Okaasan had two outings with us this week:
Costco for a mega shopping and lunch.
The Shrine Festival down the park for Japanese crowds and fast food.
Lucky!
It is very incongruous to see her in COSTCO, with all the young families loading up with unhealthy American food - and then sitting in the noisy food court and eating her way through a whole Manhattan Clam Chowder pot.
She pushed the trolley all the way round - guided by Dear Son and bought two big bags of rice crackers.
But it is a good walk and very stimulating for her to be in such a big public place. Almost got lost on the way to the toilets! But all ok.
On Sunday night I had a nightmare that DS was blaming his mother's mental condition on me because "you don't treat her kindly and do enough" - so the next day I eased my nightmare guilt by taking her to the city festival in the park.
I don't know WHY I had that dream - DS certainly doesn't think anything like that...some odd sh** going on in my brain!
Anyway...down to the park festival - all food stalls and tacky prize games. Very traditional.
We walked together thru the crowds and ate octopus in batter balls and snacks and juice. Okaasan very nimble about finding places to sit on low walls and telling me endlessly how there weren't any festivals in wartime Japan etc.
It is quite a long walk thru the park and up and down subway steps - she was tired after that. But happy.
And yesterday - obviously fired up by all that stimulation she took herself downtown on the subway. Getting out and DOING something - even better if it is with us - obviously good for Okaasan's brain.
* Funny thing - I picked some flowers from the garden - don't know the name - but they are white and smell heavenly early and late in the day.
Put them on the kitchen table - showed them to Okaasan.
She couldn't smell them - not even after several attempts. Isn't that strange. This is a strong, sweet perfume - you couldn't NOT smell it.
Is that old people? Do they lose their sense of smell. Very odd.
Just as well. Okaasan's room smells horrible. She can live there and not mind.
Date time with DS tonight - yippeee...couple time :@-)
Cheap Groupon dinner of course.
Never ever imagined I'd be caring for an elderly lady in Japan.
19 years ago today my mother died - I was here in Sapporo when I got the call from my Dad and step-mum to tell me.
Later that year I met a Japanese ski instructor who was here for early-season training.....19 years later I am cleaning his mum's room, monitoring her bath times and making sure she gets home for dinner safely.
Would never have imagined it.
My Mum was only 69 years old when the melanoma/blood cancer killed her. She'd fallen a few times and seemed to have weak ankle bones. Then doctors discovered a soft part in her skull...
69 years old seems so young. I am 54 now. 60 is coming soon. There are so many things I still want to do in life - I need much much more than another 15 years to do it all!
Meanwhile. Okaasan at soon-to-be-84 is going strong.
Not AS strong. But still strong.
The day after we did the family trip to the shopping mall she took herself by subway downtown for a coffee and bought a magazine. Came back within 90 minutes.
Her trips downtown are much less now. Mostly local walking.
And we have a screwdriver plan for the bathroom door.
Dear Son has now supervised a few bathtimes for Okaasan, making sure she gets out by herself safely.
Then she locked the connecting door!
So, he was found a screwdriver that will open the locked door - in case she is in trouble and we need to get inside. Interesting that she locked the door - she never has until now. I wonder if it is a reaction to our closer monitoring of her private time? But bugger that - it IS essential that we can get into the bathroom.
Oh. And wine....
Last night DS asked his mum as dinner ended: "Have you had enough? Are you happy?"
To which she replied grumpily: "No, everyone has wine and I only have water!"
In fact my coffee cup contained water too. Only DS was drinking the delicious looking red stuff with his dinner.
Hum.
We will have to be rethink. Probably shouldn't drink alcohol in front of Okaasan if we aren't going to give her some. She gulps it down in seconds, and then looks around for more - it could be hard to refuse her once it is in view. She has NO control over what she drinks.
Ho hum. Water for family dinners from now on!
Wine for special occasions...
Thru Okaasan's eyes the world is very different - and we get glimpses of that when we walk and talk with her.
