How not to talk

I really need lessons in Negotiating a Tricky Topic.
Instead of calmly sitting Dear Son down and discussing about Okaasan and daycare assessment etc...

what did I do?

Got all riled up and stroppy after a night of bad sleep. and almost shouted at Dear Son on his lazy day off in front of the TV: get off your ass and call up the latest hula dance organiser! We MUST get Okaasan set up with something to do! I'm not going to have her here all winter - while you are off skiing - and I'm going to be her sole source of entertainment for weeks and weeks. I know you don't want to get her assessed, because it'll be a fight etc...but...but...we MUST get her into something!!

And then I stormed out and went to work.

Not the way to do it.

Later I apologised for the outburst. But said we will TALK about this, won't we....

And he failed to get hold of the hula dance person, and I tried the next day...but I'm busy...so it'll have to be next week that I take Okaasan to try the oldies class...

and so the whole thing goes on and on.
Must. Do. This. Talk.
Must.
Soon.

Okaasan is wandering on thru her days ok - alternatively surprising us and doing-things-as-normal.
She met my friend and her baby two days running in a local street - and amazed me by actually remembering those meetings and even what they had talked about. That really is surprising. She doesn't usually remember anything she did during the day...but she remembered those encounters and the chat topic.

And then...

Yujiro spent a rainy morning at home, and left for work late. 
"I'm off to work" he told Okaasan.
"Oh? What work is that?" she asked.

??????

She knows exactly what he does. Bike taxi driver. We often sit at dinner and talk about his day and his customers. Okaasan sometimes comes and says "Hello" to Yujiro if she sees he and his taxi downtown.
But..."what work?" - where the hell did THAT question come from?

Dementia, all very strange - clarity and fog. Often on the same day.

Cake Cholestorol.

So, if you eat English cake every single day for 3 weeks.
What will happen?
Your blood test results at the annual health check will show SKY high bad cholestorol - instead of 120 something technical...my blood is trying to fight it's way through the cholestorol armies of 170 something technical. It's amazing I am able to sit at a computer. Or raise a chocolate to my lips.
170. That's High.

And, being Japan - this happy (though not amazingly surprising) news is brought to you by a cute cartoon figure.
He is probably called Health Boy or Get Your Body in Shape Boy.
There he is: just to the right of the health chart showing I scored A in all sorts of things, but a risky D in cholestorol.

"Get thee to a detailed blood check and STOP eating whole boxes of chocolates in 1 hour!"

 

Have to go and do something about that. Soon. First will get my friend who is a public health nurse to explain it all to me. But I wonder...is this level set for skinny little Asian people? Is a great big padded north European allowed a higher cholestorol level?

But relef that it isn't anything more serious. One of my students had a health check and has been told to go in for tests on a possible tumor.

 

So. Relief really.

And weather relief too : the fury of summer has gone and almost normal temperatures for September are here. Chilly in the monring! I closed windows! I wore clothes!

 

Okaasan okaaayish. She was stressy in the heat. Not very good at judging the temperature and how best to make her living space comfortable.

I found her yesterday complaining about the heat in her room. But all the windows were closed, the electric fan wasn't switched on and the door was closed. :-(

She'd heard the sound of the trash truck engine and that usually sends her scuttling to close the windows against the garbage smell. But, the truck was at the back of the house - out on the city land - collecting cut grass from under the subway line.

I told her several times it wasn't trash. But she couldn't hold that thought...and fussed about the windows endlessly.

Then she fussed about going OUT to a cool coffee shop, and after SEVEN attempts to get her shit together and get out of the front door - she finally had everything and could go.

I blitz cleaned her room.

She came back 2 hours later. Slept a bit. Then at 6.15 pm (normal time for her walks) was all ready to go out again....we thought we'd stopped her by pointing out that dinner was a-coming. But...5 minutes later we saw her leaving the house without bag or phone or anything - setting off for a walk in the dusk as usual.

Sigh. Put dinner plans on hold til she reappeared.

 

Rest of it is fairly our-kind-of-normal....Okaasan not aware of hours and hours of rain, phantom doorbell ringers etc All in a Dementia Day's work.

 

If the weather really IS cooler, I will try and get her along to the old people's Hula class next week and see if that is something we can get her into.

 

The other day I saw a Day Care service minibus waiting for a client outside an apartment. The door was open and two wispy old ladies looked out. However much I want Okaasan to go to day care this winter - I can't actually see her getting into a minibus with these type of people and going somewhere with them.

 

I am pinning a lot of hope on the Oldies Hula Club as the potential for lots of physical and mental stimulation for Okaasan this winter. Even if we have to book a taxi to come and take her there every week thru winter - so that she will go, even on snowy, icy days.

