Okaasan came home yesterday evening all happy from the hair salon.
New cut and perm. Looked good.
Dear Son had taken her to the salon thru an amazing November record-breaking 23cm of snow and then picked her up two hours later and brought her home.
I welcomed them in the hallway and went with Okaasan into her room - hanging up her coat, switching on the TV etc.
"I want to go to the toilet. Where is the toilet?" came the voice behind me.
She looked around the room and the kitchen beyond. The living space she has been in every day for the past 8 years...and had no idea where the toilet might have flitted to at the moment.
Oh god. It was amazing.
I showed her. Go thru this door into the kitchen, then left into the hallway and that door in front of you is - as it has been for 8 years - the toilet.
Amazing. These moments of dementia in action just blow my mind.
Maybe. Just maybe she was confused about the place because I was talking about her hair cut and how nice it was. maybe she thought this was still the hair salon and didn't know where the toilet was.
But all around her was her own room. Her own clothes and Tv etc.
It was pretty amazing. And scary.
Time for signs to the toilet???
Recently she has soiled her clothes/pajamas more. We always assume it is because she can't stand up quick enough to reach the toilet. But maybe it is worse. maybe she stands and looks at the two doors in her room - and doesn't know where the toilet is?
A winter of Okaasaning - which I now make as a new verb - it has begun.
Showing posts with label getting lost. Show all posts
Showing posts with label getting lost. Show all posts
Monday, 7 November 2016
Wednesday, 26 June 2013
Can do/Can't do
Was going to write a - "Okaasan is on a roll and got herself out and delivered herself to the dentist, maybe she doesn't have dementia at all" posting.
(Thought: "God, my blog is getting boring, nothing to write about recently...maybe Okaasan really isn't that bad...")
But then.
She couldn't.
Last week she could. Today. Couldn't.
Me? I kept far FAR away from today's activities, by taking myself for a haircut at 3 pm - so I was not involved in any way with it all. Luckily!
Dear Son put two signs on the kitchen table reminding Okaasan to get her stuff together and leave for downtown by 2.13 for a 3 pm appointment.
He telephoned her to make sure she was heading in the right direction, and then 20 minutes later he called the dentist to check she'd arrived.
Nope.
He's said "walk towards Sapporo Station". She'd walked TO Sapporo Station and was wandering lost.
He called her back several times to guide Okaasan to the clinic and called 4 times to check she was there or not. Calls here and there to make sure she got there...finally at 3.40 pm.
So HE had the headless chicken routine. :-)
Me? I sat in the hair salon chair listening to relaxing soul music and reading the newspaper.....
I got home about 5.30 pm, just as Okaasan staggered home looking very knackered.
"Did you go to the dentist ok? You found it ok?"
"Yes, yes....but I am exhausted. I had an injection, I am tired...." She sat on the hallway chair for about 10 minutes before getting into the house.
I only heard the truth of the visit when HE came home and related the afternoon's headless chicken routine. And on Monday? He is taking a day off work and he'll TAKE her to the clinic himself.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah.
This is the hardest thing about dementia - the can do/can't do.
You can never be 100% sure what she can do or can't
We probably do too much for Okaasan actually - because it is easier for us that way. We do all the shopping and cooking, the cleaning and laundry. She washes plates occasionally, dishes up rice and rubs old newspaper on her carpet to clean it...oh and ties up newspapers for the recycle box.
We should probably let her do more, or encourage her to do more.
But we don't have the time to be patient with her...
So, I was planning the dentist and taking her. Then last week she took off independently and got there herself, while I was wailing and knashing at the subway station.
Today - couldn't do it. Confusion central.
And tonight, the whole experience - certainly the confusion about losing her way - had left her tired and troubled. She didn't want any dinner and tucked herself on the carpet under the blanket, with the TV for company.
Can do/can't do/Can do/can't do....
(Thought: "God, my blog is getting boring, nothing to write about recently...maybe Okaasan really isn't that bad...")
But then.
She couldn't.
Last week she could. Today. Couldn't.
Me? I kept far FAR away from today's activities, by taking myself for a haircut at 3 pm - so I was not involved in any way with it all. Luckily!
