Kasey, my occupational therapist, actually made this wonderful contraption which sits next to my bed. It's actually a piece of furniture, built on casters it has a number of shelves, wooden pegs and angles on which I can hang things like the pendant which operates my electric bed. The contraption is hugely humble but very effective. On one shelf I keep a plastic tote container which I keep my skin lotion, my water bottle usually one urinary bag and waiting, a bottle of ant acids, anti-spasm tablets, and usually my cell phone when I'm lying in bed. I also have a fully loaded surge protector that connects everything, power bed, arm bike, charger for cell phone, charger for power chair, cheap clock that I got from disparate industries which I love and a number of inner tubes that I hang off the heads. I also forgot to mention that on the far side of the device is a 5” x 5” container that I used to store a lot of my hooks and long sticks in. Like I said it's totally wooden, totally humble but totally usable and I use it everyday. All also I store number of these urinary bags I make that I often use during the night. These are such great devices. They are great and other not great in this morning they were not great.
I first woke about 4 AM and used one of these bags filling the bag to about 400 mL, which is not a bad drain. With the pressure of the bladder is able to get back to sleep for a couple of hours waking again about 6:15 AM – – time to get up. It's a middle weekday that means my home health person shows up for my bath and other stuff. Like to jump up and get going on these days picking up the apartment, washing my face and shaving just getting ready. This morning I was a little excited not knowing really why except for I'm getting a strong feeling that the summer is winding down and that I need to use every day to its maximum. Maybe it's because I have a toenail appointment out in West Jorda which means a trip on a bus transferring to another bus to continue my trip. I quite like my toenail guy maybe that was it. The point is I should pay more attention than I was. When I parked my chair next to my bed last night I didn't realize I'd gone as far back as I had. This is in the problem really except for when it is. This morning when I use my urinary bag and had pushed the lid back snug and leaned over in bag on a hook on the wooden contraption I didn't realize that the loop on the other end of the bag had gotten intertwined with my power chair as I pulled away from the bed I really wasn't paying attention and before I knew it I pulled the entire contraption over the course caused morning chaos. There was a time when this would almost depress me to the point that it would ruin my day but these days, it's just another day in paradise and I have more than enough time to clean up. In fact with Melanie coming today she certainly would help – – she always does, griping and sniping but she helps. What really worries me most in the immediate moment following the crash was that the bag full of urine could very easily pop its lead or as us try to negotiate the bag and try to unhook it for my rear wheels I would inadvertently run over the bag and totally increased the chaos of the mess. I could not get myself free of the chair and was most difficult to reach around was able to snag the bag eventually and pull it tight enough to get myself to a pair of scissors and cut myself free.
By the time Melanie showed up I've actually cleaned up a lot of the mess I had drained the bag without incident and tossed the bag into the garbage (even though I could still use the bag it didn't have the loop that I used to hang the bags to drain after cleansing them). I have enough bags to make another and another. So it was a good way to start the day. Melanie was only a little bitchy she was wearing her new scrubs which is a whole new entry item for a blog to be written another day
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