BINGO AND BIBS
My neighbor, Alyce, suddenly disappeared from our building one day. I found her in the memory center at the local assisted living property. Six months ago she was donning her St. John knits and driving her Lexus to church. Then the keys were taken away. Next, her mind became confused as she spent day after day alone in her condo reminiscing over pictures and scrapbooks. There were no more errands or daily activities-- just the past to re-live over and over in her mind. Finally, her brain circulated so many repetitive memories that she forgot how to operate her present day machines, such as the telephone, the microwave, and her alarm system. Reality and hallucinations melded together into a soup of confusion. She called me crying 18 times a day begging me to show her how to use her phone. I tried to explain that she was telephoning me on her phone, so she must still know how to use it. She assured me she did not. The police were coming to get Alyce because she had stolen candy bars from the grocery store. They had already come to her front door once that day, but she refused to let them in. She wasn't kidding about this. She was scared to death. I called the manager of Tom Thumb. His name was Nathan Pope. He had never heard of Alyce and the police had never been called. I then called Alyce's family. They didn't want to believe me. I didn't want to believe it either.
When I found her in the memory center she was crying and lying on her bed in the fetal position. She refused to eat the food that tasted like "shit." I had never heard Alyce say a curse word before. It made me sort of like her even more. She couldn't find the bathroom, although it was part of her private room. Suddenly, there were no filters. Alyce said whatever she was feeling. She hated the shower. She thought the happy Jamaican nurses were laughing at her with their friendly smiles. She didn't know how to get to the dining room without getting lost, even though she had absolutely no physical problems and was very spry. She was afraid. She was living in fear. She had no idea where she was. Alyce commented often that "she was losing it," but didn't realize she was so bad off. She told me she "was living in a hell hole."
The next week when I went to visit Alyce, she begged me to join her for lunch. There were ten tables of four people at each table. Like a cruise ship, the residents were assigned to the same table and same chair for every meal. Before the meal began, dingy white pique bibs, the size of bath towels, were tied around each person's neck. The room was totally silent while the elderly took 90 minutes to eat their meals. No one said a word to each other. I think the silence made Alyce think that everyone else at the home was deaf and dumb, because she would talk about each one of them as if they weren't present. Miss Alma was informed by Alyce that she was not fooling anyone by pretending to eat her pot pie while dumping it into her lap. Miss Alma didn't say a word in response, but continued spilling her food all over herself. Alyce turned her pot pie upside down and said it was nasty "crap." Another lunch mate reached her hand over to steal Alyce's roll, but was quickly thwarted by a nasty slap on the hand and a verbal thrashing by Alyce. The lady just laughed and Alyce informed her she was a crazy fool. The lady kept laughing.
The fourth week when I visited Alyce, she seemed to be getting some of her personality back. While we were playing Bingo in the dining room she looked at me and said, "can you believe my life has come to this, playing Bingo with a bunch of loonies?" I really couldn't believe her life had gotten to this point so quickly. I also could not understand why no one ever yelled out "Bingo" when they got five in a row. They just kept going and going, filling up their cards. Finally, Alyce stood up and screamed out, "why is no one calling a Bingo? I can see that three of you have Bingo's but you haven't said a word. You are suppose to say "Bingo" when you get a Bingo." Then the whole room started shouting out "Bingo" one after another. As the Bingo cheers got louder, I began to pray, "God, please let my brain outlive my body."
When I found her in the memory center she was crying and lying on her bed in the fetal position. She refused to eat the food that tasted like "shit." I had never heard Alyce say a curse word before. It made me sort of like her even more. She couldn't find the bathroom, although it was part of her private room. Suddenly, there were no filters. Alyce said whatever she was feeling. She hated the shower. She thought the happy Jamaican nurses were laughing at her with their friendly smiles. She didn't know how to get to the dining room without getting lost, even though she had absolutely no physical problems and was very spry. She was afraid. She was living in fear. She had no idea where she was. Alyce commented often that "she was losing it," but didn't realize she was so bad off. She told me she "was living in a hell hole."
The next week when I went to visit Alyce, she begged me to join her for lunch. There were ten tables of four people at each table. Like a cruise ship, the residents were assigned to the same table and same chair for every meal. Before the meal began, dingy white pique bibs, the size of bath towels, were tied around each person's neck. The room was totally silent while the elderly took 90 minutes to eat their meals. No one said a word to each other. I think the silence made Alyce think that everyone else at the home was deaf and dumb, because she would talk about each one of them as if they weren't present. Miss Alma was informed by Alyce that she was not fooling anyone by pretending to eat her pot pie while dumping it into her lap. Miss Alma didn't say a word in response, but continued spilling her food all over herself. Alyce turned her pot pie upside down and said it was nasty "crap." Another lunch mate reached her hand over to steal Alyce's roll, but was quickly thwarted by a nasty slap on the hand and a verbal thrashing by Alyce. The lady just laughed and Alyce informed her she was a crazy fool. The lady kept laughing.
The fourth week when I visited Alyce, she seemed to be getting some of her personality back. While we were playing Bingo in the dining room she looked at me and said, "can you believe my life has come to this, playing Bingo with a bunch of loonies?" I really couldn't believe her life had gotten to this point so quickly. I also could not understand why no one ever yelled out "Bingo" when they got five in a row. They just kept going and going, filling up their cards. Finally, Alyce stood up and screamed out, "why is no one calling a Bingo? I can see that three of you have Bingo's but you haven't said a word. You are suppose to say "Bingo" when you get a Bingo." Then the whole room started shouting out "Bingo" one after another. As the Bingo cheers got louder, I began to pray, "God, please let my brain outlive my body."
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