My search for grace and meaning during a care partnering life with a wife with Parkinson's disease and her often confused and maddeningly disorienting world.
Women’s restrooms are never handicapped accessible even when you think they are and the provider thinks they are.
The Ladies room at Through the Garden restaurant (which we go to often) is a pretty good one. Cheryl did not get trapped with her walker last night. The door hinges into the restroom and it is nice and wide.
The Silverton Cafe which is a wonderful old pub that we have gone to for decades has a sucky-wucky ladies room. Cheryl got trapped in the stall. A coat-hanger would have been good.
The public restroom on the first floor lobby area south in St. Elizabeth Ft. Thomas has a really swell feature. I has a handicap wave pad that opens the door mechanically when you wave your hand at it. It also has motion sensitive lights which turn on when you shove your walker in but waits a few minutes and turns them off leaving you sitting in an inside room without windows or any other lighting which makes it blacker than the inside of a cow which is also not not nice. Almost a great idea though. Needs a little tweaking.
As we travel the road of parkie dilemmas I have visited a lot of women’s restrooms lately. I am not shy about shouting “doing okay?” through the door and opening the door which usually interferes with the walker coming out. Often you will see me hovering near the ladies room door when we leave the restaurant or pub for the evening. I try to not look creepy.
Most seem to hinge inward but the door is conveniently (for the builder) located in a corner so that you cannot be off to the side with the walker to open the door.
A few designers are thinking here and there. It is sporatic though. Old buildings are the worst. Restrooms do not make any money for pubs. All guys need is a bush.
It occurred to me this morning as I was reaching for the Cheerios that lots of tiny things have changed in our life together. Not all of them are Parkinson changes. All can seem associated with Parkinson. I will stop using the possessive and leave Parkinson by itself.
Starting with Cheerios, Cheryl rarely ate Cheerios until recently. The why of that thought is unknown. It may or may not be a parkinson. Before Cheerios she was a huge fan of Life cereal. So much so that I was buying Life cereal in the four box collection from Boxed Up online. For several months perhaps a year and a half it was Life cereal, some dried cherries on top and orange juice. Then it suddenly switched to Frosted Mini-Wheat cereal but only for a couple weeks. Sticking with the heart healthy ideas I bought some Cheerios for myself on day as I passed through IGA shopping for the other things on my list. They were quickly adopted by Cheryl as a breakfast option. Cheerios is the current choice virtually every morning now.
A Partial List of Changes:
cars
house
travel
motivation
dementia and support
bicycles
relationships
Morning routine
Sleeping routine
Sleeping
Memory
Intimacy
Me and tea
showering and hygiene
keeping track of meds
adjusting meds
Exercise
Daily chore responsibility
Plumbing
handholds around the house
Emotional response to songs
Financial maintenance
Falling and fainting
Writing
and on and on…
As these changes occurred in our life together I did not take notice of them, I merely rolled with it at the time. I admit to being initially annoyed and sad to see something change away from what it was. Old people like to keep things as they are. The past tense is disappointing but the Beatles broke up in 1970. People move on.
Parkinson symptoms are treated with powerful mind altering chemicals. It is the doctor’s call as to what will help. It is the care partner’s call to observe and listen and respect and help with those drugs. The doctor is global and strategic. Day to day caring is tactical, down-to-earth and immediate.
In a past episode of “Ghosts” the young woman protagonist uses the term “maybe” instead of a direct “no.” Cheryl says, “I’ll think about it.” Reading the care giver’s guide to the galaxy book which is a part of the class I am attending to learn some things the communications chapter discusses saying “no.” It talks about the implications of negativity which go along with saying no. I have noticed that most times people cannot say no with out offering some explanation to lessen the blow of the no.
It is much harder with a dementia patient. The no may be a greater blow than one can imagine. But sometimes it is very important to the care partner to express “NO” and then explain the the care receiver why no is important this time and then discuss alternatives that may sound like “we’ll see.”
… and then Young Sheldon for a while but the young Sheldon is a bit more melodramatic and less fun and funny. She has lost interest it appears to me.
