So close and yet...so very, very far

My family and I live quite a distance from each other. One ocean and a continent; and I've always believed that because of Jet travel and telephones and the internet that we were never really all that far away from each other.
Most people I know would agree with this. But there comes a time when all those ideas of distance and availibility come crashing down around you and create an entirely new reality.
I came home from work a few days ago and discovered, to my surprise that there was a message on my answering machine. My initial thought was that maybe my wife forgot to pay our credit card bill on time and that the collection dept. was informing us of our irresponsible delinquency.
The message was from my sister and it was the one phone call nobody wants to get yet every knows that someday, is coming.
"Mom has been badly hurt in an accident and she's in the hospital". Well I guess I was a tiny bit relieved that it wasn't "the dreaded call" but there was a distinct note of panic in my sister's voice that literally raised the hackles on the back of my neck.
Dropping my stuff, I immediately phoned home. Luckily my niece was there to give me the low down on what was happening on the other side of the world, unfortunately she didn't have all the facts and I had to wait until my sister returned from the hospital.
So now I'm waiting. Waiting and imagining the worst. I'm thinking about how I can get my ass back home to be there for my mom, but I realize that that is going to be difficult. You see I don't have a pot to piss in nor a window to throw it out. At the moment everything I have is tied up in my school and if I leave I won't have the staff to run things. One of my teachers left on vacation the day before and and the other has only just started and doesn't know the ropes yet so we're running things with a skeleton crew. This sets my wife in motion, trying to find a way to get us back to N.Y. without putting our business in jeapordy
I tell her not to panic until we get more info and know exactly what's going on. My sister has a history of exaggeration and often expresses herself in the highest forms of hyperbole.
This time the girl wasn't crying wolf. My mom is in a terrible way and the surgeons need to get in as soon as possible and patch her up. There are some problems though, her age (no spring chicken) and other ailments have the surgical staff concerned and they are as of yet unwilling to go in due to the high risk she presents.
So I'm sitting here waiting, waiting, waiting.
The next flight out is on Monday morning.....