[speaker001:] in Carolina and I've had Baltimore Maryland so
[speaker002:] wow that's great you're just getting all over the country aren't you
[speaker001:] I'm a non Texas Instruments employee and I always I always feel like when I get someone in Texas that you're probably employed by
[speaker002:] oh really yes I am I am
[speaker001:] yeah well I was surprised that they had their people their own people in the survey but then why not
[speaker002:] well I didn't realize that I thought all of it was TI employees in the survey I I didn't I was the other way around I thought I didn't realize there were outside people in the survey so
[speaker001:] oh I see uh do you know what they're doing with all this when they're finished
[speaker002:] um I am not positive um I I probably have gotten about the same information you have because I don't work anywhere even near that division I'm in even even in a completely different site so
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] I know that that once they get through with this I I've read where they're they may call certain certain people back for like the second phase or something I'm but I'm not really sure I mean I know do you know why they're you gathering the information right
[speaker001:] no I don't
[speaker002:] oh you don't what they're what they're working on is uh the way I understand it is the computer system that you know in the future and who knows how far in the future they they believe that computers will be able to understand human voice where instead of having to have a keyboard and press in what you want the computer to do
[speaker001:] oh I see
[speaker002:] you'll be able to tell it what you want it to do and that's why they're gathering the voices in order to do research to enable computers to be able to do that
[speaker001:] uh in other words they want to know if our voice can direct a machine
[speaker002:] right that's exactly right
[speaker001:] well gosh I couldn't direct children I doubt that I can direct a machine are you in Dallas then
[speaker002:] direct a machine huh um I'm in Lewisville which is just north of Dallas just about thirty minutes north of Dallas yeah so
[speaker001:] north of Dallas yeah we uh just came home from an expensive trip west and drove through the Dallas Fort Worth area without uh stopping for any reason whatsoever and I
[speaker002:] did you
[speaker001:] we're our town is five thousand so I was very concerned about what the trip the traffic would be like around Dallas Fort Worth and gosh we were through there before we even realized that we were in heavy traffic so you've got a good system
[speaker002:] sure yeah yeah we really do we really do unless you're doing it first thing in the morning or last thing in the evening you know but it's that way anywhere
[speaker001:] right there is that time of day isn't there uh
[speaker002:] there is there is it's that way anywhere you go
[speaker001:] shall we get on to nursing homes
[speaker002:] yeah that's fine go ahead
[speaker001:] okay  uh my mother is seventy will be seventy nine years old this fall and has been a nursing home resident for nearly three years
[speaker002:] oh my goodness oh really
[speaker001:] so uh I feel like I have uh my decision was not I did not make the decision to send her to a nursing home she made the decision that she could not any longer live in in her apartment by herself she had long since given up her home and gone into an apartment and of course that was her decision at the time too so
[speaker002:] uh-huh uh-huh
[speaker001:] and then in that we are in a small royal a rural community I think that makes such a difference too because well as a matter of fact my daughter is now the assistant director of nurses at that nursing home
[speaker002:] oh wow how wonderful
[speaker001:] she yes yes she wasn't at the time
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] but she has since gone to that nursing home so I just feel that I did not have any of the trauma that people talk about
[speaker002:] you sound like you've gotten very lucky you really have
[speaker001:] well it just did a really marvelous thing and mother's mind is good it's her body that's bad and uh
[speaker002:] yeah good uh-huh
[speaker001:] for to have the responsibility of putting someone in a nursing home whose mind was not good and could not tell you if they were being mistreated or something it just would all be so different
[speaker002:] uh-huh yeah oh definitely we kind of went through a situation with my father my father was a um diabetic he was pronounced a diabetic when he was thirty and uh had diabetes for all you know many many years and
[speaker001:] hum
[speaker002:] you know didn't take quite as good care of himself in the beginning as he should have I mean he was put on insulin immediately but his diet he wasn't as careful with as he should have been in the beginning so he deteriorated rather quickly and
[speaker001:] hum
[speaker002:] by the time he was in his mid fifties which is very young he was he was nearly blind and was going into kidney failure and couldn't
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] couldn't walk for very long periods of time the muscles in his neck and that type of thing had deteriorated to the point that he always had to have something to lean his head back against and and you know we were you know myself and my two sisters were
[speaker001:] um
[speaker002:] you know in the situation of a a fifty seven year old father looking in to put him in a nursing home which was which was at fifty I'm know it's scary isn't it yeah I mean it was
[speaker001:] I'm fifty seven  right
[speaker002:] it was just a horrible situation for us to both you know to be in and we just you know because of course like you say like your mother his mind was was perfect and wonderful it was he just could not get around to take care of himself
[speaker001:] um
[speaker002:] and uh we ended up opting for um a live-in nurse and you know that came into his home and and we set her up a room in a spare room and she stayed there with him instead because we just could not imagine a fifty seven year old man in a nursing home we just you know we just could not could not imagine doing it
[speaker001:] um
