Legs again

Pain in the legs is back.
When Okaasan remembers it. Feels it. Remembers it.

Last year this went into a 5? week saga of her and Dear Son refusing to do anything about it, while I harassed them to DO SOMETHING! Okaasan stopped going out completely. Had problems even getting to the kitchen and toilet, or  bath.
It's arthritis or rheumatism I expect. However, in this hospitals-do-no-good family we'll never know what it is for sure, so the not-eating, and not standing-up method of treatment will prevail.
Finally last year she agreed to go to a kind of chiropractic - which helped. Finally.

Last week Okaasan went out for a late walk after DS had got home. An hour later the 90 plus years old neighbor came to say that Okaasan was stuck on a footpath about 100 m from the house and couldn't get home by herself!
DS went and rescued her, gently took her hand and walked her home.
Why hadn't she called him? Why hadn't she asked anyone to help? For an hour....she'd probably stood there, clutching onto the fence....until the 90 year old plus neighbor found her.

And so. Some days she remembers the pain. And doesn't eat much, doesn't do much. Creeps around the kitchen.
Other days - or actually even 1 hour later !! - the pain has gone and she is prepping to go out for a walk downtown.....
We are monitoring and trying to make sure she doesn't head out too far again.

It was a bit of a week really....Okaasan and her legs. Lots of work. New students. New class. All good. But a run around.
Then one of the cats appeared sick, and then vanished for 14 hours, and came home with a screechy voice.
I took him to the vet to be checked out and as the last, but one customer on Friday night my vet was just as knackered as me.
He took an X ray of Popo's throat and chest area to see if there was anything inside causing the screechy noises.
Called me back into the consulting room 15 mins later. Two X-rays were up on the screen.
WHAT IS THAT????? And THAT????
Two strange lines were at the lower throat level. On their own, not connected to any other bones. About 2 cm long!!!!
My head was a-whirl with needles? Awful boys torturing my cat? Broken fence parts???
The vet and I peered at the X-rays in shock....

Then he looked flustered, ran into a back room to check something.....and came back with embarrassment to tell me: "um sorry, those are bones! Entirely natural! All cats have them there. Dogs  don't. I got mixed up!!!!"

So relieved. Laughed a bit manically. Me too.
I thought MY week was a long one....his was obviously worse.

Finally came away with nose drops to try and get down - or anywhere at all near - a squirming cat's tiny nostrils.

And it is the weekend. Gardening. TV. Sleeping. Eating out. 
Very necessary.

Waiting to exhale................

And THAT my friends - THAT is Okaasan going to see an expert about her own body.

THAT is something worth taking a picture of! :-)

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.....................let it all out. Exhale.

Such a normal thing, every day, in every place in the world: people have something wrong with their body, they go to someone who has training in body problems and they ask for help.

It's like child/school. Or food/kitchen. 

Just one of those normal equations of life.

But to get to this point has been so so long. Enormous struggle. You'd think Dear Son was taking Okaasan to open brain surgery,followed by leg amputation. Not a little bit of massage and muscle checking by a kind woman in a suburban chiropractic place.

Rewind to Friday: Okaasan decided to go for a walk late afternoon. Of course she doesn't know/remember that she hasn't been out alone for a walk for more than 2 weeks. So she gets to the Seicomart store, and has no energy to get back. Dear Son locates her with the GPS and as I am using the car for work he has to bring her back by taxi. (There's a whole mix-up about this between them, but I'll skip that in the interests of your sanity).

He gets her home and we all eat dinner sometime around 8.30 pm.

Saturday morning: I am hassling Dear Son from the moment we are awake to get ON with it. Find a chiro guy and GET Okaasan a booking and TAKE her there. He is getting testy with me, because I am on his case.

"This situation is not finished! Come ON! Stop watching TV and get on it! etc etc etc" I am nagging, he is snapping. We are so happy. Not. He does actually agree that this temporary improvement in Okaasan's condition shouldn't be the end of our efforts, because we've seen this before....he does accept that.

He gets on the computer and finds a local chiro. Makes a reservation for Sunday morning. I sigh with relief. He tells Okaasan that tomorrow she'll go and see someone who is just like the place she went to 20 years ago. She starts resisting, - not pain, not bad, I can heal myself etc etc etc etc etc etc..

THEN we have a cat crises to throw into the mix. Popo-chan has a cut above his eye, so we box him up and carry him yowling to the vets.

We get home, Okaasan is calling Dear Son stressily. She is up and walking round the kitchen: "Look! I can walk! I can walk well! I don't need help! etc etc etc etc"

Dear Son and Okaasan go for a walk to the local supermarket. She gets tired and leg pain, and he brings her home slowly.

We eat lunch.

