Legs again

Pain in the legs is back.
When Okaasan remembers it. Feels it. Remembers it.

Last year this went into a 5? week saga of her and Dear Son refusing to do anything about it, while I harassed them to DO SOMETHING! Okaasan stopped going out completely. Had problems even getting to the kitchen and toilet, or  bath.
It's arthritis or rheumatism I expect. However, in this hospitals-do-no-good family we'll never know what it is for sure, so the not-eating, and not standing-up method of treatment will prevail.
Finally last year she agreed to go to a kind of chiropractic - which helped. Finally.

Last week Okaasan went out for a late walk after DS had got home. An hour later the 90 plus years old neighbor came to say that Okaasan was stuck on a footpath about 100 m from the house and couldn't get home by herself!
DS went and rescued her, gently took her hand and walked her home.
Why hadn't she called him? Why hadn't she asked anyone to help? For an hour....she'd probably stood there, clutching onto the fence....until the 90 year old plus neighbor found her.

And so. Some days she remembers the pain. And doesn't eat much, doesn't do much. Creeps around the kitchen.
Other days - or actually even 1 hour later !! - the pain has gone and she is prepping to go out for a walk downtown.....
We are monitoring and trying to make sure she doesn't head out too far again.

It was a bit of a week really....Okaasan and her legs. Lots of work. New students. New class. All good. But a run around.
Then one of the cats appeared sick, and then vanished for 14 hours, and came home with a screechy voice.
I took him to the vet to be checked out and as the last, but one customer on Friday night my vet was just as knackered as me.
He took an X ray of Popo's throat and chest area to see if there was anything inside causing the screechy noises.
Called me back into the consulting room 15 mins later. Two X-rays were up on the screen.
WHAT IS THAT????? And THAT????
Two strange lines were at the lower throat level. On their own, not connected to any other bones. About 2 cm long!!!!
My head was a-whirl with needles? Awful boys torturing my cat? Broken fence parts???
The vet and I peered at the X-rays in shock....

Then he looked flustered, ran into a back room to check something.....and came back with embarrassment to tell me: "um sorry, those are bones! Entirely natural! All cats have them there. Dogs  don't. I got mixed up!!!!"

So relieved. Laughed a bit manically. Me too.
I thought MY week was a long one....his was obviously worse.

Finally came away with nose drops to try and get down - or anywhere at all near - a squirming cat's tiny nostrils.

And it is the weekend. Gardening. TV. Sleeping. Eating out. 
Very necessary.

Coconut oil

Two cans of coconut milk.
Soon to be boiled down into coconut oil.
Which will make me smart and lively, and give me glossy hair and a shiny nose.

Sooner or later in talk about dementia the topic of coconut oil comes up.
It's one of those Amazing, But True, Dementia Preventing/Fighting cures.
If you read the Internet and listen to enough old wives.
(I guess that's where old wives' tales live now...in cyberspace, with YouTube videos of earnest people telling you that they have the secret to something, and not to believe everything you see/hear on the Internet).

So. Coconut oil is meant to stop the bits of the brain decaying and help you keep it together.
I am giving it a try.
I give my cats little packs of water with extra oxygen or something, I've dabble in tarot cards, bio rhythms...I'm up for a little alternative/wacko.

I like coconut. I have a brain. Recently been feeling a bit tired and fighting through life's daily decisions.
Why not?
Give it a go. Can't harm me.

And how will I know it is making a difference?
The blog writing will improve. I will become an all-round livelier teacher, girlfriend, feline-mum, gardener and kayaker?
Maybe.

I'm the guinea pig. Squeak.
If I think it is really doing me good, I would of course try and think I would get some down Okaasan's throat.
Not sure if she likes coconut or not. Not sure I could add it to miso soup, because the oil does taste of coconut. But that's something in the future - if I notice my own brain clicking into a higher gear.

So I bought me some canned coconut milk and following the advice of a friendly Indian lady on YouTube, I boiled it down into a tiny cup of oil. The kitchen smelled wonderful. Like a beach full of British tourists all slathering on sunscreen.

And now I am adding some oil to my morning coffee or chai. Or just spooning it into me. And waiting to see if my teaching/editing/writing/cat mothering skills get sharper.

I hardly dare label this post "dementia" and "coconut oil", cos the number of blog visitors will shoot up and I'll get all sorts of people dropping by.
Think I'll just leave it unlabeled....

