Finally. Hospital.

Help has arrived. Finally.

Dear Son finally got real and agreed that a hospital should look at his 86 year old mother who is groaning in pain in diapers on the soiled living room carpet.....finally.


I'm relieved.

True: yesterday she did manage to sit up for a short time and drink tea. And she lay down again on the other side. And she ate some rice and milk. All good.....so we don't think it's a huge emergency.

But.


She stayed in the same position on the carpet after that. As we tried to change the diapers again this morning she was crying out in pain and slapping us away....

And Dear Son looked at me. And I sighed. And he agreed.
What IS it with him and this hospital aversion? Why oh why? He pressures me to take the cats to the vets if they have the slightest problem - why won't he respond naturally for his own mother?

As the ambulance staff were taking notes and checking Okaasan - one of them asked me about the situation.

"Saturday? She fell on Saturday? Why did you call us today???"

Why indeed. I felt guilty. While I don't wish bad things on Okaasan, I hope a doctor or somebody says to Dear Son: you should have brought her here earlier. Why didn't you?

Okaasan was ok with the ambulance guys. Didn't remember the fall and the past 4 days of course. But grudgingly agreed that maybe an X-ray was a good idea etc. She let them take her. They talked kindly and professionally.

So. They've gone. I have a big day of work ahead. 7 classes and stuff. 


And a really soiled carpet to take to the dry cleaners. Finally.

And waiting...

Waiting for the miracle self-healing thing to work.

She is still on her side on the carpet, under a heated blanket.

We are giving her water to drink, and yesterday managed to get her to eat a small dried persimmon and a bit of a rice ball.

Interesting. The whole "I'm sick so I don't eat" mantra was less yesterday. I put a nicely warmed up rice ball on a plate and put it 10 cm from her nose..

"What's that? I ate, didn't I? I ate dinner, didn't I?"
 Really, she had no idea whether she'd eaten or not - and once the food was there within easy reach and she could put some in her mouth - she did :-) 

But we are changing her diapers because she hasn't sat upright or walked since Saturday night. Now it is Tuesday morning. Diaper change was fairly easy. She just lay there and let us do it - a messy job...but we never had a baby, so this is our shared couple-experience...

By coincidence: last night student came to class and told me that over the recent public holiday her 81 year old mother had tried out a family member's balance ball...at 11 pm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...and lost control of the ball - falling 5 steps down the house stairs!!

She was badly winded and in pain. But finally managed, with help, to stand and walk to her bed. Next morning she couldn't move at all and was taken to hospital. Broken lumbar. Is now in hospital 3 weeks and wearing a corset.....

Hoping......it isn't this. But I wouldn't be surprised.....

I told Dear Son this story and we talked a bit.
He said that if she isn't moving any more by tomorrow...he will take other steps...

goood.

Waiting....

Out...and down :-(

And. Another fall.
How many times can an old lady fall down without seriously injuring herself? We are finding out.
Not sure MY nerves can stand the stress, though.

It was a beautiful day - getting warm, sunshine and springy.
I called Okaasan from the office at 2 pm. Told her the weather was great and that now was the time to go for a walk. I'd given her some money at breakfast time.

So. A little surprised, and worried that I got home at 6.10 pm and she was out. Now the spring day had turned dark and cold.
Tracked her on the GPS and saw that she was near the local MacDonald s. I called her and told her to come home soon for dinner. I asked about her legs and she claimed she was fine and didn't need a ride in the car.

THEN I realised her winter coat was still hanging in her room. She'd gone out wearing a blouse and a cardigan?
So I jumped in the car and went looking for her, in the evening rush hour. Couldn't find her and had left my phone on the kitchen table.

So, back home. Started cooking dinner...waited. Checked the GPS again....finally near 7 pm could see her on the GPS in the next street.
Waited. 10 minutes, she didn't return.

I walked outside to look: found her sitting in the dark, cold street - with legs nearly drawn up in front of her...like a prim girl sitting at a picnic.
84 years old and sitting in the street at 7 pm on a March night in 5 C.

She seemed ok though. Kept saying it was too soon to stand up,  getting testy with me for worrying. I brought a chair out of the house  so she could get to her feet. Then took her hand firmly and walked her inside.
Gave her dinner - and watched her do the whole tea/water/powder/cold water/hot water dance while the food got cold on the table.

Finally I escaped.

Luckily, luckily she seems ok. I haven't seen her body - I am sure there will be bruises/cuts from falling on the road surface. But no broken bones. Amazing, really.

What could I have done differently?
Is it too soon for her to walk alone outside?

I should have hunted for her more in the car and brought her home. That's for sure. Despite her refusal of a lift. My decision making about her ability is better than her own ability.
I should have called her again at 2.30 pm to make sure she really WAS going out for a walk in daylight?

