sorts of things we never had to do before. I've found one and brought it to the top for you -- "Home Insurance." It won't tell you how to manage the adaptation process with style and aplomb, but it will help you realize that we ALL go through the same thing. I don't think any of the guys posted to that thread, but they have had their own tales of woe elsewhere.
Ah ... and I found another thread in which Joan offered this advice:
"Three cheers for the women who learn fix-it skills. I know Home Depot has general home repair classes, and if I'm not mistaken, I saw a news program one time that the majority of their students are women."
Another thing to try ... ask for help. (Very good advice for any occasion.) Friends, neighbors, family, church members, anyone you can get your little hands on.
Develop a list of things you need to get done and any time anyone says "is there anything I can do to help?", whip that list out and say "oh, bless your heart, could you possibly ..." Do not be shy about it. You're going to be too tired and overwhelmed if you try to do everything yourself. Help with shopping, maybe taking your husband on outings, anything you can think of that would give you a little respite.
If you're out there in your yard, swearing at the mower, and a neighbor wanders by, grab him and ask for advice. If you see a neighbor out fixing a fence post, wander over there and ask for advice. Most people are happy to show off their knowledge.
Find out what sorts of support may be offered in your area. There are respite programs, adult day health centers, support groups, etc. Anything to give yourself a breather.
The newest job I've taken over is adding water to the humidifier twice a day. Last year he did it. This year he is totally clueless about the entire thing. I've got a big one that sits in the kitchen nook under the windows and will humidify an entire house. I clean it out and change the filters every 6 to 8 weeks in the winter and retire it to our over the garage storage space when we close down the furnace in the spring.
I did the "running" of it last year, but not the filling. It is heavy for me when the water container is full, but not out of my range.
But yes, one more thing I've taken over. One more thing he no longer can do.
Hi Fayebay & welcome. I'm 58 and I know how you feel. I've developed a talent for keeping my mouth shut. I'm normally an extrovert, so it is VERY difficult for me. You basically learn that no matter what you say, it's the wrong thing. My husband also thinks nothing is wrong with him. Keep posting, you'll feel better.
Thanks everyone. I am glad just to have someone to talk to . Sunshyne, I read the thread you brought up and it was great. It is suprising how much you can learn from others. Kitty, I feel if you can do it maybe there is hope for me. Just knowing others live through the same thing makes me thing I can too.
FayeBay--welcome You're going to be simply amazed at what all you'll learn to do. I'm almost 78 years old So far since June, I've had our roof replaced, hired a contractor to redo kitchen cabinets, counter, floor, etc. Sold one car.Trying to sell another. Set us up for Neptune, had our wills done over by an Elder Care Attorney, and I've lost track of what else I've found out that I can do. I've also learned how to program a cell phone.Tomorrow I'm going to tackle a digital camera.
Hang in there. You can do it. You don't want to do it. You'll be overwhelmed but stay on this site and you'll receive more TLC than you can handle and you will feel much better and learn a lot. :)
Ah, and by the way, about keeping one's mouth shut, I'm still working on that but getting better. :):)
Mawzy, you learned how to program a cell phone??? Ye gods. I'm impressed!
I've been thinking about getting a Jitterbug, but heard that although the phone itself is great, the company tends to bill for calls never made. Anyone else had any experience with Jitterbug?
Sunshyne, when I got our new HDTV and home entertainment center two weeks ago, I got a "Harmony" remote. The Geek Squad programmed it and it has pictures of the TV, DVD, and DVR (cable box) on it and all you have to do is aim and touch the picture for what you want to watch! My AD husband can even operate it! (That is why I got it.)
Mawzy, I'm proud of you! I'm getting an upgrade phone shortly and will have to learn how to program the new one. I was lucky on my last one because the guy at the store took time to walk us through the "how to" and we went home and did it quickly before we could forget his instructions!
As far as "fixing it" - I have repainted most of the interior rooms in the house, taken up old carpeting (with my husband's help) and exposing the hardwood floors underneath (I had to order a floor polisher online because the stores don't carry them any more because the new wood floors don't need one - just the old ones that have Johnson Paste Wax on them and have had for so many years that I'd have to have the floors sanded and painted in order not to continue the old way). That was a convoluted sentence....I hope you could understand what I was trying to say!
I've had an electrician come in and add three-prong plug boxes where the old two prong plug boxes used to be so that I could use the surge protectors. I now have a list of people to call when something goes wrong with most things. It is amazing how much we can do when we have to! We might not have wanted to, but let's face it - once they are gone, we would be doing it all anyway. So in a way, we're getting our lessons early.
Good lord, Mary, you sound like you're in the late stages of pregnancy when you can't stop DOING stuff! Congratulations! I'm just the opposite right now, doing as little as possible! My excuse is that I'm interrupted every ten minutes by someone needing SOMEthing (we can include the cats in the "someones") but in reality I've never been able to stand housework.
I am so impressed by what we women can do I have always been a fix it type of female I can lay tile replace a window not a pane but a whole window. I am very handy with all types of tools my DH was always telling me that I should act like a women and ask for help. Well can you imagine the looks that I gave him (Would have melted granite) My problem is right now I am so depressed because he is not here to do those mundane things like take out the garbage and rake the leaves etc. I don't care if the lawn gets mowed or not because I have to put the battery charger on it first. I don't care that the leaves are falling and the acorns are piling up in the yard. I don't care I don't care I don't care. I know that tomorrow will be another day and I will get the charger out and now the lawn it is only an acre. Wow that feels better but the lawn still needs mowed
I went back and read my comment from yesterday. I've been on oxygen for about 8 hours now and I'll bet I could do all of that with one hand tied behind my back. :) The guy who hooked everything up told me I would notice an increase in energy. Duh. But, FYI, I do feel better. My legs aren't as tired as they were the last few days. I doubt that I'll need it for very long. Also, hoping I won't be on anti-depressants for very long either. Don't notice much there but then I've only taken 2 pills. Am I impatient, or what/?