Caring for LO when they're sick

Hi everyone, I've been absent for a bit -- we hit a semi-stable routine while we wait for our appointments with the new physician's group that was recommended to us.

This post is one-part me venting/unloading about the Great Excitement of the past few days and one-part seeking wisdom.

For those who don't want to read the entire post + context, here are our main questions:

1. Any tips for caring for LO with dementia who is sick with a cold/flu
2. Any tips for remaking a bed with LO who is not mobile still in bed
3. Any tips/game plans you've used for preempting BM messes/accidents

I caught a cold and then despite our best efforts it has eventually made it's way to my Dad. My Mom got sick after me and then a few days after that my Dad started showing some symptoms.

We've never cared for him while he's sick before (in this new post-hip surgery, lower baseline w/ dementia, etc situation) and it has been a trip and a half. I've slept over at my parents' the past two nights to help. My dad is not mobile and is unable to walk, he can usually transfer to his wheelchair or commode. He can also usually maneuver around in the bed. On a typical day, my Mom is able to assist my Dad with using the commode and getting him cleaned up on her own. He's had one accident prior to this while I was home alone with him.

On Sunday night she called me to ask me to come over to help, my husband went with me. My Dad had had a BM accident, had a fever, was slightly out of it cognitively, and was unable to use his legs correctly. This was all freaky and, as you can imagine, not a great time for anyone involved.

We got him cleaned up and my husband got my Dad in and out of wheelchair, my Mom and I remade the bed, etc etc

And then the BMs kept happening (this is unusual for him, we have an entire BM maintenance routine worked out to make sure he is going semi-regularly). After some late night/early morning trips to the only 24-hr store in our area, we are (hopefully) sufficiently prepared with materials. We have reusable bed pads, disposable bed pads, adult diapers with tabs, adult diapers that are more like briefs, a bed pan...

By Monday morning we were running on no sleep. He doesn't always understand or remember that he's just had a BM or an accident. Doesn't think he's sick, says he's never been sick. He's been taking the tylenol we give him for his fever, but everything is met with skepticism and as soon as he's grumpy he becomes resistant or refuses.

We don't know what will work best for us and him, so as ever, it's a learning process.

We also learned that my Mom and I are able to lift him if absolutely necessary. Getting him and the bed clean while he's been sick has been a two-person job.

I know that the automatic reaction is to get him into adult diapers (which we did do on Sunday as a last resort after the first two messes), but we really prefer to not do that because he knows they're not underwear and it bothers him and he fixates on them. They kept putting diapers on him while he was in rehab (he never had any accidents that they told us about -- and I did ask) and he would take them off, which is certainly not ideal in this current situation.

Our current game plan is to keep the bed pads under him for the foreseeable future and if he has the urge to go, we might try the bed pan. But because he doesn't think/understand he's sick and he doesn't remember that he's had all this BM-related excitement going on, it's hard to convince him that it's the best option is for us to have him to go in bed (either in a diaper, in the bed pan, etc).

All this new planning is hopefully for the duration of his cold, because before this he was still able to transfer from the bed to the commode and his wheelchair.

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It's been about 8 hours since I originally typed this up -- wanted to add some details of how today has been to see if anyone has had similar experiences. He is in an awful, grumpy mood. Says he wants to die, refuses to eat, says he wants to be left alone. Still is not agreeing/understanding that he's sick. Not that we're arguing with him about it, just mentioning that he has a cold and then he disagrees and then says he's never sick. We understand that all of this is a manifestation of the fact he doesn't feel good, but do we just wait it out?

As always, every day is new and tomorrow may be completely different. Any thoughts are appreciated :)