A tale of two lives at the kitchen table this morning: Okaasan's view of her life...and then our view of her life.
And the city office interviewer trying to make sense of it frantically on her clip board.
After the recent mental health interview, this was the final Public Care Status interview, which determines what public assistance we can get in the next 2 years.
Okaasan's Daily Life...by Okaasan:
I go walking almost every day. I go to Odori (downtown) by subway almost every day. I meet my friend. Go shopping.
Yes - I have a bath, brush my teeth, brush my hair. Of COURSE!
Food? Um - what time? Um. Cooking? Um. Microwave? Um.
How many people live here? Um?
What season is it now? Um...is there a calendar? Um...autumn? The day? Um.
How old am I? Um...around 80?
What time do I go to bed? Wake up? Um....
Do I sleep on a futon or a bed? Um.....
Yes - I cut my nails! Of COURSE!
Doctors? Hospitals? Health supplements? NO!!!
Can I stand on one leg? Can I get up and down from the carpet? YES!
Okaasan's Daily Life...by Dear Son and Moi:
Walking every day, if the weather is good.
Downtown...once a month in the past year or so.
Sometimes confusions about money/tickets/possessions.
Doesn't get lost.
Doesn't bring back other people's possessions.
Has a bath/cuts nails if we direct her to do it. Can do them herself.
Food - can feed herself (messily). We do all the shopping and cooking. Lunch box deliveries and food left out for her to eat.
Microwave ok. Cooker - rarely uses and burns pans when she does.
Money control - we do it for her.
Goes to sleep and gets up herself. Sometimes we get her up in the morning. Lots of daytime sleeping.
Endless repeat conversations. Random - unconnected topics common.
Mixing up of childhood and adult stories and places.
Thinking long ago life and people is happening now? No...not really.
Can't follow complex explanations - we leave written messages about plans.
Awareness of seasons/weather - patchy. Clothes choices sometimes not suitable.
Night time wandering? Eating? No - not that we know!
There was the Remember 3 Things test: Apple/Car/Train.
I scored 2 and a half. WAS the third one train? Okaasan was a complete blank. She couldn't name any of the things. Even with a hint.
The city office staff was obviously impressed by Okaasan's physical ability: balancing on one leg, getting up and down from chairs and the carpet, turning over, stretching out her arms etc. All very good for 85 years old.
She IS good.
Many of the questions made me realize that so many elderly people have a whole range of physical limitations/weaknesses. Okaasan really doesn't.
But: the mental ability is also clearly not so great. The silences, or hesitant answers to questions about self and routine showed that.
I think it is sad: Okaasan is/was a physically healthy person. She used to walk and do hula dance. Socialize with people. Look after herself. Eat sparingly and well. Travel. Study. Learn. In her late 60s and 70s she was doing all the things you are supposed to do.
But still. In her late 70s this thing called dementia crept up. By 77 she wasn't cooking for herself, she wasn't managing money very well, she wasn't cleaning. And then her son took the decision to look after her.
Physical activity is Dementia 101. But doing it doesn't protect you. By the age of 77 and 78 Okaasan was on the slippery slope.
The interviewer's question about believing past events are in the present was interesting. She went on and on explaining what she meant by this: and Dear Son and I couldn't think of anything that demonstrates that with Okaasan.
She doesn't mistake delivery men for her father, or think the Sapporo supermarket is a Kawagoe shop. Nothing like that.Yet....
Although....the recent "there are four people living here" answer to the Census taker maybe shows confusion about her current living and the past as a wife and mother in Saitama.
All in all a good interview. It was an honest laying out of Okaasan's mental/physical status at the end of 2015.
The interviewer was a totally nice, middle aged woman. Professional and friendly. But - I DO wonder why they do the interview with the family members right in front of the client. We sat there dissing what Okaasan had just said. No - she can't do that. Nor that. Not that. No - she is wrong. It's hardly a warm, positive feeling to hear your family disagree with you in front of a stranger. There was NO suggestion that we should talk privately in our part of the interview.
Bad I think. But then if we did - would Okaasan be suspicious about us talking to someone without her hearing?
After the woman left and the three of us were in the kitchen I chatted brightly about: what a nice woman! Yes, she was surprised at how flexible your legs are!
Okaasan for her part tried to explain away the not going downtown: I don't go recently? Really? I don't have any money? I don't have a card? The weather is bad?
And then I came to work. Dear Son started cooking curry.
And Okaasan retreated with a cup of tea back to the TV and safety.
We wait now for the Day Care manager to arrange this winter's care. Once a week trip by taxi to the supermarket would be good.
.........
Now: Tell me - what were those 3 things I asked you to remember earlier?
Yes?
Can you tell me?
Showing posts with label dementia assessment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dementia assessment. Show all posts
Friday, 18 September 2015
Thursday, 10 September 2015
Slowly downhill..
That's Okaasan's mental condition according to the mental health clinic.
4 years ago she scored a 14 on the Hasegawa Dementia Test scale (out of a maximum of 30?), 2 years ago she was a 12...and this week she scored an 8.
I think a score of 3-7 is considered Severe Dementia?
Okaasan isn't severe at all, but when she becomes stressed thru fear/anger/sickness we suddenly see the wildly emotional, difficult side of her. So we know it's there.
I guess this means we could be entering a new stage in the next year or two....
But for now all pretty ok.
"Gradual decline, maybe a little slower than many people - it's good she is still taking a bath on her own, toileting and feeding. And very good she is going for regular walks alone" basically the doctor's report.
This will now be passed on to the city welfare office and when we apply for day care visits and support this winter the test points and Okaasan's care level determines how much care we can request and how much we pay.
Okaasan followed Dear Son happily enough to the clinic, a relief after the fights in the past about any kind of medical check up. She tried to clean her teeth three times before going and wasn't 100% why they were there, or even if they'd already met the doctor 5 minutes after the consultation - but she went along with it all.
After the clinic DS took her out for a walk to a ramen restaurant for a big lunch.
Four hours later she'd forgotten any of that and claimed: "I haven't been out at all today, I'm going for a walk..."
And in other news.
I had coffee with a friend whose mother is far further along in a kind of Alzheimer's. The family have moved that lady to a care home in Tokyo to be near other relatives.
On the flight down to Tokyo my friend's mother kept forgetting that they were IN an airplane. Everytime the plane shook or dipped a little she looked surprised..."why is the table moving???".
Thinking ahead to my trip with Okaasan in November. I think she won't be like that. She'll enjoy an airplane trip I think. Maybe think we are going to New York??
Fun fun fun.
4 years ago she scored a 14 on the Hasegawa Dementia Test scale (out of a maximum of 30?), 2 years ago she was a 12...and this week she scored an 8.
I think a score of 3-7 is considered Severe Dementia?
Okaasan isn't severe at all, but when she becomes stressed thru fear/anger/sickness we suddenly see the wildly emotional, difficult side of her. So we know it's there.
I guess this means we could be entering a new stage in the next year or two....
But for now all pretty ok.
"Gradual decline, maybe a little slower than many people - it's good she is still taking a bath on her own, toileting and feeding. And very good she is going for regular walks alone" basically the doctor's report.
This will now be passed on to the city welfare office and when we apply for day care visits and support this winter the test points and Okaasan's care level determines how much care we can request and how much we pay.
Okaasan followed Dear Son happily enough to the clinic, a relief after the fights in the past about any kind of medical check up. She tried to clean her teeth three times before going and wasn't 100% why they were there, or even if they'd already met the doctor 5 minutes after the consultation - but she went along with it all.
After the clinic DS took her out for a walk to a ramen restaurant for a big lunch.
Four hours later she'd forgotten any of that and claimed: "I haven't been out at all today, I'm going for a walk..."
And in other news.
I had coffee with a friend whose mother is far further along in a kind of Alzheimer's. The family have moved that lady to a care home in Tokyo to be near other relatives.
