I submit this question simply with honesty. After caring for both MIL and FIL for two years..........the thing that gags me is "teeth." Yes, worse than poop for me. My FIL (now deceased) had false teeth. He would pry them from his mouth dripping with saliva and hand them to me. Sure, I put gloves on, etc...but for some reason those teeth really triggered my gag reflex.
Now my MIL is unable to brush her teeth and I have to do it.. or things get really stinky. It is the hardest thing I do. Anyone else comment on one particular thing that she/he finds "stomach upsetting"?
OMG if my husbands feet touch me while in bed!!! I can't stand it.. He knows not to put them near me..
We went to visit our pastor from way back one day in his facility in our hometown. OMG, his breath permeated the room. I was looking at my dh, my eyes were watering and I was trying not to breathe. OMG. It was just horrible. We just couldn't stay long.
My granny did the teeth thing, so that wouldn't bother me. ;)
Sharon
I have a horribly keen sense of smell too, Sodonewithsal1 - and I think sometimes it's a curse. Mom can't smell her own odors anymore, and will go days without showering (we're on day 5 now, and it's been an all-day thing so far - "Mom, how about getting in the shower?" "Mom, when are you going to shower?" "Ready for that shower now?" - to which she replies, "Later, I want to lay down", "not now", "in a bit, I know I need to".) If I'm *lucky* she might shower by tomorrow. Mom is not a small woman by any means, and she develops bacteria growth in her skin folds if they are not attended to properly, which is a health hazard - the skin breaks down and actually opens up, which is a huge infection risk, and she can't afford that kind of hard-to-heal infection at her age.
She has her good days - even good weeks - where she showers every other day without being asked, cleans up after herself (taking her plate to the kitchen, throwing her own trash away instead of leaving it sit for me to pick up, etc), but the bad days/weeks are starting to run closer and closer together. Since we came back from vacation 3 weeks ago, I've had a hard time getting her to do anything at all - she won't walk up and down the wheelchair ramp for exercise, showering is a struggle, and she pays no attention to the fact that she's not changing her incontinence pad or cleaning up after herself in the bathroom, etc. I think she got a little irritated with me today for telling her (many times) she needed to shower, and finally gave me "the look", which means "back the heck off and leave me alone", and said, "I'll shower - I'll do it - but I'm going to lay down now" - so I guess we'll see....I'm just trying to roll with the punches.
I have a very keen sense of smell, and it's enough to gag a maggot. If MIL ever decides to marker her own personal line of perfume, it should be called Eau du Nuit du Mothballs and Urine.