Just nobody else mention commodes!

I needed to get out on my return from the hospital, to alleviate the frustration and find peace in nature.

The conversation I’d had earlier still baffled me!

‘You could use a commode’, the nurse had said, ‘when he’s discharged’.

Funny how I had felt my blood pressure rising at the very word. How many times had I been told that already since I’d been back with my parents, supporting Mum with Dad.

No, I can’t use a bloody commode. Have you any idea what it’s like in the middle of the night? Have you been up every time your father goes to the loo, wiping up the streams of urine that reach the bathroom door? But at least he still knows to go to the bathroom, and I’m thankful for that.

‘It wouldn’t work’, I had said. ‘Dad is not used to using a commode. I can’t introduce something he’s not used to. The bedroom would stink of urine’.

‘He would sit on it’, had been her response.

Yes, right. Dad is used to standing and he’s got dementia, so he’ll either be confused or stubbornly decide sitting is not something he wants to do … And, it will be the middle of the night, just to add to the confusion.

I was still thinking about the chaos that would ensue.

The nurse had looked at me as though I was just another awkward relative, not prepared to find a solution.

And I had looked at her and thought just what I would like to do with a commode at that moment.

And I didn’t get it. I didn’t get how people, who must have some dealings with dementia, could even suggest commodes and Zimmer frames and all those other things Dad was not used to doing / using. (Don’t get me wrong, I was/am so grateful to the NHS, especially for all the help we had had during lockdown from consultants, paramedics, and the district nurses). But to get back to my point, Dad continued to do what he had always done, mostly as an inbuilt reflex. I could have explained till I was blue in the face, and he still wouldn’t have got it. That wasn’t his fault.

‘My Dad has dementia’. How many times did I need to say it in response to an idea mooted that would have worked under any other circumstances?

Please, stop telling me what my Dad can or can’t do; I already know and I’m sick of hearing.