On the flight down to Tokyo my friend's mother kept forgetting that they were IN an airplane. Everytime the plane shook or dipped a little she looked surprised..."why is the table moving???".
Thinking ahead to my trip with Okaasan in November. I think she won't be like that. She'll enjoy an airplane trip I think. Maybe think we are going to New York??
Fun fun fun.
Tuesday, 8 September 2015
The Roadtrip a-COMING!
Yup.
Okaasan and Me will hit the road this November.
Playing the double act, with support from Dear Son and assorted family members in Yokohama, Kawagoe and an airport near you.
Shopping! Travelling! Chatting! Toilet Breaks! Lost Things! Packing! Panicking! More Shopping! Eating! Controlling the Alcohol Intake!
Oh my God. It's gonna be hard.
But DS contacted Okaasan's younger brother and his wife and they wildly offered to let the three of us stay in their home, or in a nearby hotel. They'll organize a wonderful family dinner. It'll all be splendid. Okaasan will walk the streets of home again. Kawagoe. The city of her birth. All those glorious memories.
But first.
I have to get her a hair cut.
Prepare her clothes.
Tell her we are going.
Help her...pack. And pack again. And again.
Get her into a bath.
Get her to the airport.
Steer her past lots and lots and lots of airport shops.
Fly with her to Tokyo.
Steer her past more shops....and onto trains.
Get her to the first night hotel stay in Yokohama.
Then DS will meet us and the three of us will settle into the hotel. Have an early dinner. And then Okaasan will snooze in front of the TV in a nice hotel bedroom...and we will sneak away to the Elton John concert for a few hours of escape.
Praying that Okaasan doesn't escape the hotel.....
I am already trying to imagine each stage and what might happen.
It doesn't happen until November.
But I can rehearse it all in my mind till then.
All the variations of what might happen....
Okaasan, hopefully, won't know anything about it till a few days before the trip.
Meanwhile:
* Having a hard week at the moment. DS has his regular customer for the bike taxi. But it isn't just taxi using, he acts as a kind of personal escort and shopping helper to a sight-impaired lady. Pretty demanding of his time and energy. He is working every evening and doesn't come home till gone 10 pm. THEN he wants to unwind with a beer and Tv...so I am awake late.
And at 5 am the cats are demanding breakfast. I feel I am operating on failing batteries.
It's like the weeks in winter when he is gone.
I had dinner tonight with Okaasan. But she's been a bit abandoned this week. Lots of lunch box deliveries and food left out for her on the kitchen table. Of course she doesn't count the days of this because she is just going from moment to moment - but at some level the lack of human contact and conversation (such as it is from my tired brain) must impact her mood or feeling.
Tonight her usual story of the flower business man who gave her a high quality hydrangea bush when she was a 50-something housewife somehow all got mixed into "my house when I was a child in the war, but of course we didn't have flowers in the wartime, so I don't know what happened to the hydrangea..."
I didn't correct her. Just agreed that flowers didn't survive wars.
* And tomorrow DS is taking her for her mental health check up and dementia assessment at the clinic. Every 2 years apparently. This is so we can reapply for day care services this winter - the day care worker who will come once a week and take Okaasan shopping in a taxi etc
So, that is what DS is doing with Okaasan tomorrow.
That Name 5 Things test, Draw a Clock etc. Dear Son will probably fail the test himself thru sheer exhaustion. Then I can get public assistance for both of them and never have to cook another tofu dish again.
It will be interesting to see what the assessment is.
A little worse I guess. That's what we feel about Okaasan's dementia level.
She is less physically active now. Less talking. Less personal care. Less environment care. Memories of adulthood and childhood are often mixed up.
But okay. I think.
Hence the trip. Time to go connect with her family and past while she still can enjoy it.
Okaasan and Me will hit the road this November.
Playing the double act, with support from Dear Son and assorted family members in Yokohama, Kawagoe and an airport near you.
Shopping! Travelling! Chatting! Toilet Breaks! Lost Things! Packing! Panicking! More Shopping! Eating! Controlling the Alcohol Intake!
Oh my God. It's gonna be hard.
But DS contacted Okaasan's younger brother and his wife and they wildly offered to let the three of us stay in their home, or in a nearby hotel. They'll organize a wonderful family dinner. It'll all be splendid. Okaasan will walk the streets of home again. Kawagoe. The city of her birth. All those glorious memories.
But first.
I have to get her a hair cut.
Prepare her clothes.
Tell her we are going.
Help her...pack. And pack again. And again.
Get her into a bath.
Get her to the airport.
Steer her past lots and lots and lots of airport shops.
Fly with her to Tokyo.
Steer her past more shops....and onto trains.
Get her to the first night hotel stay in Yokohama.
Then DS will meet us and the three of us will settle into the hotel. Have an early dinner. And then Okaasan will snooze in front of the TV in a nice hotel bedroom...and we will sneak away to the Elton John concert for a few hours of escape.
Praying that Okaasan doesn't escape the hotel.....
I am already trying to imagine each stage and what might happen.
It doesn't happen until November.
But I can rehearse it all in my mind till then.
All the variations of what might happen....
Okaasan, hopefully, won't know anything about it till a few days before the trip.
Meanwhile:
* Having a hard week at the moment. DS has his regular customer for the bike taxi. But it isn't just taxi using, he acts as a kind of personal escort and shopping helper to a sight-impaired lady. Pretty demanding of his time and energy. He is working every evening and doesn't come home till gone 10 pm. THEN he wants to unwind with a beer and Tv...so I am awake late.
And at 5 am the cats are demanding breakfast. I feel I am operating on failing batteries.
It's like the weeks in winter when he is gone.
I had dinner tonight with Okaasan. But she's been a bit abandoned this week. Lots of lunch box deliveries and food left out for her on the kitchen table. Of course she doesn't count the days of this because she is just going from moment to moment - but at some level the lack of human contact and conversation (such as it is from my tired brain) must impact her mood or feeling.
Tonight her usual story of the flower business man who gave her a high quality hydrangea bush when she was a 50-something housewife somehow all got mixed into "my house when I was a child in the war, but of course we didn't have flowers in the wartime, so I don't know what happened to the hydrangea..."
I didn't correct her. Just agreed that flowers didn't survive wars.
* And tomorrow DS is taking her for her mental health check up and dementia assessment at the clinic. Every 2 years apparently. This is so we can reapply for day care services this winter - the day care worker who will come once a week and take Okaasan shopping in a taxi etc
So, that is what DS is doing with Okaasan tomorrow.
That Name 5 Things test, Draw a Clock etc. Dear Son will probably fail the test himself thru sheer exhaustion. Then I can get public assistance for both of them and never have to cook another tofu dish again.
It will be interesting to see what the assessment is.
A little worse I guess. That's what we feel about Okaasan's dementia level.
She is less physically active now. Less talking. Less personal care. Less environment care. Memories of adulthood and childhood are often mixed up.
But okay. I think.
Hence the trip. Time to go connect with her family and past while she still can enjoy it.
Thursday, 19 September 2013
1 year later dementia level
Is 12/30.
Last year 15/30.
Now, a bit worse. But not "too bad" according to the mental health clinic doc.
Dear Son said he thought it would be worse, he feels Okaasan is worse than a year ago, I feel she is sometimes worse - when she is stressed or tired.
Two points on a pretty vague scale anyway. Remember 3 things, take 7 away from 100, then 5 away from that, name 10 vegetables etc...that kind of interview.
And the doctor said she was worried about Okaasan's leg and what what happen to her mental condition if she stayed inside asleep too much...a warning to Dear Son.
A friend's father was Level 12 - and he was pretty far gone in toilet control, anger at the family, wandering at night. So "12" covers a big area. Okaasan, usually, isn't so bad.
Okaasan was NOT happy about going. Dear Son came back from work mid-afternoon and struggled to get Okaasan up and out.
He told her directly that she was going to a clinic for an annual dementia assessment. She kept mixing that up with a hospital for her painful -leg!!!! "Why am I going, I don't need/want to go, it got better before with no hospital" etc etc etc. On and on and on.
