Having a shower - what a luxury

1 December 2011

After several phone calls and a visit to the hospital attending a training session for the carers, the insurance company eventually arranged to deliver a medical plinth 治療床 to our house and my first shower at home was organised on 1 December 2011. The bathroom had not been properly fitted yet but that did not bother me as I had not had a shower for more than 2 weeks.

Having deprived of 剥奪 the sensation for so long, I almost cried when water streamed down.  When I was healthy and fit, most things were taken for granted 被視為理所當然 and I did not give much thought to small things such as a hot shower.   

The four carers, who came to my house to help take off the brace and change the lining after the shower, were inexperienced in log rolling and none of them had seen such a brace before.  There was a fair bit of mucking around 返來覆去, trying and re-trying to finally get me clean and fresh.  

The only time I could have the brace off was when I lay completely flat.  As such, when I had a shower, I showered with the brace on. Drenched 濕透, I walked into the bed room, got on to the plinth and lay down flat. Then the carers would take the front of the brace off and cleaned the skin underneath the brace.  They would scrub the dead skin off and apply lotion to the bone dry skin. When they were done with the front, they log rolled me and took the back of the brace off, cleaned my back, scrubbed off the dead skin and applied lotion.   

As they had not done log rolling before, when they log rolled me to the side and worked on my back, half way I felt uncomfortable and they had to lay me flat again to give me a break. Then it was log rolling and working on my back again.

The whole process took almost 2 hours!