Day Care X 2???????!!!!

Day care - plus plus.

Wish I could bring you the blow by blow on this one, but I had to go to work...and it all happened in my absence.

The day care manager and case worker came yesterday for a Kitchen Summit with Okaasan and Dear Son.

They proposed that Okaasan should go to day care TWICE a week from next month! Wow! We thought they were going to suggest and extra two days, but they went for the full doubling up.
It would be hula dance and ballroom dance and the other days of stretch exercises etc. Plus the usual bath, hair wash and lunch.

Dear Son told me that Okaasan wasn't greatly enthusiastic about it - am I still going there? Twice a week? Why am I going there? Yes, it's fun...but....

But she didn't stand a chance against the combined will of 3 people. She signed the contract and maybe this will start next month.

Maybe.

I'm surprised actually. I was grateful for once a week - and it has made a huge difference to her mental and physical condition this winter. Somewhere to go, people to talk to, stimulation away from the TV and folding up bits of old newspaper to make bag filling (Okaasan's endless habit).
But I thought her condition probably didn't qualify her for more than once a week for now - plus the fact that she lives with family and has such stimulating conversations with us.
Recently everything we talk about she connects with wartime - whether it is Dear Son's childhood in the early 1960's or honeymooning couples in the 1980's - she talks about anything and relates it to: "Well, that was just after the war, so..."

But day care twice a week Great! IF - BIG "IF" - we can get her to go....yoohooo!!

* Last night we watched another program in the recent history in Japan home videos program. There was one of a family with their demented granny - she was throwing food around, manhandling the cat and trying to bite people while they dressed her....Dear Son and I watched in silence and wondered...is that all ahead of us? The aggression? The acting out?
Okaasan on bad days has been verbally agressive with us - I can't imagine her trying to bite us.
Who knows?

Public holidays in Japan now. And I'm home with a cold.
I may not make it out of pajamas today..

Slow recovery

Okaasan not as good as we (and she) thought.
Monday night at dinner she looked really down and sad. Ate a little.
By Tuesday morning the lip had swollen to orangatan-size and she looked strained around the eyes.
Even asked me to open the curtains in her room etc and sat slumped against the sofa looking defeated by life.
When she has pain it is so obvious. Her whole body shows it.
We cancelled the day care trip and let her be during the day.

Late afternoon though I got her out for a walk and Tuesday evening she was back at the table eating again with some energy.

Apart from the dementia, just being 83 means that the knocks of life - and a full-face fall is a big knock - set you a little back and back.
Shame she missed a day care trip, but at least the weather is better so she can get out and walk herself.

Up and out!

Okaasan seems fine - amazed us today by going out for a walk - in fact going down town to her fave coffee shop etc I felt sure she wouldn't want to go out with a big scar on her lip and bruised hands. But no - she was up and out by 3.30 pm

Had a toilet accident of the brown kind when she came home, finally came out of the toilet and let Dear Son clean up the mat etc for her and allowed herself to be ordered to take a shower.
I'm thinking that maybe daycare would like to try and get talking to Okaasan about wearing diapers - at least at night - because the toilet accidents seem to be on the increase. I tried a year ago to get into this topic...and failed. Maybe professional strangers would fare better?

She only ate a bowl of rice at lunchtime - didn't appear to want dinner...so we went for some couple time out for meat on sticks...came home and found her standing in the kitchen helping herself to cooked-earlier rice and mixing it up with hot water...and then cold leftover chilli tofu....

A fall

Okaasan fell in the street today - cut and bruised her hands badly.
A woman who lived nearby saw it and walked her home.
We guess she is ok - but will watch her carefully for the next few days to see if there is any other injury or effect.

Been another week - shows you how much I am getting used to this life that I don't blog about it all!

Even when I went to the toilet early morning and stepped into something wet in the hallway...realised Okaasan had got up in the night and failed to make it to the toilet in time - a trail of pee across the kitchen, hallway and into the toilet.
Luckily we have carpet tiles in the kitchen that can be take up and washed, and the hallway can be mopped.

And later in the week was day care and ballroom dancing. Okaasan went off happily enough to it. She is tired and hungry when she comes back - Yujiro found her in the kitchen trying to cook fried rice at 5.30 pm. But the report the staff make on Okaasan continues to say she appears to be enjoying it - dancing with the teacher, playing some kind of ball catch game, exercising with other people.
Strange - Okaasan SAYS to us that she is there is only one other member in the hula and the ballroom dance class. Sounds a little odd. Can't believe a teacher would come in only for two students...

Anyway - MY week was good because Dear Son was in housewife mode. Shopping, cooking, chatting to Okaasan when I had evening classes.
I just led an ordinary life.....after a looong winter. Nice.

He will start his summer bike taxi job soon, so I'm enjoying having a full-time wife at the moment.