"Duck Dynasty" patriarch Phil Robertson is fighting Alzheimer's disease and a blood disorder, his family said Friday.
"Phil's not doing well," his son Jase Robertson said on Friday's episode of the family's podcast, "Unashamed with the Robertson Family," reported the New York Post Saturday. "According to the doctors, they're sure that he has some sort of blood disease that's causing all kinds of problems."
Robertson said his father has been fighting the blood disease, which he did not name, for a "few years," but now it's "accelerated" and is "causing problems with his entire body."
Jase Robertson added that his father, 78, has "early stages of Alzheimer's, so if you put those things together, he's just not doing well. He's really struggling."
Phil Robertson has insisted he wants to come back on the podcast, which centers on the family's Christian faith, but Jase Robertson said he told his father that he can "barely walk around without you know, crying in pain, and I'm like, 'You know, your memory is not what it once was.'"
Another son, Alan Robertson, commented that their father has "good days and bad days."
"There will be some days he's a little better, you know, a little more witty but other days not so much," he said.
The sons said that without a "supernatural intervention" by God, their father's health and memory won't improve, so the family is working to keep him comfortable.
"We have a team of doctors, and then we have another set of doctors who are looking at all of the tests. And they're all in agreement that there is no curing what he has," said Jase Robertson.
"What do you do? We're trying to make him a little more comfortable."
He said his father joined them in November for the first day of duck season, and that was when the family realized his condition was becoming worse.
The elder Robertson "did not fire his weapon at all" or speak much, even though it was "one of the best opening days we've ever had" with the family shooting 32 ducks.
"After the hunt, he said, 'Jase, I was miserable,'" the son recalled. "He was just hurting and he couldn't do anything.
"He just said, 'Y'all don't call me. I'll call you when I'm ready to go back.' If he's unable to go duck hunting, that tells you all you need to know."
Phil Robertson formed his hunting company, Duck Commander, in 1973, and he and his family were the stars of the hit show "Duck Dynasty" on A&E from 2012 through 2017.