I'm a Nursing Home Veteran

My parents spent 3 years in Texas nursing homes. Two of them were very nice to look at; two of them were dreadful. The first one was glamorous. We had the worst experiences with the first one.
This is painful to write about. It hurts to recall the nightmare we went through with the conditions we witnessed.
In the first nursing home in Tyler Texas we heard, but cannot prove, that the staff was double billing the residents who couldn't remember if they had paid their "rent" for that month. I spoke with some of the residents and they were obviously afraid of the staff. I called a nice lady who had worked there but was fired. She told me the staff were after dad's money and were "working on" other male residents for their money also.
The worst thing that happened to us was when the head of nursing at this home took my father to her lawyer six times when he was 87 years old. He was so confused that 6 months following our testifying in court he cried when I told him HIS lawyer never got a nickel. This woman's lawyer was after 30% of my father's estate. She told her lawyer that my husband and I had stolen a lot of his money and had written checks on his account for our benefit. She had us investigated for 2 checks I wrote. Both were for headstones for my parents' graves. When my mother had recently died in there and he had been taxied back and forth to this lawyer's office dad tried to commit suicide. No one called me. I read it in the newspaper. I called the police immediately and , of course, drove to the ER where I found dad with his wrists bandaged. My parents had been married for 65 years. Almost the minute mother died in the bed next to dad's, this nurse started taking him to her lawyer's office. In Discovery with our lawyer and dad's, dad was asked where he had worked for 40 years and he could not remember. His lawyer, upon recognizing dad's mental state, put his head on the desk in frustration. The head of nursing also suggested to dad that my husband and I were not married. So in Discovery, my husband brought our marriage certificate and showed it to dad's attorney and he said, "I wish I had seen this before." They sent dad to a private mental hospital without telling me. I went to visit him as usual and he wasn't in his room. So I drove 100 miles to the hospital and found him surrounded by personnel, crying. By this time we had had enough and left, with dad, for another city. I put dad in a nursing home and it was really bad. The previous one was beautiful but very crooked; this one was terrible. Dad had a small, very dark room with a roommate. The one window was covered with an air conditioner and curtain. It was a twenty five minute drive from our house. I had my eye on a new home opening up five minutes from us and put him on their waiting list. One day when I went to this place in Round Rock, Texas dad's roommate had just had a serious fall. He was sitting in a wheelchair WITH NO SHIRT ON with the air conditioning blowing on his badly bruised body. I called the desk to send someone in there to put the poor man in bed. After a couple weeks, dad's abdomen began to swell. They didn't say anything about it and they didn't have a pitcher of water on his nightstand. I would always bring him a milkshake when I visited.
He grew weak. The new home opened it's doors and I transferred him into that one right away. He had a very large room, big private bath, a very nice administrator and good food. This last part is so painful I will stop soon. Dad got a mass of some sort in his intestine. The doctor who was often at the new nursing home said he would not operate due to dad's age but it might be a tumor. I think it was constipation from dehydration and I did all I could to remedy it. He got double pneumonia twice, recovered both times then had a stroke and became paralyzed on his left side. He died in two weeks. I had him transported back to East Texas where he is buried right next to my mother.

