A little void?

Quiet weekend, home with Okaasan and the cats.
He was away. My friend with Cutest Baby has moved back to the mainland to start work again.
I had a quiet weekend to myself.

Took Okaasan to the subway station to release her downtown and she walked home on her own from the station, the snow has almost melted in the streets now. I hope we don't have lots of negative chat about "why do I go to day care in summer, I can exercise by walking now!" Dear Son says: You go because you enjoy it, so you go. You a bath and lunch there. I may have to gear myself up to sound convincing on that.

I left her lunches in flasks on the kitchen table and took myself off to the gym, and the other day to see a movie with a friend.
But did Oyomesan duty and had dinner with Okaasan 3 nights in a row.

Is it my imagination? Or are her long ago stories becoming less? Maybe I just don't give her enough key information to get her started on them?
The New York - Korean food - Australia - Ayre's Rock climbing - Wartime food shortages - Cookery School - Ishihara Yujiro house -Flower arrangement classes stories. They were so familiar - I haven't actually heard any of them for a while this winter.

This weekend I think we talked about rich Chinese people coming to Hokkaido on holiday (it's a daily topic now), weather, spring, cherry blossoms, food, cats. I talked, she responded. If I don't start a conversation, she says nothing.

Hmm. Will have to try and prompt her into those old stories. I can't believe they've actually gone. Have they?

#  The TV went blank again. I found Okaasan sitting there looking at it. Not sure how long she'd been doing that. Lots of jokes while I got it working again. The TV is on sooooo much, it's probably dieing.

April. New start time in Japan.

For me at work I have a new class, some new students.
And I have replaced Friend with Cutest Baby - with a kayak! I can see it under blue sheets at the side of the house as the snow melts. Kayak time will be here in late spring.....kayak...kayak...

Two's company...

"Love me tender!
"Love me true!"

As channelled my inner Elvis at the dinner table last night by serenading Okaasan across the dinner table last night, I thought: "God, I'm good at this!"

Another dinner, another day, another week with Okaasan.

Came home between classes to prep dinner and feed cats. Okaasan was heading out for a walk wearing a lively combination of house coat, 3 T-shirts, a scarf, a hat and a coat.
"Is this ok? Maybe in Tokyo no, but Sapporo isn't so formal, is it?".
Always, the asking for advice about clothing. I think Tokyo and Sapporo has the same standards of crazy-old-lady-combinations - but I just smiled and let her go. As long as she is warm it doesn't matter what she wears.
After she left I went into her room to tidy up a little and take out trash. Process more laundry.
Out to an evening class.
Home in a snow storm to get fish, rice, vegetables, soup on the table.

Cast around for a topic to chat about: did the Japanese Prime Minister speak English with President Obama? Few years ago Prime Minister Koizumi performed Elvis for Bush....Elvis....like Japan's old star Ishihara Yujiro...Ahh HA!
Ishihara Yujiro! BINGO!
I used to go to a healthy food cooking school in Tokyo and someone told me that Ishihara Yujiro's home was nearby, and I told my husband, and he wasn't interested in famous people, but even HE came to look at the house - because Ishihara was so famous!

Repeat for - oh...about 10 times.....and no, that isn't an exageration - she really  did repeat that story 10 times. Until I started clearing plates and muttering about "cats outside still" and "must prep tomorrow's classes".

Like the game 7 Degrees of Kevin Bacon, talking to Okaasan is much easier if you can find a way onto one of her fave topics. The cooking school and Ishihara's house, and the husband coming to look at it is a fave topic.
I am getting so good at getting her onto these hamster wheels.

Onwards.
These times alone with all the responsibility are a bit tough. I have to plan it all carefully and make sure there is time for all the must do stuff and the want to do stuff.
And then there is snow. Had 23 cm of it again yesterday. Endless snow clearing...endless.

Onwards. Endless.
Ishihara Yujiro had a home near my cooking school, and my husband came to look at it....

Repeat after me.

aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Looking deeep inside

Off to hospital this morning to submit myself to a stomach camera.
Hoping the docs and nurses will knock me out with lots of drugs.
Lots.
Yuk.
I feel it is "nothing much", just a sack or a blip, or a benign something. But of course, you wonder: is this the day I discover I have a serious condition. Is this the start of a round of treatments and worry?

That's how the multiplying ovary problem started out 2 years ago. First a bit fat, maybe a worm infestation from the cats? Something a bit odd. Oh, have got a day of no work so the chance to check it out at hospital - and suddenly the world of ovaries and operations hit me.

Ha.

Doing my usual running-like-headless-chicken routine in a working week. Keeping all the balls in the air. Work/Shopping/Cooking/Okaasan/Snow Clearing/Cats/End of Year cards and shopping. Thankgoodness for taxies - getting to all the places I am meant to be at the right time. I am taking the taxi money out of Okaasan's spending money store - cos I am a headless chicken because of her.
She has just stayed all nice and quiet at home with the TV. Sapporo has had stunning amounts of snow.

 

I have a question for any of you blog readers - cos I know there are some dementia-experienced people here...

 

Does anyone know: does writing a letter to a dementia sufferer help them understand something?

 

Long conversations with Okaasan seem so pointless. She can't remember the start of the conversation, and often just responds to an idea or word at the very end of it.

She doesn't know WHY this conversation is happening.

I often wonder if a letter - laying out the reasons that Going to Daycare Is a Good Idea in Winter - would be better?

Then she could sit and read it, look at it, many, many times...and kind of debate it in her own mind.

 

One big frustration for me is that Okaasan is very interested in her own health and the importance of exercise. She knows the roads are snowy and dangerous. But connection those ideas and looking at the day service going as an option seems impossible in conversation.

 

What do you think? Has anyone tried this?

We leave messages on a little whiteboard for Okaasan: We are out with foreign guests, here is your dinner. Please eat this. etc

But would a longer letter be an idea?

 

It's too late this year. The Day Service manager man will come again on Friday and talk to Dear Son and Okaasan again. She will tell them all about the Saitama culture school and its rooms on the second floor and how her husband wouldn't let her work, so she tried many classes. And they will talk. And she will tell them about culture school in Saitama....

But I wonder about a letter?

Conversation blackhole.

Strrrrrretching my skills as a language teacher this week - I've had 3 dinners in a row alone with Okaasan cos Yujiro was working till late with a regular taxi customer.
Hard.
Making conversation with Okaasan.
First two nights were okay I guess: we got on to some topic that brought back lots of memories for her and off she chatted, while I eyed how slowly she was eating and moved stuff round my plate endlessly to make the time go quicker.
I think we had drinking-milk-as-a-child memories - and that was okay round and round for all of dinner.


But last night - oh it was grim.
Nothing I said seemed to get her chatting. I tried cherry blossoms, spring, fish, asparagus, flowers, Boys' Day Festivals, Tornado....it went on and on...just felt that every topic was falling into a black hole.
She wasn't unfriendly - far from it - but she never picked up the topic and returned it. Just smiled at me and glanced around the kitchen.
Like one-sided tennis.
She of course never introduces a topic, never tells us something from her day or TV...so it has to come from us. And sometimes she doesn't even do anything with what we say.
I wonder how much is to do with me struggling along in my second language Japanese? But last night she didn't seem to pick up on any of the possible conversation balls I was serving and start talking herself. All black hole.


It was exhausting. Finally I started washing up my plates and made excuses about checking the cats and prepping classes - and left her still eating at the table.
Tonight - oh joy!! I have an evening class and can escape. Leave dinner for her on the table and eat out alone - or bring something home later.


If this gets much worse, and I expect it will, I shall start PAYING my students to have conversations with me....