Hello,
I’ve been a member of the forum for a while now but haven’t logged on for ages and have never posted, so in that sense I’m new. I’m a retired man in my mid 60s and provide full-time unpaid care for another man with whom I live. He is 81 and has multiple health issues but the three principle problems (from the perspective of him needing care) are severe osteoarthritis in his hips and knees, spinal stenosis and balance problems. Among his other problems, he had a heart attack two years ago and had stents fitted but he has made a good recovery.
He first noticed the OA in 2018 and it was formally diagnosed in May 2019. Since then it has become progressively worse, with a commensurate increase in the help he needs from me. He has had pain from the OA and spinal stenosis for a few years but until recently it was manageable with 6-8 paracetamol per day. In the last few months, however, the pain has become worse and his GP referred him to a pain clinic, which he attended several weeks ago. The consultant there sugested that his GP prescribe stonger pain medication, which he did.
This has since been tweaked several times since and it has helped with his knee and hip pain but has been less successful with the pain from the spinal stenosis. This causes very sharp pains in his lower back, buttocks and down both legs. The medication has, however, caused bowel problems, as have the meds to try and overcome those problems. Striking the correct balance between the pain medication and the laxatives is proving difficult.
We live in a third floor flat with no lift and until recently he has been able to get up and down the stairs by gripping the bannister on the way down, and the rails which support the bannister on the way up, and with my support. For the last few weeks, however, the pain has been such that he has not felt able to manage even a few steps, let alone several flights and is now, in effect, housebound. He used to use a three-footed stick to move around the flat and two sticks outside but he has had to use a wheelchair outside (pushed by me) for the last 3 years or so, and last year found the indoor stick insufficiently supportive and now uses a walking frame. Even with that he is now struggling to move around on some days. He’s not using the wheelchair at the moment because, as I said, he can’t currently get out.
Several weeks ago he was referred by his GP to the community physio service but he has heard nothing from them. Consequently he is now paying for a private physio to visit him to try and maintain and improve his conditioning and, hopefully, get to him to the point where he can get up and down the stairs again (I’m unsure how realistic this ultimate goal is but we have to try). We have also had an assessment by an occupational therapist whose report we are waiting for but she said that she would recomend a few aids to make things easier and safer for him around the home.
Over the years I have had to do more and more, and for a long time now I have been doing pretty much everything. I do all the cooking, shopping, cleaning, washing, driving, sorting out of all and every problem, act as IT advisor, care assistant, personal assistant, handyman, indoor gardener etc. etc. I’m sure that most of you know what it involves. Apart from going out for shopping or things such as dental appointments I’m here almost all of the time, not least because he now gets anxious if I’m out for long and will often say when I go out ‘don’t be long’ or ‘come back soon’.
That is the background to my situation and I apologise if it was too lengthy. I’m not complaining about anything; I realise that in many respects I am extremely fortunate and also that many people’s caring situations are far more difficult than mine.
Having set-out the background I have a couple of issues I should be grateful for some advice on. This new situation of him not being able to go out is throwing up additional problems as he needs people to come to us to do things that he would previously have had done by going to them. The two immediate issues are having his hair cut and dealing with his foot problems. The first of these might not sound that important but he keeps his hair fairly short as he only has hair around the sides and back and not having had it cut for a couple of months it is now starting to look a little ‘wild’. I thought that finding a mobile barber in London would be easy but having looked online I’m not so sure. A lot of the websites look as if they might be scams and the others seem to be aiming at 30 somethings with full heads of fancily syled hair and bushy beards, with charges to match. I know that he will be unwilling to pay £50 or £60 for a cut, which involves little more than running the clippers over his head and normally takes about 10 minutes.
If he cannot get out in the longer-term I could perhaps buy some clippers and do it myself but I’m nervous about making it look a mess, even though it’s the simplest of cuts really. I should like to watch someone do it first before I give it a go. I wish I’d watched when he was having it done at the barber’s but I never paid any attention. Does anyone have any suggestions please?
The second problem is his feet. He needs to have his toe nails cut and he has always done this himself but it is now too difficult for him and I don’t feel confident to do it. In addition, I noticed yesterday when I was giving him a bed bath that his toenails don’t look very good and I wonder whether he has a fungal infection. I have a very good poditatrist, which he has seen in the past too, but she doesn’t do home visits. I think there are community podiatrists and we could ask for a referral by his GP but these things always take a long time and in the short-term at least I would like to get someone to come privately. I don’t want to leave his foot issues undealt with for a several weeks whilst we wait for the community podiatrist (assuming we can even get an appointment). Again, does anyone have any suggestions for finding a good podiatrist who will visit please?
Neither of us is entitled to any means-tested benefits but I think that he should make an application for attendance allowance. I have some questions around that but will leave them for a separate post as this one is too long already.
I’m sorry for such a long post and I promise I shall try to be more brief in future posts!