Dear Son put two signs on the kitchen table reminding Okaasan to get her stuff together and leave for downtown by 2.13 for a 3 pm appointment.
He telephoned her to make sure she was heading in the right direction, and then 20 minutes later he called the dentist to check she'd arrived.
Nope.
He's said "walk towards Sapporo Station". She'd walked TO Sapporo Station and was wandering lost.
He called her back several times to guide Okaasan to the clinic and called 4 times to check she was there or not. Calls here and there to make sure she got there...finally at 3.40 pm.
So HE had the headless chicken routine. :-)
Me? I sat in the hair salon chair listening to relaxing soul music and reading the newspaper.....
I got home about 5.30 pm, just as Okaasan staggered home looking very knackered.
"Did you go to the dentist ok? You found it ok?"
"Yes, yes....but I am exhausted. I had an injection, I am tired...." She sat on the hallway chair for about 10 minutes before getting into the house.
I only heard the truth of the visit when HE came home and related the afternoon's headless chicken routine. And on Monday? He is taking a day off work and he'll TAKE her to the clinic himself.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah.
This is the hardest thing about dementia - the can do/can't do.
You can never be 100% sure what she can do or can't
We probably do too much for Okaasan actually - because it is easier for us that way. We do all the shopping and cooking, the cleaning and laundry. She washes plates occasionally, dishes up rice and rubs old newspaper on her carpet to clean it...oh and ties up newspapers for the recycle box.
We should probably let her do more, or encourage her to do more.
But we don't have the time to be patient with her...
So, I was planning the dentist and taking her. Then last week she took off independently and got there herself, while I was wailing and knashing at the subway station.
Today - couldn't do it. Confusion central.
And tonight, the whole experience - certainly the confusion about losing her way - had left her tired and troubled. She didn't want any dinner and tucked herself on the carpet under the blanket, with the TV for company.
Can do/can't do/Can do/can't do....
Thursday, 17 January 2013
Are we there yet?
Questions, questions, questions...
I took Okaasan to a hair salon appointment today - just near my morning class, so convenient for her and for me.
As we arrived downtown in the car, to slightly familiar places, she was constantly asking me:
Is THAT the salon? Is this XXX station? Is this XX shopping mall? Is this near XX?
Constantly.
It seems to be a desperate need to confirm knowledge, to make sure that YES, I do still recognise places.
We used a parking area behind the hair salon building and went in thru the back door, so it was all unfamiliar. I took her to the front door and showed her the sign and the main entrance. I asked the staff to take her to the building front door after the cut and perm, and point her along the block to the central subway station.
I wonder how much she is recognising downtown now on her trips there?
We know from the GPS that she goes to the same places every visit, and I suppose that is really hanging on to familiar.
Late afternoon she got home (in a taxi from the subway station - the instructions about NOT walking on the icy roads has sunk in) - all very stylish with the new hair-do.
Couldn't remember if she'd eaten lunch or not...and opened up her shopping bag with things inside...foodstuffs from a department store...as if seeing them for the first time: "What is this?"
"I bought these red bean jelly sweets for my friend in the coffee shop, she loaned me a neck scarf!"
2 minutes later Okaasan came into the kitchen....with the open sweets box in her hand and started eating them, offering them to me etc.
"Aren't they for your coffee shop friend?"
"Are they? Did I buy them?"
Literally, her memory of the sweets shifted 3 times in 2 minutes...
And so, and so...the world according to Okaasan trips merrily along.
:-)
I took Okaasan to a hair salon appointment today - just near my morning class, so convenient for her and for me.
As we arrived downtown in the car, to slightly familiar places, she was constantly asking me:
Is THAT the salon? Is this XXX station? Is this XX shopping mall? Is this near XX?
Constantly.
It seems to be a desperate need to confirm knowledge, to make sure that YES, I do still recognise places.
We used a parking area behind the hair salon building and went in thru the back door, so it was all unfamiliar. I took her to the front door and showed her the sign and the main entrance. I asked the staff to take her to the building front door after the cut and perm, and point her along the block to the central subway station.
