Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
They finally removed the PICC line. No more infusions.
Shit was worse than chemo.
They kept you on a PICC line that was getting infected?
Brilliant! No...no wait, what's the opposite of brilliant?
RETARDED?!?!?!
Yes, that's it, thank you!
Munkus Beaver on
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
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David_TA fashion yes-man is no good to me.Copenhagen, DenmarkRegistered Userregular
I just had to get this thing down and out of my head. I don't know if it's the right thread, but it's the closest I could find.
I'm losing my mom. She's sitting in her chair and her mind is going and it's my worst nightmare.
She sleeps most of the day and then she's up at night and she'll start a sentence, trail off and then look at my questioning face with a smile that tells me that she doesn't remember a thing that happened just seconds ago and my heart breaks each and every time. She'll start to say that she has to, stop talking, look at me and I ask what it is she has to do and she says yes and looks away and fidgets with something on the table and turns and looks at me with a smile and I'm sitting here crying my eyes out as I'm writing this.
I had a huge sobbing meltdown today and I know she won't remember any of it tomorrow but I have to get her to talk to someone about this. I don't know if this is happening because of the meds she's taking or the meds she's not taking or if it's another brain hemorrhage or just the inevitable result of the first one. I don't know if she can get better, I don't know if it can be stopped before it gets worse, I don't know how this ends. And I'm petrified.
Amazing how a few weeks of not eating gluten can make me forget how shitty I felt when I ate gluten! I had fries at outback last night and the server said "something about the fries isn't gluten free" and I thought hell I'll chance it - came home, couldn't sleep until nearly 2am, then slept almost 12 hours straight through two alarms and a vacuum cleaner. Stomach is still all kinds of dodgy and I haven't wanted to eat anything all day. That's an experiment I won't be repeating.
Yep, my wife has celiac disease, and boy, she is just sick as a dog when she gets "glutenized." 'Course then there was the time she thought she was glutenized (she was) but then when it lasted a weeks longer than expected turned out she was pregnant. oops.
"Simple, real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time." -Mustrum Ridcully in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather p. 142 (HarperPrism 1996)
My reaction to gluten tends to make me sleep a lot and turn into a real asshole for days at a time, on top of making me feel more generally bad in my brainmeats
Like I don't mind beingo ff it
But every time I end up eating it, I reflect that if there was an invasive surgery I could elect to have so I never reacted like this again, I would have it
Through the lactulose breath test, I found out that I tested very positive for SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth). It pretty much explained all my symptoms, though how this all started is still a bit murky (I suspect it was my multiple noroviruses)
So now I'm on a restricted diet and have been prescribed antibiotics, though I don't know when those will arrive
Also, fun fact. Apparently sipping drinks through straws to save your deteriorating enamel does not help with stomach issues since you're sucking in air and it gets trapped
I searched for Cymbalta on PA and found this thread.
I have Crohns, and a not-quite-fistula just inside my butt :P - a hole that goes nowhere, just tapers out nowhere special. I've been having really bad pain from that for about two years, been taking painkillers and a small amount of Etizolam for that, but it's just getting hard to deal with. The hole is not so bad - draining well, not abscessed, and so the doctor doesn't think it's painful enough to be the sole cause of my pain. He thinks it's a mix of physiological and psychological stuff.
My home life is pretty stressful - my wife has had terrible Social Anxiety Disorder and maybe some other problems for the last 6 years or so, which have made her very hard to live with. So the doctor thinks I'm in some kind of pain-stress-muscle spasm-pain-stress-muscle spasm loop, and the Etizolam, and now Cymbalta, are a way to try and help that.
Anyway, this evening is my first dose of Cymbalta, to go with my Pentasa, Loperamide, Rebamipide, Loxoprofen, Etizolam, Ethyl Loflazepate, and B12 injections for the pernicious anemia.
And I'm nervous about Cymbalta (I don't like drugs which are too complex for me to understand ) and I thought I'd bother you nice people about it.
Edit: though I feel lame posting about my problems compared to what I'm reading about in here.
poshniallo on
I figure I could take a bear.
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
just got through with another infection that led to a hospitalization, but nothing can be seen on a CT scan for fistulas or abscesses, even though I can feel the perianal stuff pretty easily.
