It was April 3rd 2004 and our phone rang at 8am and it was Hudson. They said they were taking mama to the emergency room, that she had slurred speech and her mouth was drawn over to one side. I jumped in to my clothes ( I had gotten good at this) and ran. I had Irv call Bill and we both beat the van there. When they arrived and they took her out of the van, I have never seen her look so pitiful and she saw us and started to cry and so did I. She couldn’t talk and her mouth was drawn to the side. I held her and told her it would be ok. She tried to talk but we couldn’t understand anything she said. They called the doctor, did an exam and CT scan and said she had had a stroke. They put her in a room and said they couldn’t do anything till Monday, ‘cause it was the weekend. I was so mad and let them know it, but I couldn't do anything. Just don’t get sick on the weekend in El Dorado. Well, here I was again, sitting in the hospital with mama. I sat all day and she would try to talk and when I couldn’t understand, she would cry, then I would cry. Her cries just break my heart. I couldn’t leave her like this. That night, Bill came and sat, and I went home. He called about 9pm and said some of mama’s speech had returned and she had swallowed a little applesauce. It had to be a answer to prayer, ‘cause when I left at 6, she couldn’t say a word or swallow. Bless her heart, she was already having a tough time and then something else hits. She hadn’t even been in Hudson a week yet, and here we were back in the hospital.

I went back to the hospital at 6am and Bill left. I stayed all day again except when Terri gave me a couple of hours break in the afternoon, since I will have to stay all night also. I could understand mama a little better. She started the sundowners about suppertime. Looking out the window and worrying about being alone. I tried to get her to watch a movie but she has no idea how. She took out her hearing aids and glasses and looked at me with her two year old eyes and made me promise that I wouldn’t leave. She fiddled with the covers, was hot then cold, needed to potty. She asked if we were changing clothes here or when we got there. I told her we weren’t going anywhere and she said” is this my bed?” She got more slurred again and I couldn’t understand her, and she got upset and I called the nurse, she said, mama’s having mini strokes. I was so tired and dosed off for a minute and woke with her sitting up, pulling off her gown and naked as a jaybird, and had all the wires pulled off and had her feet through the railing, fixing to get out. I thought, HOW in this world am I going to make it through this again and I prayed for the power to do it.

I had been here night and day. Nan came by and let me go home and get a bath and clean up. Tuesday night, Irv stayed for me and the next morning mama’s mouth was drawn again. He said it started in the night. She wasn’t eating good. Wednesday, Doctor Jadic said they couldn’t do any more about mini strokes and she was sending her back to Hudson. We moved her back about noon. She can’t walk, or remember where she is, can’t talk where you can understand her. She cried and it was awful. On Thursday, mama realized she couldn’t sing anymore and she started to cry, because she had always had the beautiful voice and the stroke had taken that. She saw another resident having a fit in the hall and that didn’t help anything.

On Friday, it was awful and mama had NO memory it seemed. Same things were going on as everyday, when we got there. We took her outside. They were having an Easter party but mama didn’t want any part of it. We stayed awhile, then left and later Irv went back to check on her because I couldn’t do it anymore today. She asked him if he had come to see her or Patty and how my surgery went. We can’t figure where this stuff comes from.

What a wonderful Easter it is. My blood pressure was so high that I tried to go to church, but had to leave. My nerves are shot. Irv checked on mama for me. I felt better the next day and we took mama a chicken sandwich from Burger King. She ate it all. She had lost a hearing aid and later they found it in the therapy room. Someone had taken the batteries out. We fixed that and later they found she had the hearing aids in the drawer and the batteries stuck in her ears. OH My GOODNESS. One day, we had to do a funeral meal for the church( Irv and I are on the committee) and I didn’t get to Hudson till afternoon. When I got there, mama said, so mean,” I guess you all went out of town and didn’t take me” and I said, “NO mama, I didn’t, but I wish I had”. Sometime, I get so mad at her. Melissa said she went by and all mama talked about was how much Bill came and did for her and never said a word about Irv or me. It upsets me so much. I don’t know why, it’s not new. Bill has always been mama’s favorite and I’m the one that does everything for her. Bill knows this and has always thought it was funny. Well, I won’t have any regrets when she‘s gone.

Days went by and mama was pretty much the same. Then on May 4th our phone rang and Hudson said, mama had wrapped her hearing aids up in a napkin and put them on her tray and they had gotten thrown away in the trash. I went down there and by the time I got there, the nurses and aids had gone through the trash and found one of them. Then the head nurse said, well, we found one we’ll find the other and they went through that nasty stuff again and came up with the other one. They scored a lot of points with us that day, when they were willing to go to that much trouble to find them. We had to send them off to get them fixed since they were full of mess but we didn’t have to buy new ones this time.

We bought mama a lift chair and thought she would use it but it was a waste because she never could figure out about the darn button. There was only one button, one way goes up and one way goes down. But she can’t understand. Then she tries to turn on the TV with the chair button.