Weak and wheelchair-bound Joni Mitchell is suffering from short-term memory loss and has packed on 60 pounds -- causing pals to fear the end is near for the ailing folk icon! Ther 74-year-old Big Yellow Taxi legend was left physically wrecked after a 2015 brain bleed, and now medical experts, who have not treated the star, estimage she crushes the scales at a deadly 180 pounds! "It's a miracle she's even around," says  music critic David Yaffe, who penned Reckless Daughter : A Portrait of Joni Mitchell. Read the latest issue of GLOBE and read Joni Mitchell's life-threatening struggle!