My England mother - my step-mum Jane isn't doing so great.
Just read an long email this morning from her sister...the hospital seem to be giving up, there isn't any progress and the next step is Option A) go home with two carers...which is expensive if done privately...and if local council carers are used probably pretty limited in how long it's available or Option B) go into a local nursing home.....
Of course my step-mum, when lucid, is very desperate to get home again...so it looks like they will try this - with two private carers for a short time to see if she can get stronger. At the moment it needs two people to move her from the bed, and her eating and drinking isn't enough.
But her sister has started looking into local nursing care homes because that's the direction it is all inevitably taking. There is nothing actually medically wrong...just an 84 year old body and brain slowly getting tired with making effort.
So sad. Early June my step-mum could walk with her sticks in the house and garden...she was having friends and family for lunch dates, she was enjoying life. Just 2 months later it is so different.
I just hope the move back to the house - and the intensive attentions of TWO Carers hassling her about rehabilitation exercises and eating/drinking will improve things.
And so...and so...yesterday a 75 year-old student said she and her husband went on a one-day Sheltered Housing bus tour that an enterprising estate agent is promoting in Sapporo....for \1,000 they went round in a bus to 4 different housing units and checked out how they might think of living in their future.
Her husband was most taken with one rental unit that is IN SUSUKINO!! The nightlife area of Sapporo!!! Great place to live!
I do think about my future. Which country of course. And how. Yujiro and I have no children. Nobody will care for us. And apart from some family money on both sides - a bit - we neither very rich. Where will we will, and where will I live when he dies? - cos as a Japanese man who drinks vast amounts of alcohol his life expectency can't be great...do I want to be an elderly woman alone in Japan? As my brain gets fuddled will I lose what Japanese language I have? Hopefully by then Japanese elderly care will be completly organised off-shore by teams of efficient Cambodians who will kindly speak English to me....
Bloody hot here...33 plus degrees in sapporo.Time to move away from the computer.
You could always come to Aus, I heard they are building a Japanese retirement villa near the water in Perth somewhere...so there's another option haha. Well, apart from a dicky knee you seem to be in good health so here's to many more years of gh and happiness. Sorry to hear about your mum, it must be hard being so far away. That's the awful thing about cross-cultural marriages, someone always is away from their family.
ReplyDeleteThats crappy news about your stepmum, I hope the move home with 2 carers will help get some of her fighting spirit back.
ReplyDeleteI think it will all be robots by the time you reach retirement- then you can select your language!
Thankyou kindly for the distant family thoughts...the trouble is too that after last year's endless crises in the UK I feel washed out on giving more emotion to this time...which is bad because of course I love my step-mum. So I feel guilty and emote here. Cos I can't do much else.
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