How do I stand this? He can be so regressed. When is it time for a nursing home?
It's been 20 years of taking care of a sicker and sicker man. Now we just started with palliative care. Denial and minimization are his coping mechanisms. I had to hire a janitorial company to come do a biohazard cleaning, even his medicine bottles had feces on them. The housekeeper just cleans the bathroom, and there were pieces of feces or something stuck to the floor in the bedroom, that the service got up. He is a good man and I want to be kind and loving but I am tired, tired, tired, and grossed out. Why can't he change the depends without getting crap everywhere? We don't share the same bedroom and bathroom, by the way, because I always found him too dirty and messy, and he snored. I've got a message in to the new dr. to get a referral for home health care. He has fungus on his toenails so they look like they are rotten and are falling off. His feet stink, and he never washes under or between his toes. And he does the new york times crossword puzzle in ink every day! The COPD got bad about 11 years ago - before that it was heart surgeries and arrhythmia and heart failure. I find myself wanting him to just die and leave me alone. I don't want to be his mother.
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Talk with his doctor about a move. His health issues - COPD among them - may be enough for him to qualify for nursing home care.
He seems cognitively able in some ways, but the rest of what you describe could still be a form of dementia. He may need to be screened for Lewy body or frontotemporal dementia as part of determining where he can get the best care.
You need to be clear with the doctor that if you don't get relief from living in this situation your own health will worsen.
Please update us on how you are doing.
Carol
Talk to your hubby's primary doctor and ask for suggestions, and tell him/her you are so exhausted as this is a day in day out issue. The doctor could write a script saying it is time for another layer of care.
Rotten toenails with fungus along with fecal matter around the house does not happen overnight. You know it's time when he is not getting things done that you know is needed and neither you nor someone else can be brought in to do it.
Decisions made from the heart today can heal the regrets of tomorrow.
Be very, very clear with his doctor that you are NOT willing to wreck your health and well- being over this.
You have done enough. Time for a nursing home.
But if you still have any love left for this man in your heart, don't ridicule him because of his condition. Instead, work with his doctor to get him the best care possible, offer your support in any way you can, and pray for God to be merciful to him and to help you make it through this ordeal.
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