"Anything" on the table...

Oh.

She ate it. The soil...and seeds...for the cat grass kit.....!!!

Oh.

My fault because I left it on the kitchen table in the morning. I'd just found it in a little-used cupboard and thought: "ahh, good for winter, I should start growing cat grass for the cats again...."

But I'd left it on the table and in the rush to work forgotten it.

Also on the kitchen table - on the usual place mat where Okaasan sits - were a box of rice, another of simmered Japanese veggies, some salad on a plate, a pack of soup and a fish sausage. The usual lunch pickings for Okaasan to heat in the microwave and eat.

But the cat grass seeds and soil packs were 10 cm to the left.....

What did she think they were? I know Japanese food can look pretty odd. All the seaweed, fish and dried vegetable products. But they look odd to a non-Japanese person. To an old Japanese lady who has spent her life dealing with the stuff not so much.

I'm not sure WHAT she thought it was!

But food, for sure.

I got home between classes to prep dinner and as I chirped a greeting into Okaasan's room I noticed the two packets of brown-something on her kotatsu table. And then the bowls...

Bowls in two places - kitchen table and kotatsu. So she'd tried it in the kitchen, and found it strange, and then....forgetting that experience...a few minutes later - taken the package of stuff in another bowl into her room to taste as a Tv-watching snack!

Oh my God.

Well. She is still alive. I guess the seeds are just a kind of seed. If actually poisonous her body would be reacting by now...

So. Lesson learned. Must be very careful in future about what I leave on the kitchen table! I already know that if I want any chance of eating fruit or cookies myself, I should take some upstairs for later. Okaasan will often eat all of something over a day - all the oranges, all the cookies....far more than a non-dementia sufferer would eat.

But, until now I've never thought about the dangers of leaving a non-food item on the kitchen table.

And yes, there IS other food in the kitchen that she didn't eat. The fruit bowl was on a side counter and in the fridge were more fish sausages and some yogurts.

But Okaasan sampled the soil and seeds...

* Dear Son has left the building. Gone ski working. It was for 10 days, until Xmas. Then came the phone call last night....till December 30....sigh. Ski widow. 

Plus sides: TV remote 100% control! Computer wordgame time without guilt, even LESS housework....reading time.

Bowling along

Failure to recognize objects is one aspect of dementia - we notice it a little with Okaasan...although maybe her checking questions (Is this my plate? Is this mine?) are her way of masking her confusion.

Sometimes she will ask us if the cell phone is the TV remote, or if the small notebook is her purse.

Recently we've realized soup bowls are, conveniently, being confused.

On the right is the badly scratched, plastic soup bowl we've been using for too many years. Last year Okaasan finally said that she didn't want to eat out of that because scratched plastic was bad for food and body. She may have a point there!!!

So, we started using the central, ceramic bowl. Much better.

But. It isn't really big enough - and  increasingly we watch everytime Okaasan grasps it with her fingers and tips it towards her mouth - we are nervously waiting for the inevitable of hot liquid/old lady's lap accident.

So. DS suggested using the cat coffee cup, which has a handle. Easier to hold, big enough for miso soup with cubes of tofu, daikon etc

I wasn't so sure: Will Okaasan accept this CUP as something to drink soup out of? Really? And it has a childish, cat picture on it.

Recently we've made the switch. When we serve her soup, we put it in the cup. She uses it happily, no comments at all. Much safer.

I am surprised. I expected some comment - but she seems to accept that this container with miso soup in it IS the container for her miso soup. I think most Japanese people of her generation would be strongly against using a coffee cup for traditional miso soup, because every kitchen thing has its use. But she has made the transition smoothly.

DS says it is a useful example of her object confusion - that she doesn't really "see" coffee cup. Just soup. Lucky really.

Not sure if she will use this cup if we leave the instant soup packs in it on the table for her lunchtime. Will she look around the kitchen for the soup bowl? Watch this space.

Onward truckin'

Friends and students ask: How's Okaasan?
And I say: Doing ok. Life goes on in her routines. No big dramas. Luckily. Summer is easier, because he and I are home and looking after her. We fill in the gaps of stuff that she can't/won't do...and life goes on. Almost 5 years now?

And so it is. Not exciting bloggable dramas...just general calm and routines.

Here she is a week or two ago - engrossed in picking the soy beans off a plant that a neighbor gave us. Had to find her special, flower arranging scissors to do it and enjoyed arranging the newspapers and towels on the carpet etc. Sorted out the good beans.

I started doing the job myself in the kitchen, but suddenly realised it was exactly the kind of job Okaasan should be doing - good for her brain and hands, and giving her a feeling of contribution to family life, an opportunity to do something she knows - and to show a British woman what to do with this most Japanese of foods.

We've had a few family meals out to local restaurants. Had a few toilet accidents. Found more than a few old food packages with rotting food inside. Baths and laundry. Dole out the money.

Slightly interesting...but only slightly!!...she has several times mixed up the TV remote and the cell phone. Waves the cell phone at the TV and wonders why it isn't changing channels or turning off.

And when we ate soba noodles at home recently, she twice tried to drink the noodle dipping soup - mistaking it for a glass of wheat tea? Even though we were talking about noodles, and 1 meter away her son was standing at the kitchen counter and dishing out noodles.

She still picked up the brown liquid to drink.

A little sign of beginning to mix up objects that should be familiar.

But really nothing else to report on the Okaasan front. We are enjoying the end of summer, with food festivals, friends and working events.

Have to start thinking about Okaasan and winter activity soon. Whether to try and get her interested in day care and hula dance. Or just to give up on that and go directly to arranging a taxi once or twice a week for her.

The taxi driver could come and get her and drop her off at the local subway station, so she could take herself downtown for a walk. Then some system to get her home again.

She needs to be going out at least once a week to see more than her room and the TV.

Anyway. All calm.