on aging parent(s)

Had a scary moment with my 75 year-old mother this Monday. Paid her a visit (after having been away fr two days) and just noticed something was wrong. She seemed very nervous and confused, and complained about this and about feeling "lost". She kept asking about small things in her home, which all seemed strange to her - groceries she had bought, some small objects on the table, books she had got from the library, the damp clothes hung up to dry... She couldn't recall any of them and asked me, over and over again, "have you brought those? "Did you wash here?" "Can you tell me what that even is?" No matter how many times I answered the same questions, she was not able to remember the answer. She couldn't remember what she had done the past couple of days, where she had been or even whether she had eaten the same day or not. This was both shocking and scary, as she had never suffered anything like this before, nor had problems with her memory.

This state, however, passed the same evening and she saw a doctor the following morning. His conclusion after many questions and tests (I had to answer some of the questions, as she had almost no recollections of the night before) was transient global amnesia, which is not uncommon among elderly women, and that there should be no imminent danger of any kind. She will go through numerous tests next week, though, and we both hope and fear learning something more then.I still fear that this will turn out to be a symptom of something worse.

I was still shaky after all of this was over (and after a sleepless night), but trying to feel relief now. Not quite able to convince myself, though. Her aging scares me, or rather the risks that entail aging. I guess it's one of the things you will never grow used to. And how could you, as it's a changing progress itself?

I must remember to cherish the good times. I'll log out now and pay her a visit.

Update on this and that

I can't believe how fast this spring is passing. Around yesterday it was still February, as far as I remember... I do enjoy the warm, sunny spring weather, I just wish there was more left of it.

I don't remember whether I already mentioned this or not, but right now my brother is staying here in Turku until sometime the end of this month. This is the first time in.. I don't even remember how many years that my entire family is gathered all in the same town (not counting the occasional weekend or Christmas holiday). Feels a bit strange, up until now Turku has been "my" town. Still nice to be able to spend time together and catch up, of course. My mother's move is not yet finished - she resides in Turku now, but loads of stuff are packed/still unpacked up in Jakobstad, awaiting the next step. I don't know when that will be. Sometimes I think I wouldn't mind moving myself, but I refuse to do it before all this is over. In a family of three, you really don't need more than two members moving at the same time.

Some progress considering my studies. Not much, but slow. Two more coures to finish this spring, waiting to receive credits for one more finished one, and still work (most of it, to be honest) to do on my masters. I naively plan to write on it this summer, as I'll be working quite short days. We'll see.

I wonder what happened to my blogging. I'm doing lots of interesting things, but never seem to gather the energy/inspiration/motivation/whatever to write about any of them here. And when I do blog, I end up with texts like this one - rarely about anything in partcular. Hmmm...

post-weekend update

I was going to post yesterday, but accidentally deleted the post and was after that too pissed off to re-write it. Here's a slightly shorter version of it:

First of all: Two of the jobs I had applied for let me know that they wanted me, so I had the hard luxury problem of picking one of them. Chose the one that seemed more challenging .Will be working at a museum, starting June. Very happy about this, and enjoyed telling my old job I cannot work for them anymore after May. Still have to find something nice for the fall, though.

Last weekend was good. My brother paid a short one-night visit to Turku so I met him on Friday. He has just sold his flat in Stockholm and is now planning a move to Spain. In the evening I joined a friend to a concert, Swaying Wires played a release gig at Dynamo. Good gig, but felt short, I kept expecting the second set that never came...

The rest of the weekend was spent in Iitti (south-eastern Finland) attending a short weekend (three-session) karate course. This was a great experience, with good training and great hospitality. Will be happy to return at any time! We were quite a small group training this time, but there are also good aspects of that, like more feedback from the course instructors. The only thing troubling me was the back problem I got from work last Thursday... Had to sit one session, so took lots of photos. Now trying to chose which ones to share on facebook.

The article on death is going forward, but not the English in-class presentation. More and more clueless about it. Oh well, I still have just over a week to prepare it.

Almost there - moving day

Her cats were put to sleep yesterday, "the hardest part of it is over now", as she said herself.


There was a change of plans, so I will be spending the weekend in Turku after all. I still have some things of my own in her house, which I would have liked to go through before the move, but I'll just have to do that later. We will still have to return at some point to do some final cleaning and emptying.

The big moving day is tomorrow, and with all the stuff arriving around lunchtime but my mother herself in the late afternoon, my job will be to be there to meet the moving van and try and arrange with the carrying on this side. It all still feels a bit unreal to me. Someone to whom I've had a geographical distance of several hundred kilometers will suddenly live next block to where I work everyday.

I've been in her (future) flat this week, looking round and moving some smaller pieces of furniture around to create more space. The place is smaller than I first remembered (having visited it years ago, when it was still in my uncle's use) and it's an absolute mystery to me how we can possibly be able to fit everything in there.