Cleanliness was never a problem with MY mother! She was fastidious and tidy to a fault. The issue came up with my husband’s mother, who moved in with us two weeks ago.
Obviously I was aware that it’s a common problem. How else would I recognize that old lady smell that now pervades our guest room? But the question remains: what do they have against being clean?
Mom hasn’t been shampooed in over a month. She scratches her scalp constantly. Any minute I expect a family of spiders or worse to come crawling out. And it smells. She should’ve been to the shop before she came up here, but she just didn’t feel like it. It doesn’t bother her. She doesn’t care about it.
In the last post, I mentioned the radiation treatments on her leg. Today was also the day she got stitches taken out of a cancer spot on her neck; this one removed by the Mohs procedure. The nurse assured us there was not the slightest reason she couldn’t lean her head back in a salon sink.
She protested immediately. Couldn’t we just get that dry shampoo for her? Why should she have to wash her hair? Egad. How can she stand it??
Both her doctors emphasized her wounds should be washed with mild soap during her regular (are you kidding?) showers. Everything is in place for safe bathing, but she doesn’t want to. She’ll just wash at the sink. Why should she have to take a shower? Being dirty and smelly doesn’t bother her in the least.
We’ve let it slide since she’s having to adjust to many things right now. We’ve just had her sit in the kitchen while we wash, dry, and dress her treatment sites. But it’s reaching a point where, so help us God, she is going to bathe.
And she has a hair appointment tomorrow. I haven’t told her yet. It’s a surprise.
cluelesscaregiver
