Free A Season in Hell by Marilyn French

considerable language difficulty, they told her they could not keep him from getting up to go to the toilet—he was probably a proud man. One nurse talked with them for a long time, attempting to dredge up ways to salve his pride while keeping him off his feet.
    A few of my roommates had husbands, but none took responsibility for their wives like my friend Barry. One man came every night with his dinner steaming and fragrant in a paper bag, and sat there eating, gazing at his wife. I was touched by this; I thought: How sweet; he’s used to eating with her and probably can’t bear eating without her. I went on thinking this and smiling at the man each time he entered the room, until the night her weak, weary voice protested:
    “Lou, did you have to bring chili in here? You know it makes me sick to smell it. All these spicy dishes make me sick.” He said nothing; he finished eating. I wondered if his dinners made her sick every night. After they left, I thought: I wouldn’t be surprised. Because on the day she was to depart, she was smiling and happy. By the time he arrived, she had put on her street clothes and came out of the bathroom wearing a big smile and a brownish-blond wig.
    “What do you think?” she asked, her eyes bright, eager for a compliment.
    “Looks like hell,” he growled.
    So much for sweetness, I thought. With someone like that around you, your chances of recovering were very low. I blessed myself again that a former lover who had left me had done so long enough ago that I was over it by the time I got sick. I knew that if we had still been together, I would have been deserted as soon as I was diagnosed, and that that would have crushed me, perhaps enough to affect my prognosis.
    One roommate had a grown son who had been away—in Europe, I think—and had not seen her since before she fell ill. Now he came every afternoon to play cards and chat with her; he took an interest in her medical treatment and stayed to speak to the doctors and ask them questions. I, too, had a devoted son. Neither of these sons took responsibility for their mother’s care (I did not need this degree of help and probably would not have allowed it), but both were deeply involved and interested in all its details. I also knew—presciently—that if I did need help, my son would give it. At Urgent Care, I was a lucky woman. My children or friends or both sat outside waiting for me, and when they were allowed in, they sat by my side, silent, waiting, still. Rob always sat with me for hours, holding my hand. A lovely doctor in Urgent Care came upon us this way one day and was startled.
    On my first visit to Urgent Care, I was diagnosed with thrush, a fungal disease that sometimes occurs when many white cells are killed off. It sounded trivial to me, but the doctors considered it serious and said I had to be hospitalized. It was serious, they said, because it indicates a low white cell count and it was blocking my internal organs—at least my throat, which was why I could not swallow. (In subsequent months, I was given a medication before and after chemotherapy, to prevent thrush from developing.) After a long wait, they admitted me to the hospital, though not to the eleventh floor, which had no free beds.
    The nurses said it was not uncommon for patients to return to the hospital mid-month. But when that occurs, treatment is not a relatively easy one-week-in, three-weeks-out. As it turned out, I spent about three weeks in, one week out, almost every month. When first diagnosed, I had another dread besides that of dying. As I went from doctor to doctor, I saw hundreds of people in hospital waiting rooms, lab waiting rooms, doctors’ waiting rooms. They sat for hours, patient and silent, waiting, waiting. I was one of them, but never patient. Restless, impatient, I harried receptionists, clerks, whoever; I protested three-hour waits. (By the following year, I was shouting at doctors who made the mistake of appearing in their