But Grandma...what big teeth you have...

I can only remember having been punched one time in my life prior to last week. Elizabeth’s father had a most unfortunate fall which left him with a broken arm and a broken leg. More unfortunately he was here at the school with Elizabeth when it happened, thirty six hours away from his home in Bucaramunga. And most unfortunately he has Alzheimer’s disease which leaves him very disoriented and produces very abnormal behavior when he is under stress. Two days in the hospital and under the influence of strong pain killers and anti-psychotic tranquilizers was enough to put him completely out of his mind.
It is amazing the personality traits that come out of a person when they are completely out of their mind. One of my friends tells the story of his grandmother who was always very generous all of her life. When she came down with Alzheimer’s disease she would call him to her side and tell him to fetch her purse because she had thousands, maybe even millions of dollars that she wanted to give him. Well it just so happens that Senor Secundino was always a very independent person, hating to be tied down or wait for anybody. Definitely never had people waiting on him. During those two nights in the hospital, Elizabeth and I had to fight for our lives to keep him down in the hospital bed when the tranquilizers would wear off. Arms and legs flailing, he kept us hopping trying to keep him down and avoid getting walloped at the same time. If you were too close to his arm and didn’t have a good grip on it, he would ball up his fist and swing at you for all he was worth. If you did have a good grip on the arm, he would dig in with his fingernails and wait for you to get distracted by the ever increasing pain of his claws to pull your hand up to his few jaggedy teeth that he has left and bite you. After two days we were able to move him to a church members house in Barquisimeto. Elizabeth was completely exhausted, so I sent her home to rest and stayed at the house, together with my room-mate Nubia.
That was his first night after the accident without pain killers or tranquilizers. If he had been bad the first two nights, he was a terror with Nubia and I. Adding kicking and swearing to punching and biting, I considered myself to be the lucky one since I couldn’t understand most of the swearing…although from some of the gasps and expressions on Nubia’s face I could come pretty close to imagining what he might be saying. Since we couldn’t get him to give up his dentures that night, it was even more scary to seeing a pair of fully equip dentures coming straight at you.
Unfortunately Elizabeth says that he never did like to keep his clothes on so that was another source of contention. He fought us for all it was worth until one by one each item of clothing came off, last to come off being the hospital issued diaper. The next thing he wanted to go was the sheet. Since he was completely devoid of anything underneath, Nubia and I stuck to our guns on that one and fought him all night over the issue of the sheet. Eventually we had to tie all four corners of the sheet to the bed. Of course he wasn’t sleepy in the slightest, while the two of us were about ready to fall asleep standing up. During the whole night I packed in a total of four hours of sleep while Nubia only got to sleep for two.
Note to self:
Never work in a nursing home…