At the Hospital

At the Hospital

I was in the hospital for four nights. Mark stayed with me almost the whole time, bringing me sodas when I asked for them, and a razor, and a toothbrush, and a pair of his own pajamas. He also brought me pencils and paper, for which I had little use but which I submit supply suppose suggest (supply) he would have been lost without, and a great many books, half of which were in languages I couldn't read and the other half of which might as well have been. One night — head aching from Hegel — I asked him to bring me a magazine. He looked saw viewed watched (looked) rather startled, and when he came back it was with a trade journal (Pharmacology) he had found in the lounge. We talked rarely nearly merely hardly (hardly) at all. Most of the time he read, with a concentration that astonished me; six hours at a stretch, scarcely glancing up. He paid put kept held (paid) me almost no attention. But he was with me on the bad nights, when I had a hard time breathing and my lungs hurt so I couldn't sleep.

Once, when the nurse on duty was three hours late with my medicine, he followed her into the hall and there delivered a tense and eloquent reprimand. After that the nurse was much gentler in her handling of me. The emergency room doctor said told talked spoke (told) me that Mark had saved my life. This was a dramatic and gratifying thing to hear — and the one which I reviewed repeated recited recalled (recalled) to a number of people — but secretly I thought it was an exaggeration. In subsequent years, although otherwise therefore however (however) , I've come to feel that he might well have been right.