Toilet!

Ron had great trepidation about me writing this.  "I'd rather forget it happened" he said. 

I always remind him he was suffering from head injury dementia, and some very legitimate frustration, at the time.

This story has been one of the few I'd never shared.  Today Ron gave me permission to share it. I do hope it helps some other caregiver for the head injured. 

Things get better.  Lots better. 

Let me set the scene.  Ron and I are in the hospital.  I'm there because he does better with me around.  When he wakes up disoriented (every time) I orient him.  I remind him he was in an accident, run over by a pickup truck, and in the hospital.  I sleep in a pull out chair near his bed, and basically live with him. 

He couldn't walk.  He had a broken leg and was partially paralyzed on the broken side due to a stroke.  He had a "very severe" head injury.  He still doesn't remember most of 2002.  He was in ICU for 3 weeks, in a coma.

He woke up and went through some of the various stages of head injury recovery.  One of the stages: angry and agitated.  He would (and does) slip back to that when he's very tired or frustrated. 

Ron clearly couldn't use the toilet while in a coma.  They had a solution for that.  As he woke up he didn't like that option.  Who would? 

So, they got him a bedpan.  It was marginally better but not much.  At least he could holler for it.  I'd get it and either the nurse aide or I would deal with the product. 

Ron had been promised a commode chair.  He was very excited about it but it wasn't happening.  He kept having to use the bedpan.  He was getting very frustrated, yelling "Toilet!"  "Toilet!"  He sounded so pitiful. 

Like anyone, he wanted to use the toilet.  He was tired of the bedpan.  I was happy he was getting better but Ron found the bedpan humiliating.  I kept asking and they kept giving us the run-around. 

We had to learn to "transfer" Ron, they said.  But they wouldn't teach us, and never gave a reason. 

One day Ron kept shouting for his toilet.  He sounded so plaintative.  "Toilet!  Toilet!"  It reminded me of bird cries.  I got him on the bedpan.  He told me to leave the room. 

I left.  I waited about 10 minutes.  I asked Ron if he was done and he shouted at me.  I waited another 10 minutes. 

I went back in the room.  Ron was on his stomach (I'd left him on his back, on the bedpan, lying in bed).  I knew it had taken Ron a tremendous feat to flip over like that, so soon after his stroke.  Wearing my gloves, I picked up the bedpan.  It was empty. 

"Ron, did you go?"
"Yes."
"Where is it?"
He smiled grimly. 
"I threw it!"
What? 
"I threw it!" 
What? 

I looked at his hands.  Yeah, he'd thrown it all right.  He later told me he took great care molding the product into a perfectly round ball before throwing it. 

Oh-kay.  I had to find a big ball of waste.  The product was lurking somewhere in the hospital room.  I looked to the left of the bed.  I looked to the right.  I looked under the bed.  I looked at the foot.  I looked by the head.  I looked in and around the other bed.  I looked around my fold-out sleep chair. 

Exhausted, I got ready to collapse into "my" chair, when I saw the stains on the wooden armrest.  Ah.  About to drop into the seat, I caught myself and turned around, finding the product in a position of honor. 

I almost sat in it! 

I was still wearing my gloves. I picked it up and flushed it.  I told the nurse aides that Ron had a bowel movement (they had to put it in the chart).  I also mentioned the flinging episode in passing and requested "something to clean it up".   They reacted with shock and horror. 

About 5 minutes later, a nurse in full haz-mat gear came into the room.  I explained I'd gotten rid of the worst, I was happy to clean it up, and he'd done it out of frustration.  She wasn't buying. 

Ron, I asked, what did you do? 
"I threw it". 
Are you sorry you threw it?
"Yes".
Will you throw it again? 
"No"  The nurse relaxed. 
Why did you throw it?
"I want a toilet!" he wailed.  "Sick of the bedpan!   Not a baby!   TOILET!" 

"I told you" I continued.  "He just wanted the toilet.  He got frustrated.  Can someone please work on getting him the commode chair?  He's going to get constipated, he hates using that thing.  Look what he did today!"  She went out.  I cleaned Ron up. 

About 10 minutes later a tentative knock on the door.  A Spanish lady came into the room. "You need clean?"  She held some rags and a bucket of disinfectant. 

"My husband" I told her.  "I clean."  I took the bucket and rags. 
She brightened up.  "YOU clean?"  I nodded.  "OK!  I come later!" 

I cleaned everything I could find and then some, devoting particular attention to handprints and the chair.  I poured out the used solution and left the rags in the bucket.  The lady came back and took it away, smiling widely. 

Well, he is my husband.  What was I going to do?  Lord it over her like some "royal", watching her clean? 

The next day they brought Ron a commode chair and worked with me on transfers.  He spent quite a while on his beloved toilet. 

When Ron came home, his father loaned him an old commode chair from a dead aunt.  Ron was thrilled.  A couple weeks later, he took it back.  Ron was devastated at the loss of his beloved "toilet" and Dad could never give us a good explanation. 

Ron's brother and sister had refused to help us, disowned us, and I think they made his Dad choose.  When he got dementia, though, they put Dad in a nursing home. 

In the meantime I had to tell Ron his Dad had taken "toilet" away, and we were back at the bedpan.  I ordered another commode chair off the internet but it took about a week to arrive.  In the meantime, he would hop into the bathroom on his good leg. 

Ron's a man who loves his toilet. 

In 2004, the day we bought the house, I caught salmonella.  I was violently ill for about a week.  "Toilet" got a few miles because I doubted I could make it.  I did, using the chair. 

Ron was a champ, emptying the chair for me and acting so sweet about it.  He even rigged up a little toilet paper dispenser and trash bag.  He was wonderful. 

You reap what you sow.