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VI
There were two other brothers that I cared for in this home. Both were in wheel chairs. They were not twins as the afore mentioned brothers.
As with many brothers, each had a unique personality.
The oldest brother, quite soon after my arrival, asked for my help. He needed to make a phone call and was having problems. As I helped him in this effort, I learned that he had just returned from a trip and had met a girl who had promised to write him.
The care center made a couple of “vacation” trips a year. These trips would last for two or three nights and would entail visiting some spot where they could experience music or rides or other avenues of entertainment such as any young person would enjoy. Usually, there were others there from other care centers who were handicapped. Evidently, this older brother had met someone who appealed to him. For several weeks, each time I helped care for him, we made phone calls and sent letters, all without any response. This was the only time I ever saw him express any interest in the opposite sex.
His younger brother-that is a different story!
Neither one of the brothers could get in or out of their wheel chairs without help. One of the problems with this, as well as with all the patients, was that the patients used this handicap to their advantage. Any new help would soon find that these patients needed all types of tending. The care centers had a policy that each patient was to do all he could on his own. Sometimes, new help learned this principle slowly and worked a lot harder than necessary.
In the case of the two brothers, they even needed some one to transfer them from their wheel chair to their beds at night. But they could feed themselves, although needing some one to clean their face as well as the space around where they sat at the dinner table. We also allowed them to undress themselves before bath time and allowed them to dress themselves for bed. With a strap around their waist to prevent them from falling out of the wheel chair, they struggled to put on socks and pants; by the time they finished dressing themselves and taking their medicine, it would be bed time and they would be wore out.
Bathing could be a problem. Most usually, the majority of the help was female. Our procedure was to transfer them to a water proof wheel chair after they had taken off their clothes. We had a large shower area and a flexible hose on the shower head and made them, as best they could, lather themselves before we rinsed them off. The had to lather their own private parts.
Nurses bathe male patients in hospitals all the time. No big deal, RIGHT?
Except this younger brother, well, he couldn’t keep his hands to himself!!!
He was always "sneaking a feel”.
And when we hired an especially well endowed lady, eventually she refused to give him a bath.
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