this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2025
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Yea sure.
About 15 years ago she had mouth cancer, a doc nicked the carotid artery, along with radiation therapy led to her losing her teeth over time as the jaw became necrotic.
Then she had glaucoma. They buggered one op over many, and she lost vision in 1 eye.
Then the rona hit and she didn't do any real exercise for 2 years
Another mouth op, made eating difficult..
Then she had a fall 6 months ago, her remaining eye ruptured, another 2 ops and the pressure was fucked both low then high, okay now but less vision than before
So it's a thing where it's difficult to eat, drink, talk, see, hear (which is unrelated to anything), exercise.
And it's compounding. Not getting enough to eat, lowers appetite, hard to eat anyway, makes exercise harder, which lowers appetite.. not being able to see clearly and poor stability / mobility due to lack of exercise and nutrition, lowers app... and around we go. The fainting yesterday was probs due to new blood pressure drugs and lack of water (hard to drink), which will increase risk of falls.. and around we go.
It's not really 'acutely' ill, it's just everything that's happened to her is working against her pretty quickly together since that fall and decline is x2 speed now. Personally I think she might have had a little bleed as her personality changed a bit afterwards but no one is investigating that.
There's also a lot of refusal which isn't helping her but what can you do.
She's had a lot of expert advice, but now it's hit a hard limit.
Mate, holy hell, that is a lot for her and you to go through. I really appreciate you sharing so much when you didn't have to. No wonder so much is deteriorating so significantly for her, I mean shit a NECROTIC JAW?! over 15 years and everything else piling on top more and more. After a point I can totally see why she would've spiralled psychologically as well. My mum is very fortunate to have no chronic issues other than a sensitive gut (eats very healthily but she also doesn't exercise much). I suspect when that sort of rapid decline starts setting in many of us will find it harder to keep up the strength needed to deal with it all.
I feel for your frustration, if the patient themselves refuses there's only so much you can do. It's definitely a silver lining that at least your dad and you are united on this. I hope your mum at least will get to a better emotional space even as her body declines...