We shouldn't be letting her walk out alone yet?

aghhh..........have to talk to DS (who is away at a ski resort for 4 days)....

Mean thought of the Day: I wish she WOULD injure herself and end up in hospital. Life would be easier.

Can't say that anywhere else....but here.....

Walking again

Son and mother have just gone out for a Sunday afternoon walk round the neighborhood.

She is better again. A few rough days, still not eating lots. But much brighter and, most importantly, she can get up off the carpet and stand unaided. Walk to the toilet. Walk to the kitchen table.
Today is the first time out since the fall last week.

So, there was 48 hours of DS having to pick her up off the carpet. Standing behind her with his arms under her arms and pulling her upright. I can't do that.
She is out of diapers and back into her own underwear. And changing herself.

So yes - it is good this fall happened while he is here to see the results and imagine what it would be like if I was here alone.

Before he goes to Tokyo I will get the contact numbers of the day service people. They will be my first call. Out of hours, or a real emergency it will be an ambulance.

And yes - probably a GREAT idea to get a letter of authorization from him to say that he recognises I am responsible for her care and that over her wishes I can decide to get her to a hospital.
He does feel that generally - although I think we disagree at one point a hospital may be necessary. But heavens - it is ONLY a hospital! We are not talking here about committing her to a mental institution. Only hospital. For like...oh I don't know - care and comfort?

And Okaasan?
Doesn't really remember that she fell down. Sometimes she does (because we've told her), but generally no memory of that.

Onwards into winter. This will be our SIXTH winter with Okaasan.
I started this blog in 2008, when Okaasan came to live with us.
And here we are 6 years later.

And I am still trying to perfect my miso soup.

:-)

Another fall

Mid-afternoon, Dear Son is  watching TV because his summer job is finished and November is his off month. I'm away at work. Okaasan is out for a walk.

He hears the door bell.
Looks outside and sees an AMBULANCE.
???????
"Is this KN's home? We brought her home. She fell down and couldn't stand up...but she refuses to go to hospital and she doesn't appear to be seriously injured. So we brought her home."

Fall. Again. Somewhere locally, because she had only been out for an hour or so and hasn't been downtown for a month or more.

Looks like no injuries. Amazing really, to fall at 84 years old and not get injured.
But because she couldn't/wouldn't stand up somebody called at ambulance.

She doesn't seem so bad. He helps her into her room and she says she'll eat a little later.
He comes to pick me up from work because we had a discount ticket for a local curry place. We go early for dinner. It's near home.
3/4 thru dinner his phone rings. Okaasan wants to go to the toilet, but can't stand up.
He leaves the table and the restaurant and drives home quickly. Helps her. Comes back to finish his food. Then we return.

Cue evening...and now an early morning.... of DS in full-on carer mode with his mother. She says she has constipation. He actually tried to um...give her two suppositories...and helped her to and from the toilet, half carrying her...and changed her diapers twice...and kept a running monologue of kind, helpful, encouraging words.
Really he did. Is doing. Great. I am just a bystander.

Giving someone a suppository is the ultimate service.
I know. Cos I did it for him earlier this year...

She says her knee hurts. Again. She is very nervous about putting any weight on it. Can't haul herself up off the carpet really.
Same old. But at least this time she is letting him put his arms under her arms and haul her up and around.

It is good it happened this week.
Next week he goes away for 5 days to Tokyo to see old friends.
It is very good for him to experience this with her - and imagine what it would be like if he wasn't here.
So I am staying as the bystander on this. Just taking out the trash bags and making sympathetic noises.

Over Managing

Guilty of over managing. Again.
Hair salon appointment this time.

Okaasan looks like a horror movie extra, and long overdue for a hair cut and perm. One of the things of dementia? She never really ever brushes her hair. Sometimes she doesn't really even wash it. So always straggly and unkempt.

Among the million of things I have to do this week, I went into the nice salon downtown and made an appointment for her. Made sure that there will be female staff this time. 4 months ago when Okaasan last went there she complained after about the young men stylists and said it was hard to talk to them.
Then she found a just open salon near our home, which had a discount price. And...another male stylist. She's been there twice...or 3 times.

But I booked her in with the salon downtown.
Because? Her reason for quitting was odd - specially as she changed to a place with only a male stylist. And one of my students recommended this place. And she went there happily for two years etc.

But then DS found Okaasan with a discount coupon for the local salon: "I have to go here by tomorrow for the discount!" she demanded. The salon advertises in the newspaper, so the information was there in her hands.