Throw in another cat crises. The other cat has a similar injury to his eye! What on earth have they been doing? (Beating their heads against brick walls with frustration, like us?)

4 pm. Catch 2nd cat, box him up, transport him yowling to the vets.

Okaasan is sitting up in her room, putting on a jacket and looking like she might go out for another walk......

Saturday  evening. We actually have plans (cancelled before cos of Okaasan) - plans to go down to the city park and enjoy the German-theme beer festival. Drink away out stresses and remember that we are a couple who love eachother, and not just a nagger and nageee.

He preps a dinner for Okaasan. I hide her shoes from the entrance hall, so we hope she won't go out alone for a walk. And we escape.

Sunday morning. With hangovers. Dear Son goes in to tell Okaasan that they are going to the chiro soon. He has to go all thru the rigmarole again of why and why not, and why and so on. Absolutely exhausting.

Not sure if it is worse when she is actually in deep pain and reacts emotionally, or like now, when she has less pain and is reacting with all the reasons she can pluck out of her brain.

From her view: I feel fine. I can walk. I know how to care fotr my body because I studied the great Nishi-guru. WHY am I needing to go a doctor? Why?

From our view: 5 weeks of pain and reduced life, pain and drama. Despite temporary improvements in the condition, it ain't getting better.

I stay away from the discussion. It should be between son and mother. But it is tiring to listen to him trying. He is a master salesman. This is probably his hardest ever job.

And so. They have finally gone. Left the house. Gone to a chiro.

Let's see what happens next.

a) The chiro will say: "My GOD! No, this condition is way beyond what I can do, get theee to a hospital".

b) Okaasan will run away down the street and plead with passersby to adopt her?

c) We will bang our heads against more brick walls, box ourselves up and go yowling to the vets?

d) The chiro lady might...y'know...HELP ease the pain in Okaasan's legs.....

Oh. d). Let it be, pleeese let it be......

Shouting. Again.

I promised myself that this blog would be honest.
Even if I'm not doing good things.
And i'm not.

Shouted at Okaasan and Dear Son again yesterday.
Full on, in your face shouting with anger and frustration.
Worst thing to do with someone who has dementia. Worst thing to do in Japan, a land of repressed emotions and unspoken communication.

We - well he mainly - tried to get Okaasan to get up, get dressed and come for a short walk to the outside of the house. To give her leg muscles some kind of exercise.
Long struggle with that, mentally and physically. She didn't even want to stand up in her room.
But after 30 mins she had made it to the entrance hall and put on her shoes. She had the new walking stick he'd bought for her.
She got down the step from the front door onto the porch mat.

Then couldn't get down the next 3 steps into the garden.
Couldn't. Wouldn't.
With help, or without it.
Pain, pain, pain.

Returned to the entrance hall chair.

I lost it at that point.
She was going on and on about how 20 years ago it had got better on its own, or some kind of treatment in Saitama had helped it, and it all got better....how she knows her body better than anyone etc etc etc
And I really do mean etc etc etc

And I shouted.
Got the kitchen calender and waved it at her. FIVE Bloody weeks of this and it hasn't got any better. It's got worse. 6 weeks ago you could walk in department stores downtown, two weeks ago you could get to the local McDonald's. Now you can't get out of the house. Next week you can't get to the toilet? Or the kitchen table?

Wasn't a good moment as a human being. Shouting with fury at an old lady, while her son tried to calm me down.

He got her back into the kitchen and got her to walk a few times around the kitchen for the muscle exercise. She was in great pain.

But.
Maybe breakthrough.
OKaasan says that 20 years ago she went to some kind of treatment place near her home in the Tokyo suburbs for a leg problem...and it helped.
I don't know what kind of treatment. Not mainstream medicine. Some kind of massage place?
The important thing is that she believes it helped.

Dear Son got her to agree that if he can find a similar place in Sapporo, maybe it's a good idea to go again.

That IS a breakthrough. That somebody outside this family can maybe help.
I don't care what the treatment is: it can be an old man who waves Japanese fans over the afflicted area and chants, or someone who does things with fireflies - as long as Okaasan thinks that SHE needs someone's help.
It is a step forward.

I've spent two months this year having acupuncture, and I know for many people that is way out beyond the fringe of common sense. So I am open to the possibility of alternative treatments.

Whatever might work. Let's try it, for F*** sake.

HOW he will get her out of the house and into the car to go to treatment...I don't know.

I hope that the treatment guy takes one look at OKaasan's condition, throws the fans away and calls her an ambulance to take her to a mainstream hospital - but of course, that won't happen. Whoever will try fireflies for a bit...and it might work, or not.
I've told Dear Son that in October, after 2 months I am calling in a home doctor. 

And now. I need to take my blood pressure away all of this. The ocean. The forest. Somewhere better than this house.

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.