6--Dementia Care

I left Green Oaks by public transportation. I went out in a wheelchair and the wheelchair was put in a van. The chair was securely strapped down. I was securely strapped down. It was a long ride, and I didn't know where I was going, but it wasn't home. My paperwork said I was released to home with no guardian. I didn't know the person I had been talking to on the phone was already my guardian.

Forty-five minutes later the van pulled into a parking lot. The sign out front said, "Avalon Memory Care." I walked in. I didn't have any possessions. I had an almost empty baggie. It held my money, about $400, and I was still carrying my bulky egg crate mattress. The money was still in the plastic bag I had put it in at home. The credit card and identification cards were miss. It would be a long time before I was able to replace my driver's license, social security card, and Medicare card. You have to prove who you are in order to get a new driver's license. I had no picture ID

I was greeted by Keisha, a large woman with a motherly way. She escorted me to a room that held only one single size bed. The time was near 10:00 pm, I settled in to go to sleep.

I was awakened by a male staff member who proceeded toward me with an incomitance diaper, and I told him I could take care of that myself. Hector wasn't embarrassed but I was.

Since I was roused, I put on my jeans and a t-shirt and headed the direction of the television. The room held a nice leather set with six recliners. The time was early morning with traffic, news and weather on the TV. A female staff member, Tessie, offered me a fresh and still warm Shipley donut. I ate it and considered myself lucky. I still didn't know exactly where I was or why.

There was another female resident in the room. I tried to converse with her, but her reply each time was a brisk "yes." Her name was Delores. She departed the room in a little while and went walking in the track of the facility corridors. She walked very fast and walked the circuit six times. I watched her and the television and finished my donut.

The residents know each other by name, but they forget. I was in a dementia facility.

After a week, Hector said to me, "You don't belong here. You belong somewhere out there."

Everyone on the staff knew I didn't belong there. I didn't have any dementia symptoms, but nobody was able to do anything to get me released. My guardian had referred to this place as temporary housing. She lied. She said she first thought of assigning me to a group home, but she said Avalon better suited my needs.

My apartment had been packed up in boxes by members of the Senior Source. My dog as well as my other cat had been rehomed. I didn't get to say good-bye to either of them. The lady who took "Shadow" came by the facility for a short visit. I didn't think to ask her if she had a yard or kids. She said the family loved the black Lab, and that was good enough for the time being. I told her never to beat "Shadow" because had been beaten before I got him, and he cowed when he saw an open hand. His new mother said they would never beat him. My dog and my second cat were taken to our animal clinic for a short stay and rehomed from there. I had worked at the clinic in the past, and I knew my pets were well cared for.

The rehoming was initiated the by the Senior Trust Manager. He was doing everything he could to make my life as difficult as he thought I had made theirs. I only asked them to do what was right. Since they had resigned from the trust two years earlier, they hadn't been responsible about fulfilling my needs. The senior Trust maager presented his version of events to the judge, and she accepted everything he said as law over me. I lost my right to make medical decisions for myself, I lost the right to vote, and I lost the right to spend money. I was given a debit card with $150 per month. It wasn't enough. There was no way to budget my needs, so I did without once I was in Avalon.

I turned down the first attorney the court assigned to me. I turned down the second attorney. I wanted to represent myself. Nobody knew the Trust document as well as I did. I didn't want the judge to get an abbreviated version of what I knew was right. The second attorney started our conversation by telling me I was going to lose my dog walkers. I had broken my arm before the Trust allowed for me to have a paid dog walker service. The walkers came twice a day, for 15 minutes at lunchtime and for 40 minutes in the evening. This reduced the need for pooh pads in the apartment. "Shadow" aimed for the side of his pad, and frequently missed. The carpet in the master bedroom was a health hazard. I cleaned the carpet as well as I could, but there were still spots of feces and urine.

"Shadow" was good at walking on a leash for the dog walkers. He would sit at the door and wait somewhat impatiently for his walker to come. I quit walking him regularly because he was able to take care of his business on his walk. The dog walkers would even tell me what kind of business he had taken care of. Life in the apartment was much more sanitary with the dog walkers taking care of "Shadow."

I began to fall down regularly inside my apartment. My right leg and then my left leg would feel weak, my knees would buckle, and I fell to the ground. In the beginning I could get myself up after a few minutes. As the problem continued, I was unable to get myself up as my arms became week too. I was obliged to crawl wherever I thought I needed to go. One time I was on the floor for three hours. Another time it was five hours until the dog walker came and helped me into my bed. I went to the the ER a number of times, but the root of my problem was never diagnosed, I fell so frequently that he paramedics and the ER staff recognized me.

I got a Medi-Alert system, the one that says, "I've fallen, and I can't get up." It wasn't as helpful as I had hoped. The range is up to 150 feet. It worked fine when I fell in my apartment but was no good for dog walking falls. "Shadow" walked much further than 150 feet. The Medi-Alert people prefer to call a friend or family member to help, but I had no friend or family member. I usually called 911 and the paramedics came.