Of course, HE then gets on at me about why I am ignoring her wishes about which salon to go to.....saying that if she's been to this one two or three times, she must be satisfied etc.

It's true. Why am I trying to force MY way of doing it on her? Over managing.

So. Cancelled the place downtown. Went in and booked the local place for Monday. Told Okaasan. Wrote it on the calender for her. Will make sure she gets there next week.

As I've said before, this balancing act of helping and managing and giving her independence is one of the harder aspects of our relationship.
She does need someone to step in and make the appointment and get her out of the house on the right day and time, and give her enough money for the salon. Left alone she wouldn't do it. She has the salon number. She has a telephone. She has no schedule every day. But she wouldn't make an appointment.
So we have to do it for her. But trying to remember to follow her wishes.
I'm bad at that.

* Falling down in sympathy.
I fell down last night in the car park outside work. I stepped off a small step onto a small, raised manhole cover. In the dark. In heels. Trying to judge my Halloween window decorations.
Crashed face first. Badly grazed my knee, hands. Swollen lip. Luckily didn't break my glasses. Got home and feel tender today.
I'm 53 and feel tender today - Okaasan falls like this a few times a year. She is in her 80s. I have sympathy for how she must feel.

Pain pain pain

So.
Was going to be a blog posting about Okaasan suddenly announcing: "I have no money, I'm going to take this ring downtown and sell it!".

But, instead.

Early evening she was still downtown and we started the phonecalls to her to remind her to come home for dinner.

I have leg/knee pain and can't stand or walk. 
Get a taxi?
I can't go downstairs from the coffee shop.
Ask the staff to help you.
I can do it myself. I have to go to the toilet.
...............
Ok now? Ask the staff to help you, get a taxi home.
I can't stand. I need the toilet.

Repeat over the next 30 mins. Same conversation.

Finally I drove downtown to get her.
She was sitting outside the coffee shop. With lots of pain in her left knee and arm. I helped her, agonizingly into the car.

The coffee shop staff said she'd come in around her usual time, and mentioned "falling". But had somehow gone to the second floor of the coffee shop as usual! And then got stuck.

Came home.
It's my rheumatism. It suddenly comes. Fall? Me? No, I didn't fall. It's rheumatism.
DS helped her from the car, painfully, agonizingly the 5 meters to the front door steps.
To the entrance hall chair.

Where she sat.
And sat.
I don't need dinner. I can stand myself. Just give me time. I don't need any help.

So we sat in the kitchen and ate our dinner.
Okaasan sat in the entrance hall.
The cats peered at her round the door frame.

We finished dinner. Washed up. She was still in the entrance hall.

Remembering the past situation we decided to lift her ON the chair.
Between the two of us we can just about do it. Okaasan weighs..what? 55 kg maybe?
With her screaming in agony and moaning we huff and puff the chair across the entrance hall, thru one door and to the toilet door.

I can do it myself! I can stand!

Okaasan then sits on the chair 1 meter from the toilet - for the next TWO hours.
Refusing help. Fighting help.

We go upstairs and watch a DVD. Come down sometimes to give her drinks of water. Get only refusal of any offers of help.

Come 10.30 pm our movie has finished.
We push the chair right up against the toilet, Okaasan is trying to hold onto the towel rail to pull herself up. Can't. 
Finally. Finally - DS puts his arms under her arms and hauls - really hauls her onto the toilet.
Screams of agony.

I am making telephone gestures to him and mouthing the word H-O-S-P-I-T-A-L-!! and he is shaking his head.

Then another struggle to get her off the toilet. He is standing behind her - between her back and the toilet, I am trying to position the chair as close as possible at the front. Then we are dragging the chair, lifting the chair out of the toilet - into the kitchen - into her room...and Okaasan is finally finally slipping/falling off the chair, onto the sofa and down onto the carpet.
Crying out in pain constantly.

It was a looong evening.
From 7.45 pm to midnight.

And then, just now we  were all awake at 6 am and we've done it again.
Carpet to chair. Chair carried/dragged to the toilet. And all the way back again.

But - we have managed to persuade her to put on the old people diaper pants. Because he can take the day off work today. I can't. He can't get her to the toilet alone. It's the first time she has agreed to let us put her into them.


I know. Hospital would be a really good idea.
Maybe she did fall downtown. There are no external wounds. Her knee looks swollen. And this time her arm or hand - or both - are painful. It suggests she fell and put out her arm to break the fall.
But it's the old story. Utter refusal by Okaasan and her supported by DS to even consider help.
At one point last night I was half way up the stairs to the telephone to call the ambulance myself. Trying to remember the emergency number in Japan - then she cried out and he shouted at me to come help again, and I was back downstairs in chair-lifting mode.

And so - here we are again.