Leaving Conway, Arkansas

We lived in Conway for about a year. We had come from East Texas and then realized Texas is full of genuises in comparison.
I think I was surprised by the things that went on there for someone who had been a short term resident.
We had a young couple next door, recently married. I would go over there and we'd sunbathe and chat. I lost at least 25 IQ points talking to this girl. I could feel them draining away. She had turned Catholic because her husband was Catholic. Without doing that, the Church would not have recognized the union; they would have been "living in sin" as you know. I suppose this means that all Protestant marriages are not marriages at all. Only the Catholic Church is valid; only They have a direct line to God.
So she was telling me she wanted to know about Heaven. I am probably twisted, but if I want to know about Heaven I simply form my own opinions based on what I read and on logic. But she was totally convinced that her priest had all the answers. So she was really glad that when she asked him what Heaven is like he answered her AS IF HE HAD JUST GONE SHOPPING THERE. Can you imagine how Fabulous this must have made him feel?? This guy had no special knowledge of Heaven. He had no memory of ever having been there. But he sat back in his chair and told her all about it. I just looked at her. I was astounded.
We went inside and there was this Saran Wrap or crunching sound as she made her way down the hallway of her new house. With each step, you heard a crunching noise. I began to think it sounded like the plastic that lines some types of carpet. YOU REMOVE THE PLASTIC and then you lay the carpet.
It took me about a month to face the fact that the carpet layers had left the plastic ON, thus the crunching noise. She said, with little interest, that she had no idea what the noise was.
She had "custom made" drapes. Normally, I would be impressed that such a young couple would have been able to afford custom made ones. But one side
was about six inches too long and dragged on the floor. So they hung them, saw that they looked ARKIE, then left. She was slightly annoyed; nothing more.
She had a young son. The poor thing wrapped his thumb around the car door before slamming it shut and broke his thumb. This child also was lighting matches in the storm cellar around the block. When I told her this, she said, "oh, that's just kids." My daughter had been down there and told me.
Our builder and his wife had seven children. They came over one day after we moved in and I recall her counting heads before they left. I told them I could not turn off the bathroom faucet. So they sent a big guy over who showed me all was well. He white knuckled it and it did indeed shut off but I was unable to do it.
My husband was teaching at the "university." A nice couple taught there; they were childless. Both from Ole Miss, they had racist tendencies. They decided to adopt. She said she went to a doctor and he told her he had a nice girl who wanted to give up her year-old baby for adoption to a good home. Our friends anxiously awaited the final arrangements and invited us to dinner to see the little girl. She was holding onto the coffee table, wobbling, and was one of the cutest babies I had ever seen with her slightly olive complexion and very dark black hair with ringlets all around her face. My girlfriend began speculating, that night, on her nationality. She thought she might be Asian or from Hawaii.
My husband couldn't stand teaching at the school anymore and we left. At some point later we were talking to other friends who knew the couple who had adopted and they told us the baby was black. Then she said, quote, "they won't face it. She gets very dark in the summertime but they just won't face it." I have nothing against black people at all but don't doctors have some sort of duty to know the ancestry of babies they adopt out? Or, maybe she made it up and there was no doctor involved. I have googled the names of this couple but I can't find them.
When we first arrived we were house-hunting. A realtor was driving us around to various subdivisions. We saw one that we really liked but he turned around to me in his car and said, "that's built on a THWAMP AND IT'S THINKIN."
WHAT? Then I realized he meant, "it's built on a swamp and it's sinking."

You Might Be From Arkansas IF......

The following descriptions and activities are all true. Nothing has been made up. Hot Springs Arkansas has a lot of street people and I am not trying to be funny or make light of their situation. I just want to report what I have found while living in this terrible town.

YOU MIGHT BE FROM ARKANSAS IF>>>
Your skin has a green cast to it.
You can't recall when you had all your own teeth.
You say, "he don't" on a daily basis.
You receive at least 3 eviction notices per month.
You have never been inside a mall.
You know someone who drinks their own urine.
You can't afford to feed yourself but you Must own at least one pet.
You think shaving is for sissies.
You know the police on a first-name basis.
You have a suspended drivers' license.
If you MUST see a doctor, you go to the ER then never pay.
You own nothing but a plaid wool shirt, a pair of jeans and a pr of underwear.
Going to a laundromat is a Major expense that you must save up for.
You and most people you know have "fallen off" a roof and collect SSecurity.
Your vocabulary consists of "nope" and "yup."
You either have no toilet or the one you have doesn't work. Therefore, you're forced to use the Hot Springs Sanitation device. This consists of a large plastic bucket and a water hose. You do your business in the bucket then, when convenient, you water the remains down with the hose then toss everything in a yard or gutter and hope for rain.
If you're lucky, you live in a hotel. One prestigious one is The Aristocrat Hotel downtown. You can't figure out why no one will visit you there.
You look for government grants to assure you a roof over your head since you've fallen off a roof. It has a roof, yes, but no heat, appliances or toilet. This is where you learn about the above mentioned Hot Springs Sanitation Device.
You may have found an abandoned shack off the beaten road outside Hot Springs. You and your pet move in. Someone gives you an old mattress. To bathe on occasion, there is a bathtub in the back YARD. It has sticks underneath.
You put water in the tub and light the sticks and get in regardless of the weather. Of course, you have to sit on a towel first. To empty it, you pull out the stopper and this puts out the fire beneath. You go inside where all of your clothes are in cardboard boxes. In cold weather you are very fortunate if you have a woodburning stove because there is no electricity. This is what you call your home. If you have fallen off a roof you will probably be allowed to stay. If not, you'll receive 3 eviction notices each month.

