Starting to Hate My Favorite Tunes

 

When I lived with my mother who had Alzheimer’s disease, I needed to be very punctual. I helped her at the same hour every day with tasks like waking her up, taking to the toilet, sending her to day service, and serving her dinner. I set alarms on my smartphone, using my favorite tunes to let me know when I needed care of her.

Being a caregiver for an Alzheimer’s person is not an exciting job. Actually, I hated it. Escorting my mother to the toilet was unpleasant. Supporting her with meals was boring. I cared for my mother for over ten years. The alarms always disturbed my private time. It felt like they made me take care of her.

             When my mother was in day service or short stay, I listened to my favorite tunes on my smartphone. I used the shuffle function, and sometimes my smartphone played the tunes I used as alarms for caring for my mother. When I heard the tunes, I thought, “I need to go take care of her.” At first, these were my favorite tunes, but I ended up connecting them to caregiving. I started to hate my favorite tunes.

             Now, my mother is in a nursing home. A few years have passed. Do I still hate the tunes I used as alarms?

             I actually can’t remember which tunes they were. My favorite tunes have become my favorite tunes again.

             That is nice. If I hated the tunes forever because I connected them to caregiving, I would feel bad for the artists who created them.

             I thank the artists. I got through the long hard caregiving because of the tunes. You know what? Music has actual powers.

Picture by mounel

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My Impression

A few years ago, I passed out at home. My wife called an ambulance, and I was admitted to a hospital. I was in the intensive care unit and was completely unconscious for a week. Sometime the next week, I regained consciousness, having had a narrow escape. Thanks to the doctors and nurses at that hospital, I became almost fine a few weeks later.

One day, when a doctor and I were chatting, the doctor said to me, “I couldn’t have imagined that you were the talkative type.”

I was shocked. I am the talkative type. All of my friends know it. How could someone assume something like that?

When I had met the doctor, I was in a coma. I didn’t have any expression on my face. He knew my “real” face. Depending on how he had seen my real face, my appearance would have looked reticent.

I am an adult, so I do know the meaning of the saying “Silence is golden, and speech is silver,” but my impression could be reticent to anyone. From now on, I should actively speak to everyone. I don’t want to be thought of as the reticent type.

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Blood Sugar Level

 

A few years ago, I passed out at home. My wife called an ambulance, and I was admitted to a hospital. I was in the intensive care unit and was completely unconscious for a week.

The reason was acute diabetes. I drank too much soda at the time.

Have you thought about your blood sugar level? Healthy people usually never care about that. Their blood sugar level might be around 80–99 mg/dl. A patient with a serious diabetic condition might have a level of around 800 mg/dl.

When I had arrived at the hospital, a doctor checked my blood sugar level. I was passed out, so I listened to the doctor later. My record was 2,154 mg/dl.

The doctor was surprised and said, “I have never seen such a figure!” The doctor then said to my wife, “Tonight would be the most critical stage of his illness.”

I survived, but I was completely unconscious for a week. The doctors and nurses worked hard to make me feel better, and then sometime the next week, I regained consciousness. I had had a narrow escape. After a few weeks, I was almost fine. I would leave the hospital before long.

The doctor came to my sickroom and said, “Your case is really rare. I want to write a treatise about you and publish it at a conference. Could you give me your signature on the document and permission to use your data?”

I wanted to contribute to medical science. I happily signed. Maybe at some medical conference, my data might surprise many doctors.

Don’t drink too much soda.

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Tasty Dramas

 

My wife loves TV dramas. I also love them, but my wife is always influenced by them.

Once, we watched a drama about the person who made Japanese whisky. My wife usually drank beer, but she started to drink whisky.

Once, we watched a drama about the person who invented instant ramen noodles. She started eating instant ramen noodles.

If we love dramas, we should be influenced in this way. We should watch and sample. I guess this is a good way to enjoy dramas.

I will follow her example and allow dramas to influence me.

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Light-Emitting Clock

 

I took care of my mother who had Alzheimer’s disease for fourteen years, during which we lived in the same house.  One of the most difficult aspects of living with an Alzheimer’s patient is that the caregiver can’t sleep well. My mother often woke up in the middle of night and caused trouble. In those days, my wife and I never got enough sleep.

Whenever we woke up, we would look at the clock as soon as possible. We were afraid that, because we’d slept at an unusual time, we had overslept and might be late for an important engagement. Oversleeping was the worst excuse for being late. It could harm our reputation.

In those days, I was always searching for a light-emitting clock. If our clock emitted light in the dark, we could know what time it was. I looked for that kind of clock in many shops and online. But I couldn’t find one.

We finally found a solution. We bought a digital photo frame that had a clock mode. It emitted light. We hung the frame on the wall in our bedroom. We could tell what time it was even in the middle of the night.

Now that we have put my mother in a nursing home, we sleep well every night. But we still use the digital photo frame/clock. We recommend it to you…

I have just checked on the internet. They’re selling light-emitting clocks at low prices. Inventions always come too late.

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Front Page Replaced

 My father worked for a newspaper company. When I was a university student, he brought me a unique newspaper. On this newspaper, there was different news on front-page than there was on the newspaper that actually got delivered that morning. The front-page had been replaced. After the company started printing the newspaper, they received more important news. Therefore, they needed to change the front-page.

             What surprised me was that the change gave a totally different impression about a particular country. The former front-page contained  negative news about the country, while the latter front-page contained positive news about that country.

             I suspected that the country accidentally let out the negative news, then intentionally leaked the positive news to cover up the negative news,

Let’s read today’s front-page! My father has passed away, so I don’t have a way to know if it was replaced or not.

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Traditional Sports

 

 

When an elderly person falls down, it can be a tragedy. Elderly people easily break their bones. My mother had Alzheimer’s disease. She fell down many times, and she broke her bones many times. I experienced a great deal of hardship taking care of her.

             On the other hand, my father, my grandmother and my great aunt have never had any serious falls. I wonder what is the different between them. We should not jump to conclusions, but I guess it could be the sports they did when they were young.

My mother did not play any sports, while my father was a kendo player. Kendo is a Japanese traditional martial art of swordsmanship. My grandmother and my great aunt played kyudo, which is Japanese traditional archery. I studied kendo a little. The foot movements in kendo are unusual. I have never played kyudo, but I have heard it requires good posture. I suspect these traditional sports include techniques to avoid falling down in their training procedures.

I was a member of a drama club when I was young. I bet that when I am older, I will fall down easily like my mother. I wish that I had studied traditional sports when I was young.

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