h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have a friend who is very ill, as she is an alcoholic. Her illness forced her into hospital over a month ago when she began to suffer serious effects of liver failure. I am supposed to be the person who keeps her female friends in touch with her condition - her husband has asked me to do this - but it feels a terrible place to be. He doesn't tell me the reality of what the doctors have told him - except, in one incidence, that she has only a 5% chance. I don't know if he's in denial, stupid, or just private. She is rich, and her friends have assumed he married her for her money (I never thought much one way or another, but begin to do so, as he forced her to remake her will 3 days before she went into hospital as an emergency). I am also - with her husband - an executor of her will, if she should die.

I suppose I really want to know what's going on. My main concern is that while my friend is still alive, she is sleeping most of the day. I know this is a bad sign, and have, of course, researched her problem online. She has about 25% liver function remaining, and this isn't enough. Her brain is back (she has a good one, too), but she is exhausted after a short conversation. I'm supposed to be going to take care of her for a night soon, and am worried, though I want to see her, that I may miss being able to help her. We, her female friends, feel she is rather in the position of an elderly person, in the power of people who will benefit significantly from her death. I am not suggesting anyone will hurt her - she has done more than enough of that to herself - but just don't know what to expect, or what I can do.

She is a very old friend. We were at school together, and have lived through many of the ups and downs of existence with each other. If anyone has any advice, or suggestions of where to go for real information, rather than generalities, I would be very grateful.

Her other friends are very bitter against her husband, but I can't afford to be, as I have to have access to her, to maintain those lines of communication. Left alone, she rings me, but she's not left alone much.

Any suggestions? It sounds, I expect, like a novel or tv drama. It feels like one at times, too.