HOT SPRINGS, ARKANSAS IS BAD NEWS

Thinking of moving to Hot Springs Arkansas? Don't. Don't make the mistake of moving here because you think it's "quaint" or has "the four seasons" or is cheap. It IS cheap and if I were homeless it would be a good choice. But other than that it really has almost Nothing to offer.
So it has old bathhouses. You can go in one on a tour! It's a depressing place, full of ancient tiles and old bathtubs. No wonder you see no one touring it. Think it has a National Park? Hardly. There is a 1/4 mile or less winding road that carries you through some small hills covered with rocks and trees with the absolute dumbest "RV Park" you will ever encounter. NO hookups. It's just a slab of concrete, you pull up and sit. No water, no manager, no sewer. They could burn down the entire "park" and few would care. I wouldn't care.
Go downtown to see the sites? You will see maybe TWO (2) places to eat (the third closed down) and they're nasty. There is one toystore that is a Huge ripoff.
There are a few boutiques that have really nice clothes. So there's one point for women's activities. The traffic is no problem; why would it be a problem? Who wants to go downtown? There is the Arlington Hotel. Imagine yourself sleeping in a very old, super tall hotel that just looks like it is waiting to burn down. It is really aging; it just feels unsafe. There is so much incompetence in Hot Springs I'd never trust an elevator here in any building. There are some art galleries, very small, and a few sorry restaurants. You will Never have to wait in line for a seat at any of these eateries. They REEK of incompetence. The "radio station" is a horror. It is so creepy you'd never allow a child to go in alone. There is never more than One Car in front of it. Then of course you have a few closed down bathhouses with new awnings; wooooow. And a couple holes in the ground with smoke coming up from them; wooooow. Then there is a small candy store that serves ice cream cones and the Worlds' Worst hotdogs. Just stick with the candy and you'll be fine. These buildings have very old, creeky wooden floors.
Are they charming? No. Cheerful? No. Tourists walk up and down the small downtown area probably thinking, "where should we eat?" Whatever choice they make, they'll regret it. And ohhhhhhhh the natives. A Perfect word for the guys downtown that actually Live here. Let me describe for you the typical Hot Springs resident: do you know what a scarecrow looks like? If so, you're close.
Get a tall stick. Put a wool flannel shirt on it that has never seen a washing machine, a pair of dirty jeans and old black shoes. Then for the head, find a
gray/green pumpkin. It must have a slight green cast to it. Put a big, bushy gray beard on it. Then carry it up and down the street. It can't talk, it doesn't smile, it just exists. It doesn't know where it's going but I would bet it's feeling hungry. So it goes to someone's "house" off one of the scary sidestreets to bum some food. Then back to the sidewalk it goes, and resumes it's walk. On any day of the week, in any kind of weather, this "person" , about a dozen of them, will be seen walking down the street, alone. One wonders: does this one carry a knife? How about a gun? Is it a felon? Does anyone care?
Save yourself a horror story and go somewhere else on vacation.