The Japan Times Editorial looked at "The Future of senile dementia" yesterday - with stats and government ponderings on what to do about it all.
Central government is telling local governments to set up 300 "senile dementia treatment centers staffed by experts" - mainly so that people currently in hospitals can be released "back into the community"...and save somebody somewhere some money.
Ho, ho, ho....yeah right. I expect that will happen.
This is all scheduled to happen between 2013 and 2017. Maybe after rebuilding tsunami struck communities along the north-east coastline. Because that is going so well already....
Sapporo city could make a great start on all of this by shifting initial assessment interviews from over-worked doctors in over-crowded hospitals, to kitchens all over the land. You don't need a hospital to assess dementia. A kitchen table and about an hour of chat should do it.
But will they listen to me? Nah....
Had myself a nice weekend. Hanging around at home, lunch with a friend, out to see flowers with another friend, sunshine, TV, reading...and OH MY GOD - prepping stuff for the speech I have to do October 18th to Rotary Club ladies....UK Volunteerism...in Japanese. I have so many pictures to illustrate this talk I am hoping they'll just look at those and not listen to me trying to fill 45 mins in atrocious Japanese.
haven't heard anything from the psychiatrist friend, but it's a 3 day holiday..so hoping next week a phone call or mail will come.
Okaasan is fine at the moment. In fact, as Yujiro keeps pointing out to me, she is really pretty good and even washing dishes and folding up newspapers in her room.
You know, it's like taking sick pets to the vets. As soon as you wrangle them into the carrier and GET them there, then they sit up on the consulting table and look perky - while back home they looked half dead.
Okaasan is trotting thru her days fine - while her dear family plot all sorts of shocks and indignities. Inklings of guilt whisper at me.
But I'm shouting them down.
Monday, 8 October 2012
Friday, 5 October 2012
*#*#?#$
Hear me wilting from there?
####****&%$#$.
The city office says we have to get Okaasan to a hospital and a doctor for the assessment.
+)('&%##$%%&'I(NMJFTYXYRHMN<##%'(P))(''??**`"
Can't type the word I want to type here without Blogger deleting this account for public obscenity reasons.
Okaasan who hates hospitals and doctors, because she knows better than anyone in the whole wide world. Well, Health Guru Nishi-sensei knew a little better. But he's dead. Probably because he refused day care help and his demented mind stopped working. So we can't ask him to help.
I'm so, so so disappointed. Really thought that today it was all finally going to grind into action. Instead, came home from the city office after just 10 minutes, changed my clothes for work and will probably eat a huge amount of chocolate today to comfort myself.
A last ditch effort for help - the husband of one of my students is a psychiatrist. He offered back in the summer that someone from his hospital would do the assessment of Okaasan for us. At home? At the kitchen table over a cup of tea? I hope so. How I hope so.
I've sent my student e mails and stuff and we'll hold our breath. See what her husband thinks. Was it just a kind offer from someone who doesn't know the details of how the system works in Sapporo city? His specialty isn't old people, he was offering to introduce a colleague. Would a home visit assessment from a qualified person be ok? Frustratingly, my friend who is a public health worker near Tokyo says in HER city home assessments are available.
Not in Toyohira ward, Sapporo. Bugger.
The alternative is that this weekend we take Okaasan to a nice local hot spring and have warm friendly, family time...and then Yujiro will spring the topic on her.
He (predictably) wants to go the Total Honesty route: recently you've been having bad memory problems haven't you? Why don't we go along and chat to a nice doctor person and see if you qualify for a nice, friendly day care place this winter, you could go along in a free bus and exercise and meet people and have fun! Couldn't you! That would be nice , wouldn't it!
And she will agree to this. And off she and Dear Son will go next week to a local hospital, and the doctor will say she is Level 2 on the dementia scale, or whatever, and he will recommend the city office make a Care Plan - and we will all skip happily into the sunset.
Or: she will say "I don't need anybody's help, cos I know best", or she will say "Yes" and then get to the doors of a hospital and see the words "Mental" or "Senior" on a sign and refuse to enter the building.
Not fair. Not fair at all. I get it : home assessments are expensive and my taxes would have to increase to support this. Most old people love going to hospitals and talking about themselves to a doctor.
Not ours.
FUCK IT. Hope Blogger doesn't delete me, cos otherwise I will go on a rampage with a large machine gun and take out my frustrations on the 3rd floor of the city office.
####****&%$#$.
The city office says we have to get Okaasan to a hospital and a doctor for the assessment.
