Reset to normal

After weeks of physical and mental stress all round- just a normal week.
As normal as it is to track someone with GPS and fetch 'em back from the local shopping center by car; wash their underpants while you are showering and scavenge around their room for forgotten food wrapped in old newspapers!

Okaasan's leg pains have stayed away and she went walking alone locally. Went to day service center...almost willingly. There is another member who is kind of bossy and Okasan doesn't like her - so she has to be reassured that "THAT woman isn't there today" and for their part of the center staff are trying to keep the offending person away from Okaasan more.

I'm standing aside and letting Dear Son tell Okaasan about day care at the moment. Then I help with the final 5 minutes of packing the bag. She is getting worse at this: deciding what to take and finding it and putting it in the bag. The center have actually asked us to pack stuff secretly and just give it to the driver - obviously Okaasan has turned up at the center with random stuff in her bag.

On Sunday I took Okaasan to the hair salon by car. First time for her downtown for ages. She walked ok from the parking area to the salon - a bit weakly, but ok. I hope the trip doesn't jog her memory of how fun downtown can be so that she tries to go there alone by subway - fetching her home by car from local shops is easy. Downtown will be a hassle.

Debating taking the old people's subway pass OUT of her bag, so she would be flummoxed at the subway station and give up on the idea...

* Laundry.  I tried to give Okaasan some newly washed underpants and the hanger - to encourage her to hang up her own washing for the mental exercise...she used to spend hours doing this. But...she just glanced at it, thanked me and her attention went back to the TV. 24 hours later the laundry was unhung...she'd climbed over the bowl several times..and I did it myself.
She used to do so much of her own laundry and take interest and pride in hanging it just so. Now that has almost gone as an activity.

* Hallucinations? Last night Okaasan called Yujiro to catch "those moving things!"on her carpet. Turned out to be pieces of black paper. She was convinced they were moving...

:-) But generally, she is much better mentally - all good as the temperatures drop and the bad weather of autumn and winter comes.

+ My leg pains???? Haven't come back yet!!! Did that mysterious, off-the-wall treatment work? Am I thinking it might work, so it works? Don't know. But happy not to have spasms.

So happy in fact...that.....

I bought a kayak!

Yes. I am mad. But a nice Canadian guy came to show me his old kayak and I fell in love right there in the street with the thing...and it was only Y10,000 (with an old lifejacket and spray skirt included)....so I bought it.

The cat approves.

Now. That car. You may notice...kind of small.

I didn't notice.

Have now had a few days of worry - will the kayak fit ON the car roof? Will every police patrol car in Hokkaido home-in on me and set up road blocks to happiness?

The Suzuki dealer guy had his mind a bit blown by my question: "an Alto Eco and a KAYAK?????", but the measurements are just about ok, and the police website maybe says it is ok.

Next stop will be an outdoor/car accessories shop...

October...November...hmm...can I squeeze in a kayak debut before the snow comes?

Every dementia guidebook for carers says: you should develop an interest away from the caring. You will need it for your sanity. Too right. I do.

Oyomesan is on holiday from tomorrow for a few days: heading to Japan. Real Japan on my own for a trip. Kyoto - Imperial Palace Tour AND gonna dress up as a maiko.....oh yeeees.

See you soon.

Amazing! A pro carer at work.

THAT's how to do it!
Patient, gentle voice, little laughs, listening, caring, firm, encouraging....

I've read the books. I know. But I (recently) have been failing on this caring carer style.

Today the day care center staff came and managed Okaasan brilliantly.
But still - in the end - failed.

When they heard on the morning call that she didn't want to go, they offered to come round and talk to her. Great - let them have a go. I tried to bring them up to date with all the non-activity of late...but of course didn't say that tensions in this family have been running kind of...high.

I was getting ready for work and hanging over the second floor stairwell in various states of undress - trying to hear how the professional tackled Okaasan.
Truly amazing.
First she went into Okaasan's room and chatted to her all sympathetically, getting her to describe her pain and what she'd done in the past etc, how much she had studied health etc...
Then she started gently suggesting little bits of activity; why don't you show me your leg/sit on the sofa here/stand up a little/walk into the kitchen etc

So professional. THIS is why I knew we had to get ourselves all taken in by social services and carers. Better for all of us.

I left for work and could here the carer talking about "just come to the center with me for lunch and a bath...now where is your towel".....

Amazing.
I'd already put a small lunch for Okaasan on the kitchen table, but it all sounded very positive. So I left.

At work I had one of those Good carer/Bad carer debates in my head.
Good: "If she has gone to day care today, it means I can get into her room mid-afternoon and clean up."
Bad: "I'm so tired of this whole thing, she can just sit with all her trash around her until she finally gets taken off to hospital on a stretcher..."

Came home later and found: Okaasan on the carpet under the table heater...watching TV, the lunch flasks opened and contents eaten, and damp...kind of clean underpants on the table, dirty trousers on the carpet......

aghhh......day center lady failed to get Okaasan out then.
Nice try. Wonderful try.
But not.
Probably couldn't get her to walk down the front door steps.
Hopefully this will spur on the situation for the carers to push Dear Son more on getting help for Okaasan.

And me?
I can't face another dinner with her. I just can't.
All day I was thinking......and now my evening student has cancelled. I could go home now.
But I can't do it. I don't want the stress.
So - when I went home mid-afternoon, I put MORE food on the kitchen table, gave Okaasan a fresh cup of water, left food for the cats - and came away to my working life.
Dear Son is probably working until 8.30 or 9 pm. Okaasan may just sleep and not eat. But she may want to come to the table and eat dinner.
And I don't want to eat with her. I am going to the gym and then having a quiet dinner alone near my classroom. I will slip home later.

Bad, bad Oyomesan (daughter-in-law).
Bad.

