My life is basically poop

I don't say this in a self-pitying way. I say this in a much more literal way than I ever imagined possible.

Allow me to explain.

Five years ago, my maternal grandmother, a then-84-year-old Japanese immigrant with only just passable command of English, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. I assume she'd had it for some time without being diagnosed, but she had what we'll generously call an "episode"--she forgot how doorknobs worked and demanded to know why we were going to hit her with a hammer, and I'm sure you don't need to be told that no one was going to hit her with anything, let alone a hammer--and thus our family's long journey into the poop-strewn hellscape that is this disease began.

"It'll be too difficult for you to handle on your own," the social workers and facility coordinators and countless, countless doctors told my mother. "It's really toooo baaaad you don't know anyone who could stay with her during the day and take care of her. Someone who doesn't work, like maybe a college student. Too bad we don't know any of those."

I know how to take a hint, so I dropped out and moved back to my parents' house to be my grandmother's nurse. Since then, I've watched the slow and gradual degeneration of her neurological capabilities pick up speed; only in the last six months have I had to begin helping her in the bathroom.

Though I've only done it for a few months, let me tell you: once you have been eye-level with your 89-year-old grandmother's shit-crusted anus, wiping away with sad little wet-wipes as more shit just falls out into your gloved hand because she has no muscle control there anymore and has no idea what you're talking about when you ask her if she'd like to sit down on the toilet and finish...nothing is harrowing anymore. I can't even think of anything that would truly gross me out. Truly, I have stared into the abyss, and it blinked first.

That alone would not worry me. However.

My grandmother was recently put on medication to help her sleep--if you've never lived with/been a caregiver for someone with Alzheimer's, most patients have HUGE sleep disturbances, and my grandmother's particular version involved NOT sleeping for two or three days at a time--but it had the unfortunate side effect of causing constipation. Since she has no idea what the fuck, I'm the one basically monitoring her, uh, regularity. When she didn't go for three days, I started to panic. I didn't want to give her a laxative--her system is very sensitive and she gets cramps easily--so I tried every sort of natural remedy I knew. Nothing worked. Around day five, I decided to give her a child-sized dose of a mild laxative to see if it would do anything.

Twelve hours later, her diaper was full. I was so relieved. It worked! She went! And it didn't even make her sick! I'm awesome!

I immediately reported the whole situation to my brother.

"Sam?" he said. "I just want you to take a minute and think about something: this is what your life has become."

My life has become poop. Cleaning poop, getting my hand full of poop, watching for poop, being distressed when there's no poop. I know it's my job, and I know I won't have this job forever; at her current rate of decline, she won't even make it through autumn. But when this is all over, I just wonder:

Will I ever be normal again?



(As a sort of footnote, I'd like to state for the record that my hands are dry to the point of cracking due to the constant washing with extremely hot water and harsh soaps. Just so you know.)