+)('&%##$%%&'I(NMJFTYXYRHMN<##%'(P))(''??**`"
Can't type the word I want to type here without Blogger deleting this account for public obscenity reasons.
Okaasan who hates hospitals and doctors, because she knows better than anyone in the whole wide world. Well, Health Guru Nishi-sensei knew a little better. But he's dead. Probably because he refused day care help and his demented mind stopped working. So we can't ask him to help.
I'm so, so so disappointed. Really thought that today it was all finally going to grind into action. Instead, came home from the city office after just 10 minutes, changed my clothes for work and will probably eat a huge amount of chocolate today to comfort myself.
A last ditch effort for help - the husband of one of my students is a psychiatrist. He offered back in the summer that someone from his hospital would do the assessment of Okaasan for us. At home? At the kitchen table over a cup of tea? I hope so. How I hope so.
I've sent my student e mails and stuff and we'll hold our breath. See what her husband thinks. Was it just a kind offer from someone who doesn't know the details of how the system works in Sapporo city? His specialty isn't old people, he was offering to introduce a colleague. Would a home visit assessment from a qualified person be ok? Frustratingly, my friend who is a public health worker near Tokyo says in HER city home assessments are available.
Not in Toyohira ward, Sapporo. Bugger.
The alternative is that this weekend we take Okaasan to a nice local hot spring and have warm friendly, family time...and then Yujiro will spring the topic on her.
He (predictably) wants to go the Total Honesty route: recently you've been having bad memory problems haven't you? Why don't we go along and chat to a nice doctor person and see if you qualify for a nice, friendly day care place this winter, you could go along in a free bus and exercise and meet people and have fun! Couldn't you! That would be nice , wouldn't it!
And she will agree to this. And off she and Dear Son will go next week to a local hospital, and the doctor will say she is Level 2 on the dementia scale, or whatever, and he will recommend the city office make a Care Plan - and we will all skip happily into the sunset.
Or: she will say "I don't need anybody's help, cos I know best", or she will say "Yes" and then get to the doors of a hospital and see the words "Mental" or "Senior" on a sign and refuse to enter the building.
Not fair. Not fair at all. I get it : home assessments are expensive and my taxes would have to increase to support this. Most old people love going to hospitals and talking about themselves to a doctor.
Not ours.
FUCK IT. Hope Blogger doesn't delete me, cos otherwise I will go on a rampage with a large machine gun and take out my frustrations on the 3rd floor of the city office.
Wednesday, 3 October 2012
Squeak!
The mouse returned....
9.30 pm last night...we were just getting ready for bed. Popo was hanging around.
And then he was hanging around with - oh YUK! The still twitching mouse...tossing it around the carpet as cats do.
Where did he stuff it during the day? Under the fridge? It's the only place I hadn't looked. But there it was. Still alive. Just. Poor, poor thing.
Awful.
We did the cat and mouse dance of trying to catch the cat without losing an arm, and then picking up the mouse without getting a rabid bite....giggling like maniacs.
Thank goodness Okaasan only brings back aloe yogurts.
On a happier note...
I asked foreign residents of Sapporo for advice about gammy knee doctors - I used the popular mailing list Hokkaido Insider, run by a friend Ken Hartmann.
Bloody 'ell.
Opened my email this morning and had over 25 (and counting) responses from all sorts of people who have had gammy knees and other body parts, recommending their doctors and clinics.
Simply amazing. SO many people have had bad knees - I guess the foreign community here is aging and Hokkaido is a very outdoorsy place, so we are all skiing and mountain climbing. And damaging our bodies.
I am now trying to decide which doctor/hospital is best for me to access.
But I am sad that I shall have to cut back or cut out my gym exercising. Yesterday my knee hurt after just an ordinary day. Not a good sign at all.
* And...just to ensure that there is never a worry-free week - I also went along this morning and made an appointment to have my first ever stomach cancer check-up next week. This is on the Japanese health insurance system.
I think it's the don't eat anything 12 hours before, have an injection and then drink barium and climb on a tilting table routine.
Since that ovary scare and operation I have joined the Japanese health insurance system and am now FAR more conscious of health problems and checks. I pay a lot of money for this insurance (including 2 years? back payments), so I am determined to get everything checked out.
Barium. Oh yum. I wonder if it is low cholesterol?
9.30 pm last night...we were just getting ready for bed. Popo was hanging around.
And then he was hanging around with - oh YUK! The still twitching mouse...tossing it around the carpet as cats do.
Where did he stuff it during the day? Under the fridge? It's the only place I hadn't looked. But there it was. Still alive. Just. Poor, poor thing.
Awful.
