Opa Gets Cranky

 

Opa has had some cranky days as of late. And no wonder. Since his yearly physical, which included a cystoscopy that was done a couple of months ago, it has been one thing after another. First he had a nasty fall that resulted in 8 stitches, a CT scan and a 10 hour overnight wait in the ER.

A couple of weeks later, Opa woke up one morning with Bell's Palsy. We knew that it wasn't a stroke because he was unable to move the eyebrow on the affected side of his face (stroke victims are able) and had no weakness in his arms or legs. But it was still quite distressing, for me anyway.

 

The effects of Bell’s Palsy are bad enough, but the dementia created a huge challenge. Opa could not remember why his eye was dry. All he knew was that he wanted to rub it. So he did. Every two minutes. His eye was a mess in no time, red and irritated, with the lower lid hanging lower and lower. Solution: preservative-free eye drops, ointment, and an eye-patch.

As usual, Opa was quite calm about the situation. But I was not. I hovered over him like a mother hen, putting in eye drops every couple of hours, making sure he kept his eye-patch on, applying the ointment at night. How annoying this must have been for him! At first, he didn’t show it. But after a week of this, he told me in no uncertain terms that he would no longer wear the patch and would take care of his own eye, thank you very much. So what could I do except to take a deep breath and hope for the best?

 

As it turned out, the symptoms improved dramatically each day, without any interference from me and despite Opa's frequent eye rubbing. I was quite amazed that, a week later, Opa’s recovery from Bell's Palsy was complete!

.
Opa has also been challenged with intermittent bouts of incontinence, an unexpected adverse side-effect of the cystoscopy, which we were told should resolve in time. I bought him Tena protective guards which also had an unwanted side-effect, though it took me a few days to realize it. Several times I was greeted in the morning by soaked mats in the bathroom and standing water in the basement below. The toilet wasn’t plugged so what was going on? I finally clued. Opa must have been quite persistent during the nights when he tried, with eventual success, to flush the offending guards down the toilet! So, needless to say, the guards were scrapped, and we persevere instead with frequent changes of clothing and bedding, never straying too far from a bathroom. When blood appeared in Opa’s urine today, we went to a walk-in clinic. Poor Opa. Turns out he has a bladder infection.

 

Keeping fingers crossed that there will be no more setbacks and that Opa will be back in good form in a few days.