My Mother and Curry

 

A doctor said, “A good caregiver for Alzheimer’s disease must be a good actor and be a good detective.”

A “good actor” means someone who has the ability to listen to the patient’s repetitive stories with fresh reactions. Furthermore, sometimes the caregivers must lie to calm the patients down.

A “good detective,” on the other hand, is someone who can figure out the patient’s mysterious behaviors. It stands on a possible theory related to dementia symptoms and consent. On the surface, Alzheimer’s patients behave meaninglessly. But if you analyze the behaviors carefully, you will find that they have certain causes for manifesting. If you find the reasons why they do, you might find solutions.

In my mother’s case, she always bought curry roux every time she went shopping. We already have tons of curry roux in our house, but she would not stop buying it. If you are a good detective, you can tell why she kept doing this.

My mother was not only a housewife but was also self-employed when she was young. Sometimes she needed to work late, same thing with my father. Someone needed to prepare dinner for us children. In this situation, curry roux helped our family. If my mother made curry and rice, we can cook curry rice by ourselves. In those days, we didn’t have a microwave, so curry rice was a warm dinner only for the children. For my mother, curry roux was essential in keeping her job and family.

We detected the cause, but we couldn’t find the solution. All this despite explaining to her, “Your children are all adults now. They can cook any dinner by themselves.”

“There are tons of curry roux in our house.”

“First of all, you don’t have a job now.”

These didn’t make sense to my mother.

So I let her buy curry roux as much as she wanted. Then I gave the curry roux to my friends, relatives, and neighbors. Whenever I give them curry roux, some people are moved to tears. They quickly understand why an old retired female worker needed to buy curry roux.

There are many good detectives in our society.

Picture by takagix

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

TV Remote Control

 

My late father loved watching TV. He always watched news, baseball, and samurai drama. When Japanese television broadcasting had been digitalized in 2011, he didn’t like the new remote control because the buttons are too many, too small, and too complicated. If he pushed the wrong button, the TV just shut down or refused any other operation. He experienced difficulty moving his fingers because he had undergone kidney dialysis for over ten years. My father said, “They did the unnecessary.”

He started to hate digital TV itself. I looked for a new remote control online. I finally found the remote control for the elderly. It has only a few simple big buttons. He loved this.

After my father passed away, do we still need the remote control? Yes, we do. It is very easy to use. If you want to watch a satellite or cable channel, it is not useful. It can’t control any hard disk recorder. But if you want to watch terrestrial channels, it is easy. In a busy weekday morning, we want to quickly turn on the TV and change the channel. This is the best remote control ever.

Things these days have become too complex.

Taking out Trash

 

Terrible things happened in my life in 2007. My grandmother who lived with me passed away. My mother and my great-aunt were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease at the same time. My great-aunt didn’t have a child. After taking care of my grandmother for so long, I needed to look after two Alzheimer’s patients.

My mother and my great-aunt have difficulty taking out trash. In Nagoya City, where we live, there are strict rules about garbage disposal. We should separate and sort garbage as burnable, nonburnable, and recyclable. Trash collection depends on the day of week. If you take out the wrong trash on the wrong day, they refuse to collect. Even I forget or mistake the day. For Alzheimer’s patients, it is almost impossible to take out trash.

My mother and I lived together, so I took out the trash. But my-great aunt lived alone. Her house was full of trash. I visited her house every week to separate and sort the trash little by little. In summer, I put the bag of garbage in the refrigerator till collection day.

It was very difficult to make her take out trash. All had to be taken out by 8:00 a.m. It took me one and a half hours to get to my great-aunt’s house. I couldn’t visit her almost every morning, so I called her every day to remind her.

But it was not easy. Even if I called her, she could forget taking out the trash after hanging up. So I used to say, “Hi, Great-Aunt, today is collection day. I will wait till you take the trash out before hanging up. Please do it now.” Usually, she forgot I was still on the phone. I had to wait a very long time. But at least she could take out the trash.