That's a smart decision. The oil. Obviously. It's already working....

* Slightly strange thing with Okaasan last night. She was out when we both came home...him at 6 pm...and me at 8 pm. DS totally failed to check where his mother was at dinner time as he was watching TV instead.
She was sitting at the resting counter in the local convenience store with a can of tea. I went to get her in the car. She said she'd hit her leg while taking in the laundry from the garden...and it hurt, so she couldn't walk back. 
But she hadn't called us. Or got in a taxi. Or anything. Just sat in the Seicomart for 2 hours. Her leg looks a little swollen. Not visible cut. Maybe a shin bump? Bruising tomorrow?
Didn't want dinner, of course. Just went to sleep by the TV.

But. This is exactly the kind of evening which worries me about Okaasan and when we go to Brazil in July.
The carer will HAVE to make sure she is home safely in the evening, using the phone and GPS. It isn't enough to come in an cook and leave food for her. The carer will have to check exactly what she is doing and that she is ok, day by day.

The small stuff...

Living with Okaasan's stage of dementia is (thankfully) not so often full of the big dramas, but just a daily procession of the small stuff.

She goes through her days mostly doing what she likes:  getting fed, going out for walks, watching TV, reading newspapers and magazines, watching life go by. Maybe in her mind she is taking daily baths, doing housework and laundry and washing dishes after meals.
Mostly she isn't.

We fill in the gaps of her life, usually behind the scenes - becoming part of OUR routines.

This week for example:

* I checked 3 different dry cleaning shops, Okaasan's favorite coffee shop and our two down stairs closets to see if I could find her missing black and white spring coat.
It's been AWOL since the end of last year. Okaasan says I took it to a dry cleaning shop. I don't remember that. I have no tickets and the 3 shops I use don't have any forgotten coats.
Sapporo is still in cold weather, so the need isn't really urgent - but soon Okaasan will start wanting that coat. And I don't know where it is. She'll start getting antsy about it. I can see we'll have to do a shopping trip to find one just like it.
Probably she left it in a convenience store or coffee shop sometime last year....and it is long gone.
I will do one more check at the subway lost property office next week.

* Her room cleaning is progressing. I do it, he does it. We try to share it.

* Family duty to the shopping mall on Saturday for lunch and a wander round the clothes shops. Dear Son chose Okaasan's lunch for her because the menu was too daunting. He took her to the toilet. 
We walked round shops, she picked up the same stuff I did...and then focussed in on a brightly colored scarf and a bag. "Noooooo...she doesn't need another bag!!!" I muttered to him and we steered her out from the danger zone.
Okaasan enjoys walking round shopping malls. But she looks a little like someone drifting thru, not really connecting. Like me in the make-up department of big stores. I don't wear make-up and have no interest or knowledge in it. I walk past counters with bottles and brightly lit displays, with bowing glossy shop assistants and it means zilch.
Okaasan in a shopping mall looks like that really. Drifting thru it all. But happy.

* Today we sent her walking when the weather finally dried up. She left the house without a coat, and at 5 pm we checked her position on the GPS and drove down to the station to pick her up.
Checked the GPS again - WHAT????!!!
She appeared to be on a different subway line heading north from the city center!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What?????????????????
The GPS isn't 100% accurate. Specially if she is in the subway system, but this was well out of her usual area.
We waited 5 mins...10 mins and kept checking (GPS and cell phones are just a wonderful aid for carers)...and finally she was heading back in the right direction.
Not sure where she went. Probably took a train going north, instead of south. Maybe on the same line. Not sure.

Anyway.
That's our kind of week.

Here are some cute cat pictures. Just because.

Oh and this. The so-called "job", which paid in Sapporo beer and lamb BBQ....back singers to the Mayor and a folk singer at a city promotion event. It was on Tv this weekend. We are on the right of the stage....

A hobby is born :-)

Dementia books are always saying it: Carers should make sure they have an interest that has nothing to do with the caring. A way to remember who you are and to take a break from responsibility.
Probably very hard when you are, by necessity, limited in how much you can get away from home because you physically have to be near at all times.

We haven't got there yet - so....

I'm getting into kayaking. The old kayak I bought off someone last year...I got a car rack...I got Tie Down straps...I got a whole slew of info off the Internet. And ventured, nervously, into kayak owning.

And another blog was born...cos you know how much I like to do stuff and then rush to the computer and write about it. :-9

Hokkaido Kayaking...a beginner's tale