Happy ??? Birthday

What's a good birthday present for somebody with dementia?

It's a thought that has been rattling around my brain this week.

We took Okaasan to a Day Spa last weekend and she seemed to enjoy it ok...I guess. She enjoyed being with us and chatting, the car ride, the fruit farm...maybe she enjoyed the hotel and the spa and the lunch.
Maybe.
I'm not sure because I do think the new place - the hotel - and the new activity - going to a spa in this hotel, then buffet lunch in a new restaurant - all of that...I wonder if she really could enjoy it or not. A lot of it was confusing for her really. Was that a good birthday present?

On Monday a student whose mother is a bed-ridden invalid mentioned that it was her mum's birthday and we discussed what on earth would be a good present for someone who basically stays in bed and sleeps 90% of the time....

Made me think some more.

Yesterday I did some cleaning in Okaasan's room - actually WITH her, for a change.
I did it in stages, and stopped it when she started getting stressed.
First I asked her if she could help me by neatly tieing up the newspapers for recycling - a household job she is good at.
Then I introduced the vacumn cleaner and while I used it, asked her to pick up a few things....well "few" means "tonnes"...in front of the vacumn machine.
She gathered up stuff and dumped it in other places - the clothes, the bits of paper, random plates and cups.
I tried to help her sort some of the clothes: basically into winter-and-don't-need-now stuff....and dirty/clean.

It's hard this: to tackle the pile of clothes Okaasan keeps permanently around her on the carpet and sofa, on the table, under the table.

But I got an insight into her thinking about this jumble of clothes. She seems to think that all of it is out in sight at the moment for a reason:

- this needs mending
- this needs washing
- this needs to go to the dry cleaners
- this is old and I will show it to Dear Son who will buy me a new one
- this is clean and still drying

Of course, sadly, these plans hardly ever turn into action. Days and weeks go by and the clothes stay where she has dropped them.
She picks them up and examines them occasionally, then there is something on Tv that catches her focus and she puts it down to be forgotten again.
Okaasan doesn't go to the dry cleaning shop. She doesn't actually DO anything with the needles and threads in her sewing kit, she doesn't talk to Dear Son about needing new clothes.
It's all in her head. She is permanently in the middle of doing all this clothes sorting out, always in that loop of necessary activity - but never finishing it.

She and I sorted clothes a little, I managed to get out some beyond repair pajamas. Take out one sweater for dry cleaning. Change the blanket for a summer one. Put away a winter muffler out of sight.

Then I sensed she was getting a little loud-voiced and over excited about WHERE I would go for the dry cleaning. In her mind there is only one good dry cleaning shop in the whole city and it is right back across town, near the first apartment she lived in when she came to start her life with us. I don't go there now - it's too far - but I tell her I do...and cut off the shop tags when I return any dry cleaning to her.

So. A productive 30 mins cleaning with Okaasan.

And today?

After an internet search for ladies fashion brands I located a shop in a department store downtown. I went in today and bought two pink flowery, summer pajamas - exactly like the ones that Okaasan has had for years, which are now tattered and beyond repair.

Tonight I will give them to her: maybe they are a better birthday present. Something familiar and important to her, the clothes she lives in every day. The same brand of clothes. The same pattern.

I hope I am right :-)

But, before we all get warm and fuzzy here. Let me admit: it was far, FAR easier to go in and buy the pajamas myself, alone. If I'd taken Okaasan to the store and let her shop for them herself - although she would enjoy it....I know for sure I would hate it: the endless toing and froing, the decision making, the trying to buy other stuff, the wandering around looking at the same stuff repeatedly.
I couldn't do that. Just can't. Not patient enough.

So, I am a good daughter-in-law...up to a point.

Hope she is happy with the pajamas though.

And...here we go again...a deux.

Haven't blogged - just had a normal life.
As normal as it gets around here. :-)

He was home for a week and we had family dinners, and watched TV and worked and shopped and stuff.
Even went for a date to see the movie Gravity Zero with Sandra Bullock looking SO BLOODY TONED! And George Clooney somehow looking sexy in a space suit. Amazing movie. Go see it with the 3D glasses and lose the contents of your stomach.

