Confusion Central

I've had a few days away from Okaasan in my working world...thank goodness. If I wasn't working...I can't even think about it.....

Yujiro though was deep in it. Poor guy. He does so much for her, nobody in his family will ever know - so I'm recording it here...

There was a phone call Sunday night from a shop in a department store to say that Okaasan's ordered something had come in but she hadn't come to collect it. Yujiro gave her the phone and she chatted to the shop.
But by the end of the conversation (and actually during it from what we could overhear from the kitchen) Okaasan was no wiser as to WHAT she'd ordered. Was it a book? A T shirt? A what?

Next day Yujiro went with her to the store and they looked around for the shop name. It was a clothes shop, but the item WAS a book.
All well and good.
He went off to the job center. She went off to hula dance class.

Later in the evening one of the hula dance ladies called Yujiro - she's been kindly looking after Okaasan while she is at the class.
After class this week - Okaasan said: "I ordered something from a shop in this department store, I don't have the receipt, I don't know which shop, maybe it's a book? Or a T-shirt? Or a what?"
So the lady helped her go to different shops around the department store....but they came up blank.
No wonder.

THIS is what dementia is like.
You don't look like a mad person. You aren't a mad person. But there are great gaps in your memory and thus connection to everyday life. And you swirl around in confusions. Okaasan knew there was something about an order at the store, she knew it was something - but the details of going with Yujiro and getting it had already gone 2 hours after the hula class. So she set out on a swirl.
If she didn't have someone to join the confusing dots...she is a very very lucky lady.

Getting old and suffering dementia - I worry about my future. We don't have children, who will look after us? And when one of dies, who will care for the remaining person?
I saw an old couple crossing the road yesterday. The guy was all there, but the woman's face and her walking style - looked like a swirl. I don't know where she was, but it wasn't the Sapporo suburbs on a Tuesday afternoon.