Picture it: You're stuck in the hospital, and the only bright spot in your otherwise depressing day is the possibility that your bland, healthful lunch might come with chocolate pudding. But as your tray arrives, you realize with horror that Amy Winehouse is carrying it, and faster than you can cry "code blue!" you suffer an instant relapse of whatever is ailing you.

Sure, it's unlikely, but that's still close to the scenario being painted by the London Sun, which claims the disaster zone of a singer, who's been holed up at a London clinic since late November, has been "looking after patients and serving meals" in a last-ditch attempt to avoid an unwanted checkout.

Amy and Blake are spotted in Sussex, England, last year. (©Retna Ltd.)

Seems the hospital was close to giving Winehouse the heave-ho after she purportedly relapsed following a recent surprise visit from her estranged, rehab-failing husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, just before he was sent back to the pokey for another year.

"She has been charming the nurses by helping them with their tasks," a source alleges to the tab.

Not so charming is Fielder-Civil's blabbermouth mom, who is now yammering to Britain's News of the World about how her son is supposedly receiving jailhouse threats after being offered $7,500 by "a man close to Amy" to find a hitman to eliminate a "certain dealer" from her life.

Because assassination would surely solve all her problems.

Upstanding fella that he is, Blake, who recently admitted to the tabloid that he's to blame for Winehouse's ruined state, "told the man, 'No way. You're mad,'" says his mother. "He's since received threatening messages from the same man and fears he may turn the tables on him. He has to be very careful in prison and needs to be protected."

Mama Fielder-Civil opted to take her concerns to the police, who are said to be investigating the situation.

As for rumors that Blake arrived at Amy's hospital bedside bearing more than just a "get well" bouquet, his mother, who last week suggested he should get a $4.4 million divorce settlement "after all he's been through with her," defends his honor, such as it is.

"That is total lies," she rants to the NotW. "I know because I was with Blake all day before he visited Amy and even got him the taxi to see her. He didn't have any drugs with him."

MJ spreads some peace at designer Christian Audigier's 50th birthday party last May. (©WireImage.com)

In other hollowed-out-shell-of-the-talents-they-once-were news, Michael Jackson surfaced in Los Angeles late last week sporting an outfit so freaky that it makes us long for the days when he would show up to court in his pajamas.

In a sight that once seen cannot be unseen, the decaying former King of Pop drew a crowd out shopping as he attempted to hide behind a Zorro mask, a black scarf stolen from grieving widow and a matching fedora. He also donned one of pal Liz Taylor's muumuus from the swinging '70s and comfy clog-slippers (see the oddball ensemble here).

Jackson, 50, had reportedly visited a Beverly Hills doctor's office before stepping out for some retail therapy, which he can likely ill afford so soon after settling a multimillion lawsuit filed by a Bahraini sheik.

"Michael is a broken man," a source tells the London Daily Mail. "He is under the most strain he has ever been in his life."

But does that strain include battling a rare genetic disorder?

In Touch believes Jackson, who is father to Prince Michael, 11, Paris, 10, and Prince Michael II (aka Blanket), 6, may be suffering from a lung condition called Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, which can cause severe lung problems and gastrointestinal bleeding.