Back when my Mother-in-Law was living with us, I didn't know that I was such a nasty boy. Well, I wasn't. She just was assuming that I was. I learned about this much later when Bridget had brought this up. I had never even thought about it till then.
You see, this started back in about 1996, when Bridget's Mother and Brother started living with us. Bridget had the normal problems with her ears. She had tubes and incisions and some pretty serious damage with the ear drums and associated tissue. With all this, she never could get water in her ears. At that time, the Doctors would not give her any kind of ear plugs since the ear canal was damanged, scarred, and big enough to stick a AA battery in. Plus, the ear canal would change constantly while it healed (over the coming year!)
To wash her hair, she had to literally stick her fingers in her ears to keep out the water. If you haven't tried to wash your with you fingers in your ears, try it. You just can't do it. The use of wax plugs was not good enough since the seal would not be good enough to keep out all the water. Cotton balls were also completely inadequate and you could not use them with something like vaseline because it was impossible to clean out after the shower. So that left us with her sticking her fingers in her ears.
Well, to acomplish the washing of her hair, along with raising her spirits as well, I had to wash her hair. This is not an easy chore if the person your trying to work on can't bend over without falling because of an inner ear problem. You have to literally get in the shower with the person to get it done.
If you have ever gone without washing your hair for prolonged periods, you can understand what I mean about rasing your spirits. I have been in that situation several times in my life. I can honestly tell you that a nice shower after a prolonged injury will definatly speed your recovery.
Anyway, the washing of Bridget's hair was a daily event. She has naturally oily hair and complection so even missing a day from washing her hair made a real difference for her emotional state.
So, every evening we would go in and take a shower and I would wash her hair. This was a long process because we had to take extra care not to ever get water in her ears. The average time was about 20 minutes. This constituted washing her hair, conditioning and finally using the hair dryer. Incidentially, she even had to plug her ears while we dried her hair because the sound of the dryer really hurt her ears.
It was not till lately that I found out that teenie (Charlene) thought we were doing some nasty husband and wife things in the shower. The thought had never even crossed my mind that she would have thought that. With all the talk about ear problems and descriptions of what had to be done to wash her hair. I had incorrectly assumed she understood we were only washing her hair. I had to laugh when I heard Bridget tell me this little story. I guess that assuming on both parts contributed to this. No wonder Teenie was rather uneasy when we would wash her hair. it is a point of view thing after all.
I guess I am done with this entry. If I think of anything else to go with it, I will post it then.
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