Found this story in the news today...it kind of jumped out at me....for some reason...
http://www.japantoday.com/category/health/view/rising-alzheimers-creates-strain-on-caregivers

Down, but not out...

If you are eating while blog surfing - maybe give this one a skip til you're finished.

Had a toilet crises at home yesterday, not Okaasan, not me, not cats...Dear Son.
In a blog which has shown you a plate of bloody ovaries and pictures of old lady's panties - there isn't much NOT to show or discuss here, but as I think some of Dear Son's old friends are readers, I will try (not too hard!) to preserve his dignity.

He had awful pains in the toilet yesterday morning, at first I thought it was just male whingeing about the details of his bodily non-functions...so I continued watching Friends on Tv and playing with cats.
By the time he was pleading with me to go and buy enemas at an early-morning open drug store - twice - I realised something, maybe, was wrong.
He was groaning and carrying on in the toilet and up and down the stairs.....and I was trying to get Okaasan ready to go to daycare.
(Yes! She was happy to go!! Progress!)

Of course, VERY important to keep her ignorant of the crisis in the toilet, otherwise she would be right in there offering him advice about don't-eat-for-a-week and burn-green-tea-at-sunset-facing-east....so I picked up a trash bag of beer cans and cat food cans - noisily shaking them in my hand while getting Okaasan out of her room, past the toilet door and into the house entrance hall.The sound of the cans drowned out the man-agony behind the toilet door.
Day care came and whisked her away safely, for a day of ballroom dance, bath and hair wash.

And I locked the front door and attended to the a-hole that I share my life with.
No luck.

MY work departure was looming and he was still in distress.
He called an ambulance.
Three guys in light blue plastic macks and white helmets arrived - maybe taking time out from Fukushima cleanup operations - and there was lots of advice and chat. And then Dear Son was taken away by ambulance!!!

A shock. I'm writing it funny here, because it was...looking back. At the time not.
I live with a 54 year old Peter Pan, who skis and bike rides and drinks and eats with no care in the world. This whimpering poor guy was a stranger.

I had to go teach for 90 mins. Plastered on a smile on my face and a cheerful manner.
Then rushed to the hospital at lunchtime. My old ovaries operation hospital.
Dear Son was on an IV drip awaiting results from blood tests and an X-ray.
I cancelled my afternoon of work and we waited...and waited.

All clear on the tests, apart from high cholesterol, and no signs of cancer or internal obstructions.
Go home and drink medicine. Eat more fruit and veggies. Drink water. Exercise. Be careful. Come back in 2 weeks.

We got home mid-afternoon and he was exhausted. I had to clean up the toilet and kitchen from the panic of the morning.

In the evening he wanted to eat the veggie dinner I was cooking, but not WITH Okaasan. First time he has chickened out of having to sit across the table from her. I've done it several times. When you are feel bad, it's hard to sit and think up chat to fill out the eating time with her. She just eats and reacts...sometimes. Meals with Okaasan are just hard work really, not a pleasure.
I could understand his need to avoid that.

So I told her a big white lie that he had to eat upstairs because our computer had a big problem and he needed to be near it...then she and I ate downstairs and he ate peacefully upstairs.
Okaasan chatted to me about Korean food, the Tokyo restaurant story - but the JTB guide in New York and "best food in the world" story has been lost forever.

Along day.
Yikes.
Big shock.
I am still not convinced Dear Son's problem is "nothing". This man never has any problems of this kind. Usually the opposite. With that charming male habit of sharing every single little toilet information - I know he is a down the hatch and shoot it out kinda guy.
So I am pressing him to go and have an internal camera.
Since MY health scare I am much more proactive on the topic. He should be too.

And why does this sorry little tale have a place in this blog? Apart from giving us all a few sniggers?
Well, in the midst of it all I was thinking:"Shit! If he is really ill and in hospital etc, I will be landed with Okaasan full time - of course with day care support, but oh Shit!".
Selfish. That's me.

It is a factor, always in my mind. That if something happens to him - what will happen with Okaasan? I will care for her a while, but ultimately I don't feel longterm responsibility for her. She will have to be shipped back to the family in Saitama - the useless son, or her brother's family. Somebody.

So. A stressed day.

* Okaasan needs to go and have the annual dementia assessment by the end of October. This isn't the quick visit in the kitchen that the ward office care manager does, this is actually a 45 min. appraisal interview at the mental health clinic.
Draw a clock - tell me the date - remember 5 things on this list, kind of an interview.

Is Okaasan worse than a year ago?
Sometimes I think yes.
The random strange questions or statements are more common now. Some of the old stories have vanished. The personal care such as hairbrushing or clothes choosing has got weaker, and she isn't doing much laundry now. The staring at the TV shopping channel and weather data is more.
In fact - you can (and I do almost every day!) - change her TV channel from behind her with the remote and she doesn't notice. In the morning I use our remote control to flick Okaasan's TV away from mind numbing shopping and weather onto slightly less-mind numbing Japanese morning Tv shows. It's  away of getting to to sit up and wake up - to start the day.

Good things: But she is still walking independently outside ok (but not for 2 weeks with the rheumatism now), still participating in conversations that interest her, still trying to help by taking in laundry from the garden and aware of who we are etc.

It will be interesting to see what the doc thinks.

As winter approaches...yes winter....Dear Son casually mentioned the other day that he has got his first ski teaching job booked from one of the big resorts - 20 days of ski teaching work.
THAT translates into 20 days of Okaasan and Me......20 days.
This year must be a little easier, because we have sort of decided to keep the old car for winter use - so he will take that skiing and I will keep the new car for driving from work to the supermarket - to home - to work - to home - to the vets - to the supermarket- to home - to the madhouse.....

Winter approaches.......groan.