I have had this disease for 14+ years and aside from that time they punctured my intestines with an endoscope, and the time they gave me pneumonia by shoving an NG tube in my lung, and the first and second time I had epididimitis during that biweekly infection that was fed fecal matter from a fistula connecting my ejaculatory duct to my intestines, this is only the 2nd time I've had a fever. And it has been in the same month, and both times they found evidence of pneumonia but nothing to be concerned with in the perianal area.
I know my body pretty well, and I am pretty sure there is something back there causing me random bouts of distal pain, and I really don't want to go to Minnesota in December again to get an MRI and find out.
But I am in the process of scheduling a psychiatry meeting with a psychiatrist who specializes in dealing with long term crohn's patients and the sort of pain issues they have. Therapy, self hypnosis, yoga, breathing excercises, etc. are going to be on the plate. Oh, and she lives in Pittsburgh so ...yay.
I won't lie, the stress of everything has me wound really tight right now and I want it to end. The pain, the disease, the lack of momentum or a clear goal...I am feeling like am being crushed by the weight of it all right now.
Sorry, I just needed to vent for a minute. My sister just came back from her round the world in a year trip, which kinda eats at me highlighting the exact kind of thing I cannot and will not be able to do. I am happy to see her, sure, but...just fuck everything right now.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
I just got some good health news. I have a liver tumor. It grew really big and burst a few years ago. Instead of taking it out, they stopped the bleeding and cut off the blood supply. Told me to get regular MRIs to make sure it wasn't growing.
Without a biopsy, they couldn't say for sure. But it is most likely an adenoma due to hormonal birth control. So I stopped taking hormonal birth control and monitored it.
I moved states, and due to insurance and not knowing the best way to find a new doctor, I didn't get this checked out for three years. I finally got good insurance and found a good doctor. Got an MRI and. .. everything is looking good. it is still there, but smaller. The thing that would have caused it to go bonkers was getting pregnant and having a baby .. which I did with no issues.
So hooray! No liver surgery.
They don't even want me to have another MRI unless I start feeling pain where the tumor is.
If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing
Been taking Cymbalta for a few days now. Messes up my stomach, which is never good since I have Crohns, but that's all so far. The doc says my stomach should settle down and the SNRI side will take a week or two to kick in. But I don't feel weird or anything. Maybe a bit sleepy? That's no biggie.
poshniallo on
I figure I could take a bear.
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Been taking Cymbalta for a few days now. Messes up my stomach, which is never good since I have Crohns, but that's all so far. The doc says my stomach should settle down and the SNRI side will take a week or two to kick in. But I don't feel weird or anything. Maybe a bit sleepy? That's no biggie.
Do you use Dicyclomine (I may be mispelling this)?
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
Been taking Cymbalta for a few days now. Messes up my stomach, which is never good since I have Crohns, but that's all so far. The doc says my stomach should settle down and the SNRI side will take a week or two to kick in. But I don't feel weird or anything. Maybe a bit sleepy? That's no biggie.
Do you use Dicyclomine (I may be mispelling this)?
No, and I know nothing about it.
I take Rebamipide... not sure how similar those are.
I swear Stale is a robot that keeps some fleshy parts around just to trap and taunt cancer.
+12
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Been taking Cymbalta for a few days now. Messes up my stomach, which is never good since I have Crohns, but that's all so far. The doc says my stomach should settle down and the SNRI side will take a week or two to kick in. But I don't feel weird or anything. Maybe a bit sleepy? That's no biggie.
Do you use Dicyclomine (I may be mispelling this)?
No, and I know nothing about it.
I take Rebamipide... not sure how similar those are.
The drug I refer to helps with stomach pain in general, but specifically cramps and works by slowing down parastolisis.
What is happening in your stomach, exactly? Do you need an antacid or what?
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
Been taking Cymbalta for a few days now. Messes up my stomach, which is never good since I have Crohns, but that's all so far. The doc says my stomach should settle down and the SNRI side will take a week or two to kick in. But I don't feel weird or anything. Maybe a bit sleepy? That's no biggie.
Do you use Dicyclomine (I may be mispelling this)?
No, and I know nothing about it.
I take Rebamipide... not sure how similar those are.
The drug I refer to helps with stomach pain in general, but specifically cramps and works by slowing down parastolisis.
What is happening in your stomach, exactly? Do you need an antacid or what?
