iTunes 12.9.5.5 (Mojave) no longer syncs to iphone 14 (18.3.1). Phone icon missing in iTunes.

Since updating iOS to 18... and then to 18.3.1 in an attempt to solve this, I can no longer sync the phone to iTunes on MBP -Mojave. In iTunes, the phone icon is missing. I can sync in Photos as before. I can't update past Mojave because I don't want Adobe Creative Cloud. I've had 4 Apple support chats and one phonecall. I see many mentions of this in support groups, but no real answer from Apple. Will I have to run Adobe on another machine and update my MBP past Mojave? Can someone supply an answer? I have wasted huge amounts of time on this. Thanks.