Once I had fallen on the way to my apartment. The manager showed up quickly, she asked if I was okay, and I told her if she didn't see any broken bones that I was fine and could get up in a few minutes. She didn't accept my explanation. She wanted to call the 911. I told her not to, from the ground, and said I could get myself up in few minutes. She decided I was drunk or on drugs. A crowd of apartment residents gathered. I was saying don't call 911 and she was saying she was going to call 911. We went back and forth a number of times. I didn't want her to call 911 because I knew what the recurring problem was. I also knew there would be a $1,000 invoice for the paramedics. After about six times of going back and forth I upped the problem be shouting "fuck you."

The manager kept on until the paramedics arrived. They waited on the second floor for me. They asked my name, and I told them I didn't have one. I could tell they were amused by their muffled laughter. They took my vitals and found nothing out of the ordinary. I started to my apartments but didn't get very far before my legs gave out on me again, and I fell of the breezeway. I was at that point determined to get myself back to my apartment. I had gone to the store for smokes, and I only wanted to get back to my apartment. I commenced crawling to the paramedics' dismay. I had crawled halfway to my apartment when one of the paramedics offered to get me a wheelchair. I said that I had left my apartment under my own power, and I intended to get back to my apartment the same way. Another few minutes I and reached my apartment, opened the door, and went inside. The story spread, and all the paramedics came to recognize me as the woman who crawled back to her apartment. The second time I fell in the view of the manager her leasing agent came towards me and I took an almost well-placed swing at her. I surprised myself as I'm not a violent person. This was a flight or fight situation. The manager never got over the situation, and my eviction notice was in the cards.

My Craftmatic adjustable bed and my television were in the smallest bedroom with a view out the window of the Olympic sized pool. I left the window cracked and enjoyed the sound of kids playing in the water, and it lightened my spirit. The adults mostly laid out in the sun. In the two years I lived at that apartment, I never managed to put on a bathing suit and enjoy the facilities. I enjoyed watching the pool fools.

My bedroom was the smallest and on one side of the apartment. One late morning, I went to the kitchen for a Coke. I found a number of my possessions, clothes and Brick-a-Brack inside the front door. The items were moved and hung around the entry of the apartment. The placement was a mystery I couldn't figure out. I returned to the bedroom and went to check the situation at the next commercial. The hanging possessions had been returned to their previous locations. I don't remember checking the front door to see if it had been locked. I knew what had taken place, but I couldn't figure out what had happened. I checked the door, and it was locked. Imagine the situation. I could think of no good explanation. The answer would come in the future.

A week later the culprits returned. I was in my bedroom, in the bed. A soft whisper woke me up, and the men were inside the apartment again. This time they moved my wedding album and moved the funeral books next to it. They left more quickly and quietly as they had come. The door was locked. They had a key to my front door. I had given a key to my housekeeper, but I couldn't believe she would have given anybody my key to copy. She came to clean one day after the men came in again. She returned her key to me and volunteered no information. I was still puzzled and concerned.
The men continued to come into my apartment, usually when I wasn't there.

Another time when they came into my apartment to move items around, I was in grabbing range of a can of bug spray. I had crawled from my bed into the living room. At some point logic set in before I got across the living room toward the master bedroom where the men were. I had flying insect spray instead of the wasp spray that came out in a narrow stream. realized that I was on the floor, about to confront two invaders. I crawled back to my bed. If they were bold enough to come into my apartment when they thought I wasn't there, they might have been prepared with a gun. I went back to my bed, and they left after moving things around in my master bedroom and bathroom. They had taken a concert ticket stub and left it in the bathroom. They had gotten the ticket stub from the bedroom I was sleeping in. That meant they had been in my bedroom when I was sleeping. I am a hard sleeper, and it took a lot to stir me from the effects of the sleeping pill I took the night before.

The last time they came in, there was a man and a woman. I crawled from the bed into the living room. I was by the bar to the kitchen. There was a large box of shoes that were supposed to be donate to charity, I grabbed a shoe from the box, and threw it in the direction of the woman who was running water in the kitchen. The sound of the water running had awakened me from a nap. She and her companion proceed to depart the apartment at that point. The flying shoe had gotten her attention. They left. I was on the floor and got to the front door crawling and locked the door. It shouldn't have been unlocked. I thought that perhaps it was unlocked from the dog walker the previous evening.

That was the last time the intruders came in. I asked the management to change my lock. If the intruders had a key, it didn't work anymore. The only things I ever missed were a concert ticket and my college diploma, nicely framed with a burnt orange mat. I consoled myself with the knowledge that I didn't need a diploma to prove I was educated. Still, it was a loss I never anticipated.

Many items had been moved out of place, as if I had moved them myself. This went on for weeks when I was packing up my apartment to move to assisted living. I didn't need to be living by myself. The next morning when I fell out of bed, I passed out, and II did some sort of summersault and thought I might have given myself a concussion. .My head had hit the piano pretty hard I shouldn't to live by myself anymore, especially with the frequency of falling down, and having no idea why. The dog never barked. I attributed that to the frequency of the dog walkers entering on a regular basis that made the dog unconcerned about strangers entering. I didn't need to live by myself anymore. Assisted living was a good idea, as much as I didn't want to admit that I was senior age. I couldn't live by myself anymore.