 

But first. I have to talk the talk to Dear Son and see what he thinks about trying to get Okaasan assessed for day care.

Have to find the moment to do this. I am a coward.

Need chocolate to help me.

 

The Stopping Channel

8.10 am.......Okaasan deeply into Shoes on the Shopping Channel.

9 am....Okaasan deeply into Shoes on the Shopping Channel.

This is happening more and more, Okaasan getting stuck on either the Shopping Channel or the Weather Channel on TV. Sitting and looking...and looking...and looking. 30 mins...1 hour....thankfully she doesn't pick up the telephone and order anything...thankfully, thankfully....

Of course a lot of Japanese TV entertainment shows are no different from the Shopping Channel - a male and female presenter in the studio, showing off some necessary item while the audience oohs and ahhs - but after about 5 mins. of that there is a change of scene to a male and female presenter showing off some cooking, while the audience oohs and ahhs...and then 5 mins later it will change to a presenter walking round a shop, showing off items, while the male and female presenter in the studio ooh and ahh......

But, poor Okaasan...stuck on the Shopping/Weather Channel.....when I go to Hell for being a bad Oyomesan, it will be like that.

Last night that clothes stand thingy in Okaasan's room collapsed under the weight of T-shirts, scarfs, towels, underpants, bags and God-knows-what. Gave me a chance to try and put two thirds of it away in drawers and cupboards. It's actually only a flimsy laundry drying stand, but Okaasan's compulsion to have all her clothes OUT where she can see them means it gets very weighed down.
I think I'll buy her a stronger stand and take out the flimsy one.

Still hot here. Had an amazing storm last night. Went on for ages. Rainy and thunder and lightening. The cats were nervous. We had little sleep. Okaasan's windows were still open from the afternoon and she was sitting there at 3 am staring at the billowing curtains...but not getting up to close the windows....

And our Popo-chan cat is fighting back to health - we hope. He is an insectholic, and the undigested insects bits are scratching his insides as he vomits them up everywhere (you're not eating while reading this blog, are you??!!)...so then he stops eating...and gets weak....and we go to the vets, and he gets shots of water and stomach-calming medicine...and we try all over again.
Poor little bugger. I wish he'd stay home and watch the Shopping Channel.

9.30 am......

 

Okaasan deeply into Grey Suits on the Shopping Channel....

 

time for me to go and get a life....

 

Jungle fever

Shit. It was hot yesterday.

Can't do much more of this.
And, nor can Okaasan.

About 2.30 pm her room gets steamy. She isn't helping much because she tries to keep the insect screens closed, and the door to the kitchen closed, and there are clothes hanging in the door between her two rooms...and she is wearing long-johns and two shirts.

I have a strong image of my friend's mother-in-law dieing in her underwear on the living room floor of her Osaka apartment a month ago. For all my whingeing about Okaasan, I of course don't wish that end on her.

The jungle of suburban Sapporo. At 2.30 yesterday I was throwing open doors and windows, giving Okaasan iced water in the kitchen and hosing down the concrete steps outside her windows - steps which probably concentrate the sun's heat even more.

And we went to see the musical Lion King! I bought the tickets ages ago, as a post-Olympic something-to-look-forward-to AND as a Happy Family Trip Out. Tickets cost me Y9,000 each. Bit of a  splurge. It is the final week of the show's 2-year run In Sapporo. Both Okaasan and I had seen it before, but Yujiro never.

Thought it would be nice.

At 2.45 pm Okaasan is trying to back out of going: I don't feel like going out, I've seen it before, it's hot......
I ran around like a nutter trying to cool her surroundings down and get her in a positive frame of mind. But it WAS hot. Hard to think about getting ready to go out at 4 pm for us too. At 9,000 a ticket I wasn't going to let her get out of it and I knew once we got her to a cool place, with fun music and songs - she would enjoy it all.

Going out with Okaasan in public, to something that involves a lot of sitting...with a long time to the next toilet break. Bit stressful really.
Overall she enjoyed the show. We enjoyed it, from our seats just 5 rows from the stage - the elephant walked right next to us!!!
But I never really relaxed, always on Care Duty. Rushing Okaasan to the toilet in the intermission, pushing aside other people to get her to the head of the queue etc...trying to be reassuring to her about the embarrassing wet patch on the theater seat....taking her off to the toilet again....grasping her hands through the crowds....sitting chatting while Yujiro got the car.
All a lot of work really.

A 3 hour show isn't very suitable for an old lady with bladder control issues. I should learn this.
Next time, I'll just get tickets for us and leave her quietly at home with some takeout sushi.