Crystal Commode (The Antics of my Alzheimer's mother-in-law)

Susan’s homemade potty has become a real source of tension around here. To her it may make some sort of sense I suppose, to pee in a makeshift pot in the corner of her bedroom , but the rest of us will likely never ‘get it’. The thing is, we have dealt with this pee pee pot in the bedroom issue over and over again, each time thinking we have solved the problem. We have tried banning containers from her room, not letting her take drinks in there and documenting every roll of toilet paper placed in her bathroom. We have tried no drinks before bed and all the other tricks you might think of to help a bed wetter, but she is not a bed wetter. Maybe it would be easier if she was. I think I am out of tricks and good ideas.

My logic struggles to find an explanation for this behavior; I mean, is this “out house” mentality a reversion back to her childhood back in the Philippines? Perhaps. Is she too lazy or weak or scared to make her way to the bathroom that is literally only five steps from her own bedroom? I doubt it. It is just as far for her to go to the corner of her bedroom where she has inevitably placed some sort of pee pee pot to use. Confronting her with the issue tends to evoke wide eyed denials with all sorts of verbal fantasies about what its purpose there is. The fact that she won't admit it is exactly what makes me know that she knows it is wrong and could help herself if she wanted to.

If I ever worried about not having a pot to piss in, Susan has put that to bed. At first it was cups and pots being lifted from the kitchen at night. What clued me in was when the missing piss pot would reappear in the morning. The suspicion of what they might have been used for compelling the mother in me to throw them out. Who wanted to use them again? Out they went one by one;all my good dishes were ending up out on the curbside. After an embarrassing lecture about hygiene and human dignity, the problem seemed to have disappeared. We were so thankful. But one day, the dreaded smell of urine reappeared. "Why does it smell like urine in here?” I would ask suspiciously, only to get an oblivious denial of any odd smells- let alone any wrong doing.

In searching out the origin of the stench, the culprit container always unveiled itself. I have learned to spot a pee pee pot right off, no matter what shape or material it may be lurking in. Once, it was the trash can, another time it was an adorable paper gift bag with tissue paper (and now toilet paper) sitting rather nonchalantly on the floor in the corner. She even used a lovely gold Estee Lauder make up box that had been a gift from her granddaughter, Kiara. I admit, that particular pee pee pot was rather hard to recognize and took me a while to catch on to. It was so cleverly masquerading; who would have thought? Today, just when I dared to hope that we again might have this under control, I spotted the crystal candy dish in the pee pee corner. My heart sunk into my chest at the thought of the crystal commode. I seriously do not want to deal with this whole thing again.

I lived in Japan for four years, so I totally get the whole squat and squirt idea. But it seems to me that the awkward ordeal of squatting and squirting at night into a small container on the floor would be as ridiculous as walking a tight rope handcuffed and blindfolded.

I must wonder, can this behavior be blamed entirely on the Alzheimer’s disease? In all my reading about the signs and symptoms of Alzheimer’s and while learning about the stages of the disease, I have not come across anything that specifically addresses this problem that Susan presents. Perhaps nobody wants to breech this dirty subject out loud. I don't. A chat with another Baby Boomer caring for their Alzheimer’s parent might prove enlightening.

( To see how caring for Susan started see my Blog post from May 1st called 'Never Say Never'.