The Nagoya city government is doing this complicated garbage collection system for recycling. Our slogan is “Be kind to the earth.” But this system is not kind to Alzheimer’s patients. How can we be a society that is kind to both?

Picture by makaron

Dinner with Mr. Tanaka

I had dinner with an old university friend. He made a restaurant reservation for us. We met in front of the restaurant and waited till it opened. He whispered to me, “I reserved as Mr. Tanaka to avoid inconvenience.” He is not Tanaka, which is a very common family name in Japan. I couldn’t understand why he had to use a false name. To avoid inconvenience? Then I finally understood why he did it.

His family name is very unusual. I have never met any other person or family with the same last name. When he first introduced himself to me, I couldn’t understand him. His family name is too unusual. I found out there are only about eighty people with the same family name in Japan. Only eighty? If his relatives were killed by someone three or four times, they would become extinct.

The people who met him for the first time, including me, always asked him, “Say it again?” “Is that your family name?” “How do I spell your name?” “Are you kidding?” He needed to answer these questions every time. It could be bothersome.

On the other hand, Tanaka is a very familiar family name. There are many Tanakas all around Japan, like the prime minister. Everyone can recognize it immediately. Moreover, its letters are easy to write, 田中. Even a first-grader can spell it. He loves to use “Tanaka” because it is the most popular and simplest family name. Tanaka is what he always wants to be.

My family name is Miura, which is also common. I have longed for an unusual one. But if I had an extremely rare name like him, it would be bothersome.

Picture by mounel

Crystallized Intelligence

About five years have passed already since my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Sometimes, she could not even spell her name.

One day, I was asked to take my mother to an event that her old friends organized at a hall downtown. We took the train, which was so hard for her since the stations were dangerous, complicated, and crowded. We left our house early because I thought our travel could take a long time.

Fortunately, we had a smooth travel to the venue. The event had not started yet when we arrived. A few event staff were doing last-minute preparations. In the hall was a piano with a chair. I asked my mother to sit on the chair since we had walked quite a long distance, and then I started talking with a member of the staff.

Suddenly, my mother started playing the piano. It was not perfect, but I could tell what song she was playing. She had difficulty remembering dates, times, and people, but she could play the piano. I was doubly shocked because I did not know she had musical experience. Apparently, she learned to play the piano when she was young.

Doctors call this crystallized intelligence. Most Alzheimer’s disease patients can perform behaviors they repeatedly practiced when they were young. Some types of intelligence are crystalized through repeated practice.

In my mother’s case, this intelligence was playing the piano. What about me? I was a member of a drama club in high school. I practiced tongue twisters a lot. When I get old in a facility and I am given an opportunity to stand on-stage, I would recite tongue twisters.

It would not be cool. My caregivers would be surprised because I could be loudly speaking meaningless words, and then they would isolate and place me a detention room.

I wish I learned how to play the piano.

 

Picture by Frog

Master of Comedy

 

I lived in Osaka in the beginning of the 2000s. I wrote scripts for young semiprofessional comedians. I had an opportunity to observe a closed rehearsal, where young comedians were nervous because they invited a famous “master of comedy.” The great old master of comedy had dignity. He was not friendly.

He watched the young comedians’ skits and jokes and then gave them some advice. He sharply criticized some of them. Some of the comedians almost cried.

Then a weird incident happened.

A young comedian sang a popular song while playing his guitar. Unfortunately, the master did not know the song. He assumed that it was original and criticized it.

The young comedian tried to explain that the song was not originally his, and he was stunned that the master kept complaining about the bad lyrics.

It was so hard not to laugh because I was also young then. Recently, however, I came to understand the master of comedy because I am middle-aged already. I don’t know the hit songs nowadays. And even if I listened to the newest hit song, I would not understand why it is so popular.

At that time, as an observer maybe I should have whispered to the master, “Master, he is covering a popular song.” But I did not because he was so scary.

We cannot stop ourselves from growing old, but we can avoid becoming a scary old man. I may not become a master in any field in the future, but I would gladly accept that and be loved rather than be respected but feared.

Picture by Hanaboo