Chest and back pain when coughing

I live with a man 83 years old who has increasing problems. He has not been to a doctor since the 1950's and generally has tried to manage his own healthy. However, in recent years there has been increasing dementia, at times severe, although he fights very hard to keep his brain functioning. He also has pain in the legs (intermittant caudation, I assume), pains in the toes and feet. He has swelling on the right side of his neck which has been there for 25 years. He takes lots of organic iodine. We have been managing the dementia with ALA and L-carnitine and lecithin. He takes nutritional yeast often in milk drinks that also contain vitamin E, cod liver oil, B complex, niacinamide, chromium, calcium with magnesium, and phosphatidal serrin. Recently he began taking Nattokinase which seems to really help the pain in the legs. All of this is background, however. The problem stumping me started when he got a bad cold/flu. He normally does not get them, but this one hit him hard. He developed a severe cough and has been coughing up thick sputum. The sputum is yellow/green, but no blood. He took lots of C and some herbal tea. He also began taking small amounts of celtic salt in water. This seemed to clear him when he became frighteningly disoriented and spacy. It looked like we were on a road towards some recovery when he tripped and fell on the sidewalk. He landed on his right side and injured his hand, right arm and right side of the chest. He was in awful pain. This complicated everything. Now when he coughs he is in terrible pain and there is loud wheezing, suggesting fluid in the plerua or in the lung itself. He sleeps sitting up - lying down starts the coughing going. I know he will not consent to see a doctor. He has such strong feelings that going to a hospital would kill him. I worry about pneumonia or pleurisy. He is taking lots of C and vitamin A and some of the time things seem to stabilize. I want to know if you have any advice, given the parameters I have presented (no hospital, no doctors). If you have any helpful advice I will appreciate it, but I realize this is not the normal situation.

A worst case is that he broke a rib and there is danger of puncturing a lung, but I see no swelling (although he is overweight in the chest area). Only a bruise on the right pectoral. He has pain in both the back and the chest. My hope is that it is just a bone bruise and that with a little time things will heal up and he will be OK.

If you have any thoughts that might raise questions I have not raised I will appreciate your response.

I have no computere and may not be able to reply to you right away, as I use library computers.

Thanks in advance,

Ron Tweet