I actually wish this would happen when he isn't here. Then I could just call the ambulance myself and get professionals involved. I don't care if she is angry with me. I don't understand why he lets her decide the course of inaction.

So. Here we are.

Recovery mode

Okaasan seems ok after the stresses of Sunday - physically after her fall and mentally/emotionally after the angery and stress.

He was working Monday night, so I came home from work and cooked up BBQ leftovers into a semblance of a dinner and sat quietly with Okaasan chatting about this and that. She did many repeats in her chat, but seemed happy enough. More focused on the two flies in the kitchen than on the food on the plate.
She'd taken herself out for a walk downtown in the afternoon - so there isn't any physical problem.

We guess.

Mind, you....my first class on Monday monring has an 80 plus lady in it and SHE came to class this week with her arm in a sling and a bandaged wrist: she fell and cracked the wrist...but didn't realise there was a problem till 24 hours later when it swelled up!
Of course my head was full of Okaasan and the latest fall...I checked her hands etc and asked her, but she seems ok.
I think we are on borrowed time with these falls. How many times can an 80 year old fall down until it is a serious injury...so far only bruises and cuts.
i'm wondering if we can change the steps outside the front door, so it is safer for her?

Okaasan went off to day care today and I asked the staff to check her body when they are helping her at bathtime....it's SO lucky that she is going there and having a bath. Here at home she was taking a bath by herself (after we'd told her to do so and preppped everything) - so there was no chance for us to check her body for injury. But at day care it's a big Japanese style bath and the staff can be in the same room with Okaasan helping her with clothes etc.

How much longer can these falls be lucky?

Anger, anger...

NOT a good day for Okaasan.
Brilliant day for us.

I am sure we will pay for it somehow.

She sat ready all morning to escape our BBQ party. We'd arranged for a lunchbox delivery for Okaasan, so that we didn't have to do her lunch prepping just as guests were arriving for the BBQ. Seemed liked a good idea...we kept telling her, so she  wouldn't go out.
Also kept telling her that she didn't NEED to go out, that she could just sit and have her normal day with the TV etc...tried.

But the delivery didn't arrive at 12 o'clock.
Instead the temperature rose, the noise in the garden rose...and Okaasan's hunger and tension matched it all. I started giving her food from the BBQ on little plates....and she got stressier and stressier.
Finally at 12.45 pm she decided to evacuate. Pretty unhappy with all of us. Pretty rude to me when I checked to make sure she had money for outside food purchase.

The fact is, with our house layout - Okaasan could just stay in her rooms and use the toilet without hardly seing the BBQ. But she could hear people arriving and hear the alcohol-juiced noise.

At 1.20 pm the delivery lady arrived with the lunchbox. We complained a bit.
"Oh! The lady we deliver to said later was ok, she said she was always home and not doing anything and that anytime was ok, 1 pm or anytime!".

agghhh.......THAT'S why the lunchbox delivery has often been late recently!
Okaasan herself had told the delivery people that "anytime is ok".
But it isn't. Really isn't. She doesn't eat breakfast and usually has lunch anytime after 11 am.....
Okaasan unknowingly made her own life harder by saying her usual little spiel of food-isn't-important-to-me-anytime-I-once-didn't-eat for-a-year-and-look-at-me-I'm-healthy...

So, standing in our garden with a BBQ party in full blast around us we set the nice delivery lady straight and asked her in future to follow instructions by the customer who pays: Dear Son, and not the person who eats....

Then....BBQ....................

Not sure how many people came - awesome BBQ though. A good mix of people, food and drink - and various friends meeting eachother for the first time - oh YOU are that person on Facebook comments! etc - and the crazy noisy man two streets away came and shouted at us, and the neighborhood kids came to hang...and the sun blazed...and the whole upper body and head heat rash I've had since Friday blazed too....

About 2.30 pm Okaasan came home, surprisingly soon. Seemed more settled.
She walked thru the party to the front door, saying "Hello" to people. Headed for the steps.

And fell. Staggered and fell into the flower bed.
Huge gasp from our guests and the strongest guy rushed forward to pick her up...bruises and little cuts only...maybe...LUCKILY about 20 cm away from the stone garden ornament carved by my Dad.
Wouldn't that be darkly ironic, if my late father's stone bird was instrumental in seriously injuring my partner's mum???

So, I got her inside and settled in her room with the fan, a cool towel and the TV....

BBQ...................

6.45 pm I start prepping Okaasan's dinner (actually replating the uneaten lunch box).Okaasan saying "Yes" to wanting dinner.
Then"No", then "Yes".
Then angry about the guests still being outside...worried about the neighbors, worried about the noise, worried, angry, DON'T want dinner....angry...angry....

