Well, once again it has been a long time since I posted here–2022 in fact. A lot of that had to do with Janie’s journeys and the increased time I was involved in caregiving. For those of you who may not know, Janie passed away on October 26, 2025. (More on that later.) Since it is the end of the journey, I won’t go into a lot of detail about the intervening period, but some description is necessary to understand the last few years.

Janie’s ankle was the last fracture that she suffered, but in July 2023, Janie underwent brain surgery for Essential Tremors. ET is a condition that caused her hands and arms to shake, and her head shook a little. The tremors had been getting worse for the last few year, to the point where it was hard for her to eat, and her beautiful handwriting turned to scribble. Even using the phone or computer became hard because she couldn’t hit the right keys. The brain surgery was supposed reduce the tremors by 70-80%. After much thought and consultation, she decided to do it. The surgery involved implanting a probe into her brain. A week later a second surgery implanted a battery back in her chest, which also controlled the strength of the impulses in the probe. At first, the results were amazing, but gradually her brain adapted and the tremors got worse again. She had to go in multiple time to have her programming adjusted. Of course, after the surgery she was also limited again as to standing and that contributed to further decline in mobility. Still, she tried hard to regain strength with physical therapy, but had little success. Somewhere along the way in her ET treatment, she also tried a couple of medications, but both of them turned her into a zombie. She could not assist me in moving her, she slept most of the time, and she was “out of it.” She finally gave up on the medications, continued a few times for reprogramming through about mid-2025, and then just did the best she could.

Meanwhile, Janie’s shoulder had been quite painful due to arthritis. It was interfering with her ability to do physical therapy and regain her mobility. She had been treated with cortisone injections, but they didn’t last long. She finally decided to look into shoulder surgery, not knowing what possible solutions might be available. Upon meeting with the surgeon, he immediately said that she should have shoulder replacement surgery. He recommended “reverse shoulder replacement.” We’d never heard of it, and he explained that instead of replacing the ball at the top of the humerus and socket in the shoulder, they put a socket on the humerus and a ball on the shoulder. He said that recovery time was much reduced. She went ahead with it and this procedure was very successful. She regained mobility in her arm and was quickly nearly pain free. Of course, once again, her mobility was impaired. Although the shoulder was a success, she never regained the ability to stand and transfer to her wheelchair. We had to revert to using the Hoyer lift I described in my August 2022 post.

So, this is how things were from March 2024 until around September of this year. About that time, Janie tried a different medication for depression (due to her multiple conditions). She again began to get confused and sleepy. She also had an infection around that time that could have affected her. Once the confusion started, we quickly got her off the medication. She became less confused but was still very sleepy and she never completely got over the confusion. Around the same time, she developed swelling in her extremities, which continued to get worse. In October, she had two Emergency Room visits. The second resulted in her being admitted to the hospital. From that time on, she declined to the point we had no hope of recovery. With the help of very compassionate doctors and hospice workers, we made the difficult decision not to feed and hydrate her artificially. This was in line with the wishes she had expressed in our estate planning. We were able to arrange for her to come home under hospice care, where her journey ended a few nights later. She was surrounded by myself, daughter Leslie, son Jess and her sister Katie. It had been 13 years since she had fallen and first broke her wrist. In that time she had multiple broken bones, hospitalizations, physical therapy and other treatments. Through it all, she tried hard. She was a good patient for her medical providers and kept a positive attitude. It is incredibly hard to lose her, but we can be glad that she no longer suffers.

I will post more about Janie’s life and the Celebration of Life in another post in the next few days.

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