Thursday 15 August 2013

An order from the dentist...

Okaasan's dentist did a great letter to her.
Good big print. Clinic headed notepaper. Polite but firm Japanese: Recently you had to come for dental treatment many times. Your teeth are in a bad condition. I worry about your general health. You MUST clean your teeth twice a day, otherwise dental problems could spread to other parts of the body. Your right foot might fall off.

Well, not the last part.
But the rest.

Dear Son gave it to Okaasan this morning. She laughed a little nervously and read it, several times. Then put it back in the envelope and back on the table.

Hmm.
We have taken color photocopies of it, so if she loses the original we can wave other versions of the letter at her.
But, still is the problem of actually physically making her clean her teeth more. Making her get up off the carpet by the TV and 6 steps away to the bathroom to brush her teeth.
She's an expert at saying: "I've got that/done/that/seen that" - whatever our questions are. So when we ask "Time to clean your teeth today!" I can see she will endlessly say: "I did it already".
And then she will stay in front of the TV and the tooth care program won't be any better.
Have to be tough. Tougher.

She goes to the toilet several times a day. She goes to the bathroom to wash her face a) before going out b) before lunch/dinner. Maybe we'll have more luck of getting the tooth cleaning done when she is up and moving around in the kitchen/toilet/bathroom area?
Or we can ask day care to start pushing on the teeth cleaning too?


I used to have a friend (the one who dropped me cos she couldn't deal with my stressy change of life after Okaasan came to live with us...) - anyway, SHE used to clean her cat's teeth by holding the animal down over her knees, wrapping his paws/claws in a towel and brushing into the jaws of certain injury.
I'd like to try  something similar with Okaasan.

* Anyway. Life is ongoing. It's hot. I'm on sort-of summer holidays here. We've had beer garden trips with Couch Surfing guests, I went kayaking again and have got seriously hooked - thinking of buying my own kayak now, Okaasan is trying to smuggle chocolates to daycare in multiple bags...and I am finding them and eating them.
Onwards.

4 comments:

  1. I understand you completely. We are trying so hard to make obaachan use the airconditioner but she refuses. She also doesn't drink enough fluid so I asked the doctor to tell her to drink more...but when I asked her if the doctor didn't tell her to drink more...she said "No, he didn't say anything like that".. she had already forgotten.
    It is so difficult to reason with her, she just won't do it..Anna

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think the thing that makes me the saddest is that you had a friend drop you because of okaasan. That really sucks. --E

    ReplyDelete
  3. It did - I was so shocked to lose a good friend like that. It was just when we started living with Okaasan and househunting etc, and I was busy and tired and stressed. The friend wanted to arrange a date to go out for my birthday and I couldn't even stop to think about THAT....and kept putting off the decision...and then she felt hurt...and and...and.....sadly she couldn't deal with me not being a free and easy friend, able to make plans easily. But she had her own issues too, so it was too bads making worse.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Kayaking sounds great! I've always wanted to try it. Hope you get to do it some more.

    ReplyDelete