Blood ran cold....heart stopped etc yesterday as I noticed several bags on the floor in Okaasan's 2nd room.
Bags? More bags? Why....and OH MY GOD! where is the chair that is always just standing inside the 1st room entrance?
When Okaasan was in the toilet I raced in to her rooms to find out.
She'd take the chair from the 1st room to the 2nd room and had climbed up to explore the top closet area - removing several of the bags within bags within bags within bags which I had sorted through and stashed a few months back.
Climbed on the chair. Aged 84.
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
Never mind dementia. This isn't great.
In the 2 minute window given to me by her being in the toilet: I grabbed the chair and some bags and ran with them to the washing machine area. Hid them all behind the door.
She came back. Settled by the TV again. Nothing said.
It's the dementia dance...how much do they ACTUALLY remember/realize? If I remove this (chair and bags), will she notice/remember? Will her lack of short term memory work to my advantage.
I'm sure it is something all carers do: remove something and hope, hope , hope that the cared-for doesn't remember it.
Okaasan did, this time.
At dinner time she was back in the 2nd room...looking through one of the bags within bags I'd failed to scoop.
"Oh, I was just checking this. I wondered what was up there in the closet. I think I had a chair? It isn't here now. ...."
Thinking quickly, I kept a casual voice: "Oh, that's old stuff you don't use now. You put it away up there I think. Shall I put it back up there? Standing on a chair is a bit dangerous, isn't it"
She let me put the bags back. No fuss. I feared she would want to get all the bags own and sort thru them...what were there - 70 bags or something??
But this time she accepted what I said and allowed me to close the closet door.
But I'm not sure this is the end of it. Maybe there was something on TV about end of year house cleaning and somebody sorting through their closets. So Okaasan felt inspired to check her closets.
So, if the idea is in her mind. I think she might try again.
What to do?
I've removed the chair from her room.
But there are kitchen chairs within sight. Should I hide them too? It is fairly easy to hide cooking pans and outside shoes. Not so with three kitchen chairs....
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....
Yes this is a big problem with older people at home, I also feel very scared when my grandmother do all these activities. She always asks me for house cleaning but I don’t want to let her do all this. I generally hire weekly house cleaning services when my grandmother is not at home.
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