- 🌤 This Morning’s Sky in Urasoe, Okinawa, and Signs of the Season
- ☀️ A Refreshing Morning After the Typhoon, Yet the Caregiving Rhythm Continues
- 🛌 A Morning Snapshot: My Mother Can’t Get Up, and Our Day’s Plans Are in Flux
- 🌱 To those in the same area providing care: During seasonal transitions, it’s important to have the “courage to let them rest”
- 🌺 Summary
🌤 This Morning’s Sky in Urasoe, Okinawa, and Signs of the Season
This morning in Urasoe, Okinawa, the weather is sunny, with a temperature of around 29°C and humidity at 79%, enveloped in an atmosphere typical of early autumn. A refreshing blue sky stretches out after the typhoon has passed, and we’ve welcomed a pleasant morning for the first time in a while. In Okinawa at this time of year, the muggy heat and changes in atmospheric pressure following a typhoon tend to linger, and our daily rhythms are often swayed by the weather. Today, I’ll be documenting the morning scene in Minatogawa and a glimpse into daily life in long-term care.
☀️ A Refreshing Morning After the Typhoon, Yet the Caregiving Rhythm Continues
Now that the typhoon has passed, the morning air feels refreshing for the first time in a while. Although it’s September and mornings and evenings have become a bit cooler, the daytime heat still carries a lingering trace of summer. As the season shifts toward fall, my mother’s physical condition hasn’t quite kept up, and over the past few days, she’s been getting up more often at night to use the restroom, leaving me sleep-deprived.
I, too, have been waking up several times during the night to check on her, and our caregiving routine has been getting a bit disrupted. I’m currently monitoring the situation a bit longer to decide whether to ask the urologist to prescribe an additional “nighttime-only” medication.
🛌 A Morning Snapshot: My Mother Can’t Get Up, and Our Day’s Plans Are in Flux
In the morning, as usual, I turned on the TV to the news, boiled some water, and woke my mother up. She got up once, but after using the restroom, she went back to bed without even eating breakfast.
Even when I urged her, “Don’t go back to sleep—get up, eat breakfast, and take your medicine,” her body just wouldn’t cooperate today.
My mother had been feeling unwell since before the Obon holiday, but since she was feeling well enough yesterday to go early voting while out shopping, her slump this morning has me a little worried. She was in a bad mood and complaining a lot, and in the end, she fell asleep again until just before noon.
🌱 To those in the same area providing care: During seasonal transitions, it’s important to have the “courage to let them rest”
In Okinawa, September is a time when changes in atmospheric pressure and humidity following typhoons can cause significant fluctuations, making it easy to feel unwell. Elderly people, in particular, are prone to experiencing
- frequent nighttime urination
- morning fatigue
- and loss of appetite—and caregivers’ daily routines tend to get disrupted as well.
On days like this, rather than forcing them to wake up and go through the morning routine, letting them rest thoroughly until just before noon to regain their strength often leads to better outcomes in the long run.
Whether they can go to the afternoon day care center depends on their mood and energy level when they wake up. I feel that having the “courage to let them rest” is an important choice in the life of a caregiver.
🌺 Summary
In stark contrast to the refreshing sky after the typhoon passed, mornings in my caregiving life have been a bit of a rollercoaster again today. The changing seasons can make physical health unstable, and it’s a time when caregivers also tend to feel emotionally drained, but I want to avoid pushing myself too hard and instead organize our daily life as best I can.
I hope their mood improves even a little this afternoon so they can go to day care… Today, too, I’ll spend a leisurely day under the sky of Urasoe, Okinawa.
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