We did the cat and mouse dance of trying to catch the cat without losing an arm, and then picking up the mouse without getting a rabid bite....giggling like maniacs.
Thank goodness Okaasan only brings back aloe yogurts.
On a happier note...
I asked foreign residents of Sapporo for advice about gammy knee doctors - I used the popular mailing list Hokkaido Insider, run by a friend Ken Hartmann.
Bloody 'ell.
Opened my email this morning and had over 25 (and counting) responses from all sorts of people who have had gammy knees and other body parts, recommending their doctors and clinics.
Simply amazing. SO many people have had bad knees - I guess the foreign community here is aging and Hokkaido is a very outdoorsy place, so we are all skiing and mountain climbing. And damaging our bodies.
I am now trying to decide which doctor/hospital is best for me to access.
But I am sad that I shall have to cut back or cut out my gym exercising. Yesterday my knee hurt after just an ordinary day. Not a good sign at all.
* And...just to ensure that there is never a worry-free week - I also went along this morning and made an appointment to have my first ever stomach cancer check-up next week. This is on the Japanese health insurance system.
I think it's the don't eat anything 12 hours before, have an injection and then drink barium and climb on a tilting table routine.
Since that ovary scare and operation I have joined the Japanese health insurance system and am now FAR more conscious of health problems and checks. I pay a lot of money for this insurance (including 2 years? back payments), so I am determined to get everything checked out.
Barium. Oh yum. I wonder if it is low cholesterol?
Tuesday, 2 October 2012
The final countdown...yeah!
Ok. NOW going-to-the-city-office-to-ask-for-assessment is on the schedule for this Friday.
So it might actually happen.
Come typhoon or earthquake, bubonic plague or meteorite ...he and I will finally ask for help.
He was still doing nothing, and I am despairing of a rainy day forcing him off-work so he'll go to the city office. Last night I told him to TAKE time off work and let's do this thing - get the wheels turning. He agreed and said today, then rescheduled for Friday.
Friday it is then.
I seem to be seeing wispy/vacant old people everywhere at the moment - and comparing them to Okaasan, who trots off happily alone most afternoons for a walk and shop, and comes home to sort of particpate in dinner conversations. Am I over reacting? Is it too early for day care? I guess this is guilt setting in. This will happen (assuming it WILL happen) because of me: I can't cope with Okaasan in the winter. Seeing Okaasan now - when the weather is good and she goes out most days - gives me uncertainty.
She is still pretty able in all things, and our care for her is doable. Frustrating often and funny often, but doable.
I really have to remind myself of the change in winter. When he is away for weeks working and I come home late afternoon to find she hasn't ventured out again. And her mood goes down and down, and the shitty toilet accidents come back, and the hamster wheel conversations.
I need to remind myself of those times.
She needs mental stimulation and physical exercise. She really does. And I need carer support. I really do.
Okaasan DID finally use the found subway card and go downtown again. Sunday afternoon, I was going to the supermarket which is next to the station, just after she'd left the house (okay, so I was kinda following her :-)))
and she trotted into the subway station and thru the ticket gate and off she went.
Later, at dinner, I mentioned downtown: "Did you go downtown today?"
"Downtown? No, I don't think so. I forget. I went to Macdonald's...."
But I'm glad she went and returned ok. There's been a 3 weeks gap since she was there and I wondered if she would be ok about going and returning, whether she would remember it all - but she seemed ok.
In other news: our cats are turning this house into the Horror House of Death. Birds...mice..insects...oh god, it's horrible. I love cats, I really do...but...oh....horrible.
Yesterday Chichi brought a piegon home. A whole pigeon. Yujiro followed the trail of blood upstairs to the corpse at the top. At 5 am Popo got us all awake by growling over his dieing sparrow...and then in the minutes before I went to work 5 hours later - he reappeared with a still squeaking mouse.
I really had to go to work, so I closed all the interior doors and left the chase-to-the-death happening in our utility room.
Came back 4 hours later...and there is NO trace of the mouse! None! No tail, no guts. Nothing. I've looked everwhere. Found two toy mice and a lot of dust. I fear the remains will turn up in my ski boots bag in December, or in the cleaning equipment box when I clean on a Blue Moon.
And my knee. It's back. Bugger.
Three years ago, two years ago - this blog was full of my left knee and its cartilage. I thought it was almost ok now. I ski (slowly), I walk in parks, I can even trot across roads when the lights are about to change. I go to the gym 3 times a week and don't wear knee support so much. Still take a Glucosamine tablet daily.