We get rid of the guests by 8 pm...and finally Okaasan comes to the table to eat food in silence.

And we have a garden and house full of BBQ stuff to clean.....

Next year? What do with her?
One year I bought her a ticket to go to a jazz concert while we were having a party, but that kind of plan also means she would be fussing to leave the house amid a kitchen full of BBQ prepping AND she might need help getting to the place.
Aggghh...

Obviously make sure her lunch is ready at 12.
But you can't send BBQ guests home much earlier than 8 pm.
We have one big BBQ party a year and Okaasan just has to lump it...but...but...she hates the whole thing.

I'm sure there will be repercussions of her anger this week. Hopefully just emotional angst from the anger and nothing seriously physical from the fall.

Truth will...out...maybe...

Okaasan has been tired recently.
We first noticed it at our family walk round a city park, when the lady who often spends several hours walking round shops downtown seemed tired after a short stroll.
Then last week there was the strange story about going to an ears, nose, throat hospital again and the aybe connected tooth ache...which seemed to get better again. I am due to go to the dentist soon and I think I'll take Okaasan with me for a check this week or next.

And this Sunday evening, she told us an old leg injury/pain had come back again and she felt tired in the legs.
"Did you fall down?"
"No! I didn't fall, it's an old problem....I won't eat any dinner, it'll get better".

And so we left her.
She was getting up off the carpet and going to the bathroom ok, getting herself a cup of water etc. Didn't seem a big deal.
Monday she took herself out to the local MacDonald's for a coffee and a magazine read. Called to be picked up in the car....legs feel tired....

This morning was hula day at day care. We didn't think she'd go.
At 7 am - "yes, I'm going...what time is the car coming?"
At 8.30 am - "I'm not going. My leg is tired. I slipped and hurt my leg...."

"?????????? you slipped? When? But you said you didn't fall!"
"I didn't fall. I slipped.The ground was rough in the street, I slipped..."
"Slipped. Fall. Same thing really. You were on the ground, not standing up.!!"

She peeled back her pajamas and I could see a bit of a bruise on her hip....not a big injury, but maybe now beginning to feel sore.

Cancel day care again.

It really IS a lesson for us in how me must keep asking the checking questions with Okaasan. She may not remember clearly just after something has happened, and her talking about it may connect to something way back in her memory - not to something that happened this week.
We guess she slipped and FELL on Sunday between 3 and 6 pm on that trip out.
Probably on Sunday night she didn't have much pain and just had a vague memory of something to do with her legs - and told us "old leg problem".
On Monday she felt ok enough to go walking.
Monday night the bruise was coming thru and it felt sore.

Finally Tuesday we get to hear what happened 2 days ago - not that she hid the fact from us, but didn't clearly remember herself.
"Slipped" isn't "fall" in her mind. Slip is something accidental and slight.
My dear Dad used to do similar things with all the accidents he had in his car in later years - the way he told it: the car park barriers of Britain were rising up and conspiring to hit him at every opportunity. It was never HIS driving fault.

So. Okaasan. Feeling a bit rough this week.
We have to keep asking her, asking her and asking her again - to try and get the truth out.

** ...oh...and yes? Last week spare ribs at the newly opened Tony Roma's in Sapporo....oh yeeeees!

......and....coming next year to this blog....maybe....how Dear Son and Oyomesan escape this life to run away to Brazil to see the FIFA World Cup.
He is the biggest Brazilian soccer fan in Japan. Probably in Asia. I got all fired up at the Olympics in London last year. We are starting to talk in real terms about how and if we could go to Brazil next summer to see it all - once in a life time thing etc.

But.
Okaasan.
Cats.

A LOT to think about and plan around.

A fall

Okaasan fell in the street today - cut and bruised her hands badly.
A woman who lived nearby saw it and walked her home.
We guess she is ok - but will watch her carefully for the next few days to see if there is any other injury or effect.

Been another week - shows you how much I am getting used to this life that I don't blog about it all!

Even when I went to the toilet early morning and stepped into something wet in the hallway...realised Okaasan had got up in the night and failed to make it to the toilet in time - a trail of pee across the kitchen, hallway and into the toilet.
Luckily we have carpet tiles in the kitchen that can be take up and washed, and the hallway can be mopped.

And later in the week was day care and ballroom dancing. Okaasan went off happily enough to it. She is tired and hungry when she comes back - Yujiro found her in the kitchen trying to cook fried rice at 5.30 pm. But the report the staff make on Okaasan continues to say she appears to be enjoying it - dancing with the teacher, playing some kind of ball catch game, exercising with other people.
Strange - Okaasan SAYS to us that she is there is only one other member in the hula and the ballroom dance class. Sounds a little odd. Can't believe a teacher would come in only for two students...

