My mother-in-law, Rosa, died yesterday morning of septic shock and multiple organ failure at Vall d'Hebron. It came upon her very quickly; she was fine on Saturday when her two brothers visited her, on Sunday morning she started showing symptoms something was wrong, in the afternoon they figured out it was a urinary infection, by Sunday evening she was unconscious, the doctors told us before midnight that the infection had generalized and she would likely die, and she finally did die at 7:15 Monday morning. The funeral is tomorrow in Vallfogona.

We're all kind of in shock; nobody was expecting this to happen.

I am not at all happy with the Spanish health care system right now. We gave her to them with a broken leg, and we got her back dead of septic shock. I got the idea that the nursing staff in the traumatology department was doing a rather half-assed job about any non-traumatological problems the patients might have, since they let Rosa's diabetes get out of hand, weakening her body, and then exposed her to a urinary infection, most likely through mediocre hygiene. And Wikipedia says the earlier septic shock is diagnosed, the better chance of survival for the patient, and they did not diagnose it early.

We'll miss her. She was a cranky old bat, and sometimes she made me furious, but she'd had a tough life, a tougher life than anyone else I know, and if anyone has an excuse for being cranky, it's her. She was also generous, helpful, and honest, and she loved animals, which makes her OK in my book despite everything else. She also loved the people around her, though she didn't always express it in the best way. She was a practicing Catholic though not fanatical about it; may God bless her, and I'm sure she made the cut for heaven, especially if St. Francis of Assisi gets a vote.

The blog will be off the air a few days, of course, but we'll be back, hopefully as obnoxious as ever.