My mom refuses to take her medication unless she can have a cigarette. She tells us she wants to die. We had to sell her car recently and she is not able to go and buy cigarettes herself. Her diabetes is very hard to control, she as COPD, kidney failure and she can hardly walk due to arthritis in her knees. She refuses to use a walker most of the time and bumps along the walls at home. She lives with my brother and we have home care coming in to help. I live nearby and take her to numerous doctor visits, handle her meds, and do all I can to get her out of the house to go shopping, to lunch, for a ride, etc. She has been depressed since we had to put her dog down in December and her doctor started her on Lexapro, which we thought was helping. We agreed to get one pack of cigarettes a week, but she smokes them all right away and tries to get caregivers to buy her more. Today she said she will not take her meds unless we get her more cigs and she does not care what happens to her - she would rather die than continue to be a burden to us.
My mother was a lifelong ** I ** am-not-gonna-get-lung-cancer smoker. Six years after finally quitting she got the diagnosis. Goodbye Mom.
So despite what you think, with COPD the damage has not all been done.
When you consider the possiblity that part of the body's cleansing mechanism is based on fluids removing waste and delivering nutrients, and that body motion aka exercise contributes to that process, then a restricted mobility individual who smokes is getting a double whammy.
Can you get her another dog? Maybe having to take care of a pet will help. Good luck.
My mom takes Paxil and she is Happy as a Lark. I'm so blessed.
Ask her doctor if that would help.