I also had an old colleague staying in the classroom - so lots of reunion dinners etc with people I used to work with way back when I was Okaasan-less (didn't even BUY tofu in those days!).
My friend even came to dinner with us and Okaasan in the kitchen. We ordered up a big tray of sushi and Okaasan was very stiff and polite with the guest, we had to tell her endlessly to help herself to sushi. But she appeared to enjoy someone coming to dinner.

Okaasan went back to day care Tuesday and Thursday....slow to get up and ready, needed prompting about gathering the right things together - but happy enough to go.
I took her to the subway station yesterday and released her for a few hours downtown alone. Luckily my shopping/play trip with Cutest Baby and Mum ended just as Okaasan was back at the station.
She actually called Dear Son's phone - but he was still at the ski resort - it was just lucky that I called her a few minutes later. I don't think she knows/remembers that on her mobile phone the One button calls Dear Son and the Two button calls Dear Oyomesan.

And now.
Dear Son has gone again. Maybe a week. Who knows...

Okaasan and I are alone again together.
I cooked her dinner tonight...but she says she has a sore mouth...or is it tooth...and only gingerly chewed on a few grains of rice.
BUT! She stayed sitting at the table with me chatting: and actually said "I don't remember so many things now, it's strange...living on my own would be hard...that's why I live with you and Dear Son!!"
My Japanese isn't great. But I think that's what she said.

I made reassuring noises about losing memory being ok, because he and I can remember the important things...what you had for lunch today or whether you even had lunch isn't SO important. And she agreed and chatted on about how her mother had lived into her 90s!!! and then wartime food shortages, and American planes not bombing Kawagoe, and the military police stealing any food that relatives had sent....on and on and on.

* Clothes shopping alert....
I think I'll have to go clothes shopping again with Okaasan. This time for long sleeved shirts or sweaters. She really has very few winter-place clothes, and the ones she have are old and frayed.
Getting ready for day care the other day she got very stressy:" I don't have ANY clothes! I don't have ANY money! I never go shopping!"...whining like a child.
It's not that bad, but there is a shortage of longsleeves.....
I will have to get my brain together for that.
Can't send her to the shop with money and hope she'll come with the right thing. It'll be another silk scarf with rose patterns, or a bag....

shopping. I hate shopping.

Once upon a time...a time...a time...

Time.

Funny thing with dementia.

Okaasan often not sure if it is morning or afternoon....spring or winter.
If we set a time for going somewhere she will usually be ready WAY before necessary, sitting ready with her coat on and all ready to go.

How long has something been happening? That too...a bit of a fog.

"How long have you lived in Sapporo?" asked the city office staff recently.
"Sapporo? Oh, 10 years...."

This week I took the nice winter coat to the dry cleaners and returned it to Okaasan. Hoping she will wear it again, instead of summer coat or cardigan.
"That's an old coat, I bought it years ago, it's all old and dirty...I should buy a new coat..." Okaasan kept telling us.
"No, no - you only bought it 4 years ago, with Dear Son, in a department store in Tokyo...it was dirty, now it is clean again..."

The coat IS a little damaged on the arm, where Okaasan fell on the road last year. Will she notice the damage? Will she refuse to wear it? If she doesn't, can I wear it instead....such a waste...it was an expensive coat only 4 years ago.
Ho hum....maybe have to buy a new coat.

Once upon a time...a time...a time...

4 years ago today I started this blog. I'd just accpeted my boyfriend's plan to bring his confused old mother to live with us....and I had no idea how life was about to change.
I've grown up a whole lot. So has he. We became adults...in our 40s...
I never thought I'd continue writing this blog. It was suggested by one of my students, and she translated many of the early entries - but got overwhelmed by my endless postings and stopped....
Friends have suggested turning it all into a book - which I might after Okaasan has popped off to the big kotatsu.
But for now, it is what it started out as - a place for me to vent and moan, as well as a place where friends and friends-I've-never-met catch up on what's happening.

Once upon a time...Okaasan and Me started.

Day 5. Wardrobe Malfunction.

