My DH went back to his hometown (8.5 hours by car) last Thursday, with plans to visit his mom (91 years old) and then to go fishing in Mexico with friends for a couple of days. He left his mom's house on Saturday morning. Saturday evening I had a phone call from MIL's caretaker to say that she thought DH had better return, as MIL was having assorted not-good symptoms.
Calling from the US to a remote area of Mexico is never easy, but I finally found someone who knew someone, who knew someone -- you get the idea. DH called me and then spent part of Father's Day getting back to his mom's home. Not what he'd had in mind at all, of course. By the time he arrived, his mother was feeling lots better (naturally! ), but now he's waiting for his siblings to arrive (Tuesday -- they're "too busy" to go any sooner, though they live only 3 hours away from their mother) so as to make a joint decision on how to make sure she's rarely alone; she refuses to go into a "home".
It's not easy.