Betty ate three doughnuts as she waited for her order at the drive-through — two double cheeseburgers, two large fries, two apple pies, two chocolate shakes. She devoured the double fast-food feast and four more doughnuts while driving to her Glendora, NJ, home. Once there, Betty hid five doughnuts in the clothes hamper. Then she prepared and ate a sensible meal with her husband and three children. Later in the evening, Betty (who asked that her last name not be used) locked herself in the bathroom and ate the last five doughnuts. Awake at 3:00 a.m., she tiptoed to the kitchen where she ate a bowl of cold spaghetti in the dark. Her behavior was secretive; deceitful; compulsive — like an addict’s. "I am an addict," says the 46-year-old school librarian. "My substance of choice is food, but for me, it’s as addictive as heroin" . . .

Inconvenience was a way of life for Judy. She wore sanitary napkins every day of the month. She couldn’t watch funny movies and while others danced at parties and family weddings, Judy stayed glued to her seat. When she laughed, coughed, sneezed, or made sudden movements, like rising from a chair, Judy urinated. She was one of millions of Americans (most women or elderly) who suffer from urinary incontinence — involuntary loss of urine. Doctors say many people wrongly assume that incontinence is a natural part of aging and they don’t realize that treatments are available. "I thought it was part of getting older," explains the 56-year-old Audubon homemaker and mother of five sons. But, when she wet the bed during intercourse with her husband, he insisted she see a urologist. After six weeks of practicing the vaginal muscle contractions Dr. Louis Keeler taught her, Judy had her bladder under control — and she experienced her first orgasm . . .

Just before Peg LaCotta died, a nurse briefly removed the ventilator tube from her throat. Peg spoke of a dream. She was "walking to a white light." Her late husband was there. She was "peaceful, happy." But her dream — also called a near-death experience — became a hellish nightmare. Someone squeezed her heart again and again, breaking her ribs. Needles punctured both arms. A tube went up her nose, another into her urethra. A breathing apparatus pierced her throat. Peg suffered countless well-intentioned, but painful procedures before dying. She couldn’t say, "Enough" and no one said it for her. Facing technology that keeps the heart beating long after the brain dies, doctors, lawyers and clergy wrestle daily with "enough" . . .

When Fidel Castro’s daughter fled Cuba, she used a Spanish passport to get out. She narrowly missed three South Jerseyans who used fake Canadian passports to get in the country. Mark Evans, Rosemarie Wade, and Al Cubler have retinitis pigmentosa (RP). They were desperate to see Dr. Orfilio Pelaez Molina, a Havana surgeon who claims he is the world’s first to offer an effective treatment for RP. While Pelaez has not conducted controlled clinical studies, described his methods in a scientific journal, or produced evidence, he says that his procedures benefitted the 1,500 patients he treated thus far. "But we were going blind," says Evans. "What did we have to lose?" . . .

All Writing Samples Copyright © 1998 Lois Seeligsohn