Sorry about the slow reply. Been a hell of a week.
Not reflux. Constipation, gas, bloating. I live in Japan and eat a Japanese diet (except for too much candy), and eat an apple or nashi (Japanese pear) every day to keep things moving down there. Of course I take Loperamide too. So my basic thing is wake up, shocking BM, then loperamide to calm things down for the rest of the day so I can work/function/leave the bathroom.
Now things are just weird. I keep needing to go a little bit, little bit, little bit. And my appetite has almost disappeared, more than can be explained by the feeling of fullness. I can stand to lose more than a few pounds, but I'm pretty anaemic, so if I'm always struggling to get enough protein, especially meat, to stop me from getting dizzy and confused. Last week I dropped my iPad and broke it, and I think that was definitely the anaemia adding to my general clumsiness/peripheral neuropathy.
I think the drug is helping. I feel much more chilled about the pain, but right now kinda have more of it than before.
ugh red robin I trusted you after three successful trips and on the fourth one you gluten me
I am wounded
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Metzger MeisterIt Gets Worsebefore it gets any better.Registered Userregular
I know I've posted about this before, but Jesus CHRIST why can't people just trust a person with a chronic illness to know their body and condition?
Most everyone keeps jumping down my dad's throat for repeated hospital visits and shit, sayin he's just all about getting pain medication and shit. And you know, maybe that's fuckin true, but it sure as fuck ain't gonna do nobody a goddamn lick of good to judge him and throw a motherfucker under the goddamn bus over it.
Dude's recovering from fuckin stomach surgery, he's in pain so bad he woke up crying and shit, and all you can say is "you're being a baby" and "you're going to wake everyone up"
You're his wife, you selfish shitheel! Have some goddamn faith! He is a grown ass man and he knows his body! I'm sure during your many years of medical training you've encountered similar cases!
OH WAIT THAT'S RIGHT, you're a high school dropout who sits at home all day watching TRUTV but of course you know everything cuz "my mom was a nurse."
Maybe I am in the wrong here but fuckin a man.
And on top of all this, my boyfriend apparently had protein in his urine sample that he gave at the doctor's office at the beginning of the month, which could be an early warning sign of kidney disease. Which is apparently pretty common for diabetics. So that's pretty rad.
And here I was thinking I'd quit smokin this week.
Anyway. Last time I'll post about this garbage, just needed to get this off my chest.
You're not in the wrong. And considering the situation, you have every right to vent. It's better to do it in a designated space where there won't be any repercussions for your dad, rather than yell at his wife.
my dad's electric brain thing ran out of brain electricity, he's on his way out
flying up saturday
he might be dead by then, he might cling to life a couple days longer. i dunno. i think they're just going to sedate him and let him drift away
I don't get, excuse me if there's more detailed info buried somewhere in this thread.
But am I to understand he has an electronic device in his body/head that helps with the not-dying, and since this thing is running low on energy he's about to die?
I mean, both my aunts have had it, and one of my sisters had to have a precancerous mole removed, so it's not a surprise. It still sucks, though.
+2
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Metzger MeisterIt Gets Worsebefore it gets any better.Registered Userregular
So, went to the doctor today. First time in six or seven years. Now that I live in a state where I can actually get health insurance without selling my kidney I figured I'd go ahead and see what was up.
Good thing, too, cuz apparently I'm pre-diabetic! My A1C was like 6.3 and my blood sugar was 154. So they've got me on metformin to try and lessen my body's insulin resistance. I'm kinda freaked out about this honestly
So, went to the doctor today. First time in six or seven years. Now that I live in a state where I can actually get health insurance without selling my kidney I figured I'd go ahead and see what was up.
Good thing, too, cuz apparently I'm pre-diabetic! My A1C was like 6.3 and my blood sugar was 154. So they've got me on metformin to try and lessen my body's insulin resistance. I'm kinda freaked out about this honestly
While it's totally fine to be freaked out about it, being given any kind of diagnosis beyond "all clear" is stressful, type 2 diabetes is usually very easy to manage anymore. And you're only pre-diabetic, so you should have even more options. Barring any extenuating circumstances that I am not aware of regarding your health and diagnosis, you can probably reign in your pre-diabetes with a change in diet and some exercise/weight loss.
