Thanks for the links, I've been reading through them and pasting to a word document to print out.
As of last night nobody in their congregation had been informed that she'd been admitted to hospital, so the hlc aren't involved yet. She might need to go into surgery urgently and so I'm worried the hlc might not be there in time to inform what is now allowable.
She got a cut under her fingernail that got infected but didn't respond to treatment. The infection moved up to her knuckle and so she was refered to the hospital yesterday. The dr there thinks that rather than an infection its because of the blood flow being stopped, basically gangrene. The surgeon is seeing her this morning, but from what I can tell the only treatment available may be amputation. If it travels at the same rate it did yesterday it'll probably be past the thumb and into her hand by the end of today.