Yesterday was Family Outing day to the shopping mall. After Dear Son had supervised Bath Time successfully he said that he needed some sports wear for work so off the three of us went. First a huge ramen noodles lunch (wow - Okaasan can eat tonnes!) - and then I kindly let him go off to the sports shop alone.
I walked Okaasan round the mall for mental and physical benefits.
Going to the mall does feel like taking a child shopping - one adult goes off to do what they need, and the other takes care of the "child", checking if she needs the toilet, or something to drink or somewhere to sit down. Alerting her to dangers.
Okaasan trots unsteadily along behind me round the shops...touching what I touch and peering out at the world of people.
There was a stage in the center of the mall with a pretty bad girl singer performing for lots of young male fans.
Okaasan realised this three or four times as we walked round the shops: "look! Look! There are people looking at something, there must be an event! Let's go and see!".
And so we went back and forth between shops and the balcony overlooking the stage area. Each time she got to the balcony edge she appeared to be seeing the girl singer for the first time....
Later - while I was on Shopping Alone Time in the pet store - Dear Son steered Okaasan back towards the parking area. As they crossed the glassed-in bridge connecting buildings - Okaasan went to the window: "is this where you can see the girl singing?". And he realized she thought we were still inside the main mall. Now she had remembered the girl, but the place was different.
Okaasan always, always goes on set routes in her trips outside the home. She really must need the reassurance of the same doors, the same stairs, the same shops - to make sense of where she is. Each trip out must be ripe with confusions.
When we got home Okaasan went to sleep - and slept and slept - all through dinner time and only woke up some time in the middle of the night. It was a lot of experiences for her for one day.
...you never know where dementia is going to take you.
One of the messages to come out of last weekend's films (apart from the fact that I am NOT a good publicist) is that everyone experiences dementia differently. While there are common threads: the short term memory loss/the raw emotions etc, nobody's brain is the same and how an individual deals with the illness can be very personal.
Even within the same person - from day to day, or even hour to hour - the dementia is working differently. It makes living with dementia an interesting ride - trying to judge whether we are needed to help/remind/protect/guide - or not needed at all.
Generally Okaasan isn't so great at doing clothes laundry now.
She washes some of her clothes once or twice a month. Usually at the same time as having a bath. Usually leaves the wet clothes on the bathroom floor or in the sink...for "later" - a later which never comes. She can walk past wet clothes and not see them. Once they are dumped on a surface they are left.
This week I saw how Okaasan can react very differently to an almost identical situation...just days apart.
On the first day I'd done some of her laundry and put the clean, wet clothes in a wash bowl. I went into her room and gave it to her: "now is sunny! Maybe a good time to hang the clothes outside!"
She readily agreed. Put the bowl on the floor and started getting dressed to go out to the clothes line. Dressing and watching TV.
A few minutes later she was dressed. Stood there. Wondered why she was dressed? And sat down again to watch TV. The bowl of wet clothes forgotten in an instant. Now left. And would have stayed there for...hours...days....(but I rescued them).
A day or two later I am in the final flap of getting ready for work. Shower, teeth brushing, get dressed, get lunch pack, work books, car keys etc etc. The usual cramming everything into the final 10 minutes.
Okaasan comes into the kitchen: "the blanket fell down off the clothes line! You should pick it up quickly before it gets dirty!!"
"Yes, yes - in a minute I will. I am wearing a bath towel right now - I'll do it in a few minutes...thankyou, thankyou!".
She came and told me again a minute later.....and I promised to get to it sooooon.
Then I'm upstairs, dressing, hair drying, this that this that....5 minutes later I am out in the garden to attend to the fallen blanket.
It's back on the clothes line. Okaasan has got herself outside, down the steps and picked up the blanket, pegged it back on the line. And is back inside watching TV. She saw the situation, reacted to it, acted on it and finished it. No problem at all.
Why such different responses?
Did situation 2 have an element of "danger and risk" of dirty laundry on the ground - so Okaasan could keep that thought in mind and respond to it? Was situation 1 just a bowl of clean laundry which she didn't have any knowledge of until I handed it to her? So she quickly forgot about it?
Or was it nothing at all to do with the laundry situation? Just different day, different dementia function? Strange.