I came home to meet a friend just at the clinic appointment time, and was surprised to find them both still here - getting into the car. Okaasan's face a stony fury.
Dear Son said Okaasan did ok on the maths questions etc - she used to work in an accounts office afterall - but badly on the Remember a List task. And HE, listening to the interview also found himself struggling to remember some things on the list....with slight panic.
In the evening at home. Okaasan angry with us. Ordering us loudly to close curtains and the whole dinner/no dinner scene again. Sigh.
This morning.
Going to day care. NOT going to day care. A level of anger still.
The day care car came.
I HID upstairs, so that Okaasan would be forced to get up off the carpet and walk to the entrance hall and tell the driver herself that she didn't want to go.
"Yesterday my son took me to a hospital for my leg, it hurts still...I don't remember what the doctor said. X-ray? Medicine? Cold pack? Cream? No.....I don't think so. I don't know what the doctor said....look I can't wall, I am just going to sleep here, that's better".
I listened to the whole conversation from upstairs. Listened to the staff try and try to get Okaasan to change her mind and go, asking lots of supportive questions...
Sigh.
* I'm sorry if my response to yesterday's comment by F came over as an attack back at her - it really wasn't meant to be that. I get this question from many people - about Okaasan and doctors - and my head feel hurt. My heart pounds because I get angry at Okaasan and Dear Son.
Next month I am going on holiday to Kyoto. Just me. Looking forward to it.
Last year 15/30.
Now, a bit worse. But not "too bad" according to the mental health clinic doc.
Dear Son said he thought it would be worse, he feels Okaasan is worse than a year ago, I feel she is sometimes worse - when she is stressed or tired.
Two points on a pretty vague scale anyway. Remember 3 things, take 7 away from 100, then 5 away from that, name 10 vegetables etc...that kind of interview.
And the doctor said she was worried about Okaasan's leg and what what happen to her mental condition if she stayed inside asleep too much...a warning to Dear Son.
A friend's father was Level 12 - and he was pretty far gone in toilet control, anger at the family, wandering at night. So "12" covers a big area. Okaasan, usually, isn't so bad.
Okaasan was NOT happy about going. Dear Son came back from work mid-afternoon and struggled to get Okaasan up and out.
He told her directly that she was going to a clinic for an annual dementia assessment. She kept mixing that up with a hospital for her painful -leg!!!! "Why am I going, I don't need/want to go, it got better before with no hospital" etc etc etc. On and on and on.
I came home to meet a friend just at the clinic appointment time, and was surprised to find them both still here - getting into the car. Okaasan's face a stony fury.
Dear Son said Okaasan did ok on the maths questions etc - she used to work in an accounts office afterall - but badly on the Remember a List task. And HE, listening to the interview also found himself struggling to remember some things on the list....with slight panic.
In the evening at home. Okaasan angry with us. Ordering us loudly to close curtains and the whole dinner/no dinner scene again. Sigh.
This morning.
Going to day care. NOT going to day care. A level of anger still.
The day care car came.
I HID upstairs, so that Okaasan would be forced to get up off the carpet and walk to the entrance hall and tell the driver herself that she didn't want to go.
"Yesterday my son took me to a hospital for my leg, it hurts still...I don't remember what the doctor said. X-ray? Medicine? Cold pack? Cream? No.....I don't think so. I don't know what the doctor said....look I can't wall, I am just going to sleep here, that's better".
I listened to the whole conversation from upstairs. Listened to the staff try and try to get Okaasan to change her mind and go, asking lots of supportive questions...
Sigh.
* I'm sorry if my response to yesterday's comment by F came over as an attack back at her - it really wasn't meant to be that. I get this question from many people - about Okaasan and doctors - and my head feel hurt. My heart pounds because I get angry at Okaasan and Dear Son.
Next month I am going on holiday to Kyoto. Just me. Looking forward to it.
Friday, 6 September 2013
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.
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.
Monday, 29 October 2012
VICTORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Victory!!!! Victory!!!! Victory!!!!!!
Dear Son is a saint.
I am an awesome, all-powerful Oyomesan.!!!!!!!!!!
Care Section of Toyohira Ward Office in Sapporo is stupendous!!!!!
A young woman came this morning and spent an hour or more at the house, talking to Okaasan and Dear Son. She interviewed Okaasan with a 74 question survey.
"What season is it now?"
"Spring?"
"Does Sapporo have snow in winter?"
"No, Sapporo doesn't get much snow..."
...and other winners... :-)))
The next stage, apparently is that she decides what level of care/service Okaasan needs and gets back in contact - after reading the doctor's report. And then, maybe in December we get a choice of suitable day service centers that would love to stimulate Okaasan's mind and body.
And Okaasan???
She seemed to go along with all of this. The fact that the roads are bad in winter and this will be her way of exercising.
To make sure of that I printed out 3 photographs of our street in winter, piled high with snow...and gave them to Dear Son to use as evidence.
Towards the end of the interview, Okaasan told Dear Son to leave the room and leave her alone with the city office woman! Either embarrassment, or could it be (hopefully) a taking control of the situation for herself? My health. My discussion? That would be good.
Or????? "I hate these people, please find me an air ticket back to Saitama, I must escape them....specially that British woman who interferes in everything.."
That would be good too.
So. The day has come. I really have wanted this day for SO long. Can't tell you how happy I am.
In fact, when I sat with my Dad's body in the funeral home in England 3 years ago, I told Dad "don't worry, we will get Yujiro's mother into day care or something, don't worry about me, it will be ok..." and then I cried a whole lot more. Sitting there with my Dad's body, clutching his favorite chocolate biscuits.
How's that for drama?
I know my Dad and step-mum worried a lot about me and this situation - the stress it was putting me under etc Yujiro's attitude to outside help.
Now, wherever they are - they can rest on this subject.
Maybe.
Of course, we haven't got Okaasan into the bus and into the doors of the day service center yet.
But we are another step nearer.
I didn't leave anything to chance though.
This morning I printed out my friend's translated letter. The one I gave to the doctor. Then I stuffed it in an envelope and rushed to the city office on my way to work at 9.15 am.
Bugger whether the city office care manager thinks I am an over-micro managing Oyomesan. Bugger that. THIS is important to me. I am a big part of the decisions and care of Okaasan, and I want my voice to be heard.
So I delivered it to the care managing desk - actually into the hands of the poor woman who was heading out to see her first client of the day.
She was a worriedly young-looking woman. Kind of social services/librarian type. Would Okaasan walk all over her. Would Okaasan be fooled by her youth into letting her guard down?
I wondered. And wondered. All the way to work.
Shit. Would she show Okaasan the letter, by mistake or on purpose?
In fact, I rushed back into her office to make sure: this letter is for you to read now, NOT for my Okaasan - despite the fact her name is on the envelope.
I was that nervous about it.
No worries. Maybe. She DID talk about the letter to Dear Son in the entrance hall of our house...surprising him a bit (but he is used to his micro-managing woman after all these years...). So, we hope Okaasan didn't hear that conversation!
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
So Happy.
I did it.
Dear Son is a saint.
I am an awesome, all-powerful Oyomesan.!!!!!!!!!!
Care Section of Toyohira Ward Office in Sapporo is stupendous!!!!!
A young woman came this morning and spent an hour or more at the house, talking to Okaasan and Dear Son. She interviewed Okaasan with a 74 question survey.
"What season is it now?"
"Spring?"
"Does Sapporo have snow in winter?"
"No, Sapporo doesn't get much snow..."
...and other winners... :-)))
The next stage, apparently is that she decides what level of care/service Okaasan needs and gets back in contact - after reading the doctor's report. And then, maybe in December we get a choice of suitable day service centers that would love to stimulate Okaasan's mind and body.
And Okaasan???
She seemed to go along with all of this. The fact that the roads are bad in winter and this will be her way of exercising.
