My husband had Deep Brain Stimulation five years ago. It took away almost all of his tremors and we were really quite pleased with the results. The procedure required putting a pair of probes into his brain attached to a stimulator battery pack that rests in his chest. We liken it to having a pacemaker for his brain. At the time of placement, he had the choice of either a rechargeable battery or a standard that would need to be replaced in three to five years. He chose the standard option and we are now at that change point. It’s turning out to be an interesting piece of his DBS treatment.

The only maintenance that we ever had to do is monitor his battery output. We were watching it weekly at first but realized nothing ever changes and those checks dropped back to about monthly. As we reached the three year timeframe, I started talking with his neurologist about when to replace the battery. She told us not to worry, we’d know when it needed to happen. Imagine our surprise when, a couple of weeks ago, we checked the status and got a message from the device to contact his neurologist immediately, his battery was dying.

We both panicked. It was late in the day and I couldn’t reach out to his doctor until the following morning. Needless to say, everything went on hold until we connected. She assured us that there was nothing to worry about, when the message comes we should still have three months of life left on the battery and she had already referred my husband to a neurosurgeon. Now we wait to hear when we can get in to meet them and when they will be able to perform the surgery. And hope the battery holds up until they can. To be continued…