Feeling helpless in the first world

[DFW]

30. Thanks for the kind words, all. It seems that once it starts, it doesn't stop.

This evening, my wife called her 94 year old mom, whose birthday we celebrated last weekend, at her home up in the north and heard her mom say that she was experiencing a lot of bleeding in her pelvic area. She is nearly blind, and can't read any instructions, or even call 110 or 112 (German 911). She can barely call my wife when needed. My wife called around, but none of the emergency services picked up the phone up there, and the local Red Cross just said, well call the "911" number, which is useless, because doing that only gets you the local emergency services.

My wife finally reached a cousin who lives up there, and he came over, got some other friends, and one of them finally got an ambulance to take my mom-in-law to the local hospital. It is fortunately still there, as the state wanted to close it to save money. The ambulance people misplaced an "emergency medical passport" which all people have in that area. There is all information everyone needs on it--daily medication, recent medical history, insurance data, the works. It's always in the same place in the house, so of course, someone picked it up and either took it to the hospital or put it in a drawer. My wife is furious, and not a little worried. She is ditching everything and driving all the way back up there tomorrow. It's a two and a half hour drive, but there is no public transportation to that town at all, so she has no choice.

I hate that she is taking this stress upon herself, but she remains the dedicated social worker she was when she was working, and she'd never let herself be talked out of it (and I therefore never try, though this had better not be the same situation in five years).

I have to think that we all go through times like these sooner or later, but to have all this happen in the space of a few days, just when my work schedule is starting up its usual every-day-another-country routine, I just have to wonder when it's going to calm down for a few days. On the other hand, I know that for some people, things like this don't calm down for months or even years, so we should just get through it as best we can. But we're just not used to it, and there is some serious scrambling going on around here just now.