So that was Christmas...

...and another year almost gone.

I made it to the end of working. Well, classroom working. I still have a massive editing job to do over the holidays which I think I can do with cups of tea and regular supplies of Xmas chocolate..

Christmas came and went, without Okaasan noticing much.
It isn't a big thing for her generation of Japanese, so I didn't feel too guilty to be going out for fun with friends and students.
I decorated the bits of the house she sees - toilet and kitchen, entrance hall. And on Christmas Eve and Day I made her mealtime sitting place at the kitchen table look festive.

Dear Son got back late on Christmas night from work, so after a lot of eating and drinking with friends I cooked him a cheese and potato omelete and shared some TV time with him. He is home for 4 nights in a row, which is in itself a present to us as a couple at this time of year. Ski school schedule change brought him to a ski area nearer home. He'll be here till Tuesday, and then gone again.

Okaasan ok.

Went out with day care helper Christmas Eve and didn't buy up a ton of food. Only a huge cabbage.

She had another toilet accident that evening. I was making Christmas cup cakes for a class, humming carols etc Noticed that she'd been in the toilet ages....she came out looking a bit sheepish...I made gentle helpful noises: "upset stomach?" and she mentioned not quite getting to the toilet in time, but claimed to have cleaned it up.

She hadn't.

But I couldn't break my fruity Chrissmassy cup cake joy with carols to face that on Christmas Eve. I just bundled up the soiled mat (had only been newly cleaned and in place 5 hours!) and carpet tile - and put them in the bathroom to cope with the next day on my way to work.

Oh. And the chair standing and top cupboard exploring.

She's at it again today...

Got a bit testy with me when I said it was dangerous and that the only things up there were unwanted stuff. Told me: Japanese people don't fall off chairs (!!!!!) and that you should always sort through things in case you might need them now.

Aghhh....

I got her into a bath and then did a frantic 20 minutes clear out of the top closet. Put the bags into trash bags for protection and put six bags (each containing about 8 smaller bags!) into the shed in the garden. Left about 3 bags on the floor in her room for her to sort through. Took the closet doors out of their runners and hid them.

Now she can SEE there are no more things up there to reach for. She can sort through the stuff within reach. And hopefully be content enough. Because I really can't start hiding the kitchen chairs every time I go out :-)

I'm sure this sudden interest in the closet is a sudden burst of end of year cleaning thoughts. But she can't be standing on a chair like this as her age. Her balance on a flat shopping mall floor isn't great. A chair is an Everest.

But the dementia makes her aggressive to any suggestion of help: even when I showed her after the bath how I'd helped her - look I took the things down for you. Now you can sort them out safely. She was still testy with me. No gratitude for the help.

I got her all smiley and chatty at lunch: wartime food, New York, etc. The old tales. Maybe just averted a flareup.

Maybe.

I'm going to get DS to warn her about chair climbing though, she does listen to him and if he says something is dangerous she may take his advice. May.

I have to get rid of all these bags. Shall have to find someone who does flea markets in the spring and offload them all.

And so. Another New Year holidays of Okaasan and Me approaches.

Dear Son will be away. It'll be me and Okaasan for the festivities. I bought some frozen crab legs and readymade traditional food. I'll take her shopping tomorrow and try to control the amount she buys.

:-)

End of year Cleaning??? ;-(

Blood ran cold....heart stopped etc yesterday as I noticed several bags on the floor in Okaasan's 2nd room.
Bags? More bags? Why....and OH MY GOD! where is the chair that is always just standing inside the 1st room entrance?

When Okaasan was in the toilet I raced in to her rooms to find out.

She'd take the chair from the 1st room to the 2nd room and had climbed up to explore the top closet area - removing several of the bags within bags within bags within bags which I had sorted through and stashed a few months back.
Climbed on the chair. Aged 84. 
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Never mind dementia. This isn't great.

In the 2 minute window given to me by her being in the toilet: I grabbed the chair and some bags and ran with them to the washing machine area. Hid them all behind the door.

She came back. Settled by the TV again. Nothing said.

It's the dementia dance...how much do they ACTUALLY remember/realize? If I remove this (chair and bags), will she notice/remember? Will her lack of short term memory work to my advantage.
I'm sure it is something all carers do: remove something and hope, hope , hope that the cared-for doesn't remember it.

Okaasan did, this time.
At dinner time she was back in the 2nd room...looking through one of the bags within bags I'd failed to scoop.

"Oh, I was just checking this. I wondered what was up there in the closet. I think I had a chair? It isn't here now. ...."

Thinking quickly, I kept a casual voice: "Oh, that's old stuff you don't use now. You put it away up there I think. Shall I put it back up there? Standing on a chair is a bit dangerous, isn't it"

She let me put the bags back. No fuss. I feared she would want to get all the bags own and sort thru them...what were there - 70 bags or something??
But this time she accepted what I said and allowed me to close the closet door.

But I'm not sure this is the end of it. Maybe there was something on TV about end of year house cleaning and somebody sorting through their closets. So Okaasan felt inspired to check her closets.
So, if the idea is in her mind. I think she might try again.

What to do?
I've removed the chair from her room.
But there are kitchen chairs within sight. Should I hide them too? It is fairly easy to hide cooking pans and outside shoes. Not so with three kitchen chairs....

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....

