Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:He had throat cancer and lost the ability to swallow and it's very likely a lung infection was caused by this. My uncle had esophageal cancer and went through something similar. Being unable to clear and protect your airway is a constant health battle.
It's heartbreaking to survive the cancer and then
succumb to pneumonia. Different cancer, but same thing happened to my relative at the same age.
My ER doctor husband will tell you that pneumonia is an exceedingly common complication, regardless of what patients suffer from - it's the aspiration and subsequent infection that kills them. Homo Sapiens, unlike other mammals, has a swallowing weakness. We tend to choke on many things. It's a negative evolutionary trait. So many of us will die from aspiration complications, just like the Pope nearly did a couple of weeks ago. My FIL died of this. My grandfather died from starvation because he kept aspirating and due to his dementia, we decided not to keep him alive with an IV.