After 32 years living in Katonah NY in September of 2015 I moved Avon CT because (ostensibly) I would have a brother in town only 3/4 of a mile away that could help me with the care of our aging mother who was suffering from Alzheimer’s and/or Dementia amongst the other things that go with just getting old. She was 90 years old at the time of the move. It didn’t quite work out as I had hoped with my brother but that is a story for another day, another time.

Jeanne T. Lewis-Hayes on her 93rd Birthday in Avon CT with her nephews & nieces.

I thought I was looking at maybe a two year period but my mom lasted 7 years which was much longer than I think I or anyone else ever expected when she passed away back in October of 2022 from Covid.

On October 14th of 2022 I posted this on Facebook about my mother’s condition:

I want to provide an update for all those that ask me about my mom’s condition and perhaps just as importantly publicly recognize and thank these two women in particular for the tremendous help they have given me in taking care of my mom Jeanne Lewis Hayes and even more thank them for the FRIENDSHIP they have given my mom along with her loving care. I took this photo back on September 29th which was one of moms better days. On the left is Marie from Companions & Homemakers who comes in for her 45 hours a week Sunday thru Friday and on the right is Summa who works with for Hartford HeathCare at home twice a week to help with her hygiene giving her a shower or bath and washing her hair. She also has a variety of nurses that come in three days a week to change the dressing on her wounds she has from her falls and the pressure point sores on her hips and ankles.

Things have been rough for my mom for a while now and the long slow deterioration has slowly been accelerating. Since falling back in late August of early September she is no longer ambulatory which is why she is in a wheel chair in this photo and we moved her into a hospital bed here at home to make her more comfortable, make the care for her easier, and to keep her from falling out of bed or even trying to get out of bed on her own.

While Monday evening she was animated and as alert as someone with her stage of dementia can be things changed on Tuesday and Wednesday as she seemed to be in some kind of semi-canonic state and while Marie and to a small degree me were able to hand feed her her eyes are almost always closed and she was barely responsive to any questions put to her. She has done this before for a couple of hours at a time but this time it seems different to me in that she been that way for two days in a row now.

Then Thursday morning when Summa arrived to help get her up she said she had a Covid test out in her car so she administered the test and it came back positive. A hour later one on the Hartford Healthcare at Home nurses came by to change some of the bandages on her wounds and confirmed the Covid test and given her low blood oxygen levels recommended she take a trip up to the hospital and that’s where she is now.

If you look up Covid Encephalitis it describes her symptoms pretty accurately. I hope to go up to the hospital later today or this evening to visit. Will be coming home again anytime in the future… I don’t know.

My mom would pass away just a few days after I posted that thank you at 4:30 pm on Fri. Oct 21st).