Anyway - MY week was good because Dear Son was in housewife mode. Shopping, cooking, chatting to Okaasan when I had evening classes.
I just led an ordinary life.....after a looong winter. Nice.

He will start his summer bike taxi job soon, so I'm enjoying having a full-time wife at the moment.

Another fall

Okaasan fell again yesterday.
Seems ok. Maybe. But badly shaken, of course.


We're not sure the details - because Okaasan told us about it and her story was all very muddled.


But maybe she fell at our local subway station, on the sloped walking area up to the doors. Obviously people helped her, and an ambulance was called? She scraped both her knees and has a bandaid on one knee. And maybe hit her lip/face?
She went to her room with no dinner and sat quietly and then slept. We'll check her condition today...and I'll pop into the station to ask the station staff the details and say thankyou...


These falls are becoming more frequent. The slips and falls in winter, now trips and falls on the front door step, now a sloped surface in daylight. So far she has always bounced back within 24 hours and hasn't injured herself beyond scrapes and bruises. Lucky,


I'd got home late afternoon...kind of planning that I'd cook dinner for Okaasan, leave it for her and run away to have dinner alone. Bad Oyomesan!!! He was working late again and I really couldn't face another dinner with Okaasan after a day at work. So, I was planning to be a bad Oyomesan and lie that I had an evening class and had to go out again.
But I met someone I know, my bike needed a repair...and I finally got home at 6.30 pm with no energy to go out again. 
Okaasan was still out for her late-in-the-day walk.

I made dinner, played with cats...admired my blossoming roses, put some of Okaasan's clean laundry back in her room...and hovered.
Okaasan's telephone was on the kitchen table, so I couldn't track her. Yujiro not expected home till later.


So at 7.30 pm I ate dinner alone in the kitchen. Read the newspaper. Relaxed.
He came home at 8.30 pm. STILL no Okaasan. Strange. Slightly worrying. But nothing much we could do, as she didn't take the telephone.
JUST as I was heating the dinner for him - she arrived home.
Looked terrible. Tired, old, crazy looking.
WTF????? She sat with a crash down on the entrance hall chair and gulped water from a bottle. Told us a very jumbled up story about fall - ambulance - people.
In her story she had fallen going INTO the station, people helped her and the ambulance took her downtown?? And then she walked around downtown until 8.30 pm????
All very odd. But actually probably true. Maybe someone took her downtown on the train? Surely NOT the ambulance. 
And why didn't she come home and rest after a fall? Not sensible. But I can imagine that after all the fall drama she was still determined to continue on her plans for going downtown. It's the kind of decision she would make - despite the advice of station/ambulance staff.


But, she seems ok.....we hope.
One of my students said this week that her 91 year old mother fell and hit her head WHILE WEEDING in the garden! At 91 years old!! A large cranial blood bruise developed and has now slipped down thru her face and to her neck...like some horror film inside-the-body creature.
We are so lucky that Okaasan's accidents, so far, haven't resulted in serious injury. Although...as I've said here many times...if she injured herself enough to go to hospital then maybe THEN she would get assessed as having dementia and maybe THEN we would get outside help/day care arranged.
All maybe.


This week is hard on all of us, as he is working late and my evening classes too. His regular taxi customer goes back to Tokyo tomorrow and we'll get back to our routine.

Ordinary Life

Ongoing....


...made a hair appointment for Okaasan for next week, so she'll be presentable when she debuts in the Folk Dance class next Friday, we shopped and cooked and cleaned..and Okaasan went out and came home on time (mostly)...she even remembered to tell us that the house owner came by to check the recent paint job.


Sapporo got yet another summer festival - but not much summer weather - and I made up a A4 paper about the festival location and date, with some pictures - left it on the kitchen table next to Okaasan's lunch , along with some money...but she didn't go.
Last year I took her to this festival, and Yujiro met us - but so terribly late (cos he got a late taxi customer), that really it was ME taking his mom to a crowded festival...which isn't much like family fun.
So I funked out this year and gave her the info in case she wanted to go herself.
But she didn't. Or maybe she did. Who knows.


And Okaasan fell again. On the front doorstep. No injuries, that we know of.
She was just coming home as we were heading out to a friend's dinner - so she walked up the steps to the front door while looking back at Yujiro in the parking area - and SPLAT! fell on her face on the, thankfully, slightly softer rubber mat.
No cut, no blood...but a shock for all of us.


Since then she remembers the fall sometimes: and then doesn't eat lunch/dinner. Or, she doesn't remember it at all: and wonders why we are asking her if she'd like to eat.