To make sure of that I printed out 3 photographs of our street in winter, piled high with snow...and gave them to Dear Son to use as evidence.
Towards the end of the interview, Okaasan told Dear Son to leave the room and leave her alone with the city office woman! Either embarrassment, or could it be (hopefully) a taking control of the situation for herself? My health. My discussion? That would be good.
Or????? "I hate these people, please find me an air ticket back to Saitama, I must escape them....specially that British woman who interferes in everything.."
That would be good too.
So. The day has come. I really have wanted this day for SO long. Can't tell you how happy I am.
In fact, when I sat with my Dad's body in the funeral home in England 3 years ago, I told Dad "don't worry, we will get Yujiro's mother into day care or something, don't worry about me, it will be ok..." and then I cried a whole lot more. Sitting there with my Dad's body, clutching his favorite chocolate biscuits.
How's that for drama?
I know my Dad and step-mum worried a lot about me and this situation - the stress it was putting me under etc Yujiro's attitude to outside help.
Now, wherever they are - they can rest on this subject.
Maybe.
Of course, we haven't got Okaasan into the bus and into the doors of the day service center yet.
But we are another step nearer.
I didn't leave anything to chance though.
This morning I printed out my friend's translated letter. The one I gave to the doctor. Then I stuffed it in an envelope and rushed to the city office on my way to work at 9.15 am.
Bugger whether the city office care manager thinks I am an over-micro managing Oyomesan. Bugger that. THIS is important to me. I am a big part of the decisions and care of Okaasan, and I want my voice to be heard.
So I delivered it to the care managing desk - actually into the hands of the poor woman who was heading out to see her first client of the day.
She was a worriedly young-looking woman. Kind of social services/librarian type. Would Okaasan walk all over her. Would Okaasan be fooled by her youth into letting her guard down?
I wondered. And wondered. All the way to work.
Shit. Would she show Okaasan the letter, by mistake or on purpose?
In fact, I rushed back into her office to make sure: this letter is for you to read now, NOT for my Okaasan - despite the fact her name is on the envelope.
I was that nervous about it.
No worries. Maybe. She DID talk about the letter to Dear Son in the entrance hall of our house...surprising him a bit (but he is used to his micro-managing woman after all these years...). So, we hope Okaasan didn't hear that conversation!
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
So Happy.
I did it.
Friday, 19 October 2012
And so............
Quiet here tonight.
We are watching baseball, hoping the local team will win this stage of the national championships.
Okaasan is sitting in her room downstairs watching TV.
We had dinner seperatly. We ate first in the kitchen and she stayed in her room. Then after we finished and came upstairs, she went and got food and took it into her room.
The doctor said:
Okaasan scored 15 out of 30 points in the dementia test. Not early stage dementia anymore, pretty advancing dementia. More than we thought.
Even before meeting the doc, when the nurse asked Okaasan: "How often do you have a bath?" she cheerfully said: "Oh, every day!", and when Yujiro corrected her she said:"you don't know because you are out, I have a bath". Of course that could, techincally be true...but it isn't for sure. She always does laundry in the bathroom and leaves the water in the bath, and wet towels around.
That only happens when we TELL her to have a bath, once or twice a week.
The doctor says a recommendation for day care shouldn't be a problem. Dear Son should go back to city office and make the application, she will recommend it.
Phew. All of it.
But for now, we are quiet.
He is feeling down - "I thought I was doing my best for her, I didn't realise how bad she was", and I just feel tired with it all.
Okaasan, who amazingly DID agree to go along to the doctor on her son's direct "in winter, you don't exercise enough, you should go to daycare, but first you must go to a doctor" - I am sure she is feeling tired, stressed and not happy.
So, we'll leave her to have a quiet weekend and hope it all fades in a day or two...and she will come back into her routines.
So. There, we did it. 15 out of 30. It ain't very good. We probably already make allowances for her, because we live with her. She does a good job of covering her confusions about life. But big gaps are developing in her mind.
Back to the baseball. This week was neverending on so many counts.
My weekend starts here.
We are watching baseball, hoping the local team will win this stage of the national championships.
Okaasan is sitting in her room downstairs watching TV.
We had dinner seperatly. We ate first in the kitchen and she stayed in her room. Then after we finished and came upstairs, she went and got food and took it into her room.
The doctor said:
Okaasan scored 15 out of 30 points in the dementia test. Not early stage dementia anymore, pretty advancing dementia. More than we thought.
Even before meeting the doc, when the nurse asked Okaasan: "How often do you have a bath?" she cheerfully said: "Oh, every day!", and when Yujiro corrected her she said:"you don't know because you are out, I have a bath". Of course that could, techincally be true...but it isn't for sure. She always does laundry in the bathroom and leaves the water in the bath, and wet towels around.
That only happens when we TELL her to have a bath, once or twice a week.
The doctor says a recommendation for day care shouldn't be a problem. Dear Son should go back to city office and make the application, she will recommend it.
Phew. All of it.
But for now, we are quiet.
He is feeling down - "I thought I was doing my best for her, I didn't realise how bad she was", and I just feel tired with it all.
Okaasan, who amazingly DID agree to go along to the doctor on her son's direct "in winter, you don't exercise enough, you should go to daycare, but first you must go to a doctor" - I am sure she is feeling tired, stressed and not happy.
So, we'll leave her to have a quiet weekend and hope it all fades in a day or two...and she will come back into her routines.
So. There, we did it. 15 out of 30. It ain't very good. We probably already make allowances for her, because we live with her. She does a good job of covering her confusions about life. But big gaps are developing in her mind.
Back to the baseball. This week was neverending on so many counts.
My weekend starts here.
D-Day
Doctor Day
Dementia Day
Desperate Day
All of the above.
So, I came to work just now and left him at home, faffing around until lunchtime when he will suddenly say to his mother:
"Okaasan, y'know, recently your memory has been not so great, after lunch we are going to talk to a doctor. Be ready at 1.30 pm. Would you like more tofu?"
How would you react?
I think I'd get angry with him, defend myself strongly and then stuff the tofu down his throat and go back to watching the weather channel on TV.
That's what I'd do.
That's what I fear is going to happen.
But I can't do any more. I've brought her and him to this day: the day you actually bring Dementia out into public and ask for help.
He wasn't talking much to me about this today. I showed him the new-patient entry form on the clinic website, he downloaded and printed it out. Then put it in a file and didn't do anything about it yet. I have to stand back and let him take the action from here. He isn't going to do the white lie way. He's going for the truth because he says she will rise to the challenge of proving that she is ok. Proving it by taking an interview test.
I wish I was a fly on the clinic wall today.
My final input was to deliver my letter to the doctor last night. The clinic is just round the corner from my classroom, so on my way home I jumped out of the car and ran across to put it in the mail box - my appeal for help with daycare and my assessment of Okaasan's abilities.
Couldn't find the mail box!!!
WTF???
This business doesn't have a mail box??? Just a glass sliding door? Don't they get letters? I hunted all round the building front, and in the apartment entrance area round the corner. Couldn't find one anyway.
Finally, I managed to slip the envelope under the glass doors into the clinic hallway. Ggyahhhh!!
This is going to be like some movie where the all-important letter slips under the doormat and nobody ever reads it.
Okaasan? All oblivious to what's going to happen to her today. Or, not happen.
We haven't said anything about it at all. If we did, she would fuss and fuss and stress and stress.
But of course, in that sick-pet-getting-perky-at-the-vets-kind-of-a-way she was on GREAT form yesterday.
Came out into the kitchen at breakfast time and greeted me cheerfully, took every single pair of dirty underpants into the bath to wash (but then forgot them all and left them in damp piles around the bathroom), and at dinner was very chatty with us about her husband and his golf playing...how she used to go along with him and sit in the golf clubs studying English and chatting to the caddys (but did repeat the stories several times).
All so normal.
I swear she pops downtown to an Internet cafe and checks this blog, and does this to wind me up.
