Vaccination cometh????

 Saw Okaasan again yesterday - all great.

Happy, smiley, laughing. No speaking. But she is in a good mood. Given the no-speaking, our allotted visit time of 20 mins is enough.

She gets the happy feeling of seeing us.

We feel reassured.

And, somehow, we can do a double act of chat to fill out 20 mins. What's out the window, the weather, his jacket, my mask design, my impending birthday age...Okaasan looks from face to face and smiles and makes the nodding motion, and open mouth pouting gesture.

And then we're done. Back in the elevator and out into the snow.

Care home sent a letter about the COVID-19 vaccination.👀

Japan is JUST starting vaccinations now. Health care workers. Elderly will start in April, a very very slow roll out, which will only really get going in  May. Japan bought its vaccinations from Europe, and then had a system if domestic trials to go thru.

So the general vaccination program is still a month away, at least. Healthy...fairly young people like me probably won't get the call up until late summer...

Dear Son looking at the letter: "Hmm...she hates vaccinations. She won't want it. What should I do?"

 Me: "Well, I hope we can take her out of the home this year, into sunshine, to a coffee shop.  If she picks up Covid in a coffee shop and takes it back into the home....for a few minutes of her bad feeling about injections - we should be thinking of her community - ALL the old people in that home!"

Really. He even considered NOT authorising her to get a vaccine.

Face Palm moment in a relationship.

I hate injections too. Not for the same reasons as Okaasan (general distrust of mainsteam medicine), my feelings are based on the sight of needles entering skin. TV is FULL of that image at the moment....it maybe having a feeling-numbing effect on me?

Anyway. Okaasan. I hope she gets the jab. So she can go to a coffee shop this summer.

Meeting again :-)

 

And there they are - together again! Mum and son! 

The care home announced recently that family visits can start again, reservation only and for 20 mins at a time. 

New COVID-19 case numbers in Hokkaido have dropped to less that 50 a day recently, and so the home felt they could let us meet our dear elderly again.

Okaasan was surprisingly great - we were relieved.

Last spring, when we didn't meet for 10 weeks she lost a lot of communication ability and mental alertness. It slowly returned over the summer, and then of course we were cut off from her in November.

She was very smiley and happy, lots of laughs and funny goldfish mouth gestures. Pretty sure she knew who we were. The care home had Dolls' Day decorations, and plastic cherry blossom on the walls - more cheerful. We spent our 20 mins walking the corridors of her floor, sitting in window areas to make gold fish gestures and laughing a lot.

The staff said she can still walk, with the walking frame and a lot of support from an able bodied person, but her confidence for walking is initially low.

But! Here she is!

Hope we can visit once a week again....and I wonder when she will get vaccinated? Japan JUST started vaccinations last week and a 90 year old in a care home must be high on the list.

By the way - did you see this funny Covid-19 story last week? We all need a laugh...a 6 cm high man was offered an early vaccination....