I cannot believe how long and fast it has passed one year after I started to fully nurse my mother at home. It was such a hassle.
My mother goes to an elderly care house a few times a week now. When she started to go there last year, she went out of control with anger because she wanted to stay home with me. It should be easier and comfortable for her not to go out as every meal is served, her room is always airconditioned, no rule exists, and her daughter, me, answers her request. However, she never understands how much trouble she gives me, and it often messes up my work schedule. Especially, when it comes to her physical difficulties due to aging torments me a lot. To be worse, she doesn’t recognize it.
However, looking at the bright side, I think there are a lot of things I learned and realized by caring her at home. I believe female relations in a family usually have difficulties understanding between sisters, mother and herself to compare with men, I guess.
I will never know if I’m correct about it because I am a women. Even so, my theory is that the relationship between opposite sex such as a father with a daughter and a mother with a son might be more mild and peaceful except for some domestic crimes, which has been revealed to the society though.
Anyhow, I am one of the typical daughters who has things my mother and I couldn’t peacefully share understating about. I dare not to say details of them here because it’s too personal as you also have experienced.
So, until I made up my decision to take care of her by myself with a responsibility, we were independent with tacit understanding not to poke into one’s privacy each other. I didn’t know what time she got up, what her schedule was like, what she was doing during a day, what food she liked, how she was able to financially manage her life, what she didn’t like to do, what she was worried and what she was happy about and so on.
It took me more than one year to solve the above problems and catch up with her life style against her deteriorating memories, and the progress of dementia never ends. In the beginning, it was just like I was lost in the dark tunnel not knowing which is left/right, north/south, right direction / wrong direction without help from anyone. When I asked someone for advice, his/her answers were so varied that I became more confused and couldn’t find the best direction to take while being in a hurry to find the correct means as I always felt anger and stressed out. I always had to clean up her mess, which had me frustrated, looking back.
Now, those anger and worries are being alleviated thanks to her doctor, a care manager , an elderly care house and You Tube Movie by Dr. Hasegawa. Besides, I was able to contact only her 92 year old sister staying in a nursing home with the help of her daughter working at another elderly care house near my house by chance. I founded it out when applying for a nursing home for my mother’s future. It was unexpected and made me relieved.
Actually, we were out of contact, though we are relatives, for decades. Moreover, I hesitated to get in touch with them only for the sake of my mother’s matter.
But, the cousin called me up about my application for her elderly care house with surprise, which made it easier for us to talk a lot more about each other’s mother.
This reunion also improved the relation of my mother and me at home as she looks more peaceful and calm than before. Actually, I’m not sure why she has become more mild and doesn’t go violent as often as before. Maybe, the new prescribed medicine, my understanding her disease, her hobbies of folding paper and knitting, her grandson’s regular visit and so on gave peace of mind to her. I think she is blessed to have all of them. I’m happy to see her mumbling her old memories while knitting in the chair. Even one year ago, she talked to herself but it was always something evil and complains about me, the people she didn’t like, the society and her frail health. Now, I hear her saying thanks to God letting her live peacefully with good memories of her experience of rearing her grandson, enjoying her hobbies ( folding paper, knitting, Japanese dance, gardening), completing her responsibility of doing the housework for us. Since I got divorced long time ago, we have started to live together with agreement of each other’s responsibility. I worked as a bread winner and my mother was in charge of doing the house work so that my son, her grandson, could grow up in a comfortable environment and I could work like a horse for living. We have cooperated each other for decades only for my son( her grandson ). Even so, several misunderstanding and troubles happened between my mother and me like other families. However, we intentionally avoided scuffles on those matters and tried to reach the same goal. My son, her grandson, was literally , a hinge, which never occurred to me until my son left home for his job after graduating from his school.
It was interesting to remember that after my son moved out of our house for his job, the relation between my mother and me got worse because I didn’t realize that she had begun to suffer from dementia in those days. Whenever her deeds and conduct went abnormal to me, it made me upset and remember what she had done to me long time ago. I even never thought the disease of dementia would trouble my mother because her character was active, clear cut, straightforward, fastidious, righteous and honest.
Believe or not, the disease of dementia changes a person all of sudden. Though I knew the word of dementia, I tried kicking it out of my mind with scare on purpose, I guess. It was too late when I finally accepted the fact. I first blamed myself.
Also, if I had accepted it and counseled the relevant professionals much earlier, I wouldn’t have experienced anything that bad. I even regretted that I hadn’t tried to research about that disease and only blamed her for weird words and conducts.
In retrospective, it’s almost endless to give my regrets here and embarrassing to prove how naïve and ignorant I was.
Now, I think I am able to handle her symptoms of dementia thanks to advisers and my cousin’s help. Honestly speaking, I’m still in the middle of the tunnel and cannot see the light at the end yet. Nevertheless, I feel more relaxed than one year ago and sometimes warm when my mother says “ Thank you, Sayuri.” every time I help her.
We don’t know when and how this life style ends but I’m sure the most important thing is to live now with the utmost effort, love and forgiveness.
I wonder how much she understands this but it doesn’t matter to me. It’s enough for me to understand it because it’s me who will remember her after she passed away.
My nursing days will continue.
