Hello, I'm looking for advice on how to approach my father regarding the bathroom situation.
For the last three or four months, my father has been having some kind of difficulty using the bathroom. Usually once a day he will have a bowel movement, and when I go in the bathroom after, I will find feces smeared on literally every object in there. It's also outside in the hallway, on the light switch, and on the washer and dryer and inside the rim of the washer. Tonight, I cleaned the bathroom twice. Once because it was dirty from yesterday's bowel movement, and about a half an hour later after tonight's bowel movement the same disaster happened. I bleached the whole bathroom and everything else again.
Before I went to bed, I had to change his bandage and I realized that he has feces smeared on his bare feet, as well as all over the front of his pants legs up to his knees which is now smeared on the bed also because he doesn't care about having dirty feet all over beds or couches.
I didn't say anything to him when I cleaned the bathroom either time, nor have I said anything to him in the past about it, but I did mention that if I was him, I would wash myself and change my pants before going to dialysis tomorrow because there is feces smeared all over him. He looked at me with a shocked expression and said really?! There is?! I didn't say anything else...
I'm not sure what to do about this. I don't know what kind of help he could need in there. There are flushable wet wipes as well as toilet paper which I had to throw the toilet paper roll out because there was feces smeared all over that too, but neither of my parents will use the wet wipes. I don't know why.
I don't know what else I can do, but this is extremely dirty and I'm not sure how to approach him because I don't want to embarrass him. I also don't want him mad at me and I don't really know how to present it to him...
This is very concerning because my mother also uses that bathroom and if he's got feces wiped all over the toilet seat and lid, the handles to the sink, and in the sink itself, etc, my mother is without doubt going to get it all over her also, and she has dementia and refuses to shower so that's a whole situation that I am really not wanting to have to deal with 😖
Wondering if anyone out there has dealt with this and what they did.
Thanks in advance for any responses♥️
They cannot toilet themselves independently anymore.
How long does the adult child (the OP) have to spend their life 'rushing in' to clean up the parents' crap? That's not a realistic expectation to have of anyone. They should start looking at a managed care facility.
The smearing of crap all over the place and on the person themselves is not unusual with dementia.
I've had many homecare clients who did this.
Your parents have to be placed in AL or managed care, or they need a live-in caregiver who will toilet them both and clean the bathroom continually. They cannot be allowed to live alone without supervision anymore. Neither of them possesses the mental ability to handle the activities of daily life independently anymore. Crap smeared all over the place in only the beginning.
Their feelings and not embarrassing them really isn't important at this point. Their living environment is a biohazard. A danger to them both and to anyone else in the house.
If you don't have POA or conservatorship over them, petition the probate court in their area to get it.
Then speak to the state's department of social services and ask them what their options are.