July 3, 2014, thru July 16, 2014

Current:
Last week I was fighting something off that appeared to be a cough that settled in my bronchi. It held on for a longer time than it should have and made me extremely tired. Yesterday I think I figured it out. I woke up with a dull throbbing pain in my head that felt like an abscess in the left side of my mouth.

By early afternoon it was distractingly painful; my face and lymph nodes on that side were also slightly swollen. I called my dentist's office; the earliest I can get in is first thing Monday morning so I will have to deal with this over the weekend. After a bunch of poking around it seemed more like it was in the gum behind the last molar on the left side, where my wisdom tooth was removed about 40 years ago. I decided to see if I could drain it to lessen the pain. I rinsed my mouth out several times with very warm water to make the gum more pliable. Then I took my toothbrush and massaged the area firmly, moving from the palate towards the open edge of the gum. It was quite painful but felt like it was doing something so I continued on all sides of the inflamed area. Later I took a q-tip and did the same; there was still a little blood and pus that I was able to squeeze out. I used my hydrogen peroxide-based contact lens solution as a mouthwash and thoroughly soaked the infected area. I took an ibuprofen to lessen the inflammation, held a whole clove over the area to numb it, and went to bed. (Once I did that it was apparent the pain was only in the upper quadrant and not both upper and lower like it initially felt.)

This morning it felt similar to yesterday morning, a dull throbbing pain but only on the top today. I drained it at lunch time when I got up, not at dinner time like yesterday. Pain-wise it was easier to handle, except that it is triggering my fibromyalgia pain which then makes me fatigued. So rest and plenty of liquids has been the order of the day and perhaps the weekend. After sleeping all day I have just enough energy to get in a little blogging.

Here are some more pleasant things. The hellebores are from a couple weeks ago, blooming in February. I planted a variety of things to have flowers blooming each month. Depending on the variety, hellebores are in bloom from December through February. The indian plum is from today.

Hellebores, (left) Ice Breaker Pico, (right) Monte Cristo

Indian plum (Oemleria cerasiformis)

Previous:
The annual trips I make are in late March/early April (to help with income taxes), July (to take Mom to the Big Island for Obon, also gives Dad a break since he does not go), and late November (to celebrate Mom and Dad's birthdays and have family Thanksgiving at Curt's house); I do small repairs around the house or arrange to have them done each time I go. This schedule seems to work well with both my work responsibilities as well as significant events that provide positive results for Mom and Dad.

On this trip I discovered if I flew to Portland and stayed overnight, then flew to Honolulu the next morning, it was cheaper than taking a direct flight from Seattle! Since flying to Portland allowed me to visit with my friend Jane that's what I did. Her grandson Casey picked me up from the airport since she was wrapping up an event with her Red Hat ladies. I had not seen Casey since he was in grade school but I recognized him instantly since he looked almost exactly like his dad, Bruce. Had an enjoyable evening catching up with Jane, bedtime and leaving the next morning came too soon.

Since I was arriving on Independence Day, my friend Alan suggested I join them at his girlfriend Irene's for dinner and to watch the fireworks over Ala Moana from her rooftop deck.  He also had a new toy he wanted to play with, a camera lens attachment for his SmartPhone. It took videos as well as stills but this blog can only handle stills. (The Christmas lights are on the deck railing.) At one point a jet taking off looked like it was flying through the fireworks; I wonder what it looked like from the plane?

Fireworks over Ala Moana (photo by Alan)

Mom asked me to help her reorder some of their prescriptions. I found out they had actually been out of 3 of them for a couple of weeks! So I got all their medications out and counted how many pills of each one they had left. Mom takes 5 meds: alendronate (bones), donepizil (memory), gabapentin (neuropathy), simvastatin (cholesterol), and lisinopril (blood pressure). Dad takes one, atorvastatin (cholesterol). I figured out how many they need to take in a week and how many weeks each of the medications would last. Since the prescription refill line is automated, and you can pay by credit card and choose to have the medications mailed to you, I can call it in a couple weeks before they run out of something. Winner!

The new utility cabinet was still in pieces, but it was out of the box in the living room. I was almost done putting it together when I discovered that 4 screws to attach the door handles were missing. I asked Mom if she had any screws, and she said, "What is a screw? And what do you do with it?" I remembered something my friend Susie said many years earlier when a bunch of us were talking about the difference between merely forgetting and the type of forgetting that is part of Alzheimer's and dementia. She said, "Forgetting where you put your keys is a normal part of aging. Forgetting what a key is or what it does is Alzheimer's." I now had solid proof that Mom really had dementia. I could no longer hope that it was perhaps a medication interaction or something else that we could resolve once I lived here full time and could keep closer track of everything.

Mom always takes Chinese pastries for Obon; it is her donation for the meal after the bon odori. (I bring smoked salmon.) The day before we went to the Big Island, we went to Ala Moana Center to pick up the pastries at the Makai Food Court. But when we walked in the door she became confused and said we were at the wrong place. She could not remember the name so we went to the mall directory and map. But even reading the names of all the food places did not jog her memory. Then she decided we were at the wrong place, it was actually one of the little food stores outside Don Quijote where she bought the pastries. But that also turned out to be a dead end. So we ended up with no pastries and she was very upset about that since she had nothing to donate. (The smoked salmon wouldn't do for the both of us, she wanted something of her own to contribute.) This was another piece of evidence of her dementia.

