Chapter 343 - Delusion at 4AM

I woke at 0400, laying in the darkness for awhile not wishing to disturb her, for then she'd become restless, looking forward to her 0600 meds. But I needed to go. She was already awake. She asked for another pad to place in her incontinence bloomers. "Why, the pants and the pad will absorb well over a litre of piddle!" "But it's all wet" she said. "You won't be able to simply pull the pad free, it's just too difficult without releasing the sticky tabs on the pants" I replied. As a minor domestic began, I relented, grabbing another pad insert from the cupboard, whereupon she put her hand inside the pants and pulled out the pad. I was amazed, then I realised that the pad was perfectly dry except for two small drip marks on it. I asked her to feel in the pants; dry. So from 2200 to 0400 she had not voided at all!! So why in hell did she believe she was "wet"? Now she wanted to piddle. I wheeled the commode over and helped her onto it. Sounds of a reasonable stream rather than the usual slow drip; must be a litre I thought. I measured what was in the commode pan - only 200ml. I hadn't bothered to record the last time she had piddled in the loo last night but assume it was between 2130 and 2200 so 200ml was not very much. As a comparison, I weighed dry pants plus pad in the same bowl as I weighed wet pants and pad back on 10th May. Since the wet pants and pad weighed 1.45kg on the 10th and this morning the dry weighed 0.55kg, roughly speaking there were 900ml collected back on the 10th. Also, when she had catheters inserted, the over night bags collected between 600 and 1000ml. We both returned to bed, me very irritated. I went back to sleep listening to the Goon Show on the radio. Or was that as I woke again at 0610? She had not dribbled and did not want to use the commode. So I went to do 10 minutes of Wii Fit Hula Hoops, halfway through realising my CB radio was still in the bedroom. Returning to the bedroom, I found her seated on the commode, with its wheels unlocked, and not where I had left it. I locked the wheels then returned to finish my exercise. Back in the bedroom at 0630 she told me she wanted to walk to the loo for a poop. I wheeled her there, checking that the "occupied" sensor was working so as to know whether we were due for a bum wiping problem like we had yesterday. The sensor worked. (Yesterday I checked the operation of the sensor; it can be operated by gently touching the position with a finger tip, a cold spoon, but not by the weight of a partially full plastic bottle of shampoo. So it is neither a temperature, infra-red or a weight detector. Perhaps an induction sensor? Anyway, yesterday's problem suggests that her buttocks were not in close enough contact with a 1cm square area of the seat which I have now marked with red ink so a finger can be placed on it next time.)

Time had run out for me to have a shower before care came to help her have one. I made breakfast and showered later. I may delay my shower in future since that removed some stress in completing necessary tasks before her shower.

After the care had gone we discussed our situation, that at this time she does not really need the luxury  of outside help for showers, yet we believe we need to be in the "system" to help us cope with developments down the track of life. I need to find an independent helpful person for advice.

And this morning's delusion makes me wonder whether that was a matter of PD symptoms (that is, cognitive decline), reaction medication changes (so perhaps temporary) or medication side effects from quantity (so perhaps permanent at current meds levels) or her system returning to some normality in that her bladder is not undergoing spasms or whatever induces nocturia (to be hoped for).

Below is her current meds schedule.