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Sooo, I’m like just minding my own business this afternoon and in the span of a few minutes, my laid-back, vegging out, bon bon popping self was plunged deep, DEEP into hell.
I walked into Henrietta’s room to check on her, thinking all the way from her doorway to her bedside that it smelled quite… bad. Like urine, but she has a catheter, so… what?
She has been steadily sliding downhill lately and warrants trips in to check on her even when she hasn’t rung the bell. She mouthed some garbledy-gook to me. She makes absolutely no sense anymore. Only a few recognizable words scattered here and there amongst crazy sounds. And nothing that you could string together in a sentence. Plus the fact that she can barely make any noise at all. Her voice is a mere whisper of it’s former self. Literally.
Anyway, I check her out and chat with her for a few minutes. Pull her up more in bed and ask if she needs to sit on the potty. She shakes her head no and I tell her that I really do need to change the dressing on her bottom anyway. She nods OK and I get her ready to roll over on her side. I get gloves and prepare to get down to business.
Sloooowly and carefully I roll her over after I have undone her diaper. I peel back the old bandages and examine the remains of a few small bedsores. Yes, they are coming along nicely.
I turn around to retrieve some sterile gauze and the medicine tube from the bedside table. I then turn back and there is a poop fountain sprung anew right in front of me.
Oh, so fast. How did she do that? A big stream of it. I shove the new diaper under the… stream and begin catching all the rest that’s coming out. I clean it all up off of her, remove the soiled hospital chux and there is now poop stoppage.
This is a good thing.
I run out of t.p. and am about to go and get some more, since she is resting comfortably on her side and the more time she can spend off of her butt the better for getting her sores well.
The phone rings. So I trot down the hall and answer it. It’s my brudder, Cam. He is calling to confer about the malware problem I’m having on my blog site. I tell him I’ll call him back in no more than 5 minutes.
When I turn to leave the DINING ROOM where I had left the phone, I notice shiny footprints on the floor. Not good. The floor was clean moments ago.
Weird. They seem to lead right up to where I am standing.
Odd. They are the same shape, size and pattern as the soles of my flip-flops.
Slowdumbandstupid. That’s me.
Well…WTH???
I backtrack and find footprints through the foyer, aaaall the way down the hall and across her room. As a matter of fact they are all over her room. Between the bed and dresser and closet and all around the nightstand.
It’s pee, people. It’s everywhere. And I had been cavorting in it the whole time. If you can call cleaning up pee footprints and bandaging butt sores cavorting.
Her catheter was leaking. There was a puddle of pee on the floor at her bedside the size of a turkey platter. How I didn’t see it when I walked in the first time is beyond my understanding. I blame these wood floors. You can’t see anything on them.
So I spent… God knows how long, on my hands and knees with a roll of paper towels and a spray bottle of disinfectant, crawling all over the freakin house spray, wipe, put in plastic bag. Spray, wipe, put in plastic bag. Spray, wi….. you get the idea.
It took forever!
I know this turned out to be just one long bitch session about my ridiculous administrations to her and all and she really is doing much worse and don’t see her lasting too much longer.
I joke around about her, all the shenanigans she used to get up to and the problems with taking care of her.
I wonder how it will feel when she’s gone?