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Metzger MeisterIt Gets Worsebefore it gets any better.Registered Userregular
Yeah I'm pretty hopeful. It's tough because I'm on food stamps right now and buying actual healthy food seems so much more expensive than, like, hamburger helper and that stuff that I grew up on you know? So I'm obviously gonna really try to change my lifestyle but man it's gonna take some finagling.
I don't know how much time you have in a day, but you could just make your own noodles. They're basically just flour and eggs, and you could make about 10x more noodles (spices included) if you make them yourself. Rather than a box of hamburger helper.
Yeah I'm pretty hopeful. It's tough because I'm on food stamps right now and buying actual healthy food seems so much more expensive than, like, hamburger helper and that stuff that I grew up on you know? So I'm obviously gonna really try to change my lifestyle but man it's gonna take some finagling.
Yeah, it can definitely be tough. I struggle with maintaining a good diet even with a decent budget. Just what you're raised on and the portion sizes your family served. That is the biggest thing for me, portion size.
You can always work to offset your diet with exercise, but I know that can be tough. It takes time and effort to exercise effectively and I am not good at finding motivation myself. It's also tough when you can't afford equipment and stuff like that. Just gotta work at it I guess. You can do stuff like lunges and push-ups without equipment, running or biking if you gave access to a bike or good shoes.
I need to work on my diet and exercise plan because I am just a time bomb of diabetes waiting to go off. I have been pretty heavy my entire adult and teenage life but somehow still don't have diabetes or pre-diabetes, which has to be dumb luck.
Just keep at it and keep making little changes, you'll be alright.
my dad's electric brain thing ran out of brain electricity, he's on his way out
flying up saturday
he might be dead by then, he might cling to life a couple days longer. i dunno. i think they're just going to sedate him and let him drift away
I don't get, excuse me if there's more detailed info buried somewhere in this thread.
But am I to understand he has an electronic device in his body/head that helps with the not-dying, and since this thing is running low on energy he's about to die?
that sounds odd.
no this is literally true you've understood it perfectly
my dad had a rare brain disease called multiple systems atrophy
he was originally diagnosed with parkinson's, which is pretty common in the early stages of MSA
there's a thing they do with parkinson's where they put electrodes in your brain to stimulate the parts that produce dopamine, which parkinson's fucks up. there is also a battery pack in your chest that powers them
most MSA patients who get this surgery die within, like, a year, it turns out
but in my dad's case it extended his lifespan. we have no idea why. it was a very strange case. his brain has been donated to scientists so they can figure out what was wrong with it
anyway for the last year or so he's been totally immobile, unable to eat or talk or take a shit without assistance, my mum has been his full time carer
this was an untenable situation
so when the batteries in his chest began to run out we elected not to go through with the surgery to get them replaced and just let him die now instead of lingering for another six months or so
which...
he did!
the funeral was pretty nice. it's nice to have the whole thing over and done with
Posts
They kept you on a PICC line that was getting infected?
Brilliant! No...no wait, what's the opposite of brilliant?
RETARDED?!?!?!
Yes, that's it, thank you!
She sleeps most of the day and then she's up at night and she'll start a sentence, trail off and then look at my questioning face with a smile that tells me that she doesn't remember a thing that happened just seconds ago and my heart breaks each and every time. She'll start to say that she has to, stop talking, look at me and I ask what it is she has to do and she says yes and looks away and fidgets with something on the table and turns and looks at me with a smile and I'm sitting here crying my eyes out as I'm writing this.
I had a huge sobbing meltdown today and I know she won't remember any of it tomorrow but I have to get her to talk to someone about this. I don't know if this is happening because of the meds she's taking or the meds she's not taking or if it's another brain hemorrhage or just the inevitable result of the first one. I don't know if she can get better, I don't know if it can be stopped before it gets worse, I don't know how this ends. And I'm petrified.
Like I don't mind beingo ff it
But every time I end up eating it, I reflect that if there was an invasive surgery I could elect to have so I never reacted like this again, I would have it
Through the lactulose breath test, I found out that I tested very positive for SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth). It pretty much explained all my symptoms, though how this all started is still a bit murky (I suspect it was my multiple noroviruses)
So now I'm on a restricted diet and have been prescribed antibiotics, though I don't know when those will arrive
Also, fun fact. Apparently sipping drinks through straws to save your deteriorating enamel does not help with stomach issues since you're sucking in air and it gets trapped
Back at work and killing it. Architecting a new framework and rolling out Agile Dojos for 4 teams.
