The Story of My Mother-in-Law Who Developed Dementia Part 3

If you haven't read the story up to this point, please start here.

The problem of how to spend the year-end and New Year holidays

My mother-in-law started using day care three times a week. Naturally, she would come home in the evening. It was November, and the end of the year was approaching, while the urinary incontinence problem remained unresolved. Regarding my mother-in-law, who frequently had accidents, the time finally came when

my father-in-law's patience ran out. I didn't see it directly, but it was something like he tapped her on the head in a way that said, "Enough is enough." It seems my mother-in-law complained about this to the care manager.

"Grandpa is scary!" she said. (Since the grandchildren were born, my mother-in-law had been calling my husband 'Grandpa'. In other words, it was a complaint that she was afraid of my husband.) It seems that for a care manager, when such a complaint is made, they must take immediate action. This is likely because there are many cases that could develop into incidents like abuse if such seeds are not nipped in the bud.

Let's use short-stay for the year-end and New Year holidays

I was told that day care is closed during the year-end and New Year holidays.
I was told that while day care wasn't available, short-stay was.
Since it seemed quite difficult for the two of them to spend the entire week of the year-end and New Year holidays at home, I didn't hesitate to request "Please let us use short-stay!" and was able to make a reservation.

There may be various circumstances depending on the region, such as not being able to get a reservation even if you want to use short-stay, but fortunately, there were spots available in the area where my husband's parents lived.

The eldest son, who we relied on most, is transferred alone

To backtrack a bit, around November, because it became even more difficult for her to perform various daily activities that she had been able to do until then, we applied for a change in nursing care certification.
Just at that time, it was decided that my eldest son (my husband), who had been visiting his parents' home almost every week to help with shopping, cleaning, and laundry, would be transferred alone starting after the New Year.

Nursing care certification is basically valid for one year from the time of certification, and the system is set up so that when renewing after one year, the care level is reviewed by interviewing about the situation at that time again.

However, in cases where the situation has worsened without waiting for a year, you can also apply for a "change in certification", so we had already applied for a change to Nursing Care Level 3 in November.
Perhaps they took into account not only the deterioration of my mother-in-law's condition but also the fact that my husband, who had been taking care of many things, would be transferred alone and could no longer come to help as before, so just before the end of the year, we received a notification that she had reached Nursing Care Level 3.

Finally, Nursing Care Level 3

Once you reach Nursing Care Level 3, you can apply for a special nursing home for the elderly, which I think is common knowledge, and my mother-in-law of course applied early in the New Year.
And although it takes time for formal admission, it was decided that she could use a system called "long-term use of short-stay".

Although this is not formal admission, it is a system where you are allowed to use a bed kept open for short-stay for a long period, and since she basically won't be coming home, it is effectively the same as being admitted. (The cost burden is slightly different, though.)

The day my mother-in-law left home

I think this is the case in every household, but I suspect that "If you go out today, you won't be coming back home" is probably never told to the person themselves when heading to a facility.
In our house, too, we sent her off by saying something like, "We'll be in your care for a little longer this time". There was no other way to do it.

We decided to repeatedly tell my mother-in-law the story that since her eldest son was also being transferred far away, "it's safer for you to be here than to be at home with your husband, so we've left you at this facility".
However, after a week or two, as she gradually realized she couldn't go home, she would cry at the facility saying she wanted to go home. This is what is known as a desire to return home.

She even said things like, "Grandpa abandoned me!", so I can only say that we are truly grateful to the staff at the facility. Thank you.

Days when short-term memory keeps disappearing

Even so, after being admitted to the facility, she couldn't communicate with others because she was already hard of hearing. In addition, she couldn't hear the TV, so there was little stimulation, and the decline in her short-term memory was remarkable.

It was to the point that she wouldn't remember the next day that I had come to see her or that someone else had come to see her the day before.
Even so, she could properly react to things right in front of her and to that moment.
If she ate something delicious, it was delicious, and if someone came to see her, she was happy.
It's just that she couldn't remember it.

"I'm happy that Grandpa came to see me"

Just the other day, about half a year after she was admitted at the beginning of the year.
Whenever my husband returns from his solo assignment, he always visits his parents' home and takes his parents to a conveyor belt sushi restaurant. They almost never serve sushi at the facility, and my mother-in-law seemed to like conveyor belt sushi where she could eat what she liked.

I happened to accompany them that day, and as we were resting after eating sushi together as a group of four and saying, "Ah, that was delicious," my mother-in-law looked like she was pressing the corners of her eyes. "What's wrong?" I asked.

Then, "I'm happy that Grandpa came to see me," my mother-in-law said. To my casual reply of, "That's right, it's good that we could all come together," my mother-in-law...

"There was a time when I was madly in love with him, you know."

"Huh?! What did you just say?" we were all astonished. And then we laughed a little. The two of them used to work at the same place, and
my mother-in-law loved my father-in-law very much. It seems it was my mother-in-law who fell in love first back in their younger days. When I asked, it turned out that

my mother-in-law had fallen for him and married him because of my father-in-law's Edokko (Tokyoite) temperament, his short temper, and his chivalrous spirit. Plus, she was three years his senior. By the time I married into the family, I had never seen any sign of them being a close couple, and I only ever heard complaints from my mother-in-law,
but was that just a lament about a husband who didn't care about his family, or was it the flip side of wanting him to pay more attention to her?

Even though she has forgotten the names of her grandchildren and many other things, I was truly surprised to learn that what she remembers now is her husband from the days when she loved him and they first got together. The fact that she asked,
"How is Grandpa doing?" about her husband who rarely comes to visit, must also be proof that she was concerned about him.

Memories that fade, memories that remain

I think there are individual differences in what an elderly person with dementia remembers and what they forget.
Still, rather than holding onto grudges, isn't it happier for the person themselves to remember the fun days of the past? My husband said that if it's a story we can laugh about, we should just listen to the same story as many times as she tells it. Even if it
won't remain in her memory, I want to help her spend a fun time.

The story of my mother-in-law who developed dementia has become long, but I will end it here for now.
I might post bits and pieces about nursing care certification and our daily life with caregiving again.
I wrote this in the hope that our family's story might be of some reference to someone.
Thank you for reading.
I would be happy if there was anything in here that was helpful to you, even a little. Please feel free to leave a like or a comment!