:-)


And she bought herself more Taiwan bananas...and ate them all in 24 hours.


And? That's about it.


And I was busy editing the Japanese documentary Ordinary Life - made by a Sapporo director called Taizo Yoshida. It's about the people of Fukushima and their lives after the horrors of last year.
A team of us are volunteering our translating and editing services to put English subtitles to the film so it can be shown in the US this summer. 14 translators, two editors....and a lot of women-hours (everyone is a woman!)...today we went to the director's home and edited the subtitles for hours...got interviewed by two local newspapers...and then the reporters sat down and had lunch with us...all wonderfully laidback.
Hard, exhausting work. But so worth it.


Can't imagine how tough it must have been for families in Fukushima with dementia-suffering family members - the endless stress and change of location. Some evacuees moved 5 or more times to different evacuation centers.


Anyway. That's what our ordinary life has been in the past few days.

Grumpy New Year

Have to laugh.
Otherwise.....


All the preparations for HAPPY New Year dinner as a nice, little family....


And....wait for it....Okaasan was a fug and didn't want to eat anything!


Yo ho HO! Please give a large bottle of rum.


New Year is a big deal in Japan. It's the time when families come together, even if they don't want to. There is special food, special Tv and first shrine visits, and special greeting cards etc etc.


We planned that Yujiro would be away skiing during the day, but late afternoon I'd take the train 30 mins along the coast to meet him, and then I'd drive back home, where our packs of instant buckwheat noodles (which Yujiro swears are just as good as the real thing), and a $100 box of traditional food would have been delivered by the supermarket.
We'd sit and enjoy all the food and drink some wine and toast another year together, and then retire to our living rooms to slump in front of the tacky TV singing show that dominates the airwaves every year.


So I fed Okaasan and chatted to her at lunchtime and set out to meet an old student for a coffee before catching the train. I put the instant noodle packs in the kitchen all ready to use, and left a note for the food delivery guy.
Okaasan had suddenly cottoned on to the fact that New Year = House Cleaning  and was frantically scrubbing the carpet with rolled up bits of newspaper. I gave her the vacumn cleaner, explained how to use it and left her happily vacumning her room.
A few misgivings about that. Would she trip over the cord and kill herself on the table corner? Would she get frustrated with not being able to remember how to switch the cleaner off?
But anyway. Left her to it.


Coffee. Train trip. 30 mins. pacing up and down in a cold, tiny, village station waiting for Yujiro to finish work. Back to the ski school. etc etc. Finally, 6 pm we headed home. Took the expressway to make sure of getting there.


Burst in through the kitchen door just before 7 pm ready to do the whole Happy New Year dinner thing.


Large box of New Year food ready and waiting!

One pack of noodles was missing...
Okaasan had eaten it.


Her face looked all crumpled up and her eyes were squinty, she was clutching her side: "My side hurts, inside hurts. I don't want to eat anything. The noodles? Yes, I ate those at lunchtime (already fogotten tofu lunch with me), cleaning? No, I didn't do any cleaning. I feel bad. I don't want to eat. Maybe a little rice. My side hurts. I feel bad. Rice? No, I don't want to eat anything...."


And on and on.
Finally WE ate a lot of the boxed foods, plus Okaasan's soup and half the rice. And drank all the wine. She sat with us at the kitchen table and looked at the glorious arrangement above.


But didn't eat any of it.


30 minutes later we all retired to our living rooms. Okaasan fell asleep in front of the Shopping Channel and we slumped in front of the singing show....with wine and cheese and chocolate.


What on earth happened to Okaasan during the 5 hours I was away?
Did she trip and fall  over the vacumn cleaner cord and hit herself? Did she get frustrated with trying to turn it off? Did she think we WEREN'T coming back and had left only instant noodles for her New Year dinner alone?


What? Could have been any of that. Or nothing at all.
At 1.30 pm she was fine. At 7 pm she was all gloom and doom, complete face difference. Voice difference.
So. All that train trip and driving and food ordering....for not a lot. I didn't mind whether Yujiro came back for Dec. 31st night or not. I'm beyond that. Happy with the TV and some chocolate me. We made all that Must-come-back effort to give Okaasan a good feeling!


Not her fault of course....but ...agggghhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


By 9.30 pm we were in bed....and that was 2011 for us.


Up at 6 am today January 1 2012 and drove BACK to the ski area. He had all day work and I used a discount ski pass and had 3 glorious hours in almost deserted courses to enjoy myself!!!

First sunrise of 2012...a special thing in Japan.

Arrival at Kiroro.

First run of 2012!!!!

The mountains! The sea! The snow!

Yipppppeeeeeeeee!!!!

Ringing in lots of good luck for New Year.