[speaker002:] and we knew that it wouldn't you know we couldn't even do the the live-in nurse thing forever you know and but he was just so against and and when you said your mother knew that this is probably where she needed to be it was such a different story because he was
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] so against going to a nursing home which at that age I can't blame him you know it would just it just scared him to death to be you know that young and who knows you know the thought of being there another twenty or thirty years you know just was was just
[speaker001:] um-hum um-hum yeah yeah
[speaker002:] too much for him you know so we you know we opted for that route so I kind of know what you mean about the the trauma of you know the thought of doing it you know it was just
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] it was just very hard but I guess you know there's there's there's good ones and there's bad ones I think you just have to be so very careful you know and
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] you know you're lucky if you do have a situation where the mind is is still good and they can tell you if they're being well taken care of I think otherwise you you end up with serious problems
[speaker001:] um in our locality we have a lot of uh government services like the Home Health Care and etcetera etcetera which I'm sure they do in cities too
[speaker002:] you know uh-huh um-hum
[speaker001:] but we do not have the staff to draw from from to find someone who could stay for day in and day out with they we just don't have those people
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] they just are not available even though you would like to make that choice
[speaker002:] uh-huh well you know that was another situation because my this was my father lived in Missouri and was in a little small town of about three thousand and uh we just got very very lucky and found a woman who was willing to do this and you know someone that we had known from you know had lived in town you know that same town forever and we knew very well and we knew her history and we knew that she wasn't going to steal from him we knew that she would take good care of him and
[speaker001:] um-hum um yeah
[speaker002:] and we just got extremely lucky to find someone who was willing to do it and she stayed five days a week and spent the night but did go home on weekends and then we found another girl who had been kind of coming in and helping Dad clean and do that kind of thing for several years who said that she was willing to stay on the weekends and help him
[speaker001:] um-hum hum
[speaker002:] so we just got extremely we were like you only the other end we got extremely lucky all the way around that we were able to find somebody that would stay with him at home
[speaker001:] hum hum how long how long were you able to maintain that
[speaker002:] well uh we only made we only did that for um I guess that went on for about all not quite six months he passed away after six months there at home which
[speaker001:] oh uh-huh
[speaker002:] we were very thankful that we were able to keep him at home and that you know he did pass away at home and uh rather than being in a nursing home I know he was much happier spending that six months at home
[speaker001:] yeah yeah oh um-hum um-hum your mother was not living or
[speaker002:] you know definitely so uh they were they had been divorced many years earlier yeah so he was he was alone and really had you know and
[speaker001:] yeah yeah yeah
[speaker002:] and uh my uh youngest sister was um about an hour and a half away in college and uh I was you know down here six hundred miles away and then my the third sister was in Atlanta Georgia you know so we weren't really
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] well we were even right there where we could take care of him you know so it was really a hard situation you know when in this society where everybody kind of gets spread out it's not as easy as it used to be to take care of aging parents you know it you know you
[speaker001:] um um-hum um-hum
[speaker002:] it's hard to move them in with you or you move in with them or even you know drop in everyday you know you just
[speaker001:] I just never considered the moving in with I could not ever have handled that my mother is incontinent and uh and I don't know I suppose that would have been my excuse uh
[speaker002:] yeah uh-huh
[speaker001:] but I don't think had that situation existed not existed that I could have done that at all I'm not
[speaker002:] that's a that's a real trying experience to try to you know to move back in and and live harmoniously together after all those years it's
[speaker001:] I um-hum um-hum um-hum well I think my sister is an RN and lives in Knoxville Tennessee and I think that my mother had thought in the back of her mind that she perhaps might go to Jean's and it did take when she first went into the care care center
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] she just completely gave up uh just could not even sit up in the wheelchair without being tied in
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] and that went on for almost six months and uh finally my sister came to visit and mother was talking about getting better and getting out of the care center
[speaker002:] oh
[speaker001:] and my sister is very blunt and she said mother this is going to be your home you might as well get used to it which I could not say to her and from that point on I think within the next six months she came to accept that as fact and then she began improving and is walking better now than she probably did in three years but
[speaker002:] uh-huh wonderful oh that's wonderful
[speaker001:] still for the most part she is wheelchair bound or bed bound and um
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] I don't know I guess maybe I have accepted that the nursing home is her home because I've started to decorate her room more than I ever did in the beginning so
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] uh even though everyone knows that's the way it has to be you still it takes a little bit to accept no no and certainly it's very expensive there's no question about that
[speaker002:] doesn't make it easy no oh
[speaker001:] but we had a severe ice
[speaker002:] no doubt no doubt