Dear Son doesn't think she is so bad - he tells me each and every single time she does the washing up - I tell HIM each and every single time she leaves food rotting in her living room.
We trade stories to justify our point of view.
Such is family life around a touchy, health topic.
Haaaah. Let's all just cross our fingers and hope today goes as hoped.
Yesterday, I climbed another mountain of stress and survived. Did a speech in Japanese to the Inner Wheel Club, (the women of Rotary members). 3 weeks in preparation and 30 mins plus questions/answers in delivery.
SO relieved when it was over.
Doing things formally in Japanese is a big challenge for me, despite living here for 20 years. The topic was UK Volunteering...and I concentrated on sponsored events, charity shops and casual, local community volunteering. I think it went ok.
All a blur really. Made a mistake of not taking off my watch and putting it on the table in front of me - so first of all I didn't know how long it was all taking - until I somehow wrangled the watch off (while juggling with the microphone) and got it onto the table.
So elated afterwards. Huge weight off my mind. Came back to the classroom and ate a chocolate pudding to celebrate. Felt giddy-happy for the rest of the day.
Hope I feel giddy-happy later today.
There's a story in Japan at the moment of a woman who murdered many family members over many years and put the bodies under the house. Japanese media are wallowing in it.
Blog readers who know where I live (Heather, Izumi, Kumiko etc): if I don't post anything here for 24 hours after now, pleeeeese come and dig in the garden!
There's no knowing how Okaasan is going to react to being told she needs to see a doctor about a mental health issue.
D-Day.
Dementia Day
Desperate Day
All of the above.
So, I came to work just now and left him at home, faffing around until lunchtime when he will suddenly say to his mother:
"Okaasan, y'know, recently your memory has been not so great, after lunch we are going to talk to a doctor. Be ready at 1.30 pm. Would you like more tofu?"
How would you react?
I think I'd get angry with him, defend myself strongly and then stuff the tofu down his throat and go back to watching the weather channel on TV.
That's what I'd do.
That's what I fear is going to happen.
But I can't do any more. I've brought her and him to this day: the day you actually bring Dementia out into public and ask for help.
He wasn't talking much to me about this today. I showed him the new-patient entry form on the clinic website, he downloaded and printed it out. Then put it in a file and didn't do anything about it yet. I have to stand back and let him take the action from here. He isn't going to do the white lie way. He's going for the truth because he says she will rise to the challenge of proving that she is ok. Proving it by taking an interview test.
I wish I was a fly on the clinic wall today.
My final input was to deliver my letter to the doctor last night. The clinic is just round the corner from my classroom, so on my way home I jumped out of the car and ran across to put it in the mail box - my appeal for help with daycare and my assessment of Okaasan's abilities.
Couldn't find the mail box!!!
WTF???
This business doesn't have a mail box??? Just a glass sliding door? Don't they get letters? I hunted all round the building front, and in the apartment entrance area round the corner. Couldn't find one anyway.
Finally, I managed to slip the envelope under the glass doors into the clinic hallway. Ggyahhhh!!
This is going to be like some movie where the all-important letter slips under the doormat and nobody ever reads it.
Okaasan? All oblivious to what's going to happen to her today. Or, not happen.
We haven't said anything about it at all. If we did, she would fuss and fuss and stress and stress.
But of course, in that sick-pet-getting-perky-at-the-vets-kind-of-a-way she was on GREAT form yesterday.
Came out into the kitchen at breakfast time and greeted me cheerfully, took every single pair of dirty underpants into the bath to wash (but then forgot them all and left them in damp piles around the bathroom), and at dinner was very chatty with us about her husband and his golf playing...how she used to go along with him and sit in the golf clubs studying English and chatting to the caddys (but did repeat the stories several times).
All so normal.
I swear she pops downtown to an Internet cafe and checks this blog, and does this to wind me up.
Dear Son doesn't think she is so bad - he tells me each and every single time she does the washing up - I tell HIM each and every single time she leaves food rotting in her living room.
We trade stories to justify our point of view.
Such is family life around a touchy, health topic.
Haaaah. Let's all just cross our fingers and hope today goes as hoped.
Yesterday, I climbed another mountain of stress and survived. Did a speech in Japanese to the Inner Wheel Club, (the women of Rotary members). 3 weeks in preparation and 30 mins plus questions/answers in delivery.
SO relieved when it was over.
Doing things formally in Japanese is a big challenge for me, despite living here for 20 years. The topic was UK Volunteering...and I concentrated on sponsored events, charity shops and casual, local community volunteering. I think it went ok.
All a blur really. Made a mistake of not taking off my watch and putting it on the table in front of me - so first of all I didn't know how long it was all taking - until I somehow wrangled the watch off (while juggling with the microphone) and got it onto the table.
So elated afterwards. Huge weight off my mind. Came back to the classroom and ate a chocolate pudding to celebrate. Felt giddy-happy for the rest of the day.
Hope I feel giddy-happy later today.
There's a story in Japan at the moment of a woman who murdered many family members over many years and put the bodies under the house. Japanese media are wallowing in it.
Blog readers who know where I live (Heather, Izumi, Kumiko etc): if I don't post anything here for 24 hours after now, pleeeeese come and dig in the garden!
There's no knowing how Okaasan is going to react to being told she needs to see a doctor about a mental health issue.
D-Day.
Tuesday, 16 October 2012
Oyomesan Dementia Scale
No - not me! Yet.
Although, with all the stuff that I am trying to fit into this week my time is probably not far off.
There will have to be major sitting and doing nothing this weekend.
Tonight I found time to try and condense Okaasan's ability level into an easy-read A4 page.
A kind Japanese friend has agreed to do a quick translation job on it, in time for THE doctor meeting on Friday.
So, here it is. Trying to be truthful here. As a general appraisal of Okaasan's abilities. She isn't a gibbering wreck, but she isn't an old lady operating on all cylinders. Some of my students are in their late 70s and early 80s and I notice the difference in their public conversation ability and direction of their lives.
Here is where I think Okaasan is in the autumn of 2012...after almost ...oh shit... FOUR years of living with us! FOUR!! How time flies...
Oyomesan Dementia Scale
Although, with all the stuff that I am trying to fit into this week my time is probably not far off.
There will have to be major sitting and doing nothing this weekend.
Tonight I found time to try and condense Okaasan's ability level into an easy-read A4 page.
A kind Japanese friend has agreed to do a quick translation job on it, in time for THE doctor meeting on Friday.
So, here it is. Trying to be truthful here. As a general appraisal of Okaasan's abilities. She isn't a gibbering wreck, but she isn't an old lady operating on all cylinders. Some of my students are in their late 70s and early 80s and I notice the difference in their public conversation ability and direction of their lives.
Here is where I think Okaasan is in the autumn of 2012...after almost ...oh shit... FOUR years of living with us! FOUR!! How time flies...
Oyomesan Dementia Scale
Thank you for
agreeing to see my mother-in-law.
My main worry is
winter: her dementia becomes worse. She goes out to walk only 2 or 3 times a
week. She cannot judge weather or road conditions. She is home alone 9 am to 6
pm, watching TV or sleeping. My husband is away from home for work 1 week-10
days. I work full-time. 3 nights a week I work until 7 or 8 pm.
Her mental and
physical condition becomes bad, and she is doubly incontinent. She hides soiled
underwear and uneaten food in her room.
She needs once or
twice a week day care mental and physical stimulation.
Her abilities.
Scale 1 – 5 (5 is good)
Going out alone
and returning. 4
( a few occasions of return with
police or neighbors)
Feeding herself. 4
Dressing herself. 4
Body washing 3
(but bathtime and
hair salon must be arranged for her)
Clothes washing 2-3
Room cleaning 2
Cooking 2
Shopping 3
(same purchases day after day, same shops)
Money management 2
Conversation initiation 2
Conversation response 3-4
Single
incontinence (urine) 2
Double
incontinence (feces) Winter 3
Understanding of
TV/newspaper etc 3-4?