Walking it off.
I searched for Cymbalta on PA and found this thread.
I have Crohns, and a not-quite-fistula just inside my butt :P - a hole that goes nowhere, just tapers out nowhere special. I've been having really bad pain from that for about two years, been taking painkillers and a small amount of Etizolam for that, but it's just getting hard to deal with. The hole is not so bad - draining well, not abscessed, and so the doctor doesn't think it's painful enough to be the sole cause of my pain. He thinks it's a mix of physiological and psychological stuff.
My home life is pretty stressful - my wife has had terrible Social Anxiety Disorder and maybe some other problems for the last 6 years or so, which have made her very hard to live with. So the doctor thinks I'm in some kind of pain-stress-muscle spasm-pain-stress-muscle spasm loop, and the Etizolam, and now Cymbalta, are a way to try and help that.
Anyway, this evening is my first dose of Cymbalta, to go with my Pentasa, Loperamide, Rebamipide, Loxoprofen, Etizolam, Ethyl Loflazepate, and B12 injections for the pernicious anemia.
And I'm nervous about Cymbalta (I don't like drugs which are too complex for me to understand
Edit: though I feel lame posting about my problems compared to what I'm reading about in here.
I have had this disease for 14+ years and aside from that time they punctured my intestines with an endoscope, and the time they gave me pneumonia by shoving an NG tube in my lung, and the first and second time I had epididimitis during that biweekly infection that was fed fecal matter from a fistula connecting my ejaculatory duct to my intestines, this is only the 2nd time I've had a fever. And it has been in the same month, and both times they found evidence of pneumonia but nothing to be concerned with in the perianal area.
I know my body pretty well, and I am pretty sure there is something back there causing me random bouts of distal pain, and I really don't want to go to Minnesota in December again to get an MRI and find out.
But I am in the process of scheduling a psychiatry meeting with a psychiatrist who specializes in dealing with long term crohn's patients and the sort of pain issues they have. Therapy, self hypnosis, yoga, breathing excercises, etc. are going to be on the plate. Oh, and she lives in Pittsburgh so ...yay.
I won't lie, the stress of everything has me wound really tight right now and I want it to end. The pain, the disease, the lack of momentum or a clear goal...I am feeling like am being crushed by the weight of it all right now.
Sorry, I just needed to vent for a minute. My sister just came back from her round the world in a year trip, which kinda eats at me highlighting the exact kind of thing I cannot and will not be able to do. I am happy to see her, sure, but...just fuck everything right now.
i have had
10 seizures of varying degrees of severity
this is getting a wee bit excessive
i have a doctor's appointment in seven days and that's good and all but
this is a bit much
i can't keep popping ativan
that is not a solution
i am on 200mg of topiramate a day, i shouldn't be having seizures at all, that's a lot of anti-seizure medication
Without a biopsy, they couldn't say for sure. But it is most likely an adenoma due to hormonal birth control. So I stopped taking hormonal birth control and monitored it.
I moved states, and due to insurance and not knowing the best way to find a new doctor, I didn't get this checked out for three years. I finally got good insurance and found a good doctor. Got an MRI and. .. everything is looking good. it is still there, but smaller. The thing that would have caused it to go bonkers was getting pregnant and having a baby .. which I did with no issues.
So hooray! No liver surgery.
They don't even want me to have another MRI unless I start feeling pain where the tumor is.
Do you use Dicyclomine (I may be mispelling this)?
No, and I know nothing about it.
I take Rebamipide... not sure how similar those are.
The drug I refer to helps with stomach pain in general, but specifically cramps and works by slowing down parastolisis.
What is happening in your stomach, exactly? Do you need an antacid or what?
It's ok, there's no such thing as a jinx, you'll be fine.
the next God-Damned week. Shingles.
Sorry about the slow reply. Been a hell of a week.
Not reflux. Constipation, gas, bloating. I live in Japan and eat a Japanese diet (except for too much candy), and eat an apple or nashi (Japanese pear) every day to keep things moving down there. Of course I take Loperamide too. So my basic thing is wake up, shocking BM, then loperamide to calm things down for the rest of the day so I can work/function/leave the bathroom.