I wonder how much she is recognising downtown now on her trips there?
We know from the GPS that she goes to the same places every visit, and I suppose that is really hanging on to familiar.
Late afternoon she got home (in a taxi from the subway station - the instructions about NOT walking on the icy roads has sunk in) - all very stylish with the new hair-do.
Couldn't remember if she'd eaten lunch or not...and opened up her shopping bag with things inside...foodstuffs from a department store...as if seeing them for the first time: "What is this?"
"I bought these red bean jelly sweets for my friend in the coffee shop, she loaned me a neck scarf!"
2 minutes later Okaasan came into the kitchen....with the open sweets box in her hand and started eating them, offering them to me etc.
"Aren't they for your coffee shop friend?"
"Are they? Did I buy them?"
Literally, her memory of the sweets shifted 3 times in 2 minutes...
And so, and so...the world according to Okaasan trips merrily along.
:-)
Tuesday, 27 March 2012
Brought home by police car :-)
Okaasan was brought home by a police car tonight!
She's fine. But a bit angry at being the center of fuss.
"That high school boy I asked the way of - he must have telephoned the police! He shouldn't have done that! I'm not a senile old woman. I knew how to get home. I was just checking which road!"
She'd gone out at 6 pm to the local Macdonald's for a coffee. She hasn't been there in months because all winter she has gone to the Seicomart convenience store downtown by subway.
But today her subway card had ran out and while I was hunting around upstairs for the next Oldies Discount card she said she'd just go for a walk locally.
Fine by me. I set her off - with warnings "don't eat chicken nuggets because you'll spoil your dinner" (I have become a nagging mother to this old lady!!!).
Off she went at 6 pm.
7 pm came and went.
She'd forgotten her GPS-loaded mobile phone so I couldn't trace her.
By 7.30 I was hungry. So I ate my dinner.
By 8 pm I was thinking: "hmm, should I go and look for her?"
I heard a car pull up outside, voices....steps....
Two big cops were escorting Okaasan to the door. She was clutching a Macdonalds bag with a spilled coffee inside it.
All apologetic to the police for causing them trouble etc
I managed to get her inside the kitchen, while I stood in the entrance hall and gave our details to the cops.
Yes, she does forget sometimes.
Yes, she usually has a cell phone with GPS.
Yes, she usually has the address written on a card...oh...in her subway card case that she DIDN'T have today.
Yes, we will look after her.
Unusual really. Okaasan's homing instinct has been pretty strong.
People are often surprised when I say she goes out alone, and comes home safely. The memory for streets and places seems strong - essential life information.
When she first moved to Sapporo she got lost several times - and once we called the police, and they quizzed us about whether there'd been a family row etc!
When we moved homes and came here she got lost a few times and she asked strangers to help her, or the police.
But she's been fine for 2 years or more.
I guess she hasn't been to Macdonald's for almost 6 months....even though it's only 15 mins. away from here - so she had just forgotten the street layout.
Anyway. She's home.
;-))
She's fine. But a bit angry at being the center of fuss.
"That high school boy I asked the way of - he must have telephoned the police! He shouldn't have done that! I'm not a senile old woman. I knew how to get home. I was just checking which road!"
She'd gone out at 6 pm to the local Macdonald's for a coffee. She hasn't been there in months because all winter she has gone to the Seicomart convenience store downtown by subway.
But today her subway card had ran out and while I was hunting around upstairs for the next Oldies Discount card she said she'd just go for a walk locally.
Fine by me. I set her off - with warnings "don't eat chicken nuggets because you'll spoil your dinner" (I have become a nagging mother to this old lady!!!).
Off she went at 6 pm.
7 pm came and went.
She'd forgotten her GPS-loaded mobile phone so I couldn't trace her.
By 7.30 I was hungry. So I ate my dinner.
By 8 pm I was thinking: "hmm, should I go and look for her?"
I heard a car pull up outside, voices....steps....
Two big cops were escorting Okaasan to the door. She was clutching a Macdonalds bag with a spilled coffee inside it.
All apologetic to the police for causing them trouble etc
I managed to get her inside the kitchen, while I stood in the entrance hall and gave our details to the cops.
