Death and dying in the modern world.

First Photo of Jeanie and I in 1998.


It is another experiment with audioblogging.

Listen to Part One

Listen to Part Two



Over the past seven years I have experienced many severe losses. The most impact was from the death of my girlfriend, Jeanie. It has been 17 months since her death, and I am still feeling the impact. In fact, it seems that everyday I discover a new way this loss has affected me. The grief is not a steady process. There are some days better that others, but yet there is always an ache. Not a heart ache, like we have all either experienced or know something about. It is a soul ache. A quivering and shaking of my very being.

No, I am not losing control, going crazy, or slipping into the throes of depression. It is suffering and it is like nothing I have ever experienced before. But I have experienced losses before....and I know you get through.

Part of my healing has been to focus on some of the memories. Sometimes I remember with photographs. Sometimes I hear her laugh. Sometimes I listen to music. Sometimes I smell and feel her in my sleep. Sometimes I write.

I have been trying to write an account of the last few months of Jeanie's life. Following are some of my recollections. I guess I will finish it, when I finish it.

There is an over used statement which seems to fit looking back at Jeanie's deterioration. Things seem to make some sense and pieces fall in place. Hindsight is better than contemporaneous understanding.

Jeanie's problems seemed to start gradually after her hysterectomy in the Spring of 1999. By the winter of that year, she seemed to have aged ten years. Her skin became more leathery and wrinkled. Her hair became more straw like. Her body seemed to aged and changed shape. She became more irritable. These changes continued until she died. At her death, she looked 70 years old.

Part of me has always thought that a major cause of this change was the major hormonal change caused by her hysterectomy.

Jeanie quit her job in Jan. of 2003. She was unable to concentrate and had become too irritable to work around demanding customers. She was a waitress.

In April of 2003, Jeanie had her first seizure. By May, she was having a seizure once per day and finally got in to see a doctor. By the end of May, she found out she had a tumor, but believed it was benign. Since she did not have insurance, health care was certainly lacking in quality and continuity.

One clear memory was toward the end of May. I went to Jeanie's dad's church with her. She had expressed a desire to be baptized and wanted me with her. After the church service, Jeanie met with the pastor to discuss this. Apparently, he refused to baptize her because she was not a regular church goer. For some reason it seems the Baptists always treat me and mine harshly.

By the first week of June, Jeanie's seizures become so intense and painful, her father took her to Wishard Hospital and demanded that she be treated. She was admitted about June 8, 2002.

While at the hospital, a MRI confirmed she had a tumor in her left temporal lobe. The doctor met with the family and recommended surgery. Jeanie asked me if I would help her and take care of her after the surgery and I said I would. She totally believed that she would recuperate and become her old self. Later, after she was released, I learned that the doctors had not told her that she was terminal. She would not learn she was terminal for more than a month after her surgery.

Before Jeanie's surgery, I arranged for a chaplain friend of mine to perform a baptism at the hospital. We had to get special permission from the hospital to do this. Jeanie was baptized in a hospital tub a day or so before her surgery. I and a couple of med techs were present for the service and they became quit tearful.
In fact over the day or two before Jeanie's surgery, I would catch many of medical staff glancing at Jeanie with tears in their eyes. At the time, I thought they were just sympathetic to her surgery. I now know of course, they knew, that she had the most severe and aggressive of brain tumors and it would just be a short time before she died.

One of the few regrets I have about all of this, is that Jeanie was not informed of how sick she was or that she was probably terminal before the surgery. Neither was she informed on how severe the surgery would be to her cognitive abilities.
As I said the Lord's Prayer with Jeanie before she was wheeled to surgery, she was confident that she at least had a fighting chance of getting back to normal. I know now that there was no chance and the surgery could only buy a few months of impaired consciousness. I wish they would have told her. Knowing her the way I do, I think she may have not chosen to get the surgery.

I don't know if there is anyone to blame for this. Her father had assumed control of her care and at least had got her into a hospital. He was an old burned out alcoholic who had found the Lord and had been dry for several years. Jeanie had had not much to do with him for years because of his temper. He was rude, overbearing, uneducated; but he was her father. He would later claim that he had not understand when the doctors had told him that she was terminally ill. The rest of us did not find out Jeanie was terminal until they were ready to release her from the hospital. They called and stated they were ready to transfer her to a nursing home where she could rest until she died in a few months.

Since I had promised Jeanie before the surgery that I would take care of her and help her recuperate, I felt obligated. She came home with me with the mind of a four year old and without the knowledge that she was dying. The family wanted not to tell her this until she was better. The problem was that she never got any better until the day she died.

Taking care of Jeanie was an extreme hardship financially. She had no income and my bankruptcy was final the day before she went to surgery. I had experienced some severe business set backs in the two previous years. I was now working as an insurance adjuster and the season for work had just begun around the time of the surgery. When the work was there, the pay was very good, the hours were very long, and there was much time spent on the road. I was independent adjuster with a home office.

Jeanie's family came over and we had a meeting. The sisters and women folk all worked out a scheduled on who would come over on what days and take care of the house work and Jeanie. They agreed they would prepare food and do the chores. It was a nice agreement. It lasted for all of two days. Jeanie would stay in my care from June 12, 2002, to Jan. 3, 2003.


Last Photo of Jeanie and I 2002.