DS on Duty

He was home for the weekend: so he was on duty.

:-)

 Friday night I was helping a friend with a leg injury reach her evening classes by driving her there and back. I left curry and salad in the kitchen late afternoon, and he came home from work to heat it up and eat with Okaasan. Mother and Son dinner time. :-)

Saturday morning I told him he needed to take his mother out for lunch and a walk.
"Oh, let's go to XX shopping mall!" he said happily.
"No, YOU take her there for a walk and lunch. I've done a lot of Okaasan service recently. And I need to get into her room and clean!".

And so. He took her out in the car to a big store for walking and shopping. I stayed home and did a cleaning blitz on her room.
Some horrible finds....she had a large toilet accident at night and had hidden away the toilet floor mat. And three pairs of pants that I couldn't clean enough to rescue. And a lot of orange peel, peanut shells, banana skins....it was yuk. But it was better than going for a walk/shop.

They actually bought famous lunch boxes and came home to eat. Family time.

A friend came late afternoon to tune up her skis, then stayed for dinner too. Okaasaan was nervous with a foreign guest, she sat bolt upright and didn't actually eat anything (but had stuffed a whole box of sushi at lunchtime), although she enjoyed DS teaching the foreign friend how to use chopsticks. More family time.

Sunday morning I was out with friends at a flute concert. DS did lunch with his mum.

Sunday night I cooked dinner for the three of us. Family time.

Monday morning he left again for the mountains. BUT - he will be back on Christmas night :-)

Having him here for three whole nights was great: for him and me as a couple, of course. But as carers for Okaasan. Having the break I needed from thinking about it and doing it. Monday to Friday Okaasan is lucky to get a few short conversations with me, maybe a meal with me. Have a bath. Get taken out on Wednesday by day care.
At weekends she needs more conversation and another trip out of the house. So it was great that he was here for that.

Is she aware that she isn't going out much now? Probably not really. A few times last week, when I came home and commented on the weather. She responded with a casual "yes, it's bad weather, so I didn't go out today"...but I think her awareness is that it is only "today". We know it is five days a week of staying in the house.

I had a year end lunch with some students yesterday. As I said farewell to two of them at the station - two VERY energetic, fun 80 year olds - I was aware AGAIN how different people are at the same age. These women are out with their hobbies and friends on a daily basis. In charge of their lives: shopping/cooking/money management/planning.
Okaasan at only a year or two older: in a daze in front of the TV. Waiting for the next meal to come. Given small amounts of money to spend. Not cooking or cleaning. Making lists for shopping and cooking she will never do.

Both my lovely 80 year olds are singers; church choir and a chorus group. One of them is even still an active mountain climbing club member!

Dementia makes such a difference to someone.

This week is the slide into Christmas and not so much work. Then winter holidays. My schedule gears up again after January 5th.

This year Christmas?
I've actually got a class on Christmas morning (noooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!)...and then three  foreign friends have invited me to join their cooking lunch plans. One of them is an artist living in an art community guest house nearby - it has a big kitchen and so we, two Brits and two Australians, are going to cook up a feast.
It'll be SO SO good to cook and eat Christmas food with people who actually have a Christmas sense - I am really looking forward to it.
Trouble is...now Dear Son is coming home in the evening...and although he says he isn't to bothered about Christmas...I know I should do something special. But I'm going to be stuffed and sloshed from lunchtime....so it'll be something easy-to-cook and vaguely festive for him and Okaasan.

Thursday is going to be a hard eating day.

Okaasan's mind is already on New Year. She cuts out New Year food adverts from the newspapers and is making a list...
Since New Year is likely to be her and me...just the two of us... I have to find a way to stop her buying all that stuff....

But first. Christmas!

Day helper success :-)

Just dropping in - as my week continues plowing on almost without me catching up with it...

This week day service helper success: Okaasan agreed to go out with the woman by taxi to the supermarket, where she bought a huge hoard of rice crackers, yogurts, packed food and breads.
Came home again by taxi and settled down by the TV to eat some of it.

I hid the helper file on a chair in the kitchen - and left a note outside the front door telling the helper where to look.
Dear Son sent me a message for his mother about the benefits of walking - and I printed it out and put it by her lunch things on the table.

All seemed to work.

I was actually here when Okaasan and the helper came back. I'd slipped back to feed cats and was lurking upstairs quietly....there wasn't the cheerful chitchat in the kitchen that would be ideal. But maybe the helper and Okaasan were all chatted out by the time they'd gone, walked round the shop and come home again.

The important thing is that the helper came, got Okaasan dressed, got her out for walking and chat. A break away from watching the TV.

I do feel sad for Okaasan. Last year she was taking herself out for a walk a few times a week, even in winter. Now she is down to twice a week - under supervision. But that is all we can do with our own working schedules at the moment. Plus her refusal to go to day center for dancing etc.

My evening classes this winter are only 3 times a week. But still that means she is eating alone 3 nights...at least.
Last night I called her between classes to tell her that her dinner was on the table, soup on the stove etc.
"Is it morning? I don't eat breakfast...." Okaasan told me....

"No, no...it's Thursday evening at 7 pm. That's dinner on the table...I will be home about 9 pm, please eat the food...."

Dear Son is home for the weekend. I can take a mental break from all this arranging and planning of my schedule and the needs of two cats and one old lady.