>39kg and they usually let you out. BMI (body mass index) is a considerable measurement applied for such indications, but doctors and nurses will argue they don't have time for minor sums. In other words, they refuse to be professional. So she was let out of that encumbrance property, that had been her comfort for so long, and I felt compelled to simply run and hide. I waited by the door, with overwhelming feelings of agonising exhaustion and hindered dismay, all the while as she crept closer, with hot, sore tears running down her gaunt pale face. The concrete below me felt weak, as if it had just been laid to dry. In desperation, I prayed it would collapse. She held me tightly and I could feel her fingernails, which where significantly bony, digging into me. Burning, ripping at the flesh. Can fingernails become bony? I didn't care, she was hurting me and I wanted to run. She looked into my eyes and I knew she saw the cold, sharp flicker. The harsh glance, reflecting six months of resentment. The starved marriage that was unravelling as we stood there. For she was that dark, dull shadow which loomed up head. She was the cause of my headaches, my nausea and my vomiting at night. The unexplained symptoms, for which doctors prescribed useless medications. I pulled away, only to stare at a strange sickly stick figure. A repulsive, desperate skeleton starring at me with huge green eyes. The same green eyes I used to admire, adore and simply drown inside. The same eyes I was once captivated by. And now what? I found myself wanting to call the hospital security.

But she was my wife and I was here to take her home.

She followed me to the car park. I turned to watch her feet stumble to the ground; I could feel her weak body ache and tear, the bones crumble with the minimal impact. I swallowed my vomit.

We stopped for lunch. She was fixed, she was happy, she was still alive. So why hadn't things improved? Why wasn't she fixed? Why where we still starring at uninteresting strangers upon awkward, non- purposeful conversations? She finished her lunch and I watched in disbelief as she immediately left for the ladies toilets.

Was it my fault? Had I let this slip from needy conversations? Was my whole thought content, thinking, so utterly deranged? So damaged, that I couldn't bring myself to say she was beautiful each and every day? Was it this reason that I felt so alone and that she was so dead?

In my greatest moments of exhaustion, I withdrew and proceeded with life, in the same manner I had formerly done for the past six months without her. I pretended she wasn't there. She pretended she didn't exist. We tiptoed around the house, scared of knocking things over. So anxious, we had bitten our fingernails to the quick. And I stopped reminding her to eat. I ceased all encouragement and support and found myself on most evenings, eating alone, only to watch her sit in the corner of the room in silence and depression, playing with her hair or humming some made up tune - simply pretending she was still alive.

We couldn't dream anymore. We couldn't sleep. And I had used our savings on useless medications that the doctor so willingly prescribed.