Dieting with an Apple

My worst experience happened a few months after my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

In those days, I was on a diet. I have tried many kinds of diets, but I couldn’t find an effective one. Then I thought of an original diet method. It was inspired by my favorite Japanese TV animation, Tomorrow’s Joe, a story about boxers. In the story, a boxer needed to lose weight to fight his rival. He practiced extremely hard, but he ate only one apple a day. As a result, he beat rival but died right after the match. All Japanese boys in my generation cried our eyes out when he passed away.

I can’t do the same diet method because I don’t want to die. I modified it a little bit. I ate breakfast and lunch as usual, but my dinner was just an apple. I wanted to take a bite out of a chilled apple after taking a bath, so I put an apple in the refrigerator every day for dinner.

             But my mother ate one of my precious apples during the daytime.

             After a long day, after taking a bath, I felt extremely hungry. As I was humming the theme song of the TV show, I thought of the chilled apple waiting for me. But there was no apple!

I have lived together with my mother for over 10 years. I have experienced many irritating incidents because of her illness, but this one was the most infuriating.

I said, “Don’t eat the apple in the refrigerator!”

My mother replied, “I didn’t eat any apple!”

It was no use because she couldn’t remember. I put an apple in the refrigerator every day, but my mother ate them all. I told her, “That apple was the one that I bought. So you should not eat it!”

My mother replied, “No! The apple was the one that I bought!”

Alzheimer’s patients tend to tell blatant lies that put them in an advantageous position. The caregivers need to know that. I already knew that theory, but accepting it was difficult.

I thought of an idea: I should put two apples in the refrigerator.

But my mother ate both.

I just wanted to eat a chilled apple after taking a bath!

Finally, I found a solution. I bought a second-hand refrigerator and put it in the garage, which my mother was not interested in. I finally started my diet.

The Japanese government runs nursing care insurance, and it helps pay for some nursing care products. However, in this situation, it didn’t cover the second refrigerator.

 

Picture by Rien