One of my oldest friends is in ICU and I don’t know how she is

[Worriedaboutfriend23]

Hi,
One of my oldest friends has been in hospital for a few weeks and she last messaged me 12 days ago telling me she had been taken down to ICU. I haven’t heard from her since.

I managed to get a reply from her brother last week who let me know she is in an induced coma and is very unwell, I’ve heard nothing since (I completely understand, I dont even know her brother and appreciated his message).

I can’t stop worrying about how she is. I thought about phoning the hospital but presume they won’t tell me anything as I’m not a relative?

I wonder if I could ring the hospital and ask them to pass on a message to any relative who may be able to update me, or would that be selfish as they have enough on their plate right now.

This is a friend that I see often and have spoken to multiple times daily without fail for the last 20 years.

She developed ascites due to liver damage which needed to be drained which is why she was in hospital in the first place, she had improved and was expected to be discharged the following week, but the day before she was admitted to ICU she developed a cough out of nowhere which required oxygen and then within hours she was in ICU.

Speaking as someone who’s had a loved one in icu, they have enough on their plate.
I can’t tell you how much more stressful it was having to update the immediate family X 3, and then find out a distant aunt had rung the hospital and wanted to know how they were too.
It’s hard enough struggling through it all yourself without having to think of other people.
I’m sorry you are so worried about your friend, and I do hope she makes a good recovery, but her DB knows how to contact you. He will contact you again when there is any news I imagine.

It's a really stressful situation to be in and I honestly don't know what is the best way forward.

I've had similar with a friends difficult end of pregnancy, them seemingly disappearing without trace and not hearing from them until a month after the due date. I had no idea what was happening and felt I couldn't get in touch directly after I'd sent a few "hope everything's OK, been a bit worried about you" type messages as that might be too much if the worse had happened. Had no contact details for family and no mutual friends. It turned out that she was fine, baby was fine, she'd just been busy. I'd been so worried but didn't feel I should overstep.

Similar again with a friend I was close to several years ago dying unexpectedly. I found out via Facebook and attended a zoom memorial, but I don't know her husband or any mutual friends and feel I can't ask what happened in case it's hard for them to talk about. Nothing was mentioned at the memorial, nothing specific on Facebook. So I'm left with this big unanswered question that I don't think I'll ever get an answer to.

Wish I had some words of wisdom for you, but that place between your own worries and needs, and respecting the other people's privacy and needs in these situations is not easy. At all.

I would message her brother again, maybe something open like hope she doing better and if you can let her know your thinking of her. Leaving it open to being ignored or responded to

Yes, message the brother. Tell him how close you are ( maybe he knows that already as he contacted you previously?) and that you are thinking of her, and can he let you know if you are able to visit? If she is still in ICU and not able to have visitors, he'll tell you. The family might be very happy to have someone else visit..I know when my son was in ICU I really appreciated other people coming to visit, it took the pressure off me in a small way. Just knowing other people cared helped.