Dementia and writing

Been thinking about Okaasan and the winter coat story.

She firmly believed that the Tokyo department store staff was going to come to Sapporo and bring a new coat. Believed the woman had made a promise and was coming soon.
A polite conversation 4 years ago while buying a coat about an imminent move to Sapporo had transformed into a promise from a shop assistant to personally bring a coat hundreds of miles away to a customer.

Really odd.

But, now I realise that Okaasan thinks she had actually been in written communication with this woman. And if you write something, it seems to have more reality.

Okaasan's table is always covered with scraps of paper covered with her writing: recipe ideas from TV shows, telephone numbers of TV shopping, notes about English words (!!!!) and other scribblings.
A month ago I gave a Japanese friend one of the longer scribblings to translate - just interested to know WHAT Okaasan was writing about.
And yes - I know I'm invading Okaasan's privacy etc etc. But hell, I'm writing a public blog about this lady, without her knowledge...so I'm way beyond any privacy lines here. And you are reading this blog, so we are all in this together :-)

The friend said it appeared to be a practice writing for a letter to someone: something about "now it is September and if you come to Sapporo I will show you around, and I don't have a winter coat, so please being one with you..."
Now it makes sense. She was writing - or practicing to write - to the Tokyo department store staff. 99% sure that the writing never became a real letter. Okaasan doesn't know the name of the staff, or the address of the shop etc And I don't think, even in Japan, shop staff do personal deliveries of coats, unless you are a superstar customer.

But it's made me think: do/can dementia sufferers communicate more in writing, than in speech? What we say is such a fleeting thing, and for dementia that is bad - you don't know if you said it or not, or to the right person, or if they heard. You can't remember.
But writing something on paper is safer: it is there for you and someone else to read and understand.

Okaasan often says:" did I tell Yujiro this? I said this before, didn't I?" - and often it is something we've never heard before. She thinks she has told us. In her mind she had the thought, but is uncertain whether she expressed that.
Writing is a better way.

But, of course...not for Okaasan. She is living with an Oyomesan who can't read her notes without outside help. And her son hardly looks at the stuff on her table. So the thoughts go unnoticed.

Maybe I should start prying around the table scribblings more...

Two's company...

"Love me tender!
"Love me true!"

As channelled my inner Elvis at the dinner table last night by serenading Okaasan across the dinner table last night, I thought: "God, I'm good at this!"

Another dinner, another day, another week with Okaasan.

Came home between classes to prep dinner and feed cats. Okaasan was heading out for a walk wearing a lively combination of house coat, 3 T-shirts, a scarf, a hat and a coat.
"Is this ok? Maybe in Tokyo no, but Sapporo isn't so formal, is it?".
Always, the asking for advice about clothing. I think Tokyo and Sapporo has the same standards of crazy-old-lady-combinations - but I just smiled and let her go. As long as she is warm it doesn't matter what she wears.
After she left I went into her room to tidy up a little and take out trash. Process more laundry.
Out to an evening class.
Home in a snow storm to get fish, rice, vegetables, soup on the table.

Cast around for a topic to chat about: did the Japanese Prime Minister speak English with President Obama? Few years ago Prime Minister Koizumi performed Elvis for Bush....Elvis....like Japan's old star Ishihara Yujiro...Ahh HA!
Ishihara Yujiro! BINGO!
I used to go to a healthy food cooking school in Tokyo and someone told me that Ishihara Yujiro's home was nearby, and I told my husband, and he wasn't interested in famous people, but even HE came to look at the house - because Ishihara was so famous!

Repeat for - oh...about 10 times.....and no, that isn't an exageration - she really  did repeat that story 10 times. Until I started clearing plates and muttering about "cats outside still" and "must prep tomorrow's classes".

Like the game 7 Degrees of Kevin Bacon, talking to Okaasan is much easier if you can find a way onto one of her fave topics. The cooking school and Ishihara's house, and the husband coming to look at it is a fave topic.
I am getting so good at getting her onto these hamster wheels.

Onwards.
These times alone with all the responsibility are a bit tough. I have to plan it all carefully and make sure there is time for all the must do stuff and the want to do stuff.
And then there is snow. Had 23 cm of it again yesterday. Endless snow clearing...endless.

Onwards. Endless.
Ishihara Yujiro had a home near my cooking school, and my husband came to look at it....