(but recently watching weather channel 1 hour etc)
Awareness of “what
did you do today?” 2
Machine use at
home 3
Sleeping at night 2-3
Hallucinations
(winter: stranger at front door) 3
Awareness of
season/month/date 3
Awareness of
time/having eaten lunch etc 3
Yes. It was Me.
Seething in Sapporo....that letter in The Japan Times on Sunday.
Yours truely.
Dementia sufferers need familiarity.
Yours truely.
Dementia sufferers need familiarity.
Friday, 12 October 2012
A doctor date :-)
Dear Blog readers - let us stand and join hands in celebration.
Dear Son has booked an appointment at a doctor's office next week for Okaasan to go along and have the assessment.
Finally.
I feel so lightheaded and happy today - nothing can pull me down. Walking with a spring in my step (despite reoccurring gammy knee) and a silly grin on my face.
Happy.
Yup. We are finally moving towards getting outside help on this situation. This time next week Dear Son will somehow persuade Okaasan to follow him trustingly into a clinic and into a nice, friendly doctor's office where she will do the Hasegawa dementia assessment test interview, and score mild to intermediate - and get recommend as suitable for day care etc etc etc.
ETC!!!!!
This is what I hope. It's very late to get Okaasan all set up for day care this winter as the roads here will be bad 2 months from now, and she may give us many stresses along the way as she fights the change - but I want us to be trying this, and trying it with outside help - a day service staff or city office case worker.
Finally we went with one of the doctors recommended by my student's husband. As I was getting ready for work yesterday I was telling Dear Son to call the clinic - NO! DON'T talk to Okaasan first. No! Clinic first, then a white lie to her on the morning of the visit. No reason to get her all stressy before that.
In movies people have important conversations sitting at a table, in my life I seem to have them dashing around trying to get out of the house for work - hunting for students' homework books, car keys and knee support band..."yes, call that clinic today...no, don't talk to her first....we must do this soon..today.....".
And he did.
All summer I put off activating him on this topic, he put off responding, we've both delayed too long. Finally action.
The clinic looks really nice. And I looked at the web site, the doctor is a woman...the clinic is a small, clean, calm looking place. Unfortunately it is called XX Mental Clinic, which isn't a great name..."mental" gives most people a bad impression and certainly for a Japanese woman of Okaasan's generation.
But maybe Dear Son can distract her at the entrance with chat about a pretty flower display or something....so she misses the word "mental" on the sign board.
The nurse told him that they can do the interview, but don't have the equipment to do CT brain scans. I hope that's unnecessary - Okaasan would never submit to actual machines and drugs and things. A chatty interview just about.
She does have dementia and the interview alone should show that clearly.
I would so, so love to be a fly on the wall of the interview. But I guess it'll just be mother and son...or mother alone with the doc. I wonder if I can burrow down under the building and press a glass against the floorboards?
Oh, great. I so hope this is gonna happen. Yipppppppeeeeeeeee!!!
*...and other doctors..
* I went and did the barium drinking test for a stomach cancer check-up. Not at all as bad as I was expecting. I think the Japanese delicacy of fermented squid guts is far worse. Results in 2 weeks.
* I went and did two lots of physio at the orthopedic hospital for my knee. It's tough love, but obviously good. I need to build up much more strength in my left leg so that the pressure on the knee is reduced. It is scary how seemingly simple exercises are hard when you have to do them 10 or 20 times. I felt exhausted.
But.
But.
But.
Okaasan is going to get assessed for day care or something. Everything else - even the fact that I have to do a 30 minute speech on volunteerism in the Uk to a Rotary ladies lunch IN JAPANESE next week - even that, is doable.
Happpppppy.
You can all let go of eachother's hands now and relax.
Dear Son has booked an appointment at a doctor's office next week for Okaasan to go along and have the assessment.
Finally.
I feel so lightheaded and happy today - nothing can pull me down. Walking with a spring in my step (despite reoccurring gammy knee) and a silly grin on my face.
Happy.
Yup. We are finally moving towards getting outside help on this situation. This time next week Dear Son will somehow persuade Okaasan to follow him trustingly into a clinic and into a nice, friendly doctor's office where she will do the Hasegawa dementia assessment test interview, and score mild to intermediate - and get recommend as suitable for day care etc etc etc.
ETC!!!!!
This is what I hope. It's very late to get Okaasan all set up for day care this winter as the roads here will be bad 2 months from now, and she may give us many stresses along the way as she fights the change - but I want us to be trying this, and trying it with outside help - a day service staff or city office case worker.
Finally we went with one of the doctors recommended by my student's husband. As I was getting ready for work yesterday I was telling Dear Son to call the clinic - NO! DON'T talk to Okaasan first. No! Clinic first, then a white lie to her on the morning of the visit. No reason to get her all stressy before that.
In movies people have important conversations sitting at a table, in my life I seem to have them dashing around trying to get out of the house for work - hunting for students' homework books, car keys and knee support band..."yes, call that clinic today...no, don't talk to her first....we must do this soon..today.....".
And he did.
All summer I put off activating him on this topic, he put off responding, we've both delayed too long. Finally action.
The clinic looks really nice. And I looked at the web site, the doctor is a woman...the clinic is a small, clean, calm looking place. Unfortunately it is called XX Mental Clinic, which isn't a great name..."mental" gives most people a bad impression and certainly for a Japanese woman of Okaasan's generation.
But maybe Dear Son can distract her at the entrance with chat about a pretty flower display or something....so she misses the word "mental" on the sign board.
The nurse told him that they can do the interview, but don't have the equipment to do CT brain scans. I hope that's unnecessary - Okaasan would never submit to actual machines and drugs and things. A chatty interview just about.
She does have dementia and the interview alone should show that clearly.
I would so, so love to be a fly on the wall of the interview. But I guess it'll just be mother and son...or mother alone with the doc. I wonder if I can burrow down under the building and press a glass against the floorboards?
Oh, great. I so hope this is gonna happen. Yipppppppeeeeeeeee!!!
*...and other doctors..
* I went and did the barium drinking test for a stomach cancer check-up. Not at all as bad as I was expecting. I think the Japanese delicacy of fermented squid guts is far worse. Results in 2 weeks.
* I went and did two lots of physio at the orthopedic hospital for my knee. It's tough love, but obviously good. I need to build up much more strength in my left leg so that the pressure on the knee is reduced. It is scary how seemingly simple exercises are hard when you have to do them 10 or 20 times. I felt exhausted.
But.
But.
But.
Okaasan is going to get assessed for day care or something. Everything else - even the fact that I have to do a 30 minute speech on volunteerism in the Uk to a Rotary ladies lunch IN JAPANESE next week - even that, is doable.
Happpppppy.
You can all let go of eachother's hands now and relax.
Friday, 5 October 2012
*#*#?#$
Hear me wilting from there?
####****&%$#$.
The city office says we have to get Okaasan to a hospital and a doctor for the assessment.
+)('&%##$%%&'I(NMJFTYXYRHMN<##%'(P))(''??**`"
Can't type the word I want to type here without Blogger deleting this account for public obscenity reasons.
Okaasan who hates hospitals and doctors, because she knows better than anyone in the whole wide world. Well, Health Guru Nishi-sensei knew a little better. But he's dead. Probably because he refused day care help and his demented mind stopped working. So we can't ask him to help.
I'm so, so so disappointed. Really thought that today it was all finally going to grind into action. Instead, came home from the city office after just 10 minutes, changed my clothes for work and will probably eat a huge amount of chocolate today to comfort myself.
A last ditch effort for help - the husband of one of my students is a psychiatrist. He offered back in the summer that someone from his hospital would do the assessment of Okaasan for us. At home? At the kitchen table over a cup of tea? I hope so. How I hope so.