Now things are just weird. I keep needing to go a little bit, little bit, little bit. And my appetite has almost disappeared, more than can be explained by the feeling of fullness. I can stand to lose more than a few pounds, but I'm pretty anaemic, so if I'm always struggling to get enough protein, especially meat, to stop me from getting dizzy and confused. Last week I dropped my iPad and broke it, and I think that was definitely the anaemia adding to my general clumsiness/peripheral neuropathy.
I think the drug is helping. I feel much more chilled about the pain, but right now kinda have more of it than before.
I am wounded
Most everyone keeps jumping down my dad's throat for repeated hospital visits and shit, sayin he's just all about getting pain medication and shit. And you know, maybe that's fuckin true, but it sure as fuck ain't gonna do nobody a goddamn lick of good to judge him and throw a motherfucker under the goddamn bus over it.
Dude's recovering from fuckin stomach surgery, he's in pain so bad he woke up crying and shit, and all you can say is "you're being a baby" and "you're going to wake everyone up"
You're his wife, you selfish shitheel! Have some goddamn faith! He is a grown ass man and he knows his body! I'm sure during your many years of medical training you've encountered similar cases!
OH WAIT THAT'S RIGHT, you're a high school dropout who sits at home all day watching TRUTV but of course you know everything cuz "my mom was a nurse."
Maybe I am in the wrong here but fuckin a man.
And on top of all this, my boyfriend apparently had protein in his urine sample that he gave at the doctor's office at the beginning of the month, which could be an early warning sign of kidney disease. Which is apparently pretty common for diabetics. So that's pretty rad.
And here I was thinking I'd quit smokin this week.
Anyway. Last time I'll post about this garbage, just needed to get this off my chest.
i don't see what that has do with the rest of your post though
I don't get, excuse me if there's more detailed info buried somewhere in this thread.
But am I to understand he has an electronic device in his body/head that helps with the not-dying, and since this thing is running low on energy he's about to die?
that sounds odd.
It's New Jerseyan for 'indeed'.
Good thing, too, cuz apparently I'm pre-diabetic! My A1C was like 6.3 and my blood sugar was 154. So they've got me on metformin to try and lessen my body's insulin resistance. I'm kinda freaked out about this honestly
While it's totally fine to be freaked out about it, being given any kind of diagnosis beyond "all clear" is stressful, type 2 diabetes is usually very easy to manage anymore. And you're only pre-diabetic, so you should have even more options. Barring any extenuating circumstances that I am not aware of regarding your health and diagnosis, you can probably reign in your pre-diabetes with a change in diet and some exercise/weight loss.
Yeah, it can definitely be tough. I struggle with maintaining a good diet even with a decent budget. Just what you're raised on and the portion sizes your family served. That is the biggest thing for me, portion size.
You can always work to offset your diet with exercise, but I know that can be tough. It takes time and effort to exercise effectively and I am not good at finding motivation myself. It's also tough when you can't afford equipment and stuff like that. Just gotta work at it I guess. You can do stuff like lunges and push-ups without equipment, running or biking if you gave access to a bike or good shoes.
I need to work on my diet and exercise plan because I am just a time bomb of diabetes waiting to go off. I have been pretty heavy my entire adult and teenage life but somehow still don't have diabetes or pre-diabetes, which has to be dumb luck.
Just keep at it and keep making little changes, you'll be alright.
no this is literally true you've understood it perfectly
my dad had a rare brain disease called multiple systems atrophy
he was originally diagnosed with parkinson's, which is pretty common in the early stages of MSA
there's a thing they do with parkinson's where they put electrodes in your brain to stimulate the parts that produce dopamine, which parkinson's fucks up. there is also a battery pack in your chest that powers them
most MSA patients who get this surgery die within, like, a year, it turns out
but in my dad's case it extended his lifespan. we have no idea why. it was a very strange case. his brain has been donated to scientists so they can figure out what was wrong with it
anyway for the last year or so he's been totally immobile, unable to eat or talk or take a shit without assistance, my mum has been his full time carer
this was an untenable situation
so when the batteries in his chest began to run out we elected not to go through with the surgery to get them replaced and just let him die now instead of lingering for another six months or so
which...
he did!
the funeral was pretty nice. it's nice to have the whole thing over and done with