Yes, she does forget sometimes.
Yes, she usually has a cell phone with GPS.
Yes, she usually has the address written on a card...oh...in her subway card case that she DIDN'T have today.
Yes, we will look after her.
Unusual really. Okaasan's homing instinct has been pretty strong.
People are often surprised when I say she goes out alone, and comes home safely. The memory for streets and places seems strong - essential life information.
When she first moved to Sapporo she got lost several times - and once we called the police, and they quizzed us about whether there'd been a family row etc!
When we moved homes and came here she got lost a few times and she asked strangers to help her, or the police.
But she's been fine for 2 years or more.
I guess she hasn't been to Macdonald's for almost 6 months....even though it's only 15 mins. away from here - so she had just forgotten the street layout.
Anyway. She's home.
;-))
Wednesday, 2 November 2011
"Busy!!!"
"I was busy!" - Okaasan's go-to excuse for staying at home ALL one glorious autumn day, and finally emerging at dusk along with the leftover Halloween bats and ghouls.
Busy?????!!!
Haven't laughed so much in ages. Both of us. Howled at that one. As I washed up the lunchtime dishes she hadn't done and he unloaded shopping from the car.
It was such a gloriously, off-the-chart huge lie. Can only laugh. And slave on.
We'd just come home from a Costco run, with the car bursting full of stuff to be unloaded. Just gone 5 pm at the end of a sunny, warm autumn day in Sapporo. The autumn leaves looked great, people were strolling in the parks, kids chasing leaves, everyone's mood lifted by the unseasonally warm day.
5 pm. Now dark. People heading home. End of the day.
Okaasan? In the entrance hall just about to go out.
We both commented on that as we came in and met her: why now? why didn't you go earlier? You missed the best weather today! etc etc.
"I was busy. That's why I am going out now."
This from a lady who we are 99% sure has sat in front of the TV since early morning. Probably stood up a few times to walk to the toilet and walked to the kitchen table for lunch. Maybe she brushed her hair. Looked at the newspaper. Looked at some old shopping receipts. Err....looked at a magazine. The TV. Lay down. Sat up. Lay down. Looked at a shopping receipt.
Of course that's all ok. At 80 plus you can have that kind of day if you feel like it. But the sheer confidence it takes to say: "I was busy!" as an off-the-top-of-the-head excuse for not doing something.
Wonderful.
The dementia books talk a lot about "sun-downing", how dementia sufferers appear to get more active at the end of the day - so certainly Okaasan fits this pattern of doing nothing for hours and then finally at the end of the afternoon doing things.
And the barefaced lies - of course not conscious lies, but kind of automatic responses to a question. Okaasan doesn't know where she's just been or what he's just done a lot of the time, so if we ask (and all the advice is that you shouldn't ask), then she'll always say "Seicomart/SapporoStation/Seiyu/TanukiKohji/McDonalds", and it might be true, but not necessarily so. It's just her brain supplying a stock answer to that situation.
In one book I read, a lady was always telling visitors: "I've just come back from holiday in Cornwall", much to their confusion as she had actually been in a carehome for a year, and hadn't been travelling for years before that either.
So. "Busy". The new "Vegging Out by the TV". I like that kind of busy....
* But! I will be able to track Okaasan from now on, with that wonderful GPS system linked to her cell phone. Yujiro's new lover - his many-function AU mobile phone - enables us to use the GPS system via the house computer.
I've called it "Okaasan Hunter" on our desktop, and from now on I can check where she is and how long until she appears for dinner.
She doesn't in fact get lost now, that happened a lot when we first moved here. And her walking world is much smaller than a year ago. But still...it will be fun to be a snoop and see where she's at. :-)
Busy?????!!!
Haven't laughed so much in ages. Both of us. Howled at that one. As I washed up the lunchtime dishes she hadn't done and he unloaded shopping from the car.
It was such a gloriously, off-the-chart huge lie. Can only laugh. And slave on.
We'd just come home from a Costco run, with the car bursting full of stuff to be unloaded. Just gone 5 pm at the end of a sunny, warm autumn day in Sapporo. The autumn leaves looked great, people were strolling in the parks, kids chasing leaves, everyone's mood lifted by the unseasonally warm day.
