What's next?

My wife’s MS has got worse recently, to the point where she can barely walk, you couldn’t really have called it walking for the last couple of years anyway, but she got around.

She has now developed “ending up on the floor” to an art form and seems determined to practice it until she’s perfect.

Fourteen times is the record for how many times I’ve picked her up off the floor in one day.(Too many meds that day - poor decision making, another problem!)

This cannot continue, I told her yesterday “no more”, my back and my stomach muscles have had enough and I know when to stop.

We’ve already requested an appointment with an occupational therapist to assess the possible need for a hoist, and they in turn have requested a “movement assessment” from her GP (appt. booked for 5th Feb). This is all well and good but it’s all taking time.

How do I get her off the floor a few times a day in the meantime? She has very little upper body strength so at the moment it entails me doing all the lifting, her legs no longer provide any push or support once she’s up.

Hello Ayjay

Does your wife use a walking aid at all? Like a walker, frame, even crutches?

It’s certainly not on that you’re picking her up all the time, that does neither of you any good. Is there room for her to use a wheelchair indoors? Or would she resist that completely?

I know that if I hit the floor, we have to call paramedics to pick me up, but I use a wheelchair indoors or FES and a walker (I can only walk a few metres even then). We have life fairly well organised that I don’t fall often. I fell twice at the beginning of last year but that was due to a UTI.

It sounds like you need a radical change to stop the frequent falling and/or you picking her up. Imagine what would happen if you really injure yourself picking her up?

Sue

She mostly uses a wheelchair now but does sometimes use a frame or a walker, crutches would be out as she has no balance and no arm or upper body strength.

It’s not often the result of a fall, although that does happen sometimes. She sleeps in an armchair cos her right knee, (which has been vastly overworked cos the left one’s done nowt for three years) is painful when she lies supine. The varied resources of the NHS can find nothing wrong her knee btw.

The usual scenario is that she’s just literally slid off the chair, asleep, sometimes a spasm will tip her off, awake or asleep, or she can just slide/slump to the floor when transferring from armchair to wheelchair or wheelchair to toilet to go for a pee.

She insists on wearing shoes that slide over the flooring cos she drags her left foot when she does walk, but seems surprised when her other leg also slides away at inopportune moments - I’ve given up remonstrating with her over that, I’ve done it too many times and it’s completely fruitless.

She also has a problem with grabrails, once she’s got hold of one she hangs on for grim death, if, for example, the distance from her hand (on the rail) to her bum is 4’0" and the distance from her hand to the toilet is 4’6" she’s not going to hit the seat, but she won’t move her hand along the rail (it’s horizontal) and avoid the problem. She does this a lot, and usually ends up wedged between the wall and the toilet pan. She finds new ways every day to make it down to the floor.

One huge problem is that she doesn’t want to do anything differently to how she has always done whatever it is, i.e. no concessions to the MS at all, but that really can’t work no matter how hard I try to convince her otherwise.

What’s next today is; wait for the ambulance. She’s managed to launch herself out of her chair again and is currently laying on the floor.

Her shoulder hurts as well as her knee now and she can’t roll over to assume a sensible position for me to lift her.

Hopefully some overall progress will be achieved from the situation.

ah ayjay,

hope she is alright and hope the bods at the hospital can do something practical to help you both.

i haven’t fallen for a while now but my last two falls were phenomenal!

vivid multicoloured bruises from hip to knee.

i couldn’t get myself up and hubby had been to the pub so i just “rested my eyes” and fell asleep on the bathroom floor.

carole x

It definitely seems like you need some kind of intervention to sort this out Ayjay. It’s not a good situation for either of you. And you sound like you’re at the end of your tether.

I hope the paramedics didn’t take too long to come this morning, and that you can get something sorted out soon.

Sue

[quote=“catwomanCarole58”]

ah ayjay,

hope she is alright and hope the bods at the hospital can do something practical to help you both. [/quote]

Spoken to the hospital just now and nothing’s broken, they are arranging for an OT to talk to her before I can pick her up.

It took just over a couple of hours for the ambulance to arrive, my tether is definitely somewhat frayed, my wife can be very difficult about what she will/won’t do, despite the fact that it will be for her benefit.

I think on balance it’s been a good thing because some more (and hopefully useful) intervention appears to be much closer now.

Best of luck is all I can say I guess. Rooting for you!