Unsure of where to draw the line between giving the seller the benefit of the doubt and pressing them to ship my item?

So I placed an order on Jan 8 for an item I’ve been looking for for a while. On Jan 10, the seller messaged me saying the weather was bad (snow) and they’d go to UPS next day. On Jan 11, they messaged me again and said their mother had to go to the hospital and they’d drop the item at UPS on Monday (Jan 13).

I have had the UPS tracking number since Jan 9 and as of today it shows that they’re still awaiting the item for drop off. I know sometimes scans can take a while to show up but I doubt with UPS ground it would not show a scan this many days out. Today is the originally estimated delivery date and obviously it won’t be arriving today (I’m 800 miles away from the seller).

Basically I’m just concerned about being a dick but also concerned I’m getting fleeced? If the person really is dealing with a family emergency I don’t want to pressure them, but at the same time I worry because they’re a relatively new seller with a limited history. I only ordered the item from them because it’s kind of niche and hard to come by, so I really just want to have the item more than anything instead of a refund.

Any suggestions on dealing with the situation? I’ve luckily never had any issues with eBay orders in the past (other than my own post office misdelivering something) so I’m not sure what the best practice is when dealing with something like this.