Democrat Barack Obama is canceling nearly all his campaign events Thursday and Friday to fly to Hawaii to visit his suddenly ill 86-year-old grandmother.

Campaign spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters Monday that Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Payne Dunham, who helped raise him,
was released from the hospital late last week. But he says her health has deteriorated to the point where her situation is very serious.

Gibbs said Obama would return to the campaign trail on Saturday,
though he was unsure where.

Obama events originally planned for Madison, Wis., and Des Moines, Iowa, on Thursday will be replaced with one in Indianapolis before he makes the long flight to Hawaii.

*** The development has caused ABC to pull their planned segment on Nightline Monday night about Obama's connection to Kansas. The piece was filmed a couple of weeks ago in El Dorado, where Dunham lived for a time. The segment was to be part of ABC's "50 States in 50 Days." It was not immediately known if a re-air date will be set for the episode filmed in El Dorado. ***