Long-Term Care - Illinois General Assembly

Our director and her staff, all the seniors, it seems that your problem is their problem.
Darcia has a friend who teaches the blind. She has a little girl student who is going into a higher
grade. She was going to sell a (special) video machine and Darcia brought it and showed us
that our life wasn't over. There are a lot of things that you can do. I had never heard of
anything like this. If I couldn't see, I was dead. I bought that machine, and it is wonderful. Now
I can read my own mail, I can write my own checks.
I like to play bingo, and we play a lot of that over at the center. Darcia got me a great big bingo
card. I couldn't see the little discs that we had on this great big bingo card, so one of our ladies,
Virginia, crocheted (large) size markers for me. I can play bingo just like the rest of the people.
I (now) win a lot of times.
They (also) found me a talking alarm clock, which flabbergasted me, because I never thought
there was such a thing. I never was interested in things like that. I didn't have that problem. So
that alarm clock is wonderful, because you just press the button and it tells you what time it is.
The only problem is that it has an alarm, and it's a rooster, so I was blaming all my neighbors for
having a rooster at 4:00 in the morning because I couldn't see that it was the alarm.
(I now have) talking books. That is the most wonderful, wonderful program for blind people that
has ever been invented, and I hope it never disappears. I don't go so much for fiction. I like
history, geography, biography, things like that. And I think I learned more since I've been blind
than I had all the years I went to school.
There is another gentleman in my club who has the same problem I have, and he had his own
medical supply business, and his own plane. When this happened to him, he was thrown for a
loop, just like I was. He fell apart also, only he didn't turn to a doctor for help, nor did he go into
a depression. He started to drink and, of course, when he hit bottom he called Darcia and tells
her he's going to commit suicide. Well, there were two people in our organization who took him
under their wings and they took him to AA. They took him to therapy, and they worked with him
for quite some time. Although Mike is not the healthiest person, he (now) seems to be very
happy these days, and even (with) that great big video eye, he even makes model airplanes,
which just floored me, because I couldn't understand how he could do that.
And then we have another couple, Tom and Alice. She was a lovely little lady. She had heart
surgery. Two months, after this little girl had heart surgery, she had a stroke. Her entire left
side was paralyzed. She came down in the wheelchair and played bingo with us, and tried so
hard, but half the time she forgot what she was doing. It was hard for her. We all felt bad.
When she graduated from the wheelchair to the walker, we celebrated. When she graduated
from the walker to the cane, we were just thrilled to pieces. Anyway, this little girl at one time
had cancer. I didn't know about that immediately, but she did. About six months after all this
happened to her, her cancer comes back. Well, that was just a little too much for little Alice to
handle. She threw in the towel. Her husband Tom kept coming to the center, but not as often.
He was heartbroken. You know how it is when you lose someone. One day he calls the office
and tells Darcia his furniture is all out on the street. They have repossessed his dwelling. He
has no place to go. She had to find him a place. The workers do everything for us. It's
wonderful. They found him a senior high-rise, but in the next town, and he's very happy. He
still comes to the Putnam County Center.
On July 31, we were going to a dinner playhouse, and all the seniors are dressed to the hilt and
all sitting in the bus waiting. The driver is there and the motor is running, and we couldn't find
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