Merry Christmas to you Nancy and Dan, and be blessed!

Yvonne

That midnight talk you had with him is obviously remembered. He was more mad at himself than anyone else. Sounds like you're on track for a great family celebration, so enjoy!

Another Merry Christmas to you and family and stay warm! It's going to be a very cold winter with plenty snow!.

Guess what Fred? It's mid 60s here in NY right now. What a schizophrenic winter so far.

Nancy: good news and Merry Christmas to everyone. Loved your slide show.

Never fails. Bruce and I went out to lunch yesterday. He knew we were going and told me he had toiletted twice before I got home - that is how excited he was about going and how attentive. Again, so proud of him. But the waitress managed to spill an entire pitcher of ice water on him.

That was a wonderful jaunt out for the holiday season. Congratulations to Beth's boyfriend (was this the gentleman Bruce and I met?). You all must be very proud. A very special Christmas gift. Debbie

Nancy, Here's hoping you and Dan have a wonderful Christmas! Blessings to both of you.

Debbie, what slide show? I don't see nothing.

Oh, and your account of Bruce getting ice water dumped on him - how maddening. *HE* manages to stay dry, only to be drowned with ice water, IN THE WINTER, by the waitress! Reminds me of a very bad joke I heard today, but now it makes more sense.... -What do you say to the waitress with 2 black eyes. Nothing. You already told her twice.

OK, I can hear the BOOs from here, I didn't write it, and thought it was a bad joke when I heard it, until I heard what happened to Bruce!

Nancy, you must be a lot better at it than me, or perhaps you are an angel on earth. Bob had another of those BM accidents yesterday and I was a total lunatic. I just don't know ... there must be a better way. I mean... it's all IN the diaper. But when I take it off, it all falls out EVERYWHERE and it becomes like "Here is a cow pie (in diaper). Here is a cow pie on drugs (out of diaper)".

it is daunting to deal with --- one thing i keep in mind now that the man is at least going to the bathroom ( remember his chronic constipation) is that EVERYTHING i have around him the bedding , the pads , washclothes ect.. i am willing to sacrifice ( throw away) so i do a lot of thrift store shopping and when a accident happens it goes away if it is a particularly "big" mess... if it can be washed it is.... i have extras of everything - everywhere we go.. a roll of paper towels, washcloths, attends,pants shirt,socks, are all in my van as extras... and it seems i am needing them ( the extras) more and more.... in the bed i have devised my own system ( not really mine, most nursing homes used to do this) i have a pad the good cotton kind and then i fold over a sheet halfways and lay that over the pad ( the sheets i buy at a thrift store the flat kind) and then dan has the good sheet feeling on his skin but there is absorbency protection as well.... if he has a accident we clean it up the same way they would in a medical setting roll over, tuck here add new bedding roll over,ect ... and yes i have gotten good at it--- unfortunatley practice makes perfect , but doesent help dans pride any .... but with time i hope we overcome this issue as we did with the constipation... but with the partial paralysis of his stomach it seems we just keep springing back and forth between the two issues....

This is the second time he has had an accident right as he was going to the toilet, so he arrives to the toilet with a full diaper. I think I finally have a thought on how to make it better. He needs to hold the front, so I am free to hold the back and it stays up so I can control it coming away. The last 2 times it just fell away as I was only holding front OR back. In these situations, it falls and lands behind his feet, making a huge cow pie, some in his pants, socks, and shoes... backs of legs, toilet seat. I used those pull out cloths from Lysol to clean his pant & sock splats, before putting them in the wash. Then I took the first scoop of the cowpie and landed it in the toilet and flushed - and it immediately stopped up. It all went down hill from there. Eventually everything was cleaned of poop, and he was clean, but I still put him in the shower. My mom couldn't understand why I just didn't put him in to start with. Mom! He has to sit on the edge of the bench and then swing his legs in and scoot, scoot, scoot over, and he is sitting and scooting all the poop - that's why! Oh, incase anyone can use the info, this is thanks to him putting hot sauce on his chipotle when I wasn't looking.

i had that situation to-- i have a garbage just below the height of the toilet and as i take off the attend it gets put into the garbage... but everything has to work just right... but again after all the problems of the constipation this is a doable issue... better than watching him doubled over in pain all the time..