Okaasan set out for her late afternoon/evening walk in....her big, wooly cardigan and a fur muffler and a hat. No gloves.
Temperatures here last night dropped below freezing by 5 pm and the streets were crackly with frozen bits of snow and ice.
Oh well, at least it didn't snow or rain - so I guess the cardigan is warm enough.
But, a bit odd.
She has a coat: a rather stylish dark pink, fitted item - which is what smart housewives would wear to amble along Tokyo streets on a slightly chilly day. Not really suitable for the snows of Sapporo.
I reckon we shoould buy her another coat - and some sweaters. The stylish coat is too fitting to allow more than T-shirts and thin silk blouses under it. Okaasan has got fatter in the past 3 years - all the wonderful food we serve and the sitting doing nothing day after day.

I'm guessing that when she got ready to go out (after my prompting at 4 pm) she realised that the big red cardigan wouldn't fit under the stylish coat....so she left the coat and went without it.

I left her dinner on the table as I had an evening class. Ordered myself a yummy curry from the Indian place near work and looked forward to ending Monday with some wine and curry.
But...I got home at 8 pm to find Okaasan had only JUST come home herself and hadn't eaten yet. So...groaning inside selfishly...I had to sit with her in the kitchen and eat together.
Know that feeling when you didn't expect to have to do something...aghh...I couldn't let my frustration show...had to make a bit of chit cht for her. But really disappointed. Hoped to have curry and wine dinner with the cats and the TV. Ho hum. Family duty.

He's home on Wednesday....and can get cracking on this enveloped full of day service decisions.

Glacial moving...

Stand back! Don't rush to see! Careful!
A Japanese man is taking action.

Today was raining - autumn has finally thought it should show up here - and Dear Son acted on my gentle reminder: Don't just sit and watch TV all day, use this non-working time to start finding out about Okaasan and assessment.

So he checked around the website for the ward office.
He thinks he understands that he has to go and make an application. And then someone will come to the house and assess. And then...and then? There are 75 points on which Okaasan may be assessed. Maybe.
He didn't actually GO to the ward office (had the car sitting outside the house all day, so he could have done it), but it is a step in the oh-so-right direction.
I may be extra nice to him tonight....

I know there are many hurdles to go until Okaasan is cheerfully climbing in the day care bus and going off to hula dance and lunch in the winter months. But...

I guess the assessment person will come and sit at the kitchen table and chat to Okaasan is a nice non-threatening way....while we make some white lie about Sapporo-city-is-assessing-all-old-people-for-free. Being Japan they probably hand out little gift towels or cookies after each assessment.
I hope it is an easy process, that doesn't get her all riled up and stressy with us. With me.

Meanwhile - a first for Okaasan and Me on the topic of incontinence. She actually told me she'd had an accident. Until now she tells Yujiro, or just ignores it.
But Sunday night I was trying to get her ready to go to our local sushi place, and she was wandering round her room in a T-shirt and underpants, looking for something to wear.
"You were wearing your black trousers 20 mins ago, when you came back from walking..." I reminded her.
"Ah, but I peed in those. I can't wear them."
"Ah, shall we look in the closet together.....what about this skirt?"
"That's a winter skirt. Is it winter now?"
"Well, it's October next week...so almost"...

and so it went. Strange to be helping someone choose the clothes to wear. I remembered too that I'd taken some of her clothes to the dry cleaners...and that the pair of trousers we bought in the spring got damaged when she fell over. The knee area is scuffed badly, I doubt she'll wear them.
She probably has very few clothes to actually wear, poor woman, I have to put my brain into gear and take responsibility for her clothes more. Buy some more underpants, get her dry cleaning back....remind her what season it is....

Sneaking in repairs

This is Okaasan's favorite cardigan.
She's had it for years and the multicolored, silk lining was getting more and more ripped and ragged.
Every winter she holds up the lining and says: Oh this looks bad, but I like this cardigan, I've had it for years. It's warm.

Last week in the latest cleaning blitz I took some cold-weather clothes from Okaasan's room for cleaning. They were all jumbled up on the sofa amid pants and T shirts and towels and stuff.

