I just sent this email to a few friends who asked about mom:
I just returned from Florida. My wife and son and father-in-law were there with me from (late) Thursday night until yesterday (Tuesday) morning.
My sister had been there for three straight months and finally left on Sunday morning. So when we left yesterday I was basically leaving my mom all alone.
It was far, far worse than anything else I have ever done in my life. It was easily the worst weekend of my life.
Leaving my mom at the rehab place, sitting alone in a cafeteria staring into space, not knowing if at any point over the days I was there whether she really knew who I was, was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
And then when we landed last night there was a voice mail from the rehab place telling me that they took her to the ER a few hours after I left because she was wheezing and congested and couldn’t breathe. They called around midnight (my time) to tell me that they had to intubate her because she wasn’t breathing, and then around 3am to ask my permission to “run a central line”, which has something to do with needing a big vein to dispense medicine and collect blood. Around 7am the hospital called to tell me that she was septic, and that she had a pretty severe urinary tract infection which had spread to her bloodstream, and that her condition is “really bad”.
I just tried calling a few minutes ago (9:30 AM PT) and was told that they were all too busy — dealing specifically with my mom — to talk but that someone would call me soon to let me know what was happening.
So right now that’s my status.