Home health is sending an aide twice a week to help him bathe and do foot care.

And he is getting PT twice a week. Poop under control! I don't know when we see his dr., but it should be soonish. I don't think I made it clear in my previous posts, but I changed his main dr. to one who specializes in chronic and palliative care about 2 weeks ago, and they are the ones I called on Friday when the ordure hit the fan. They have responded remarkably, and I feel very heartened.

He is feeling better and says there is no more fecal leaking, but I think he is lying, having seen a dirty depends lying around. He is not supposed to drive,but insisted on going to pick up his computer this afternoon, though I told him I would do it. He is generally non-compliant, at least over the long run, and my approach up to now has been just to let him live with the consequences.

As his illnesses have increased over the years, he has shown more and more passivity and dependence, and in an effort not to run myself into the ground by over functioning, I have tried really hard to make him responsible for himself. I think he is now getting an appropriate level of care, until the next crisis. His cardiologist did tell him this week that his heart may be reverting to a-fib, in which case there is no more medicine that can help him.

It is not an automatic death sentence, but he has had past episodes of serious heart failure and pulmonary hypertension, so coupled with his severe COPD, it is potentially a serious complication. He hasn't seen the new dr. yet, just his nurse practicioner, so it will be interesting to hear what the dr. has to say. The NP will have the dr. do a very thorough psych evaluation, and said something about maybe a CT scan.

Didn't the Grateful Dead say something once about it having been a long, strange trip?

Thanks to you all for your feedback.