Ah yes.
@good gosh . My husband had become very aggressive and resistant to personal care. He wouldn't allow me to help him dress, wash, change incontinence pads etc. and he resisted with violence, making serious attempts to strangle me twice. He slept for no longer than 1 1/2 to 2 hours at a time. He refused to take his medication, which he did need. With his doctor's permission, that had to be given covertly. He wouldn't eat or drink anywhere near enough, and after he had moved to full time care, I found food hidden all over the place. Once, in Tesco, as we were passing a group of people standing chatting, my husband suddenly raised his walking stick and hit out at one of them! Fortunately, I had seen the stick coming up and swung my bag, diverting it. The man only received a glancing blow, rather than the full force of the stick, and was very understanding when I apologised. We had a male care assistant, thankfully, a huge body builder guy, come in once a day to help get my husband washed and ready for bed. One evening, as I was getting the bathroom ready, from the bedroom I heard the CA say very calmly and gently "Now, W, you need to let me go." I went to the bedroom, and found my husband with his hands around the CA's throat, making no impression, but he was trying!
Once in the nursing home, after the initial couple of weeks settling in, my husband thrived. The aggression and violence were never seen there. The staff were all in uniform, and that seemed to make a difference. He seemed to understand that they were there to help. They had a good ratio of male carers, and he got on well with them all. He loved to walk, and the Nursing Home was a much safer place, with wide, flat corridors and no door straddles or steps to trip over. The dining room was set out like a good restaurant, and he loved it. He ate everything he was served, and gained weight. He was warm, comfortable, clean and safe, and most importantly, I gained back a quality of relationship that had been impossible when I was trying to do 24/7 care for him at home, and trying to keep him safe, keep myself safe, getting hardly any sleep and literally never having any time to myself. I remember saying to people that I "can't go to the loo by myself", and they thought I was just using a figure of speech. They didn't realise that I actually meant that I was unable to go to the loo without bringing my husband in with me! He had to have me in his line of sight
all the time or he would completely panic. When he was in the nursing home, I would visit in the afternoons, and he would immediately take my hand and we'd go off to his room, and sit together and watch tv for the afternoon. He thought I lived there too, and was just busy in another part of the building when I wasn't with him. I've certainly got much nicer memories of our final months than I would have had if I'd had to struggle on at home.
