In early December 2015, Mother Angelica was placed on a feeding tube. A representative for her order explained, "It's not that she's completely unable to eat. It's assisting her to get the nutrients she needs." He added that she had experienced "some up and downs the last few months. She's a fighter." Although confined to her bed, a representative said that "She's able to communicate with a squeeze of a hand, make gestures with her eyes. She acknowledges people when they're there. The nuns say she does sleep a lot." The use of a feeding tube was in accord with the wishes she made before her stroke in 2001 – a reporter recalled her saying: "We don't understand the awesomeness of living even one more day... I told my sisters the other day, 'When I get really bad give me all the medicine I can take, all the tubes you can stuff down me. ... I want to live. ... Because I will have suffered one more day for the love of God ... I will exercise you in virtue. But most of all I will know God better. You cannot measure the value of one new thought about God in your own life.'"