MY lunch. a bowl fo rice, topped with salmon flakes and roe.

roe.......................................

Left Yujiro up there to work and stay a further two nights. I came home to find Sapporo looking like almost any other day of the year, shops open and people rushing around. Hell, even our local supermarket was open?
This just isn't right. It's January 1st. EVERYONE....well apart from emergency workers, train drivers, ski teachers, hotel staff serving yummy salon roe...should have the day off....

Came home a little fearful. What state would Okaasan be in? Crawling around rubbing bits of newspaper on every surface and howling at the new sunrise?
She was sleeping and the remains of the New Year food box lunch were around the kitchen. So she'd eaten.

I've just been in to chat to her...and she still has the pain, just under her right breast (a fall and a bruised rib maybe?), I asked her to lift up her pajamas and show Oyomesan-world-medical-expert her right breast.... I can't see anything apart from the red area where she keeps rubbing it....I made her a cup of tea and delivered her one and only New Year card.

She says she wants dinner. I'd better start checking the cooking books about how to make Ozoni, the traditional New Year soup with rice cakes in it.

Onwards, onwards into 2012 and all the mayhem that will hold.


This is our New Year card for 2012. Designed by the son of my student, who did last year too. Dragon year. But can't show it to Okaasan...the way she is clutching onto my ample thighs isn't so great!!!!

I injured myself?

Okaasan has another face injury - but doesn't know why.
A smallish cut just above her right eye, and the area around it is a little swollen.


But, of course, she doesn't remember how or why.
She says it doesn't hurt and we don't think it is serious...but we wonder how....


Maybe...just maybe...I think she poked herself in the face with the laundry drying pole? I found a rose bush planter a little shaken up 2 days ago, and some earth on the ground - I thought cats or crows had pushed it over.
Now I wonder whether Okaasan knocked the rose bush planter over when she was trying to move the laundry poles? And poked herself in the face as well?
Could be. Who knows?


Anyway - she is off again today for maybe the last dentist visit.
I am 2 days away from welcoming students to my garden for English Tea Party with roses, scones and carrot cake - hear THIS...I tracked down Clotted Cream in Mitsukoshi Department Store yesterday (it's the Harrods' of Japan and very pricey) - the small jar of Clotted Cream cost Y1,500!!! That's $15!! No way is it enough for 10 plus people....so I will make up some fake scone topping with Mascorpone cheese and whipping cream.

Home for the Holidays....

Yup.
About to start my Winter Holidays with Okaasan.

Well, I actually start holidays next Wednesday....with a couple of classes slipping under the tinsel on Dec. 27th - but almost there.

And almost out the door: Yujiro gone ski working in Niseko for 11 days...or more.

So. Okaasan and Oyomesan! LOTS of bonding time!!!!

Yujiro's just gave me Okaasan's Health Insurance card. In case she falls again and injures herself.


She was ok after the fall the other day. SO lucky.
She didn't go out much after that. Stayed home and safe and warm. We put a much brighter bulb in the outside light and hope that will make it safer for her.
Yesterday she did venture into the winter dangerland....finally came home at 7.30 pm. Yujiro went out to meet her and he was shocked to see her walking style: he says she looks like a toddler, kind of running, pitching forward, unable to stop....no wonder she falls and often comes home looking breathless.

Why do old people do this? I've seen it with other people. They are sort of out of control, start going at a trot and it gets faster and faster. I wonder if a stick would help. Whether she would be offended by the even the suggestion...although she sometime uses her umbrella as a stick and I don't think she could cope with a stick and an umbrella...and the various bags she always carries.

Apart from that normal life. Our normal anyway.

*  Okaasan burned the pan I left her lunch curry in - she isn't good at all at judging or controlling the heat. Luckily we bought an electric cooker that switches off automatically if the heat gets too high, or if nothing happens for an hour.
*  Okaasan mysteriously used the towel in the toilet for something...then washed it and left it wet on the bathroom floor...THEN cheerfully told us a few hours later: "Do you know there's no towel in the toilet?" I'm just glad she left it in the bathroom and it didn't fester, soiled in her room.
* I rescued some more underwear from her room - and returned some clean...scattering them at different points so she can come across them everywhere.

And so. Heading into the holidays...with Okaasan.
Actually I am happy to be here. So happy to have nice normal, boring time at home.
A few friends/old students are visiting. I have to help a friend prepare and pack for a move back to the UK, eat a lot, watch TV.....and maybe,...just maybe try my leg on a ski slope?????

I just hope Okaasan doesn't fall again and that she stays fairly level emotionally. If she doesn't go out much her mood can go down. I think I will need to take her out in the car to a shopping mall for lunch or something.