Between April, when Mom gave me the Kohala house, and July I had been in contact with our cousin Stan who had done some minor repair work for Mom earlier when there was a little damage from an earthquake on the Big Island. The first order of business was to have the kitchen floor covered with plywood so no one punched a hole through and got hurt. I also asked him to add a regular railing to the original 2" x 4" railing at the back stairs and also put another on the wall side. And I asked him to add a yellow stripe along the edge of each stair tread so they were more visible. (When we arrived, Mom was so excited to see the railings on both sides and the yellow stripes! She spent several minutes admiring them before going in the house.)

Floor repairs (photo by Stan)

Railings and stairs (photo by Stan)

The next priority was to have the house fumigated for termites. Nothing had been done for 20 years, which meant daily clean up of termite droppings in order to do anything in the kitchen. Stan recommended a company he had used before, Mason Termite and Pest Control. Although they would not be able to do the work until August, I signed the contract shortly after we landed in Kona, gave them a check for the first half, and got the process started.

Summer in Kohala means lots of fruit on the many trees in the back yard. Besides lychee and banana, there is also avocado, mountain apple, macadamia nut, jaboticaba, persimmon, orange, and lime growing there.

Mom with lychee tree (Litchi chinensis) and banana plants (Musa spp.)

Mountain apple or ohi'a 'ai  (Syzygium malaccense)

Jaboticaba (Plinia cauliflora)

We went to see Uncle Kazu and Mrs. Keliikipi and found both houses dark and empty; phone calls also went unanswered. We then went to see Lem and Doreen and were relieved to find them at home. Lem told us that Uncle Kazu had moved to the assisted living section of the Kohala Hospital around April. He said Mrs. Keliikipi had moved to Waikoloa with her grandson about June or so. The news about Uncle Kazu made Mom sad; she felt it was better for him to be living in his own house with family (his niece) taking care of him in the evenings and on the weekends. She thought it was better for Mrs. Keliikipi to be living with her family than all alone. We visited Uncle Kazu every day we were on the Big Island and brought him lychee each time. We also left some at the nurses station, too. We were very popular with everyone!

Mom and Uncle Kazu

Although he looks kind of grumpy in the photo he actually was much happier than when he was at home when we visited him last year. (When we were kids he seemed to always be grumpy. We were told it was because of us!) This year he was very talkative and doing a lot more activities. In fact, his second favorite activity is sneaking out of the facility so he can exercise outside! Since they have mainly Alzheimer's patients everyone has a wristband that triggers an alarm if they go out of the doors. As a former electrician he tested the system and found that the motors for the automatic door openers were unshielded, so while they are working it interferes with the signal from the wristband. If he is far enough away from the sensors when the door motors stop it does not detect him. At night, if he has trouble sleeping, he wheels himself around the facility and goes up to the nurses station to keep them awake. Because of these mischievous activities his diabetes is now under control and he no longer needs to take medication! (Bingo is his favorite activity. Do not interrupt his bingo or he will be truly grumpy!)

We went to the Hawi Farmers Market on Saturday morning. Earlier we were trying to find locally produced eggs at the grocery store but couldn't. We were told the farmers market was the only place to get local eggs. It's sad that eggs can be flown in from California and still cost less than local eggs. When I was in grade school my grandmother was one of the small farmers that provided eggs to the local store. She raised Rhode Island Reds which lay brown eggs; it was our morning chore to collect all the eggs. She would weigh them, fill the cartons, and get the paperwork ready for pick up by the store owner. I also learned how to butcher and clean a chicken; perhaps this is where I started to become interested in biology. We had chicken several times a week for dinner.

Hawi Farmers Market

We went to the cemetery to put up the chochin and flowers for Obon. Here is where the bon odori was held later that evening.

Bon odori area

Mom had been walking with a cane due to a fall she took earlier in the year which injured her knee. She did not want to use a cane but since she kept holding on to people and things, it seemed like she really needed it, so we made her get one. She surprised everyone at the bon odori by dancing several dances without her cane. (I walked alongside, to spot her just in case.) She avoided doing things that she knew would make her fall, like turning around. She also sat out on the faster dances. I am glad I am able to help her forget about some of her ailments and growing older. Here she is with her young friend Dana who helps out in the food booth.

Mom and Dana at bon odori

We went to Hilo to visit Aunty Doris and Uncle Tom. Aunty Doris is actually Mom's cousin, so technically she is also my cousin (second, once removed, I think) but because of the age difference we always called her "Aunty". Their mothers were sisters and their fathers were brothers. So any of her parents' genealogy information also applies to us. Which is very convenient since her brother was a Mormon and did all that work for everyone.

Uncle Tom, Mom, Aunty Doris

While in Kohala I decided to do a little bit of clean up. I started by washing the bathroom curtains. Two curtains went in to the washer, only one came out! Well, technically the other came out but the largest piece was about the size of a wash cloth, the rest was fiber shreds. I hung a towel over the window in place of the disintegrated curtain. (It was the curtain on the south window that fell apart, it was also the more faded one.)

Replacement curtain on left, original on right.

We left the Big Island on the 16th and headed back to Honolulu. I learned from last year that it was better if Mom was accompanied to and from the airport. In fact, this time we almost missed the plane in Kona! As we boarded the plane the flight attendant asked Mom if she wanted a wheelchair at the other end of the flight. Mom said, "No"; I told the flight attendant "Yes, please!" It was a good decision. The porter not only met her at the plane, he took us through the fastest way to the elevators and the baggage claim. He even got our bags for us and took them out to the curb! I decided that this was the best way for her to negotiate the airport in the future.