Hello @anncgrl Nice to e-meet you here. I am sorry to hear of your caregiving travails. You are totally correct! Caregiving ain't for wimps and it is often overwhelming when conflicting demands all fall on the caregiver at the same time. Seems to happen all too often!

I was one of the secondary caregivers for my MIL who had frontal temporal dementia and the primary caregiver for my wife for 14 years while she fought brain cancer, which gave her many dementia-like symptoms. I am not a medical professional in any way, shape, or form so what I say I only say from the perspective of a fellow caregiver.

In our case we did a couple of things around the stage you are at. First was to get a hospital bed to help contain my wife. We did one of the air mattress variety and while she was very upset at first, we had the hospice nurse tell her it was 'doctor's orders' and she accepted it. Made a huge difference and kept her safer by far.

One of the other things we did was introduce adult diapers and cut down on the layers of clothing. Easy on, easier off was my mantra. I also introduced drip pads on the floor next to the bed and in front of the toilet. Our hospice folks provided them for us by the packet and they were a godsend for easier clean up.

I heard the same warning from our nurses and kept hand soap on every sink, hand sanitizer on every counter. Still have bottles of the stuff hanging around the house, but no one who visited ever got ill nor did I. Caregiving is tough, caregiving when the caregiver is sick is nigh near impossible, so good for following that advice!

I am writing this at 3 am --- I still am up most nights as my body clock hasn't given up my caregiving routine yet. My wife has been gone 6 months now, but my GP says having been on a goofy schedule for so long it might take me quite awhile to reset my clock because I don't want to take any sleeps aids of any kind.

Remember this: "Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is the quite voice at the end of the day simply saying 'I will try again tomorrow.'"

Sending peace, strength, and courage!