You can't trust the staff

I've seen them put things in our drinks. When they are careful they turn their backs to the door when they pour in to the cups. If they think you are asleep the don't turn away. I sat awake leaning against my pillow with my eyes almost shut to watch her. She peeked into my room and saw my eyes shut, but they weren't. Not all the way. She wheeled the meds cart into the doorway and arrange my tray then poured whatever it is she is using into my cup. Its's not all of them that do that. I know Marissa is doing it, she is the one I watched. I was going to watch her when she goes to Janice's room. I will sit in the dining room during dinner and wheel over to the hallway to watch. The water, and the other drinks, especially the lemonade, have tasted funny ever since she started talking to Janice. Janice noticed it too once. Marissa has nothing in common with Janice. Marissa is too friendly with Janice. Why would an ignorant girl like Marissa take a sudden interest in French?

David says he could not find anything about Marissa. He said he looked when I told him I thought she was putting things in our drinks. He'll tell me when he gets more information. Why do people keep hiding things from me? I put my glasses on the nightstand next to my bed.. I did not move them. I know I didn't. I know who did, but she didn't say anything. I put them on the nightstand last night, and this morning, they were on the table on the other side of my bed. I asked her directly if she moved them. She didn't respond. How could such a young woman, a nurse responsible for the comfort and wellbeing of so many, be so cruel? I can tell when she smiles that something else is going on. She is not just happy. She is happy because she is surrounded by suffering, suffering that she creates. I am watching her though. Just because I am old does not mean I am blind. If I can find my glasses I know I could see what she is up to. Tomorrow is my birthday. David better call me. I never forget his birthday. It's not fair.

Marissa brought me into the dining room. When she turned the corner near Janice's room, where I always stop to chat, Marissa steered away from the doorway. I know it was on purpose. I had to turn my head hard around to look into Janice's room. She knew I wanted to talk, and she just kept shoving me along as if she didn't know I always stop there. I looked up at her, tilted my head back and glared at her. She knew why. She had the nerve to ask me why I was looking at her. I told her, "You know my routine. What are you doing?" She said I should be happy it is my birthday.

I'm happy it is my birthday. I am 84 years old. I live in a nursing home that reeks of bedpans, leaking colostomy bags, open sores and bleach. Why would I be happy? David didn't call until I was about to fall asleep with the TV on. I said two words to him and hung up. How could he forget and call so late? The staff did a better job remembering my birthday than my son did.

The cake was the standard single layer sheet-cake they give everyone. The same damn cake they serve for lunch, they just don't cut it. Instead of 84 candles they put one big candle in the middle. Used to be they put all the candles on. They tried putting 100 candles on the cake for Maurice Broussard. Maurice didn't have the lungs to blow a mosquito off of his hand. When the time came for him to blow out the cake they leaned him close to help him out. Poor fellow, hunched over as he was, tried to blow. His bib fell into the bonfire in front of him on the icing and it caught fire. He jerked back and attempted to swat the flames out. A nurse saw him fanning the searing plastic and dumped the whole pitcher of ice cold unsweetened cherry drink on his chest. The old man nearly went into shock. I never saw anyone so old look so frightened. They wheeled him away and doped him up to calm him down. Before the sedative kicked in we could all hear him moaning in his room, even with the door shut. He had some minor burns on his forehead the next day. They didn't take him to the emergency room because the emergency room would have reported it to the family.

Anyway, I got one candle. Marissa almost blew it out for me, but I spit out a breath before she could push her face in front of me and my blockmates.

Even writing about her makes me mad. I am stopping here, I'm too angry to write.

They forgot the cake in the dining room. Someone brought it in when I fell asleep, but the bastard smashed the candle all the way in so that only the wick is poking out. I had to dig the darn thing out with a spork. I saved a slice for Janice and put it on the nightstand, the same nightstand that mysteriously teleported my glasses to the other side of the bed, but Marissa ate it. She ate it. MY birthday cake and the bitch ate it. I haven't called anyone a bitch in a long time. She deserves it though. I came out of the bathroom after my morning activity and the cake was gone.

I found out later she didn't eat it. She threw it into the trash can next to the night stand. That's worse. It's like she wanted me to see that the piece was not eaten, just tossed whole into the trash right there next to my bed. I cut another piece for Janice but had to use part that had been gouged out when I sporked the candle free. Janice didn't mind. She took the cake and put on the table next to her IV stand. I didn't check to see if it is still there or if Marissa pitched it like she did the first one. I am not going to check. If she did I don't know what I am going to do.

Travis Blanchard died today. His kidney gave out. When his wife came in to check on him last week his ankles were swollen. She started screaming at the staff "You didn’t raise his feet! I told you. I told you. Why didn't you? Why? It's your fault he's dead!" They escorted her from the building. She was screaming so loud, a seventy year old woman, that patients started waking up. Someone in my wing shouted back at her "Shut up I'm trying to watch my show." I found out later it was Edward. He didn't know what was happening at the time, his hearing aids have to be turned up all the way for him to hear what is going on outside of his door, and they were on halfway. So whatever he heard was garbled. One of the nurses told him what the noise was. Edward didn't open his door for a day after that. It was the first time he kept his TV off in two years. He was so upset that he shouted back at a woman whose husband died in here. I thought maybe someone unplugged the TV as punishment. Wasn't true. Marissa could've done something like that.

