Emergency: cancelling trip, with apologies

My dad is ill. He fell down in the night two nights ago, fell down again last night, and is acting very strangely. The doctors can't find anythign wrong with him, according to my mohter, but he's being very nasty, getting frantic about having to stay overnight in the hospital and being horrid to her about leaving him there.

I'm cancelling my ttrip, and I'm going to go down to Newport News later today to see what I can do. The doctor in the ER wouldn't hold my dad overnight unless he were being assessed to go into a nursing home. so that's what my mother asked them to do. There's supposed to be a social worker available to talk to her about options later today, and she needs help deciding what to do.

My apologies to all the folks I was hoping to meet in the UK. I do hope to come visit soon; maybe this will mean that, when I do come, Neta will be able to come too.

good friends!

Thank you so much to everyone who has posted here or written offline. Your thoughts, good wishes, and prayers are much appreciated. Hopefully this will turn out to be a spur to getting a better and more supportive situation for my aged Ps (after all, they are both in their 80s, and haven't been in the best of health for a decade at least...)

Neta was wonderful; she came over this morning and helped me get packed and generally was supportive and super. Chris and Mel are kindly looking after the Boyz for me. My buddy (& boss) Justin is taking care of all the stuff that needs to be done at the office. My sister Cornelia is coming down from NJ this afternoon, and we're going to meet and go down to my parents' together. And we'll see what's what.

Again, thank you to all. I've got simply excellent friends! :-)