I I need some help from anybody who’s had experience from this. My husband is bedbound. He has a stroke on one side. He is much larger than me and I cannot move him or turn him over when he has a bowel movement. It’s OK when it’s hard but recently, it has been soft, not diarrhea but soft I get stressed out and he could see it in my face. I don’t know how to clean all the crevices. I can’t turn him over. I don’t know what to do. I use disposable bed pads one after another underneath the soiled one the use that to remove what I can, replacing it with a clean pad for continuous cleaning . Then I use Huggie wipes. I then have to wash with warm water and Dr teals This is more than a notion. It takes me sometimes an hour and a half to clean him up. Does anybody have any advice for me? I appreciate any help you could give me thank you..
If not, here are a few suggestions:
1. Use YouTube. They have many videos involving how to give bed baths and turn elders. Type in key words such as "changing bedbound elder". Videos will pop up.
2. Hire an Aid for one day "inservice in your home" about caring for a bedbound elder.
3. Be certain you have a hospital bed you can maneuver to the right height.
4. Ultimately know that you cannot do this "forever" and will have to eventually make choices about whether or not you can continue to risk your own health and well-being on in-home care that now is more appropriately done by a STAFF with more than one person per shift.
I wish you the very best.
Please don't hurt yourself trying to do this all by yourself.
My late husband was also completely bedridden for the last 22 months of his life and he was paralyzed on his right side from a previous stroke, and there was no way that I could have cleaned him up by himself.
Thankfully he was a morning pooper, so I did hire an aide to come in the mornings to lift him out of bed to put him on the bedside commode which was right next to his hospital bed, so he could poop. She would then hold him up while I wiped him and cleaned him up and put on a clean diaper.
And on the very rare occasion that he would poop later in the day in his diaper, I would have to have my son stop on his way home from work to help me get him cleaned up, as there was no way I could have done that by myself.
Also you really don't want your husbands poop to be hard as that means that he is constipated, and that can cause a lot more issues.
If your husbands care is getting to be too much for you, you either will have to hire in-home help, or look into having him placed in a skilled nursing facility.
Please take good care of yourself as you matter too in this equation.
We used to have a poster here, CountryMouse who had the whole thing with a draw sheet that you could use to turn over a patient.
I'm hoping one of our retired RNs or current caregivers will be along with some advice for you.
In the meantime, Google "turning a patient with a draw sheet". I'll see if I can find a link.
((((Hugs)))