This is an oval shaped toilet. If we get damaged on a cervical spine, we cannot keep balancing ourselves on the ordinary toilet, and have a problem to move to the toilet.
Including me, those who have a spinal injury use this sort of toilet.
To move to a toilet, I begin by spreading legs to put a toilet between legs, then gradually let my hip come forward. I usually move quite forward on a toilet.
Even if you barely fall down to a floor, you can hold a handrail.
In the next, I need to drop my trousers, but this is much difficult because I cannot lift my hip.
I drop right side of trousers while leaning against opposite side of a handrail and moving up right hip, and vice versa.
Now I can breathe easier after I finally take off my trousers, but unfortunately, this is only a beginning. I need to sit still in a bathroom for more than 2 hours because it takes a great deal of time. Because I don’t have a call of nature soon, I need to use many Recicarbons (a rectal suppository).
If I take a laxative, I will have the effect of evacuation, but I don’t take the medicine because I worry about the unexpected discharge.
I usually discharge from bowels every three days, but I change the frequency to adjust seasonal climate changes and amount of liquid intake. I still have difficulties in this adjustment.
In order to avoid the incontinence, I reduce the amount of food and drink while I go outside. I wish I could eat whatever I want without feeling of this sort of anxiety.
After putting a board on a bath tub, I go up to the board from a wheelchair, then take a shower.
Pinkish place is hard to sit down, and causes developing a pressure ulcer (=kind a bedsore) on my hip, I spread bath mat on the board.
The board can be folded up, but this is quite heavy to spread out. I sometimes get cut my figure while spreading it in a bad way.I cannot scrub and wash my body for lack of a strong grip. After several attempts, I come to the conclusion that a mitten like towel is the best to wash the body.
It becomes very cold in the bathroom in winter. So I cannot enter the bathroom unless the bathroom is heated up enough.
I don’t like taking a bath in winter, which is supposedly joyful time for me in other seasons.
It takes an hour to take a bath including taking off and changing clothes. You would think taking a bath is easier than removing body waste because bathing time is shorter than eliminating. However, to me, taking bath is more exhausting.