David's birthday gift finally arrived. The staff "forgot" to check the package bin in the mail room. He sent me a book about the Battle of Baton Rouge. I told him several years ago that there had been a Civil War battle in Baton Rouge, one that historians just ignored for some reason. I remember talking to a Civil War veteran about it when I was a child. The old man said he had been a drummer for the Confederacy. He didn't have pictures to prove it though. The package the book came in was difficult to open. There was so much tape around the blasted thing that I could not find a seam to tug on. Packing a book like that for me is not a good idea. My hands aren't as steady as they used to be. Even with my lighted magnifying glass I couldn't find the edge of the tape. I resorted to a penknife. One of the nurses saw me cutting and stood by the door. "Oh, do you need help with that? Be careful, you don't want to cut yourself." Made me mad. I've been cutting things with a knife since I was five. I might be old, but I am not so clumsy I'd cut my damn self.

Janice was locked up in here before I was. She has been here long enough to have her spirit broken, but somehow she is still pleasant. IT could be that she is just that happy of a woman and doesn't mind it here. And she is not so happy she is annoying, not like the fake people in here. There was a retired Baptist minister in here who annoyed everybody.

His enthusiasm for evangelism faded when his knees gave out. At first he used a cane to stagger around the halls. He stopped by everyone's door and read bits of scripture. The reading became shorer each week. His cane was replaced with a walker. He built a cloth saddlebag to hold his Bibles. The extra bible was for those Gentiles who did not have a copy in arm's reach. It was in good shape. His personal copy was so dogeared that the leather cover was worn out where his thumb and fingers clasped it to pull it out of the saddle bag. Whoever he cornered could not flip the pages fast enough to keep up with him. He delighted in twisting his copy around to show you where he was. Nearly every word was highlighted with marker.

So many passages were highlighted that it looked like he dunked the thing in a bucket of fluorescent ink. From what I could tell only six or seven words in the entire book escaped his highlighter After staring at the blazing pages long enough everything you look at for the next twenty minutes becomes yellow.

He broke his leg preaching in the hall in the hall. Kept him bed ridden for months. The nurses noticed his efforts to offer The Word to the nursing staff and rare visitors became less frequent the longer he stayed in his room. He stopped talking about how eager he was to enter His Heavenly kingdom when he realized his admittance had been pushed through earlier than expected. The Bible he usually kept a few feet away slowly crept farther away from him as his health deteriorated. By the second week, when the doctors started worrying about his recovery, he shoved the Bible to the far edge of his nightstand. I peeked into his room when the nurses stepped out once. I could see him glaring at it. Days went by.

By the third month he asked one of the nurses to put the bible on the dresser against the wall across from his bed. They propped it up so he could see the cover, which is what he wanted at first. The cover was too soft to keep it leaning straight. Every time the dresser was opened it slipped farther down against the wall. He continued to stare at it even when all he could see was top of the cover. After a while it slid out of view except for the curved leather corner that poked up like a shark's fin. When people came to ask him about scriptures he turned away scowling.

He knew most the Bible by heart and could produce an appropriate chapter and verse for any situation. Nothing from the Bible was healing his leg. He prayed for hours and his leg got worse.

The day he died they found him sprawled on the floor facing the bathroom. His walker was on its side folded shut, his backup Bible out of its saddlebag. All over the floor around him were bits of the Book of Revelation.

The nurses think he died reaching for the saddle bag on his walker. They found him stretched out on the floor, bedsheets trailing behind him still partially tucked under his mattress. He couldn't crawl back to his phone to call the desk for help, so for the last two hours of his life he tore apart the spare bible that spilled from the saddle bag on his walker.

I heard the funeral home attendant talking about how they found him. The book he wanted to destroy was across the room on top of the dresser he knew he did not have the strength to climb. He probably knew he wouldn't make it. Couldn't risk dieing with his fingers only inches away. His fists were packed with shreds of The Book when they got him onto the gurney. His mouth was still scowling as it had the last few weeks, a pulp of saliva and chewed pages seeped from the corners of his lips. His eyes were locked looking up and left, toward the top of the dresser.

Janice and I spent the day looking out of her window watching her hummingbird feeder. She identified the visitors as they hovered by the plastic flowers at the bottom of the bottle. Ruby Throated Hummingbirds, just about every one of them. Her Field Guide to North American Birds had a picture of one, they are identified by the patch of red under their beaks. It looks like an ascot under a green jacket. I couldn't see the ascots on them outside the window, they were moving too much. More like bumble bees than birds.

The book said their nests dangle from branches like socks on a clothesline. Janice explained how they build them by showing me a crocheted nest she wove for a porcelain hummingbird she inherited from her grandmother. I don't know how long it took her to sew it together. Woven into the silk are bits ceramic painted to resemble twigs and blades of grass. She doesn't display it in her room, and rightly so. In here your valuable items left in the open disappear. The nest is suspended on gold plated cat tail reed underneath an etched crystal dome, which by itself would get stolen a few seconds after being seen from the hallway.

I suggested she store it in a lockable box and put it away in her dresser. She has it sitting in her top dresser drawer wrapped in thick wool stockings. Those will prevent scratches, but you can see the gold through the stretched weave in the stocking.

Most of my things I keep in David's house. Everything except photographs. I talked about the photos so much that the staff doesn't want to look at them anymore. I don't have to worry about them being stolen.

Continued . . .