I, however, have become attracted to the rest of the characters. I am watching how the child actors age; a midlife crisis development in the family; Memah (grandmother) deals with life and widowhood; how life in Texas is portrayed. Sheldon’s role is reduced to narrator. He has become a semicolon between scenes. I think his older brother Georgie is getting ready to branch out and chase his entrepreneurial instincts and fly to the world of small business.
As the last season ended George (father) is struggling in his marriage and is feeling a little put out by Mary (mother) who is certain only she can take care of the family. He winds up going to the local bar to have a beer or two and enjoy the company of others rather than stay in a bickering duel with Mary that he is certain lose. He meets up with his newly divorced neighbor and they chat about old times and other things about their lives. They both whine a little to each other. George has some pain in his chest which they perceive as a heart attack.
The beginning of the new season episode tells us that it is just gas. Everyone is relieved. George and Brenda (neighbor) spend some time working through their (perceived) guilt about talking in the bar. George with his newly divorced neighbor is searching for meaning in life. Brenda is simply looking for companionship after her marriage fell apart. They finally sit at her kitchen table and she suggests that they both just wanted to feel special for a bit. A very succinct conclusion to the show.
All of us have a need to feel special for a bit.
Folks with a chronic condition that makes everyday living difficult want to feel special for a bit but separate from their condition. The condition is not them.
Cheryl really did not use a purse much. She had one she used when the children were small but with small children there is a lot of extra baggage and equipment so overtime she consolidated everything. So it is my recollection that she did not carry a purse but I am thinking that is probably incorrect.
As her neurological condition degenerated I encouraged her to carry a purse. I helped her find a purse that had a long strap that she could drape over her shoulder and would not require her to keep a hold of it with one hand. She needed more and more to have hands free to keep her balance and grab me or the door frame or the car or the back of a chair or the back of a bench or a stair rail or something.
The first bag I helped her find was a smallish brown leather purse that was perhaps 10 inches by 8 inches and a depth of 4 inches. She carried little with her. In my maleness it seemed adequately sized for the couple of things that had to go along. Glasses case, small wallet, keys, a pen or two, a small package of tissues, this purse had room aplenty for all of these. We left Target with our prize one evening after eating in Frisch’s restaurant across the road from Target.
Two things happened over a period of weeks. The strap, although it seemed adequate at the time became inadequate. The capacity mysteriously reduced in much the same fashion as a cotton T-shirt that had resided too often in a hot water bath to be cleansed.
Back at our favorite Target store we found a somewhat larger green cloth purse with a different style of strap which I thought could be made much longer. Alas I was foiled by the fact that the straps did not get longer as it first appeared. The straps converted the purse to a mini back pack. Unsure of what to do about that situation or whether it might prove useful for Cheryl, we gave it to one of our granddaughters who happened to be visiting a few days later.
The selection at Target seemed to be shrinking. I started to search Amazon for a suitable new carryall to replace the rapidly shrinking brown artificial leather messenger bag. One night the pinkish purple purse appeared in my Amazon search window. It is available in other colors and made of a canvas material. Most importantly Cheryl likes it.
It has other features that are not readily apparent. It has a total of five zippered compartments. These provide the entertaining feature of hiding most anything that Cheryl puts in there. Additionally there are several internal zippers that provide further confusion for any parkie. It is, even without these extra attractive accouterments, a fine messenger bag with plenty compartments to organize one’s stuff whatever that stuff may be.
This purse can be a distraction and an entertainment. Cheryl often zips and unzips one or two or three zippers as soon as she spies this purse benignly resting on the edge of the table as it is shown above. It is a delicate dance between her and the bag. Men cannot understand the attraction to the zippered compartments.
Parkinsonism must provide a bit of obsessive-compulsive attraction to the zip itself. Much like a fidget spinner the zipping happens but somewhere in her thought process she puts stuff in, maybe takes it out, maybe not, maybe moves it so that it is in a better situation.
She seems in no hurry to disparage this bag and it features. Sometime she will complain that it has too much in it. That is good information.
I try to unobtrusively observe where she has placed objects in the purse. I often place her medications in her purse before we go somewhere if we might not return before the next dose. Have you ever watched the guy with three cups upside down a pea or a pebble underneath one of them. Same thing with the zippers if close attention is not paid.
Adjunct_Wizard 