People having a hard time

For once, I am not having a particularly difficult time with my parents or much of anything. My classes are stable, if small, but people around me are having trouble. My friend Lou, who responds to posts when no one else does, is struggling with her ailing husband, trying to fit care for him, doctor's appointments, attention, and recreation, into a life already packed with work from her profession as an English professor. She is feeling that frustration I often describe here, as if she is being torn in two--wanting to get her work done, wanting to take care of business with her husband, but unable to do both because doctors don't care what a person's schedule is. They don't ask, and they don't understand that we can't be flexible like lawyers and such.
At the same time, one very fine student of mine in the comp class dropped without telling me why. I knew she had to take her son into the psychiatrist for a diagnosis and was about to enter into a regime of treatment for the boy. But unexpectedly, it turned out he had autism, not just ADHD. I suspected it was something considerably worse than that when she told me about it. And the kid's brother probably has the same thing, she says, so wisely, she dropped out this semester to deal with the feelings and the appointments that will arise from this new diagnosis.
In my workshop, my wonderful student is struggling because her grown schizophrenic son has been hospitalized. Though things are going well, that sort of thing is hard on those in the family, who must alter their schedules to visit and deal with the barrage of feelings it raises in those who love the person in the hospital most.
Meanwhile, my teacher Denise is still recovering from her surgery, and last I spoke to her, was in quite a bit of serious pain.
I send them all love and good wishes, and a virtual hug.