ACCOZZAGLIA

This is more an entry for myself. When I was in hospital a few months ago, I shared a quad-room for four patients. There were curtain partitions to effect some privacy, but you could hear (and smell) everything.

To my left, on my side of the room, was an older woman with a Hungarian accent. She was battling bone cancer which had spread to her organs nearby. While I was there, she went into surgery to have most of one badly affected vertebrae removed — which was then replaced with support pins.

Every day, she would go through waves of apparently extraordinary pain. She’d also have her good days. Sleeping at night was difficult for her, though, as the pain would keep her in a half-wake state of coping. I can remember her saying, “Oy, yoi-yoi-yoi,” repeatedly whenever the pain was too much. She never screamed or behaved dramatically, unlike the insanely borderline personality woman across from us who was extremely high maintenance and complained about everything. Iren, on the other hand, maintained an amazing tolerance to pain, as I cannot imagine the sensation of “extreme burning” where the cancer had spread through her body.

On my last morning there, as I was being released for my return home, I finally got to see her face for the first time. Because my glasses were shattered by the impact, I spent most of the time there fairly blind. One lens was unscratched, and when absolutely necessary, I used it as a monocle to see anything in the distance. I came up to her bedside, and she told me that she didn’t reveal to any of the nurses how she was a retired nurse, schooled in the UK back in 1963. She said she wanted to see who would treat her with respect and dignity regardless her past experiences, so she didn’t divulge anything to staff. We shared notes on each other’s “good” and “bad” nurses and found them to be pretty much the same people.

I was aware, just as she clearly seemed to be, that Montréal General Hospital would likely be her concluding address. So I said to her, “Iren, get out of here. Get out of this place and go see the first snowfall of the season.” She said it would be lovely if she could, but her resignation to the situation was apparent.

A couple of weeks later, in early November, I returned to 12e étage to give staff an enlargement of one of my photos. I asked about Iren, and they said they had moved her down to 10e étage in ICU. Her condition had worsened.

Yesterday, while in seminar, I thought about her again. I’d morosely checked Montreal Gazette’s obit section back in December, just a week or two before Christmas, to see whether she had passed away. There was nothing, so I was optimistic that maybe, just maybe she got out long enough to be around friends and family. But this time, as I sat through this seminar on air pollution, I found her name.

She died on 18th December 2009.

KECSKEMETI, Iren (nee KOVACS) 1940 – 2009 Passed away on December 18, 2009 at the Montreal General Hospital. Beloved wife of Gyula, devoted mother of Andre (Maureen). She will be greatly missed. She leaves behind her brothers and sister who live in Hungary. Iren took care of people as a devoted nurse her whole life. Special thanks to Katica who took care of Iren. Many thanks to the 10th floor staff, nurses and doctors who looked after her. Many thanks to Liz, her very good friend, for many years, for her tremendous love and support. Her co-worker and good friend Brenda and other friends, Gita, Zsoka, Magdi, Ilonka, and many other friends who supported and loved her.

We all die.