Jacob Kicks Butt at Senior Bingo

We moved Bev into the extended care facility on Saturday. Her furniture is filthy and reeks of stale smoke, but she insists on having her own things there. We reluctantly brought her favorite chair, even though it is truly repulsive and it does have a 5”x 5” burn hole in it where her cigarette started a small fire when she fell asleep one day. After we checked Bev into her apartment, she easily wheeled her new walker to the dining room for lunch. She also willingly agreed to attend bingo later that afternoon, and Jacob accompanied her to the activity room. While there, the activity director invited Jacob to join the seniors. Jim and I eventually went to track them down, and found Jacob sitting at Bev’s table with his own bingo cards and a bucket of bingo chips. He had a rollicking time playing, the old folks loved his enthusiasm, and he won $2.00 – at 25 cents a victory. They informed me that Jacob is welcome at senior bingo any time, even though he won about half of the games. We ended up spending a large part of our Saturday with Bev - over 6 hours! After we left, she called us ten times wondering why we hadn’t picked her up yet from “the motel.” Apparently, she also phoned Debbie, accusing her of not telling her anything and demanding some cigarettes. Bev tends to get more confused and extra agitated in the evening, which is a phenomenon with Alzheimer’s patients commonly known as “Sundowning.”

When we returned to visit Bev on Sunday, she was crabby. We stayed for over 2 hours, and when we got up to go she sarcastically thanked us for “leaving her in hell.” Jim became angry and began lecturing her about how she never used to eat or take her meds at home, and how she has never had any interests outside of gambling anyway. She just whined about having nothing to do, and we immediately countered her grumbling by reading aloud the extensive list of activities available for her. She moaned about not wanting to do any of that stuff, which did not surprise us in the least, since she has been that way her entire life. So, does anyone have a copy of Tolerating the Irritable Senior for Dummies?