Showing posts with label Isaac. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Isaac. Show all posts

Saturday, September 30, 2023

Valuable advice from Blog respondents

After I blogged my “Living and coping with dementia” I was astounded by the reach of my blog.

Valuable advice came in from Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, and even Israel.

They were from authoritative sources and I have been able to implement all of them almost immediately.

First was a leading Indian doctor, Dr. Rajen Ghadiok, who spoke to me by a conference call from Delhi organised by a dear friend, Deepak Deshpande, who advised consultation with a psychiatrist to handle the lack of cooperation with the home carers who come to help Annikki and me.

Annikki enjoying seeing a picture of Mika wanting to drive our car at our Velacheri house in Madras in 1075. 

Annikki remembers he 2 year old Mika telling our driver that he was not going to drive the car forwards into the house but backwards!

The second was using long term associations to generate the long term memory, which I have been doing with the digital photo frame. This came from a dear friend Mark Sopher from Israel.

Thanks to a gift from my good friend, Isaac Sunderajen, who lived in Oulu (Now in California) and was the CEO of my two friends company, Codenomicon, I was able to set up and  play over 2500 past favourite memories of our life from a memory stick just, where Annikki relaxes. 

We talk about the memories and she recalls many of the incidents and the people, and she is happy thinking of them. Annikki enjoys reliving those beautiful experiences.

The third advice was from another dear friend, Rustom Dadabhoy, from Bombay, who had attended a conference about dementia. There was reference to an old Indian practice where mother's apply coconut oil around the navel to help generate good memory.

I took the last one a bit further, as our daughter, Susanna, is an expert on essential oils. She had told me that the largest organ we have is the skin and the application of essential oils on the skin has a very positive effect on various faculties and helps against various conditions.

I referred the book I have on Essential Oils and found the section on Memory. 

I found that essential oils Rosemary, Peppermint, Clove and Basil are particularly good to help develop memory.

I made up a blend with the carrier oils of virgin coconut oil mixed with virgin avocado, which helps blood circulation, and virgin olive oil. I added a bit of fragrant lavender oil and voilá, we had something that Annikki just adored and applied it to her hands, forehead and neck as a perfume.



As a matter of coincidence (?) I have a picture of both Deepak and Rustom with me at the Findians get-together that Annikki and I hosted in Bombay in 2009!

Now we will see the effects over the next three months.

I am not hoping for miracles but, with our high salmon fish diet providing us with sufficient Omega oil, I am hopeful that the deterioration will be slowed down considerably. 

God has blessed both of us with good physical conditions, 

I hope you will add your prayers to keep us fit and active.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

A Mallu feast ends with tears

We have a delighful Mallu couple in Oulu. They are both electronics engineers.

They invited Annikki and me over for dinner. This was one of the very rare weekends that Annikki and I can actually go out together.

Isaac Sundarajan and I always get together for a meal when he arrives from the US, so I asked our hosts whether he could join in.

Nisha and Sunil worked hard (as a team - Sunil did the chopping, Nisha did the cooking) to turn out a wonderful Mallu feast for us.

Mango juice followed by vegetable spring rolls and kappa (tapioca) with super spicey chilli / onion chutney and garlic pickle for starters. Fried rice, tofu in garlic bean sauce, egg curry and cubed turkey for the main meal followed by delicious ice cream to end. And all this was served with mora (beaten yoghurt laced with onion, chilli flavouring).

Annikki was stuffed to gills, almost the feeling of attending the Egyptian meal we went through in the early seventies.

All three of us thoroughly enjoyed the great evening in the company of this lovely young couple.

We had much more in common than we thought, but that is another story.

But all good things must have a nasty end.

Nisha and Sunil have a beautiful daughter, Hannah, who is just four. She was also having a great evening and troubled no one during the entire evening.

As I got up to leave there was a nasty cracking sound as I stepped on one of her lovely plastic golden Christmas bells.

I knew I had really put my foot in it.

Tomorrow, even though it is Sunday, my task is to find her a string of bells that she will enjoy and forget about that one I broke!

A broken heart of a child is something I cannot live with!

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Maliyakal Stories Blog

I had a chain email from one of my second cousins, Sarasu.

Sarasu is Olivet Babychayan's daughter and lives in the US.

Olivet Babychayan is Mathen George, third son of Maliyakal Kurian George, one of the younger brothers of my grandfather, Mysore Matthan. He got the name Olivet as he used to run a company called Olivet Textiles and Olivet Handloom Products in Trivandrum.

Sarasu is the eldest daughter of Babychayan and is an IT Trainer. Her husband, Bijoy Isaac, works for the Government of Columbia in Washington DC and is Chief of Design and Engineering. Sarasu and Bijoy have two girls - Tameen and Zareen.

At the bottom of the email I noted a blog link.


Sarasu and Bijoy.


Sarasu has started blogging and her blog is called Maliyakal Stories.

She has only made one entry so far, but I am sure more will come.

I am adding a regular link to her blog in my "Blogs & Web Pages of Relatives / Friends" list.

Please do check it out, put a small comment against the entry and encourage Sarasu to keep blogging as she has many readers like me out in the wide open spaces.