Two weeks ago I went away for a wonderful weekend trip with my friend and her cute 9 kg plus baby.....obviously I carried him too much. My knee/thigh started aching and aching. I've tried taking it easy....but the is no escaping the fact: it hurts and I am starting to curtail activity again.
Bugger. Oh bugger. Bugger.
I hate this. I am only 51 years old. Will I never get this thing better? It doesn't bode well for me as an old lady...
I'm looking around for a recommended orthopedic doc. An MRI maybe? More of those awful injections??
I hate getting old.
Physical aging problems, like gammy knees, are one thing. Getting dementia is another.
This week a friend who is a big fan of the TEDX lectures sent me a link to this video: a woman describing the steps she is taking to prepare for life if she gets dementia. Have a look, it's very moving and thought-provoking.
Alanna Shaikh talks about Alzheimer's Disease Preparations.
So it might actually happen.
Come typhoon or earthquake, bubonic plague or meteorite ...he and I will finally ask for help.
He was still doing nothing, and I am despairing of a rainy day forcing him off-work so he'll go to the city office. Last night I told him to TAKE time off work and let's do this thing - get the wheels turning. He agreed and said today, then rescheduled for Friday.
Friday it is then.
I seem to be seeing wispy/vacant old people everywhere at the moment - and comparing them to Okaasan, who trots off happily alone most afternoons for a walk and shop, and comes home to sort of particpate in dinner conversations. Am I over reacting? Is it too early for day care? I guess this is guilt setting in. This will happen (assuming it WILL happen) because of me: I can't cope with Okaasan in the winter. Seeing Okaasan now - when the weather is good and she goes out most days - gives me uncertainty.
She is still pretty able in all things, and our care for her is doable. Frustrating often and funny often, but doable.
I really have to remind myself of the change in winter. When he is away for weeks working and I come home late afternoon to find she hasn't ventured out again. And her mood goes down and down, and the shitty toilet accidents come back, and the hamster wheel conversations.
I need to remind myself of those times.
She needs mental stimulation and physical exercise. She really does. And I need carer support. I really do.
Okaasan DID finally use the found subway card and go downtown again. Sunday afternoon, I was going to the supermarket which is next to the station, just after she'd left the house (okay, so I was kinda following her :-)))
and she trotted into the subway station and thru the ticket gate and off she went.
Later, at dinner, I mentioned downtown: "Did you go downtown today?"
"Downtown? No, I don't think so. I forget. I went to Macdonald's...."
But I'm glad she went and returned ok. There's been a 3 weeks gap since she was there and I wondered if she would be ok about going and returning, whether she would remember it all - but she seemed ok.
In other news: our cats are turning this house into the Horror House of Death. Birds...mice..insects...oh god, it's horrible. I love cats, I really do...but...oh....horrible.
Yesterday Chichi brought a piegon home. A whole pigeon. Yujiro followed the trail of blood upstairs to the corpse at the top. At 5 am Popo got us all awake by growling over his dieing sparrow...and then in the minutes before I went to work 5 hours later - he reappeared with a still squeaking mouse.
I really had to go to work, so I closed all the interior doors and left the chase-to-the-death happening in our utility room.
Came back 4 hours later...and there is NO trace of the mouse! None! No tail, no guts. Nothing. I've looked everwhere. Found two toy mice and a lot of dust. I fear the remains will turn up in my ski boots bag in December, or in the cleaning equipment box when I clean on a Blue Moon.
And my knee. It's back. Bugger.
Three years ago, two years ago - this blog was full of my left knee and its cartilage. I thought it was almost ok now. I ski (slowly), I walk in parks, I can even trot across roads when the lights are about to change. I go to the gym 3 times a week and don't wear knee support so much. Still take a Glucosamine tablet daily.
Two weeks ago I went away for a wonderful weekend trip with my friend and her cute 9 kg plus baby.....obviously I carried him too much. My knee/thigh started aching and aching. I've tried taking it easy....but the is no escaping the fact: it hurts and I am starting to curtail activity again.
Bugger. Oh bugger. Bugger.
I hate this. I am only 51 years old. Will I never get this thing better? It doesn't bode well for me as an old lady...
I'm looking around for a recommended orthopedic doc. An MRI maybe? More of those awful injections??
I hate getting old.
Physical aging problems, like gammy knees, are one thing. Getting dementia is another.
This week a friend who is a big fan of the TEDX lectures sent me a link to this video: a woman describing the steps she is taking to prepare for life if she gets dementia. Have a look, it's very moving and thought-provoking.
Alanna Shaikh talks about Alzheimer's Disease Preparations.
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