Dennis' body leans to the right. His leaning is why he fell out of the chair last weekend and slashed his face. I spend fair amount of my day just pulling or pushing him back to an upright position. We are constantly working on new methods to keep him vertical.
We have tried packing pillows around him when he rests on the couch. This works momentarily, but then the pillows start squeezing out or scrunching up. Soon he is all tipped over once again.
Some days I simply sit really close and push him when he starts leaning. Dennis always comes back with a petulant child's voice telling me to "quit pushing." We laugh, and then I shove once again. I rather enjoy this routine.
My ever growing hips and butt also come in helpful for fixing the tipping issue. When he gets into the car, I push his behind with my own rear end, to help him to move over in the seat. Then I buckle him in, and he sits upright for most of the trip.
I have taken to tying him in a chair with the cloth of love that Dennis bought in Hong Kong back in his working days. It's soft, wide, and serves it's new purpose, but he continues to tip anyway.
Now he is starting to lean over in bed. We lay down a pad on the bed, so I can do repositioning easily. I pull him over towards the middle of the bed at night and up towards the top of the bed in the morning when he sits up. However, this pad is not very helpful for his leaning over and almost falling out of bed.
This morning when I woke, his body was bent at the waist, and his head was hanging off of the bed. I pulled his shoulders back, but it didn't last long. A few minutes later, his head was off the bed again.
We will find even more workable solutions to this leaning problem. We have solved so many other inconveniences previously. We are both good problems solvers, a necessity it seems, in living with Shy-Drager.
Until Tomorrow,
Ann and Dennis
Living with Multiple System Atrophy, Shy-Drager, Parkinson's Plus and solving problems.
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