I've sent my student e mails and stuff and we'll hold our breath. See what her husband thinks. Was it just a kind offer from someone who doesn't know the details of how the system works in Sapporo city? His specialty isn't old people, he was offering to introduce a colleague. Would a home visit assessment from a qualified person be ok? Frustratingly, my friend who is a public health worker near Tokyo says in HER city home assessments are available.
Not in Toyohira ward, Sapporo. Bugger.
The alternative is that this weekend we take Okaasan to a nice local hot spring and have warm friendly, family time...and then Yujiro will spring the topic on her.
He (predictably) wants to go the Total Honesty route: recently you've been having bad memory problems haven't you? Why don't we go along and chat to a nice doctor person and see if you qualify for a nice, friendly day care place this winter, you could go along in a free bus and exercise and meet people and have fun! Couldn't you! That would be nice , wouldn't it!
And she will agree to this. And off she and Dear Son will go next week to a local hospital, and the doctor will say she is Level 2 on the dementia scale, or whatever, and he will recommend the city office make a Care Plan - and we will all skip happily into the sunset.
Or: she will say "I don't need anybody's help, cos I know best", or she will say "Yes" and then get to the doors of a hospital and see the words "Mental" or "Senior" on a sign and refuse to enter the building.
Not fair. Not fair at all. I get it : home assessments are expensive and my taxes would have to increase to support this. Most old people love going to hospitals and talking about themselves to a doctor.
Not ours.
FUCK IT. Hope Blogger doesn't delete me, cos otherwise I will go on a rampage with a large machine gun and take out my frustrations on the 3rd floor of the city office.
####****&%$#$.
The city office says we have to get Okaasan to a hospital and a doctor for the assessment.
+)('&%##$%%&'I(NMJFTYXYRHMN<##%'(P))(''??**`"
Can't type the word I want to type here without Blogger deleting this account for public obscenity reasons.
Okaasan who hates hospitals and doctors, because she knows better than anyone in the whole wide world. Well, Health Guru Nishi-sensei knew a little better. But he's dead. Probably because he refused day care help and his demented mind stopped working. So we can't ask him to help.
I'm so, so so disappointed. Really thought that today it was all finally going to grind into action. Instead, came home from the city office after just 10 minutes, changed my clothes for work and will probably eat a huge amount of chocolate today to comfort myself.
A last ditch effort for help - the husband of one of my students is a psychiatrist. He offered back in the summer that someone from his hospital would do the assessment of Okaasan for us. At home? At the kitchen table over a cup of tea? I hope so. How I hope so.
I've sent my student e mails and stuff and we'll hold our breath. See what her husband thinks. Was it just a kind offer from someone who doesn't know the details of how the system works in Sapporo city? His specialty isn't old people, he was offering to introduce a colleague. Would a home visit assessment from a qualified person be ok? Frustratingly, my friend who is a public health worker near Tokyo says in HER city home assessments are available.
Not in Toyohira ward, Sapporo. Bugger.
The alternative is that this weekend we take Okaasan to a nice local hot spring and have warm friendly, family time...and then Yujiro will spring the topic on her.
He (predictably) wants to go the Total Honesty route: recently you've been having bad memory problems haven't you? Why don't we go along and chat to a nice doctor person and see if you qualify for a nice, friendly day care place this winter, you could go along in a free bus and exercise and meet people and have fun! Couldn't you! That would be nice , wouldn't it!
And she will agree to this. And off she and Dear Son will go next week to a local hospital, and the doctor will say she is Level 2 on the dementia scale, or whatever, and he will recommend the city office make a Care Plan - and we will all skip happily into the sunset.
Or: she will say "I don't need anybody's help, cos I know best", or she will say "Yes" and then get to the doors of a hospital and see the words "Mental" or "Senior" on a sign and refuse to enter the building.
Not fair. Not fair at all. I get it : home assessments are expensive and my taxes would have to increase to support this. Most old people love going to hospitals and talking about themselves to a doctor.
Not ours.
FUCK IT. Hope Blogger doesn't delete me, cos otherwise I will go on a rampage with a large machine gun and take out my frustrations on the 3rd floor of the city office.
Tuesday, 2 October 2012
The final countdown...yeah!
Ok. NOW going-to-the-city-office-to-ask-for-assessment is on the schedule for this Friday.
So it might actually happen.
Come typhoon or earthquake, bubonic plague or meteorite ...he and I will finally ask for help.
He was still doing nothing, and I am despairing of a rainy day forcing him off-work so he'll go to the city office. Last night I told him to TAKE time off work and let's do this thing - get the wheels turning. He agreed and said today, then rescheduled for Friday.
Friday it is then.
I seem to be seeing wispy/vacant old people everywhere at the moment - and comparing them to Okaasan, who trots off happily alone most afternoons for a walk and shop, and comes home to sort of particpate in dinner conversations. Am I over reacting? Is it too early for day care? I guess this is guilt setting in. This will happen (assuming it WILL happen) because of me: I can't cope with Okaasan in the winter. Seeing Okaasan now - when the weather is good and she goes out most days - gives me uncertainty.
She is still pretty able in all things, and our care for her is doable. Frustrating often and funny often, but doable.
I really have to remind myself of the change in winter. When he is away for weeks working and I come home late afternoon to find she hasn't ventured out again. And her mood goes down and down, and the shitty toilet accidents come back, and the hamster wheel conversations.
I need to remind myself of those times.
She needs mental stimulation and physical exercise. She really does. And I need carer support. I really do.
Okaasan DID finally use the found subway card and go downtown again. Sunday afternoon, I was going to the supermarket which is next to the station, just after she'd left the house (okay, so I was kinda following her :-)))
and she trotted into the subway station and thru the ticket gate and off she went.
Later, at dinner, I mentioned downtown: "Did you go downtown today?"
"Downtown? No, I don't think so. I forget. I went to Macdonald's...."
But I'm glad she went and returned ok. There's been a 3 weeks gap since she was there and I wondered if she would be ok about going and returning, whether she would remember it all - but she seemed ok.
In other news: our cats are turning this house into the Horror House of Death. Birds...mice..insects...oh god, it's horrible. I love cats, I really do...but...oh....horrible.
Yesterday Chichi brought a piegon home. A whole pigeon. Yujiro followed the trail of blood upstairs to the corpse at the top. At 5 am Popo got us all awake by growling over his dieing sparrow...and then in the minutes before I went to work 5 hours later - he reappeared with a still squeaking mouse.
I really had to go to work, so I closed all the interior doors and left the chase-to-the-death happening in our utility room.
Came back 4 hours later...and there is NO trace of the mouse! None! No tail, no guts. Nothing. I've looked everwhere. Found two toy mice and a lot of dust. I fear the remains will turn up in my ski boots bag in December, or in the cleaning equipment box when I clean on a Blue Moon.
And my knee. It's back. Bugger.
Three years ago, two years ago - this blog was full of my left knee and its cartilage. I thought it was almost ok now. I ski (slowly), I walk in parks, I can even trot across roads when the lights are about to change. I go to the gym 3 times a week and don't wear knee support so much. Still take a Glucosamine tablet daily.
Two weeks ago I went away for a wonderful weekend trip with my friend and her cute 9 kg plus baby.....obviously I carried him too much. My knee/thigh started aching and aching. I've tried taking it easy....but the is no escaping the fact: it hurts and I am starting to curtail activity again.
Bugger. Oh bugger. Bugger.
I hate this. I am only 51 years old. Will I never get this thing better? It doesn't bode well for me as an old lady...
I'm looking around for a recommended orthopedic doc. An MRI maybe? More of those awful injections??
I hate getting old.
Physical aging problems, like gammy knees, are one thing. Getting dementia is another.
This week a friend who is a big fan of the TEDX lectures sent me a link to this video: a woman describing the steps she is taking to prepare for life if she gets dementia. Have a look, it's very moving and thought-provoking.
Alanna Shaikh talks about Alzheimer's Disease Preparations.
So it might actually happen.
Come typhoon or earthquake, bubonic plague or meteorite ...he and I will finally ask for help.
