As of the writing of this post, we are 8 months out from my husband’s stroke.
If you are new to this blog, I’ll give you a little background. His stroke was on the left side of his brain, so right-side affected. he was in the hospital for a week and then at an in-patient rehab facility for a few weeks. Came home in a wheelchair, but has progressed to walking with a cane. He just had his first movement in his arm about a month ago, so we’re just starting to see a little progress there.
Now let’s get to the good stuff. We all want our injured spouses to be as self-sufficient as possible. They want that too. I always see a change in my husband’s outlook and mood when he finds there is something he can do that he was previously unable to do.
Personal care is well, really personal. When it comes to showering or bathing, I think everyone prefers to be able to do that themselves! But if we aren’t able to, then help is needed.
I wrote a previous blog post about setting up the home for Paul’s return from in-patient rehab and that included setting up the bathroom with a transfer chair to get him in the tub. You can read about that here.
Fast forward 6 months and he was standing well enough that I felt we could try the stand-up shower. We have a small walk-in shower, so he needed to be strong enough to stand for the entire shower as it’s not big enough to put a seat in.
Let me walk you through that first shower experience so that you can see how we managed to try it in case you are trying to figure that out.
Here are the steps we took for his first stand-up shower:
I removed the rug from in front of the shower stall so that there was no chance of slipping since it was not a slip-proof rug
I turned on the shower to let the water heat up
I helped him remove his clothing
I opened the shower door and stood by him (on alert in case he tripped) as he stepped over the edge into the shower – he took it slow and got in with no issues
I put a towel down on the floor to catch any water because I was leaving the door open part of the time
When he first got in, I closed the door and let him stand under the spray until he was ready to start bathing
I put shampoo in his hand and closed the door again and he washed his hair and rinsed it
I opened the door and handed him his washcloth and then I squirted liquid soap on the washcloth
I closed the shower door and he washed his upper body
I then washed his lower body
I closed the door again and he rinsed off
When he was done, he turned the water off and I opened the door and helped him dry off some in the shower
He got out and we finished the drying (had to be careful when stepping out on the towel)
I helped him get dressed
I picked up the towel and put the rug back down
He said it felt GREAT to stand up and take a shower instead of sitting on the transfer chair in the tub and I was excited not to have to help lift his leg over the side of the tub anymore!
What was I not excited about? Standing there and helping him shower – and he wasn’t either. So I figured out a set up to make this work better for both of us and I’m going to share that with you in Part 2 of this series.
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