Cloudy brings on sundowners in many of these people. This was another day that they were on the yelling streak. Some of the residents with sense were trying to play bingo but Ms Lila was hollering, “I ’m dead” over and over again. The aid said, “You’re not dead,” and she would yell, “Yes I am.” It was funny but pitiful too. I got mama, who was yelling her usual stuff, and filed her finger nails and polished them. Another lady was calling for her mama and another trying to keep her baby quite, ‘cause it was crying. What’s funny is, when she gets tired of it crying, she throws it away. One very BIG lady, took off her shirt and was sitting there with nothing on and everything hanging out and the nurse came and put it back on. Mama’s roommate asked me to call her sister because her sister would be happy to come and get her and keep her. If someone that will just call her, she will be thrilled to have her. They all think that everyone would love to have them and that there’s nothing wrong with them. It’s so pitiful. Mama said she didn’t know she had a roommate and the lady stays in her bed all the time. Mama doesn’t know she’s there. Maybe that’s good. Who knows?

You can’t do anything different with Alzheimer’s residents because it upsets them. They were trying to wax the floors but to do it they have to block the residents out of that wing and they don’t understand and have fits. When they have a tornado warning they have to get them all out in the halls and try to make them sit there, lots of luck. We were there one time when they had a warning and got them in the hall and away from windows and they got ice cream and passed it out to keep them quite a little bit. It’s a mess. You have to treat them different to keep them from being scared of things they don’t understand. It’s hard to do and I know they do their best but they need an Alzheimer’s wing with Alzheimer’s trained nurses and aids. Irv and I are working on that while we’re on the Eden committee.

Today when I got there, Ms Lila was in rare form. She’s the 102 year old that hollers, “I’m dying” or “I’m dead” all the time. We had to go outside cause no one could stand it. The nurse said, with that set of lungs, she sure isn’t dying. I said, please Lord, don’t let mama be sitting there at 102, screaming. When we went back inside and were sitting at the table, mama was talking and all of a sudden we couldn’t understand anything she was saying. I looked and her mouth was drawn to the side and her speech was gone. I got up and ran to the end of the hall to get someone. BY the time I got back with a nurse, she was getting back to normal. They said it was another stroke. But the clot had passed quickly. I knew it was no telling how many times this had happened that no one saw it. If we hadn’t been looking at it, it would have come and gone and no one would have ever known it. Mama couldn’t tell them. A staff member had been talking to us at the time and saw this one too.

Mama asked me how old I was and I said 65 and she asked how old she was and I asked her to guess and she said about 70 and I said, “NO” and she said 80 and I said, “No,” and she said, “Well, how old am I,” and I said, “91,” and she thought and said, “Boy I can’t believe I have a child that’s 91.” I liked to fell out and said, “No mama, you’re 91, not me.” The lady with the doll, rolled up and told us that she sure wishes that the baby’s grandma would come and pick it up because she was tired of taking care of it and I told her that I was sure they would pick it up soon.

Craziness was abounding today, Jesus I’m dying changed to ,I got to do, I got to do. No one knew what that meant. Someone threw their food in the fish pond and stopped up the filters and shut it down, the one that hollers HELP was so loud, and on it went.