And while she's tried valiantly to rally her spirits in recent weeks, friends say she's still a shadow of her former self as she deals with the debilitating setbacks while she continues to mourn the March 2025 death of Carl Dean, her beloved husband of 58 years. Fans were shocked at how frail and unsteady she looked at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Parton's Tennessean Travel Stop in Cornersville, Tenn., in June. Some onlookers even thought she might have had a stroke, since she seemed to be slurring her words. "That will be many months from now – if she's lucky." Until then, she's stuck at home in Brentwood for the foreseeable future, with nothing to do but sit around, said the source.