Repeat after me.

aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Alone again. Unnaturally.

He's gone again. 10 days.
Home alone with my Okaasan.
And cats.
And snow.
And working, shopping, cleaning, cooking, chatting, bathtimes blah....

This week (before he went), I actually escaped and flew down to Tokyo with friends to see Adam Lambert in concert - stay a night, do some tourist stuff, eat HUGE spare ribs on TGI Friday's in Shibuya. Another world. And not just the lack of snow.

Trouble with going away - it all mounts up and waits for you when you come back.
I was away last week for 3 days in east Hokkaido spreading my horrendous Japanese language skills far and wide. This week in Tokyo.
That schedule moved all my classes around, and an ongoing editing job...not to mention the impending end of year accounts and a dentist trip.

Agh!!!!
Just glad to have reached Friday at the moment.

Okaasan went to day care twice this week - Tuesday AND Thursday...hula and ballroom. I let Dear Son do the organising to get her out the door in respectable clothing and with the right accessories. It's good for him.
She resisted both times a little, but soon accepted the plan and set off happily.
We might...almost..be getting into a routine with this day care now. Maybe :-)
She is defeinatly MUCH brighter and conversationally engaged after day care, the experience is worthwhile. After ALL that struggle to get her set up and going!

One strange thing: yesterday she came home to an empty house cos he and I were out working...and the day care center driver gave Okaasan the Day Diary paper to bring inside. This is the paper that reports how times she peed, what she did, how she interacted with staff and other people etc.
The driver just gave it to her - no envelope, just the paper.
Isn't that a bit strange? I don't think that is really something SHE should be reading - it's the report to the family to reassure us she is ok....I don't think Okaasan should be so clearly shown that the staff there are noting what she does and writing it all down! If this was me I'd hate to think that they are spying on me and noting when I go to the toilet etc and whether I talk to people.
Or is that just me being over-sensitive?
Anyway, I swiped it from her table when she was in the toilet. Also swiped a Japan Pension letter before it vanished under the kotatsu trash mound...

Odd. They should really put it in an envelope and address it to her son. Not just give it to her. Strangely slack.

Finally..a culture quiz for you.
In a Tokyo youth hostel 3 women stayed the night. In the morning they had to return their bed sheets to front desk.
Which sheets belong to a) the Brit b) the American and c) the Japanese?
And for a bonus point: Who was such a lazy bugger they couldn't be bothered to go 4 floors down and rent a towel...so they used the bedsheets instead?

Home Alone - Success!



From this.....east Hokkaido..



 

To THIS!!!! Home.

We are all home again - and the house is still standing. The pans are unburned. Okaasan isn't perched on the kitchen counter howling at the moon....


Our first real going-away-and-leaving Okaasan alone with outside help was a success. The day care people came and chatted and cooked. The cat sitters came and left food for invisable, terrified cats. Okaasan actually met ALL three people - so she probably had a more social time in those three days than she does normally :-)

Of course, she didn't clear away any lunch delivery boxes or dirty plates, or pick up laundry from the carpet...that is normal. But for 3 days it is ok.
She seems ok. A little tense maybe. Yesterday we took her downtown in the car, walked her around shoppings areas, took her for lunch etc. Family time.
Amazingly strange story about winter coat shopping: Okaasan thought she'd ordered a winter coat from a woman in Tokyo!
After lunch in a department store I tried again to get her interested in all the coats on sale, but she was so negative (cheap coats are no good, no - that color is bad etc etc) and surprised us by saying she was waiting for the coat she'd ordered.....
In her mind the coat shop woman in Tokyo (4 years ago) had said she was coming to Sapporo to visit, and Okaasan had asked her to bring a new winter coat....Yujiro told her that he'd been there with her at that conversation and that there was no such arrangement - the woman had just been making polite sounds about "oh, one day I must come and see Sapporo....".
But somehow in Okaasan's mind that polite bit of chat has transformed into a real promise of something going to happen...
Anyway. Coats on sale are all bad. We have to wait until autumn to take Okaasan shopping for a coat.

And.....in east Hokkaido...a terrifying speech in Japanese -

with the Mayor of that town, all sorts of tourism association people in suits, all very formal - 2 hours of utter terror...my Japanese no good at all for this formal situation - my head was kept above water by the interpreter...and then....outside in beautiful east Hokkaido...all of this!!!!!!