Dear friends,

Jane’s father was admitted to the hospital Tuesday night after he seemed largely unresponsive and confused during the day. After a round of tests in the ER, we were told it appears his body is beginning too shut down.

His daughter Gail and I spent the day with Hank yesterday. He seems both somewhat weaker today than he was the night before and significantly more mentally confused and lost. We spent much of the afternoon talking with four different doctors, including the hospitalist and each of the specialists involved with Jane’s dad’s case.We also spoke with a social worker and representatives of two different hospice groups as potential managers for his end of life care. Gail also talked this morning with the nurse who supervises her dad’s dialysis sessions.

Given those conversations and the significant decline in Hank’s condition in the last 2-3 days, we are ending his dialysis treatments. His quality of life has declined below the level that he would have any interest in continuing his life. He was already on a DNR and had made clear to both Gail and me where the line was beyond which he would want treatment to end.

Today, on the 57 month anniversary of Jane’s death, we will pick a hospice group and make arrangements for him to come home so he can die in familiar surroundings in as much comfort as we can provide him.

As some of you may know, Henry was diagnosed with Stage 4 prostate cancer last year that had spread to his bones. Those metastases have spread well into his rib-cage according to the CAT scan done Tuesday night. He has been on a hormone treatment for this for nearly a year–which is about the time-frame the oncologist here thought it would work, given how far it had already spread at the time of diagnosis.

The doctors have assured us that death from renal failure–he is end-stage there as well–will be a much easer death than waiting for the bone cancer to claim him. They tell us ending dialysis will result in him sleeping more and more until he simply drifts away.

How long that death will take is unclear. Estimates range from a few days to a month at the outside. As I said earlier–and this was reinforced by what the doctors said to us yesterday–his body appears to be shutting down. It’s been fighting a myriad of problems for many years and seems finally to be saying it has had enough.

Needless to say, my work on Walking with Jane will be curtailed significantly in the coming days. I will return to this work as soon as I can, but for now, other priorities must take center stage.

Please give those you love an extra hug or two in the coming days.

Pax et lux,

Harry