Never in my wildest dreams did I ever expect to see my father become incontinent. As hard as it was for me, I admired even more his dignity in dealing with it.

I was never sure what caused the incontinence to begin. Dad had prostate cancer for many years. Although his urologist said this cancer would never kill my father, I suspected the surgery for it hastened the onset of his incontinence. His dementia completed the process.

While my father was still at home, the problem was manageable through frequent toileting and the occasional diaper for trips. When he moved to the long term care facility where he died, we tried a continence retraining program which seemed to help for a while. But his incontinence progressed as his dementia did; and he became incontinent of both bladder and bowel.

How did I cope? I guess I was been lucky; it was never a problem for me to assist in changing his diaper. But then I never had to do it alone. I always made sure he was covered with a sheet when changed as he used to be very sensitive about being naked. When he was more cognizant I turned away as he was being changed to respect his privacy.