Sunday, January 25, 2015 

This morning, the telltale smells from the bathroom alerted me that mom had just visited. She was now in bed. So I went to check her out and found the usual: soiled nightgown, dirty hands, and soiled diaper. To her protestations and tears, I led her to the bathroom shower. You would think I was condemning her to stand in the freezing snow.

I emptied the shower of everything: shampoos, soaps, squeegee, sponges—anything that could become contaminated by the spray of feces. I then tore up individual pieces of paper towel to be used as washcloths. I moved the wastebasket closer to prevent dripping the contaminated cloths onto the bathmat. Lacking a laundry chute, I threw her soiled nightgown and towel down the stairs. After I got mom (who kept asking if I would go back home with her when she gets up) back to bed, I donned the heavy-duty rubber gloves and washed her feces-soiled clothing in the basement sink, dropped them into the laundry tub with Lysol concentrate and detergent, then returned to the bathroom to spray the shower with bleach and finish cleaning the bathroom. But…

This is nothing compared with what my dear friend Nancy must endure. Eric has been home since New Year’s Eve. Unable to speak, he can only point (and sometimes randomly, such as to the television or the pillow) and grunt or scream that he needs his diaper changed. Nancy is exhausted. She often changes him (a 20-minute ordeal) only to find that he has immediately soiled himself again. Yesterday, he soaked the bed. While she changed everything under and around him, bending over him with her back (painful from several destroyed discs), he urinated copiously again. She cried and he cried.

Last night, Nancy described her mornings: wake up, let Hunter and Abby out, give Abby her eye meds (Abby has glaucoma and is blind), clean up if Abby had a bad night, prepare Eric’s meds in yogurt, change his diaper, give him his meds, feed him, clean his peg. After 3 hours—yes, 3 hours—she can sometimes sit down with a cup of coffee. She often does so with Bible in hand, the Psalms serving as her source of comfort through this ordeal.

She said that her life, as she knew it, is over. I agreed. But I told her that her life itself is not over. She has two wonderful daughters and 4 beautiful grandchildren—much to live for. Nancy claims Eric will outlive her, and I think she is almost hoping he will. She does not want to lose him to death, even if she knows she has lost him to the continued strokes. But in the meantime, she manages. She pays the bills (some very huge bills to which must be added the latest trip to the ER for $800), takes care of the dogs, cooks for and feeds Eric and give him his meds, has arranged for a woman to come in 3 mornings a week to change him, has arranged for gardeners to clear the weeds and do weekly maintenance around their acre, does shopping when someone can come in and be with Eric, manages the household and laundry, and calls repairmen as needed, then pays more bills. She worries about what will happen when disability runs out in 2 years. I remind her that matter is too far off to be a concern at the moment. Still, she tries to take what’s put before her moment by moment. She said that even though we ask for “our daily bread,” we are really meant to live moment by moment. We both ask for strength and grace as we carry out our work—she on Eric, me on mom—because we sometimes fall miserably short.

Eric’s doctor has been terribly worried about Nancy and asked her to be his patient. I keep praying for her strength and that she will know the presence of the Lord as she toils—and she does. Three of us—and I suspect many, many more—pray for her throughout the day. She herself has been praying for respite. And today, Eric is back in the hospital, a possible TIA. She did get some respite—at a price she would never have asked—but she did get some respite.

While I have the luxury of sitting here and typing these words, Nancy would be working for several more hours even before she could get some nourishment herself. As difficult as things are here, as tedious as my routine has become, it nowhere resembles the horror she must face nearly every minute as she toils nearly endlessly with a bad back. Last night as she prepared to leave the hospital with her daughter, Eric screamed and made quite a fuss, even at his daughter. He didn’t want to be left behind. Nancy explained that he had hurt his daughter’s feelings, that he was not being left behind, that he would be home soon, that this was not like previous lengthy hospital stays, and that she needed a good night’s sleep and was not going to sit on the hard-backed chair all night. Eric stopped screaming and Nancy left to get a good night’s sleep.

When I lay my own head down on my wonderful pillow with my wonderful down comforter with my wonderful window shade—newly installed to keep the moonlight from drenching my head and body at night and now also providing a measure of insulation—I am grateful. I am grateful to be able to take care of mom and to have Val as my companion. I am grateful for Rob, who spent the day shoveling snow—particularly the heavy bank left by the plows, prepares mom’s coffee and toast every morning and provides cookies and juice for her throughout the day, does endless loads of laundry when I am not at the washing machine, folds the clothes so neatly, makes mom’s bed, alerts me to problems concerning mom, takes out the garbage, trims the lawn in the growing season… much to be grateful for. And I am grateful for Nancy and the opportunity to pray for her and Eric and the girls and to see once again the power of prayer.