Shower of Power

The nurse came out of Maggie’s room with a handful of towels and asked if they were clean or dirty. My first thought was, if you have to ask… Then, I remembered. Those were the clean towels that would not fit in the cabinet. People were coming to dinner and I had to get them out of the way so I hid them in the shower and closed the curtain. I love that shower. It hides a LOT of stuff.

Our house is small and filled with 22 years of accumulated crap. Now that both boys are off to college, we have two empty bedrooms, which I thought was really going to help with the clutter. It does, some, but not nearly as much as I thought. The bedrooms are upstairs and the problem is the main floor, which consists of a living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom and Maggie’s room, which started life as a breakfast room. The living room and kitchen are fine. A bit cluttered perhaps, but fine. The biggest problem is the dining room. It is the physical and activity center of the house. Since we no longer have a breakfast room, the dining room table is the only place for us to have meals. The dining room also doubles as my office, and generally, that one table is covered with papers and half-completed projects. I can’t really move my office upstairs because I have to be close to Maggie. I often have to jump up and help Maggie or help the nurse. When there is a nurse here, it is not practical to run downstairs every 5 minutes. When there is not a nurse here, I cannot leave Maggie alone for even a minute. So, the dining room will continue to present issues.

Maggie’s room is small and completely full of medical supplies and equipment that she uses every day. I’m talking supplies of all sizes and shapes. There is a huge liquid oxygen tank, respiratory equipment, feeding pump, diapers and all the supplies that go with that and several drawers full of medications, tubes, feeding bags and whatever else she needs. This is in addition to her clothes, shoes, books, etc. It is a challenge to fit everything in there because the room has to be open enough to accommodate her wheelchair and, because it is the access to the back deck and elevator, needs to be kept somewhat under control. Maggie’s nurses are pretty good at that. The room does not have a closet because it was never intended to be a bedroom. Therefore, we have to be creative.

The shower in Maggie’s bathroom hides a multitude of supplies. It is a small shower and already full of equipment, so no one really notices a few extra things thrown in. It is a tight squeeze. It just fits her shower chair; in fact, Maggie cannot extend her legs off the chair because she hits the wall of the shower. Tubes hang from the shower rod to dry and pieces of respiratory equipment dry in a basket on top of the chair, while other tubes etc soak in a vinegar mixture below the chair. Clean towels on top were not a problem.

We recently started making a concerted effort to have people over to dinner. It is our only real opportunity to socialize and we want to avoid becoming hermits. Besides, it forces me to clear off the dining room table. As long as I am not hiding piles of papers in the shower, I’m still ahead of the game. And if you are ever here for dinner and I head to the bathroom to get the dinner rolls, run as fast as you can out the front door.