How did she decline so rapidly?

[Maggiethecat]

Not really trying to know the cause of the queen’s death although I have wondered but can’t get my head round that picture of her greeting Liz Truss to her death 2 days later.

Initially thought it must have been something acute like a stroke or heart but then it seems like she has been ailing (haven’t really taken note, other than palace statements of mobility issues).

Perhaps she had been bedridden for weeks and made a huge effort on Monday to fulfil her last duty but I’m inclined to think had that been the case more of her family would have been near.

All I know is, that's how I want to go - functioning well until the end.

It can happen at that age. It did with my Grandfather. At the age of 94 he was strolling around looking like he was in his 60's but a few weeks later he'd suddenly declined and passed away.

She probably had a stroke or heart issue. Apparently she’d been on good form recently.

She was 96 - in the kindest way, it doesn't take much.

My grandpa was a similar age to the queen when he died. My nana (his wife) passed away on the Friday morning suddenly and I saw my grandpa on the Saturday morning. He looked so alive and full of energy no ill health. he was arranging pictures of my nana around the house, talking to my husband about the football offering to cook us breakfast. A few hours later he was dead it was so sudden and I couldn’t quite believe how alive he’s been just hours earlier talking about boiling eggs.

i just think he couldn’t live without his wife of 70 years. Sometimes it happens very fast

This.

Set a mental deadline (see off Boris for want of a better phrase) then thought "job done". It's not uncommon for people in failing health to hold on against the odds for a much anticipated event (Christmas, Wedding) then die shortly after.

I can imagine the Queen not really wanting Boris to do all the formal bits around her funeral and probably wanted to make very sure that the handover happened. Obviously I don't know this but seems highly possible.

Sorry to hijack your thread but I wanted to ask about the corgis. She bought a new puppy fairly recently I think. Last couple of years. Who will take them?

She was pictured doing her work with Liz Truss on Monday. She was dead on Thursday. I think that sounds like a good death. I hope mine is like that.

I've sadly been around not such good deaths.

I think something must have happened yesterday morning, such as a stroke/heart attack etc that caused a very quick decline. To see her only 2 days before with that big smile on her face. She was tired but still so determined.

Yep. My FIL had terminal cancer and was in a terrible state but lasted a month longer than doctors advised us would because he wanted to see us married. He'd even told us we had to continue with the wedding if he passed away beforehand. On the day he had an oxygen bottle with him but he was there.

He died a week later.

I'm sure Charles or another of her children or grandchildren will be happy to have the dogs.

They're hardly going to end up in rescue!

the picture of her with Liz Truss on Tuesday she looks incredibly frail and understandably so. Her poor hands look bruised quite possible from cannulation so I would assume she had been poorly but in true queen style she carried on right until the end 💕

At 96 you can die at anytime. It's good she was functioning to the end.

My sister died of terminal cancer. She had been very ill and required frequent hospital stays for almost a year prior to her death. But even when she passed away it seemed like a rapid decline at the end. She had been her usual self five days before her death and visibly drawn but still mentally there two days later. It wasn't really until the day before that she actually looked like she was dying.

Its a nice way to go though isn't it, fairly active and healthy for 96 years then an almost shock death. Did her family get there in time, do we know?

She had been in decline for a while. Nicolas Wichell more or less confirmed that she had a fall last autumn (she spent a night in hospital but they never said why) and he also said yesterday that there had been rumours for a while of cancer - I did think that was very indiscret of him. She has lost a lot of weight in the last year but that’s not a direct indicator of anything. The bruising on her hand In the last photo has been pointed out by some as a sign that she may have been on a drip, but the elderly often bruise more easily as they age.

I guess we’ll know in a few weeks, the death certificate will be a matter of public record and I’m sure the press will be applying for copies as soon as they can.

It's the same as anyone really. I mean you can be running a marathon one day and dead the next

My grandad passed the same way at 94. Active and smiling despite the cancer, he passed 2 days after I last saw him chatting and joking about me smuggling in whisky.

It can be so sudden.

@PutinIsAWarCriminal from what I have seen Charles and Anne were with her I don’t think the others made it in time.

My Uncle was in his late eighties when he died. He had been a Farmer all his life. He had been shopping, got out of his car on the drive and dropped dead from a massive heart attack, no illness whatsoever. My Grandmother died like that as well. About two weeks before she died she had gone with my cousin through the big municipal cemetery, they missed the gate locking time and she climbed up and over the seven foot high gate with the immortal words ‘Their not getting me yet’. She was close to 80 and had been in the WAAF, the Women’s Auxiliary Airforce. She is buried in that cemetery with the WAAF insignia on her gravestone.

I worked with a man in his 50s. Friday morning he was at work laughing, joking, not feeling ill in the slightest. Started to get a stomach ache in the afternoon but nothing major. He died on the Sunday after being rushed to hospital on the Saturday.

Charles, Camilla and Anne were already there. The flight from Northolt with William, Andrew, Edward and Sophie on board landed just before 4pm but it’s a 45-60 minute drive from the airport to Balmoral (I don’t know why they didn’t helicopter across?). We’ve been told Liz Truss was informed at 4.30pm so that suggests that they didn’t get there in time.

I would imagine if they wanted to hide something like cancer on the death certificate then they could.

Technically, my sister died of renal failure caused by cancer. But it would be perfectly legal to record the cause of death as only renal failure.

I do think it’s a bit much how the reporting of Harry ‘not making it in time’. I don’t think the others made it either but that’s not going to be published so publicly. This is of course all speculation etc and it was that quick that if he’d have been in California he would never have made it.