As most women, my Mom was very proud. She would insist on wearing her wig to the Emergency Room, or tell me, "Can we go to the ER tomorrow? I want to take a bath before we go in." Putting off the inevitable for another day, but at least she felt better after I bathed her. She was a silly woman but I loved her with all my might.
One day I will be that same woman who wants to ensure I look and feel clean before I hobble with a my walking cane into the hospital.
One of my Mom's greatest fears was to be in a nursing home. I tried to keep that promise to her but a year ago she was in the hospital for 50 days and she therefore did not get out of bed a lot. This meant she could no longer walk on her own, not even to just the bathroom. Her legs just stopped working well because they had no muscle/strength from lack of use. She hadn't used them in so long and she was already very frail and weak.
So, when she was "well enough" to leave the hospital, she had to go to a rehab place to get therapy to learn to walk again. This thing is, rehab places are really another way to say "nursing home."
I looked at a few places (the insurance company gave us choices) and I was repulsed by most of them. Almost nightmare-ish type of places that I would kill myself before letting her stay in a place like that. Luckily I finally found a decent one near our house and that allowed me to visit her in the morning before work and also easily after work.
She HATED the place. But I tried to remind her that this place was a palace compared to the others I saw.
She ate in her room and stayed in her room for about 45 days she was there, because she couldn't walk on her own. She was there for physical therapy and so once a day (but not on weekends) she was wheeled down the hall to a room to work on her arm and leg exercises. There were other older folks there for physical rehab, too, and she liked most of the people who helped her try to get better.
However, the workers, the aides, the butt-wipers, she did NOT like. The ladies who treated her like an object and not a human, she despised. She hated when she would have to push the nurse button and wait for anywhere from 5-15 mins before someone came back in to remove the pee pan from her bottom while she laid on it in her bed.
She also hated the food. I would actually bring her things to eat from the house because she wouldn't eat the food. I don't blame her. It was crappy.
I would make her sandwiches or bring her favorite pudding, yogurt, or pineapple chunks.
My Mom hated for anyone to see her naked, but she didn't mind the nurses who helped her go to the bathroom in the hospital, or the nurses' aides in the hospital who bathed her in bed. But the "aides" in the nursing home made her feel degraded. They would wipe her hard, or not clean her enough. She was ashamed she was at this state in her life where she couldn't take care of herself. Humiliated and degraded.
My Mom wanted to come home so badly, but I could not take care of her and also work. It broke my heart. :( But we both had no choice.
It was a brutal time.
So, our goal was for her to get strong enough just to be able to get out of the bed and use the bedside commode. If she could do that, she could come home!
In the meantime of her doing her daily exercises during the week, she mostly watched tv and savored the few visits of her favorite neighbor (okay, the only neighbor to visit) and the two physical therapists that made her feel like a human.
My Mom was so embarrassed of her butt and nakedness, that I finally figured out that it was no coincidence that she needed to go number two almost every time I visited. I honestly feel she would hold her potty each day until I got there, because she despised the "aides" wiping her. Seeing her. Treating her with no respect.
She would say shyly, "I think I have to go." I would grab two latex gloves from the box next to the door, get out the butt wipes and grab the bed pan.
She also had impeccable timing during my evening visits. I would bring us dinner and as I'm biting into my hamburger or taco, she would say, "uh oh," lol.
I never minded helping her. And although she hated me seeing her butt more than anyone else, she trusted me more than anyone else.
She knew I would be gentle and yet also wipe til she was completely clean. I took care of my Mom. Like she took care of me when I was a baby. :)
She would always say so dang embarrassed and frustrated, "don't look at me" which meant, "don't look at my naked butt."
How do you not look past butt cheeks when you are trying to clean down there, lol?
She was in her mid to late 60s and at this point in life, her butt was not tight anymore and she despised her whole entire body and what it now looked like. What I saw was a very cute butt though. It was my Moms butt, and it was cute!
I would check her sore (she always got one at the bottom of her spine from laying in bed for so long) and I would change her bandages after I wiped her.
In Tuesdays With Morrie, Morrie states when he can no longer wipe his butt, he knows he has lost all dignity. It's the thing he dreaded most - the day he can no longer wipe his own a$$.
Eventually, I would make her laugh during her, "uh, oh, I gotta go #2," episodes. I would put the latex gloves on, and hold my hands up acting all sanitary like I was preparing for surgery. She would laugh and laugh at me as I asked an imaginary nurse for a scalpel, lol.
I was SO proud of my Mom - she worked so hard to get out of "that place" and she did! About 45 days later, she was able to come back home and use the bedside commode. And yes, wipe her own butt again. :)
Only a few more weeks she worked with the visiting physical therapist and was able to walk through the house with her cute walker with wheels and walk into her bathroom on her own, for her own privacy for once.
She would be able to do this on her own for 8 months, until the day she slipped and broke her hip, which led to her death after surgery complications.
I miss her cute butt!
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