Mom is 88, has mobility issues, and lives with us in our old Victorian- only a very small half bath on the first floor where she stays. The dining room is her bedroom, and she had a bedside commode for nighttime. For the past year or so we’ve had “code browns,” increasing in frequency, to about one a week or so. They always happen in the bathroom, which is TINY, and the e both can’t fit in there. It necessitates cleaning her a bit, getting her to the commode, cleaning her up, then cleaning the bathroom, and usually the carpet between the bathroom and the dining room. I clean her up but it’s really difficult- she’s obese, can’t move much, and is really not pleasant to deal with. Nonetheless, I am happy to do it. However, I work from home 3 days a week, but two days a week I’m in the office, a half hour away. I’m PETRIFIED she’ll have one of these situations when I’m at work, and she’s stuck on the toilet. She’s resistant about speaking with the doctor, but is there anything we can do? She always wears Depends, as she’s also urine incontinent. Is there a medication? What do you do to cope? I’m trapped.
Is your mom "managing" her own medications? We found that my mom was taking both laxatives and immodium and her whole system was terribly messed up. She ended up in the hospital and they got it sorted.
You talk to the doctor if she won't.
I did just that.
I reasoned that if I was involved in clean up, I could bring the topic to the Doctor's attention.
It may be Mom's business - but is now OP's business too!
I've had the small bathroom issue on my last position. The client was incontinent and did not go upstairs anymore. She stayed downstairs and there was a little half-bath. There's no way to clean someone up in an area that small. You cannot clean a person up on a portable bedside commode either when there's a real mess and she had serious mobility and balance issues.
She was incontinent anyway and would just start going. No one was available who would hold her steady on a toilet and hope for the best. I always refused to hold a client upright on the toilet. At that point they need to be diapers.
So, I put my client in diapers. She was against it but it was the only way. There was no choice for her. It was diapers or placement. The clean-up was easy enough because she had a hospital bed in the living room that I could clean her up on.
Isn't it time to consider placing her in a facility? Just because you're her only family left doesn't mean you have to give up your life for her.
For urinary incontinence I found that lining and adult diper with a trimmed down baby diaper (like Pampers, Huggies, etc...) was like a miracle. It stays dry and there is no leaks. Even overnight.
If she's incontinent there's not a whole lot that can be done for that except to try to prevent skin breadown and protect your furniture and rugs.
I was in homecare for a long time. Incontinence is always one of the main reasons why a family places an elder in managed care. It's something to consider.
Being 'resistant' to speaking with her doctor is not acceptable; if she wants to continue living with you and having you dealing with such a situation, then it's up to her TO speak to the doctor about getting this matter dealt with. And perhaps losing some weight with a controlled diet which you can enforce by not bringing junk food into the house or serving her high calorie meals. If she loses weight, she'll have an easier time moving around at least, making it easier on you to help her. I don't know that the 'fecal incontinence' issue will resolve, but it might, especially if she's eating less and dealing with less fecal volume may boil down to less blow outs. A simpler, blander diet may also calm her GI tract down leading to less explosive BM incidents, that is what sounds reasonable to me.
If I were you, I'd look into Assisted Living for your mother or at least in home caregivers to look after her while you're at work outside of the home. It's entirely possible she CAN get stuck on the toilet with you gone and then what? If she has no access to a cell phone to call 911, she'd have to wait for you to get home and help her up. I wonder why, however, she'd be stuck on the toilet? Is she unable to get up from it alone, by herself?? All in all, you've got a pretty unmanageable situation going on in your old Victorian home with your mother right now! It's not set up properly and she'd be better off in managed care with a team of people caring for her. You're not really 'trapped'.......there are alternatives you should explore for her care outside of your home. In order to cope with this situation in the meantime, I'd speak to her doctor, get her on a bland, low calorie diet regimen, and look into hiring (on her dime) in home caregivers to stay with her while you're at work. She's probably a fall risk too, I'm sure (if she's unable to get herself up from the toilet), which is another reason why leaving her alone isn't a good idea. As far as 'medication' is concerned, aside from a binding drug like Immodium to stop diarrhea, I don't know what she could be given to stop 'code browns' because I'm not even sure what they are!
Best of luck to you finding a workable solution to this entire situation.
🐑😜
If possible, I would suggest removing the vanity (and replacing with corner sink), replacing the toliet with a higher seat elongated model with a bidet seat with heated water. It may make just enough room to be able to clean your mom easier. You might want to use a narrow bookcase outside the bath to store towels and other supplies.
You may want to keep a food and medication diary to see if any foods and medicines are associated with the problems; sometimes a combination or the timing of when a medicine is taken together with a food consumed just before or after can cause issues.
An ALF is not the only solution.
A shower is needed in bathroom. If not, maybe the bidet would help. Also washable surfaces around bed, placed nearer to bath entry.
Diet research also. Good luck!
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They found that getting mom on a daily probiotic cleared the issue up. So that would be my 1st step. They used kombucha drink but, you can use a pill or fermented food.
We eat kimchi, fresh sauerkraut, use apple cider vinegar, fresh refridgerated miso soup and take a daily pill, obviously, not all everyday, just options to keep things interesting for the palate.
I would have her start using the bedside commode for BMs. You can clean that so much easier then a trailing mess.
Keep some water and some of the toilet chemicals used for RV toilets in the commode, this will keep the odor under control. They are expensive but, you only use a tiny bit.
Good luck old age and the life of one's caretakers is not easy.