I’m sorry this message is graphic so please don’t read it if you are squeamish about poo, testicles, or both.
Hello. My Dad is 76. I am 41. He came to stay with me in January on discharge from hospital for a broken femur. He broke his femur after falling downstairs in the home he shared with his partner of thirty years. She is not going to have him back. He is an alcoholic. My plan was to get him better prior to my move to the USA in March. The day after I left for the USA he fell from the toilet and “degloved” himself on the arm of his wheelchair which was on the wrong way round and had a sharp edge. He was taken to hospital and had his scrotum sewn back together, and was discharged back to my flat a couple of days later. I returned from USA 9 days ago and was pretty shocked by how much worse he was. He is now doubly incontinent and his scrotum has split open completely along one side and on the underside after he fell out of bed twice in one night. I am doing my best to nurse him. District nurse comes a couple of times a week, a different one each time. When he loses control of his bowels I clean him by taking him to the bathroom and pouting warm water with top-to-toe baby wash over him front and back as many times as necessary. He finds this traumatic. I run the bath while I am doing it with lavender flash in it because I am afraid of being sick while cleaning him up. When he is clean and dry I take him back to his bed to lie down and put some non-stick dressing behind his scrotum to try and protect it from further infection, and then I come in my room and try not to cry. I don’t have any gloves or anything like the nurse has, I wonder if I should ask them for some or if that is selfish when their need is so great. My family (adult daughter, sister, brother in law, mum,…) and friends do not really support my decision to care for my Dad, as he did not look after us when we were children, and isn’t very nice to people. If I don’t care for him he will go into hospital / a care home and die, I am sure of it. I am really sad. It is the double incontinence that I am finding the most difficult to deal with.