Most of the stuff went to dry cleaning. This one I hand washed...and then.
What to do with the ratty old lining...now hanging off in strips?
Really it was at the point where anyone putting their arms inside would probably strangle themselves in the strips of silk hanging from the seams.

I cut it off.
Then cos the lining was still obvious at the seams...
I sat and unpicked all the lining seams and removed any trace of bright red lining material.

Sitting there on a work morning doing this I DID think : WHY am I doing this? Okaasan could and should be doing this.
But, to be honest I was afraid to show her what I'd already done.
I was afraid she would be upset, and then all of a stressy dither about the unpicking of the remaining lining.
So, I did it.

Then I kept the cardigan upstairs and wondered how to give it back to her....clean and much better. But minus the lining.

Should I go to a material shop and buy MORE red silk lining and pay the sewing shop to put back the lining??? How long will that take? What happens if Okaasan notices the cardigan has gone in the meantime? What to do?

Yesterday, when I heard Okaasan go to the toilet, I grabbed the cardigan, rushed downstairs and flung it back on the sofa on top of all the other stuff. Draped a random towel on top for appearences.

And fled back upstairs.
I don't know if she has noticed it yet. Maybe not, cos we are still having crazy summer temperatures here...but there it sits on the sofa behind her...waiting.
My guess is that she'll notice the lining has gone, but think she did it herself sometime - and that HOPEFULLY she will never ask us about it. Hopefully.

Yet again, this going into someone's personal space/possessions to make changes to help them - it's a minefield of deceit and privacy invasion. But sometimes...well okay - for me many times!! - it is just easier all round to go in quietly and do it and get out. No discussion. No stress. Just do it.
But it gives ME stress :-)

* Between classes at my school I ran into the community center to check the Oldies Hula class the other day - looks very suitable, big group of friendly ladies and a teacher - all swaying to the island beat. Next week I'll take Okaasan.

Finally. We all need a cute cat picture.

Please select the sentence which best describes this scene:

a) Cat is in the basket.
b) Cat is on the basket.
c) Basket is on the cat.
d) Cat has removed basket lining and is wearing it as a hat.

Sock it to me (x 30 plus)

 Would you rather have your sock selection like...this?







or.....

...like this?

If you have a nice, kind Oyomesan you will have below: the artfully arranged basket of neatly-paired socks, all pegged to their partner and in color piles.

If you are Okaasan: you'll have the above. Three spreading clusters of socks at different points around your room on the carpet. When you go out you have to play Hunt the Missing Sock...endlessly...scurrying from cluster to cluster with more than 60 odd socks in varying shades of pink, beige and brown.

So. I tried. Washed them all, bought the pegs and the basket. Sat down and had my own Match the Sock game, which was hard even with my short-term memory skills.

This morning I took the basket into Okaasan and said: wouldn't it be nice to keep yours socks like this, so you can see them easily etc etc.

HOPING she will keep them like this. At least for a while.

She seemed appreciative. Maybe just being polite at the outlandish suggestion that she should keep socks in this style. We haven't had much luck with other "helpful" clothes/room setting ideas. We tried to label the chest drawers, so she could find clothes among 10 drawers. She left the labels for 10 hours -and then peeled them off and stuck them inside the drawers.

What IS it with clothes scattered all over the place? Why does she do this? Wanting to see everything? Always thinking "I'm in the middle of laundry day"?

I'm sure that she never used to keep clothes like this, all over the floor and the furniture. All thrown together, creased and mixed.

And in other news: the house painting finished! We have a wonderful, cream colored house now. Looks great. But sadly, there are flecks of old paint all over the garden too - the cats are rolling and walking in them, and the flowers and vegetables will grow this year thru the carcinogenous stuff.

And: Okaasan is interested in joining another dance class.

She's taken out her hula dance skirts. And she has a flyer for a Folk Dance class at the culture school she went to before.

She thinks June 22 is a class visit date. She thinks the people in the photo look friendly - and not like the "bullies" in the two hula dance classes she has already quit.

It would be GREAT if she joined another class. Get her out and active physically and socially. Yujiro never took her along to the Tuesday hula class at the culture school where I am working, but Okaasan has found a class she likes herself.

Yes! Yes! Yes!