Other problems...in a time of COVID

 Early morning phone call - it's never GOOD news, is it?

Okaasan's Care Manager rang to report that she is having eating problems. Well, swallowing problems. She is losing weight fast and they wondered if we'd give permission to put her on a direct-feeding bag and tubes....

It's a common problem, I gather, for people with late stage dementia. There's a medical word for it, but basically it means the automatic act of swallowing gets weaker and there are increased dangers of food getting stuck/going down the "wrong way"/choking.

I've written before that we've noticed this past year how Okaasan stores a mouthful of saliva in her cheeks, and then it all spouts out when she attempts to talk or can't hold it in anymore. But, until now the care home was happy with her eating routines.

Now they are concerned.

We DON'T want her to have all the tubes and procedures to have direct-feeding. It isn't a pleasant procedure, and once on it - you never get off it. In fact, we both confirmed with eachother this week that if WE get to this stage - "please don't do it to me". It's got to be better to get weaker, sleep, have gentle end of life support and then slip away....if possible.

Of course, the care home is closed to family visits at the moment as Sapporo is one of Japan's latest COVID-19 hotspots. So we can't go in and try and encourage Okaasan to eat.

But we plan to tell the nurse to try aloe yogurts and the sweet sake drink that Okaasan loves so much, it won't be enough for sustenance, but maybe even SEEING the containers will jog her memory of pleasant eating experiences?

Hope so. And I HOPE we can get into the home and see her soon.

We don't actually know the Covid-19 numbers in the hospital/care home at the moment. There isn't any point in hassling the staff by phoning. On the local news "Cluster 61" was at 8 or 11 cases a few days ago. I think that may be our care home hospital. But don't know.

So...not happy news...

But, let's end with a positive! FIVE years ago, thanks to Google Photos for telling me this, we were down in the Saitama area visiting Okaasan's family for that big trip. She got to meet a brother before he died a few months later, and her oldest son...who also died a year later...and the three of us walked around her old home Kawagoe...the old shops, the shrines.

It was a stressful trip for us to arrange, but she enjoyed it so much. And it was the best timing. A year later - was it that? - she fell in the kitchen, broke a bone in her spine, went into hospital and her dementia levels went thru the roof...

But this day in November 2015....all was well....for a while (I seem to remember a stuck-in-the-toilet-incident at the Yokohama bus terminal...;-)

Annnd....Covid-19 is in the building...

It's arrived.

Into Okaasan's care home building - far quicker than we thought, and BAM! Family visits are suspended.

Only Monday this week they were saying: "If the local government declares another ranking up of the Alert Level etc"

Now they have two cases...well, it was two cases a day or two ago....

We got the letter yesterday saying that two patients in the hospital part of the care home have tested positive, and of course all visits  from outsiders would be stopped.

We don't know if the two cases are care home residents, or patients from outside. We don't know how serious.

The building is huge, half care home and half hospital. Different entrances, main elevators....but connecting corridors...shared kitchen? laundry? staff rooms?

Ironically, we chose this care home because it has the hospital. Easy for the staff to get Okaasan medical attention. Now that is a liability, in these Covid times.

In Hokkaido this week the cases have multiplied day by day - care homes, schools, bars, restaurants, shops...300..heading towards 400 cases day by day. TV is full of experts showing us how we can have heaters on - but must open windows and doors. It's cold, and wastes power. But we are trying to do it.

My friend, who caught Covid, is now negative and back home gently recovering and feeling weak. I passed a big city center hotel the other day and could see it being prepared as the latest quarantine-ready place for people who don't need to be in hospital. And another friend's husband's workplace has many cases.

And Okaasan's home.

Cross fingers that they can contain it, because we all know those terrible numbers of the spread thru a shared building community for the elderly.

Moving up....

 Moving up....an Alert stage in COVID-19 warnings.

In Hokkaido, October numbers for daily reported cases of tested people who showed a positive result....bloody hell, that's a mouthful.....(but I know somebody will jump all over me and say it isn't SICK people...it isn't risky to others people...it isn't...THAT BAD!)

Anyway, the daily numbers of 20....to 40...50...have now topped 200 for the last few days. Hokkaido is officially Covid-19 Hotspot in Japan. Even made No. 2 slot on the national news last night, after that other hot mess situation in the US.

It was inevitable, really. We became the Hotspot. Because we are cold. We are the far north of Japan, it gets cold here first. It snows here first. We close the windows and doors and start living inside, in dry air. So our numbers started going up, as the temperatures went down to 10C and the first snow fell.

Local government has moved the Alert stage from 2 to 3, and given the whole nightlife district of the city a 10 pm curfew. Actually Stage 3 doesn't seem to mean much, just be more careful...and think about only going to places that have got clear safety measures in place.

Then, yesterday a national government person said: "maybe Hokkaido should be taken out of the Go To Travel Campaign system".....this is the Japanese domestic travel boosting discounted hotels/flights/food offer that some of us have been using the last few months.

If they take Hokkaido out, that'll really damage the winter tourism business here, the skiing, the  dog sledding, the onsen hotels - we were hoping at least for some domestic visitors.

And he and I were hoping to go to Okinawa in January. We could still go, of course. In Japan nothing in COVID times is compulsory - it's all done at Request level. But as a teacher, responsible person etc etc I just couldn't go domestic travelling if the government requests us to stay put.

So. Okaasan.

Here's the sign in the Care Home. IF this region moves  to Stage 4 - Family Visits will be stopped, again.

Of course.

So we'd better get in some good, meaningful visits while we can.

We'd stayed away from her for two weeks, after our recent domestic get away down south - in case we carried any risk for her and the rest of the care home.

The last month she's been good, much more talkative. Actual whole sentences about fall...clothes...colors...food...it's been wonderful.

Like those scenes in the Robin Williams movie about mentally-gone people who briefly came back into  communicative ability - seeing Okaasan talk, even a sentence with 7 words in it. Is wonderful.

Amazing to think that just a short time ago - what...5 years ago? I would come upstairs here to the computer and whine about yet ANOTHER mind-bendingly long dinner time with Okaasan's long rambling stories, round and round and round...

One of you Dear Readers said: "there'll come a time when you'll be happy if she talks"...and yup...it's now. I AM happy that she suddenly says: "The autumn leaves at XX Shrine are very beautiful".

Just a whole sentence. It was wonderful.

And then she went back to the strange chin jutting movement, and then closed her eyes and almost slept...and then just stared...

So. We'll grab the chances to have more wonderful, hopefully for a while yet.

But we don't think it'll be long. The time of no family contact is a-coming.

* And in other news...a friend here in Sapporo got infected and had to　spend 2 weeks in an isolation hotel with three lunch boxes a day. I was shocked, because she has always been very careful. But she is young and lives downtown. 

Inevitably she meets other young friends, in bars and cafes...downtown.

She had mild symptoms, fever, nausea, tight chest feeling - so she wasn't in a hospital. But sent to a local hotel, to while away time until the tests were negative. She was a member of a cluster, I guess, because she was there with the friends who got infected at the same time.

She is better now and allowed home again. Where she is being  even MORE careful.

And HEY! Good news!

Trump lost.