Gene's First Shower Home From Surgery

The morning Gene came home from his knee surgery, the first thing he asked me was not for tea and not for the remote. He asked for a shower. He had been told to keep the incision dry, to use the plastic bag the nurse sent home with us, and to take it slow. But standing on one leg on a wet tub floor was not something I was going to let him try. I am Lorraine Pettibone, and I am 71 years old. My husband Gene is 76. We live in a one-story ranch house outside Columbus, Ohio, and our main bathroom has a tub-shower combo with a step up over the lip. That step is the whole problem.

I had read about the Medline shower chair with padded armrests and back before the surgery. It is a heavy duty shower chair for bathtub use, with slip resistant feet, adjustable height, and a 350 lb capacity. I ordered it the same week Gene's surgery was scheduled, and it sat in the hall closet in its box until the day he came home. I will be honest: I was nervous. Gene is a proud man. He has never liked being helped, and he has never liked being watched. A shower chair felt like a surrender to both of us.

That first afternoon, I set the chair up in the bathroom while Gene napped on the couch. The assembly took me about fifteen minutes, mostly because I stopped twice to read the instructions out loud to nobody. The legs adjust to different heights with push buttons, and the seat is wide and firm with padded armrests. I put it inside the tub, facing the faucet, and I tested it with both hands before I even mentioned it to Gene. I pressed down on the seat with my full weight. It did not move. That is when I started to relax.

When Gene woke up, I told him the chair was ready and that I would stay right outside the curtain. I did not ask if he wanted to use it. I told him I had already put his towel on the rack and that the water would be warm in a minute. He looked at the chair, then at me, then at the chair again. He said, 'Okay. Let's try it.' That was the whole conversation.

The first shower took about twenty minutes. I sat on the edge of the tub with my back to the curtain, and I listened. I heard the water run, then stop, then run again. I heard Gene hum a little, which is what he does when he is thinking. When he was done, he called my name and I pulled the curtain back. He was sitting in the chair, wet and grinning, with the plastic bag over his leg like a pirate's flag. 'That was the best shower I have had in weeks,' he said. 'I did not think I would be able to do that.'

What surprised me most was how little help he actually needed. The chair did the work. The padded armrests gave him something to push against when he stood up, and the back let him sit without fear of sliding. The slip resistant feet held firm on the wet tub floor, which I checked by nudging the chair with my foot while he was not in it. It did not budge. The adjustable height meant I could set the seat at the exact height that made it easiest for him to stand, which turned out to be higher than I expected. That one adjustment made the whole difference.

Over the next two weeks, the chair became part of our routine. Gene used it every morning, and I stopped hovering after the third day. He still needed me to hand him the towel and to be close by, but he did not need me to hold him. That is the thing nobody tells you about recovery: the goal is not just to be safe. The goal is to feel like yourself again. A shower chair is a small thing, but it gave Gene back ten minutes of his morning that were his own.

I will also tell you what did not work, because I promised myself I would be honest. The chair is not a transfer bench. It does not help you get over the tub wall. Gene still needed to step over the lip with me holding his arm, and the plastic bag over his incision was awkward no matter how careful we were. If your person cannot lift their leg at all, you may want a transfer bench instead. For us, the chair was the right choice. For someone with less mobility, it might not be.

The chair did the work. Gene just sat down, and the shower did the rest.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

If you are reading this because someone you love is coming home from surgery, here is what I would tell you over a cup of tea. Buy the chair before they come home, not after. Set it up while they are still in the hospital, so it is ready and waiting. Test it with your own weight first, so you know it is steady. And do not make a big deal of it. The less you treat the chair like a medical event, the more your person will treat it like a normal part of their day. Gene stopped calling it 'the chair' by the end of the first week. He just called it 'my shower seat,' and that was the moment I knew we were going to be okay.

One more thing, and I mean this gently. Check with your doctor or physical therapist before you choose any aid after a fall or surgery. I am not a medical professional. I am just a retired school librarian who spent two weeks helping her husband take a shower without either of us ending up on the bathroom floor. The Medline shower chair worked for us because Gene could still bear weight on his good leg. If your situation is different, ask someone who knows. That is not a disclaimer. That is what I would tell my own sister.