My husband is destroying our house!
My husband has had urinary incontinence for at least 4 years. He is also on diuretics, which makes it worse. We can't find any diapers that are truly leakproof. He refuses to wear a diaper at night and consequently there is a crater in his mattress from urine. He sits on the edge of the bed in the morning and just "lets go". The area rug is soaked and I don't even want to know what our fairly new laminate floor looks like underneathe. We paid over $1,000 for a lift chair for him a year ago, and it also has a urine crater in it. The flooring planks under it are buckling and warped. The chair has stopped working. If I buy another one, he will ruin that one too. He refuses to be catheterized, and with his penchant for infections, life-threatening ones, that terrifies me. He needs the lift chair to get up or I wind up calling 911 for help. He is stubborn and resistant. I think he truly believes that his chair, at least, will be "self-healing" and he turns a blind eye on all the other damage (too extensive to list) that he's caused, leaving me to deal with it. Does anyone know of a truly waterproof lift chair like they have in hospitals? It obviously can't cost thousands. I am at a loss to know what to do or say to him.
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Perhaps an upholstery shop could cover a chair ( or at least the cushion) in a waterproof material? OR an auto body shop might have someone who could upholster the chair or fashion some covers that would hold up?
Has he seen a urologist or had testing to make sure his bladder completely empties when he pees? There are meds to help with that. The idea here is that when he goes to the bathroom and empties his bladder he won't be dropping in just a few minutes. I've read therapist can help with bowel control so perhaps they have suggestions.
Whatever you do, take action. As you've already seen allowing the current situation to continue will only make matters worse. It must be so discouraging for the both of you.
You can use a black light to detect body fluids. It's actually a good way to look for pet urine or make sure a bathroom or hotel room is really clean. Cat urine, in particular, glows very brightly under ultraviolet light. Urine glows under a black light primarily because it contains the element phosphorus. Phosphorus glows yellowish green in the presence of oxygen, with or without black light, but the light imparts additional energy that make the chemiluminescence easier to see. Urine also contains broken down blood proteins that glow under a black light.
It isn't appropriate for HugeMom to be the target of an APS investigation. But there's another issue and that's homeowner's insurance. Some underwriters do property inspections on initial writing of the policy and sometimes subsequently during following periods. They can mandate that changes be made or they'll cancel the policy.
One question -- If you were urinating all over the house and bed, what do you think your husband should do to make things better?
This isn't intended to be rude, but the chair isn't the issue. It's your husband's attitude.
My Mom wore what looked like baby diapers at night when she was in long-term-care. My Dad had refused to wear them, too, when he lived in Independent Living. So I looked around for a better fit Depend type product. He likes the Depends "real fit" style, but they are more expensive. My Dad also wears Depends "Guards" for men which are like a Poise pad for women, Dad wears the Guards inside his Depends. That has helped with accidents.
Well, after a few times of Dad cleaning up his own messes, I started to see Depends for Men on Mom's grocery list :)
There are leather lift-chairs but they would cost much more then the cloth ones. You could purchase blue sheets to try out, these are squares or rectangle pieces of cloth that can absorb liquid, then you throw them out. To try one, you can find them in the pet store in the dog aisle as puppy wee wee pads. If they work, then go on-line to get the blue sheets for humans. Some companies sell "seconds" which work just as well but couldn't be sold as "first quality" due to mistakes in production. Those are very inexpensive.