Yup - she went a second day.
Excellent.
Yet again this so-called hobby group of hula dancers are practicing for some performance...which will probably give us all a lot of stress nearer the time when Okaasan gets stressy about being unable to remember the new dance - but yesterday she was happy to go again to rehearsals.
In the evening she looked tired from it all - but was energised and bright and chatty at dinner.
Yujiro got home just as we were finishing dinner so all together again.
And today - I seized the moment and after lunch presented Okaasan with the spare bookcase and suggested she might like to use it for all the magazines that are laying all over the carpet.
Of course, between the magazines were all sorts of other bits of paper and THEY had to be scrutinized...I put a trash bag for paper right there on the carpet and tried to help Okaasan decide if a piece of paper she hadn't noticed for a year was worth keeping.
She insisted on tearing anything with her name and address on it up into tiny pieces - "there are bad people who look thru the trash you know for personal details" (something I think celebs like Paris Hilton has a problem with, but probably not any risk with Okaasan's moisturizing cream company or the seasonal order of persimmons).
ANYWAY - with persevering I got about 20 magazines up off the carpet and onto the bookshelf. Got some paper in the trash bag. The rest was placed in piles around the carpet again...
We are all bad at throwing old stuff out, we put it to one side to think about - but someone with dementia really puts it to one side and 30 seconds later is looking at it anew with the decision to make. Which is why the stuff mounts up...
After 20 minutes I decided I'd shaken up Okaasan's world enough and left her to settle down by the TV again. I reckon I've built up enough good-will as Oyomesan recently to risk doing something like this. Maybe she'll accuse me of stealing stuff again tonight or tomorrow - but I think recently we've had enough "positive" connection to make the experience of me in her room doing something together like putting her precious magazines on a bookcase a positive experience and thus a GOOD thing.
I hope.
Doing things together is always a good thing. It builds up trust and ensures (in future) that you're not the one who "took" anything. LOL at the tearing up the address portions into tiny bits. My mother was that way...but then, come to think of it, she was showing signs of dementia too...
ReplyDeleteI thought the tearing up of papers and receipts was just a Japanese thing? My husband does it with all his receipts too.
ReplyDeleteYes, I think it is - but it took Okaasan quite a lot of thought processes - because she'd pick up the piece of paper and decide to tear it in shreds, but then she'd put it down again to do later ...and then have to make that decision all over again...so I was right with her tearing it up at the moment she made the decision and stopping her putting it down again.
ReplyDeleteThere's a Sapporo Snow Festival pamphlet here on the table behind me - when I stand up in a few minutes i'll put it in the trash.
But I am HOLDING that thought in my mind to do in a few minutes.
Okaasan makes a decision and unless she does it....30 seconds later that decision has gone!!!
It's all so strange to see it close up in action/inaction.
Her room is a tip of papers because everytime she looks at a piece of paper she makes a decision about keep/throwaway/read....but most of the time doesn nothing about it.
We see her sitting all day by the table and looking at the same shopping receipts over and over and over again....