He was still doing nothing, and I am despairing of a rainy day forcing him off-work so he'll go to the city office. Last night I told him to TAKE time off work and let's do this thing - get the wheels turning. He agreed and said today, then rescheduled for Friday.
Friday it is then.
I seem to be seeing wispy/vacant old people everywhere at the moment - and comparing them to Okaasan, who trots off happily alone most afternoons for a walk and shop, and comes home to sort of particpate in dinner conversations. Am I over reacting? Is it too early for day care? I guess this is guilt setting in. This will happen (assuming it WILL happen) because of me: I can't cope with Okaasan in the winter. Seeing Okaasan now - when the weather is good and she goes out most days - gives me uncertainty.
She is still pretty able in all things, and our care for her is doable. Frustrating often and funny often, but doable.
I really have to remind myself of the change in winter. When he is away for weeks working and I come home late afternoon to find she hasn't ventured out again. And her mood goes down and down, and the shitty toilet accidents come back, and the hamster wheel conversations.
I need to remind myself of those times.
She needs mental stimulation and physical exercise. She really does. And I need carer support. I really do.
Okaasan DID finally use the found subway card and go downtown again. Sunday afternoon, I was going to the supermarket which is next to the station, just after she'd left the house (okay, so I was kinda following her :-)))
and she trotted into the subway station and thru the ticket gate and off she went.
Later, at dinner, I mentioned downtown: "Did you go downtown today?"
"Downtown? No, I don't think so. I forget. I went to Macdonald's...."
But I'm glad she went and returned ok. There's been a 3 weeks gap since she was there and I wondered if she would be ok about going and returning, whether she would remember it all - but she seemed ok.
In other news: our cats are turning this house into the Horror House of Death. Birds...mice..insects...oh god, it's horrible. I love cats, I really do...but...oh....horrible.
Yesterday Chichi brought a piegon home. A whole pigeon. Yujiro followed the trail of blood upstairs to the corpse at the top. At 5 am Popo got us all awake by growling over his dieing sparrow...and then in the minutes before I went to work 5 hours later - he reappeared with a still squeaking mouse.
I really had to go to work, so I closed all the interior doors and left the chase-to-the-death happening in our utility room.
Came back 4 hours later...and there is NO trace of the mouse! None! No tail, no guts. Nothing. I've looked everwhere. Found two toy mice and a lot of dust. I fear the remains will turn up in my ski boots bag in December, or in the cleaning equipment box when I clean on a Blue Moon.
And my knee. It's back. Bugger.
Three years ago, two years ago - this blog was full of my left knee and its cartilage. I thought it was almost ok now. I ski (slowly), I walk in parks, I can even trot across roads when the lights are about to change. I go to the gym 3 times a week and don't wear knee support so much. Still take a Glucosamine tablet daily.
Two weeks ago I went away for a wonderful weekend trip with my friend and her cute 9 kg plus baby.....obviously I carried him too much. My knee/thigh started aching and aching. I've tried taking it easy....but the is no escaping the fact: it hurts and I am starting to curtail activity again.
Bugger. Oh bugger. Bugger.
I hate this. I am only 51 years old. Will I never get this thing better? It doesn't bode well for me as an old lady...
I'm looking around for a recommended orthopedic doc. An MRI maybe? More of those awful injections??
I hate getting old.
Physical aging problems, like gammy knees, are one thing. Getting dementia is another.
This week a friend who is a big fan of the TEDX lectures sent me a link to this video: a woman describing the steps she is taking to prepare for life if she gets dementia. Have a look, it's very moving and thought-provoking.
Alanna Shaikh talks about Alzheimer's Disease Preparations.
Wednesday, 26 September 2012
Scoring dementia.
I've been hunting around the Internet wondering WHAT kind of assessment the city office might use with Okaasan....dreaming, dreaming of the day they come and do it.
There is something called the Hasegawa Dementia Scale, which has been used in Japan for years and revised. It seems to be 11 questions - some factual like "What's the date today?" and some ability tests "Can you count backwards/remember 5 items".
In quiet moments between lessons I've been looking at the questions and wondering how Okaasan would score. A total of 30 points, with anything under 15 being a stage of dementia and a score of 15-20 being an early sign of it.
This assuming she would agree to talk to a person doing this kind of test...
I can imagine her getting annoyed and leaving the room and shouting at all of us.
I HOPE they do it with some gentle, common-sense.
1. Dates - Okaasan is pretty bad at that.
2. Where are you? 2.5 points.
3. Age? 2 points.
4. How long since? Maybe bad.
5. Birthplace. No problem.2 points.
6. Dates of public events? Maybe ok. 3.5 points.
7. Days/Minutes. hmmmm
8. Prime Minister? Maybe ok, does ANYONE in Japan remember who it is right now? 3 points.
9. Subtractions. Maybe ok. Okaasan was a book keeper long ago. 6 points.
10. Repeat backwards...um...maybe no.
11. Remember items...maybe no.
Well, that's a score of 18....maybe.
The thing is, Okaasan is pretty good on short conversations - I am really hoping that the fact of both Yujiro and I working full time, and him being away in winter - so she is alone with a foreigner speaking strange Japanese - I hope THOSE facts will get us into day care.
And this is bad....I was thinking of getting her to a hair salon soon....but I thought it could wait until after the assessment, because she looks so much worse with her long, straggly hair unbrushed and all a bit crazy.......
That's bad of me. But I stated that at the start of this Blog. I am no angel. Devious is my middle name.
Today I went shopping for Okaasan: bought some new underpants and a pair of black trousers to replace the damaged ones. And got the dry cleaning for her. Clothes duties.
And the Aloe yogurt frenzy continues. We have 4 packs of it in the fridge at the moment. Okaasan buys it every time she goes out....
Cross fingers that the assessment happens, that she scores badly enough to get into day care....and that it happens with a nice city office person persuading Okaasan that "wouldn't it be nice...?"
There is something called the Hasegawa Dementia Scale, which has been used in Japan for years and revised. It seems to be 11 questions - some factual like "What's the date today?" and some ability tests "Can you count backwards/remember 5 items".
In quiet moments between lessons I've been looking at the questions and wondering how Okaasan would score. A total of 30 points, with anything under 15 being a stage of dementia and a score of 15-20 being an early sign of it.
This assuming she would agree to talk to a person doing this kind of test...
I can imagine her getting annoyed and leaving the room and shouting at all of us.
I HOPE they do it with some gentle, common-sense.
1. Dates - Okaasan is pretty bad at that.
2. Where are you? 2.5 points.
3. Age? 2 points.
4. How long since? Maybe bad.
5. Birthplace. No problem.2 points.
6. Dates of public events? Maybe ok. 3.5 points.
7. Days/Minutes. hmmmm
8. Prime Minister? Maybe ok, does ANYONE in Japan remember who it is right now? 3 points.
9. Subtractions. Maybe ok. Okaasan was a book keeper long ago. 6 points.
10. Repeat backwards...um...maybe no.
11. Remember items...maybe no.
Well, that's a score of 18....maybe.
The thing is, Okaasan is pretty good on short conversations - I am really hoping that the fact of both Yujiro and I working full time, and him being away in winter - so she is alone with a foreigner speaking strange Japanese - I hope THOSE facts will get us into day care.
And this is bad....I was thinking of getting her to a hair salon soon....but I thought it could wait until after the assessment, because she looks so much worse with her long, straggly hair unbrushed and all a bit crazy.......
That's bad of me. But I stated that at the start of this Blog. I am no angel. Devious is my middle name.
Today I went shopping for Okaasan: bought some new underpants and a pair of black trousers to replace the damaged ones. And got the dry cleaning for her. Clothes duties.
And the Aloe yogurt frenzy continues. We have 4 packs of it in the fridge at the moment. Okaasan buys it every time she goes out....
Cross fingers that the assessment happens, that she scores badly enough to get into day care....and that it happens with a nice city office person persuading Okaasan that "wouldn't it be nice...?"
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