Horrible
Posted by Patti on December 1st, 2004 / 
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As I read this, I almost cried. This is horrible.
Stricken with dementia and unable to care for herself, Lucille Ayers died a horror-movie death.
“My mother basically died staked to an ant pile,” her son James says. “She was eaten alive.”Before her health declined, Ayers, a devout Catholic, opened her home to visiting priests and troubled teens who needed a place to stay. She was known for her cakes and other treats she baked on a daily basis. When her son Thomas developed diabetes, she tinkered with her recipes until no one could tell there wasn’t any sugar in her chocolate chip cookies.
But Ayers couldn’t take care of herself. She started leaving pots on the stove and forgetting about them. She needed to live someplace with round-the-clock nursing care, someplace where the staff would keep a close eye on her so she’d be safe.
After visiting scores of nursing homes and assisted-living facilities, Ayers and her two sons settled on Peppertree Square, an assisted-living facility in Peoria.
On September 1, 2003, Lucille Ayers’ caretakers found her covered with ants. “Ants in her bed, all over body, in hair,” a staff member wrote in a log book.