5 pm. Now dark. People heading home. End of the day.
Okaasan? In the entrance hall just about to go out.
We both commented on that as we came in and met her: why now? why didn't you go earlier? You missed the best weather today! etc etc.
"I was busy. That's why I am going out now."
This from a lady who we are 99% sure has sat in front of the TV since early morning. Probably stood up a few times to walk to the toilet and walked to the kitchen table for lunch. Maybe she brushed her hair. Looked at the newspaper. Looked at some old shopping receipts. Err....looked at a magazine. The TV. Lay down. Sat up. Lay down. Looked at a shopping receipt.
Of course that's all ok. At 80 plus you can have that kind of day if you feel like it. But the sheer confidence it takes to say: "I was busy!" as an off-the-top-of-the-head excuse for not doing something.
Wonderful.
The dementia books talk a lot about "sun-downing", how dementia sufferers appear to get more active at the end of the day - so certainly Okaasan fits this pattern of doing nothing for hours and then finally at the end of the afternoon doing things.
And the barefaced lies - of course not conscious lies, but kind of automatic responses to a question. Okaasan doesn't know where she's just been or what he's just done a lot of the time, so if we ask (and all the advice is that you shouldn't ask), then she'll always say "Seicomart/SapporoStation/Seiyu/TanukiKohji/McDonalds", and it might be true, but not necessarily so. It's just her brain supplying a stock answer to that situation.
In one book I read, a lady was always telling visitors: "I've just come back from holiday in Cornwall", much to their confusion as she had actually been in a carehome for a year, and hadn't been travelling for years before that either.
So. "Busy". The new "Vegging Out by the TV". I like that kind of busy....
* But! I will be able to track Okaasan from now on, with that wonderful GPS system linked to her cell phone. Yujiro's new lover - his many-function AU mobile phone - enables us to use the GPS system via the house computer.
I've called it "Okaasan Hunter" on our desktop, and from now on I can check where she is and how long until she appears for dinner.
She doesn't in fact get lost now, that happened a lot when we first moved here. And her walking world is much smaller than a year ago. But still...it will be fun to be a snoop and see where she's at. :-)
Thursday, 16 April 2009
Okaasan did it too! (J)
While I am a Kitchen Queen...Okaasan is a Homecoming Queen.
She made it home safely from hula dancing to the new house. Yay!
After the usual fuss about getting out of the house on time to go, Yujiro made sure she got to the subway station. Then he came home and we did stuff around the house.
At 4 pm we happened to be at our old house again (stealing back more of my old garden!), so we parked the car across the park from the sports center and spied on Okaasan together.
We watched her leave the sports center with classmates, walk to Nakanoshima with them...and then we lost her. Where did she go? She ran across the road and disappeared! Eh?
No problem. She'd gone into the subway station and gone home. Great.
Maybe we are all getting better at our new lives.
She made it home safely from hula dancing to the new house. Yay!
After the usual fuss about getting out of the house on time to go, Yujiro made sure she got to the subway station. Then he came home and we did stuff around the house.
At 4 pm we happened to be at our old house again (stealing back more of my old garden!), so we parked the car across the park from the sports center and spied on Okaasan together.
We watched her leave the sports center with classmates, walk to Nakanoshima with them...and then we lost her. Where did she go? She ran across the road and disappeared! Eh?
No problem. She'd gone into the subway station and gone home. Great.
Maybe we are all getting better at our new lives.
２００９年４月１６日（木）
お義母さんもできたのよ！
ワタシが台所の女王なら、お義母さんは帰宅の女王よ。
お義母さんはフラダンス教室から新しい家に無事に帰ってきたのよ
間に合う時間に家を出る、といういつもの大騒ぎのあと、
午後４時ワタシたちはもう一度元の家に行くことになって、（
ワタシたちはお義母さんがお仲間たちといっしょにスポーツセンタ
問題なかったわ。お義母さんは地下鉄駅に入ったのよ。
たぶんワタシたち全員が新しい生活にうまく適応できるようになっ
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)