3 march 2004
Dear friends

I received my 'honorable discharge' 24 hours+ ago and am glad to be home. [I did NOT want to go last week, as I felt weak.]  My son Henry paid a special trip up from Florida and was most helpful:  what luck I have !  He ran a restaurant [or was it two?] for many years and cooked me items the hospital never dreamed of.  My appetite came back, which I find among the most incouraging changes.

My son Gavriel will make the longer trip from Israel later in the month, my English friend James will come soon afterwards, as well as Nachum, my youngest.  Other geographically distant friends are also making arrangements!  What a blessing !

A Visiting Nurse came and she acted intelligently, asking the doctors why I was taking so many diuretics for loss of water, as I was now near my original weight.   It seems there was too much water retained in my body, some even in the lungs and near the heart !   As my daughter-in-Law Rachele noted, 'Sometimes the cure is more dangerous than the disease.'

This condition is being addressed, as was the possibility of infection in the hospital [with massive antibiotics].  I am eating well at home and taking a small drugstore-full of various pills, many of which will recede, with time and improvement.

I go for blood test Thursday at Lutheran, will see my doctor, and try to get more information regarding a future [anticipated] schedule of chemo-therpy; dosge; expected reactions now that my initial react is known, under the 'Informed Patient Act.'  All-in-all, I have gotten through this first stage and am so pleased the cancer was found early on:  all this bodes well.

I will also continue a second consult with Dr. Chung at Sloan-Kettering.  I expect another chemotherapy session will be scheduled in a week, or two.  Traveling out to Brooklyn [my City of birth] is not that easy, and this is still a major consideration.

I appreciate all the support I have received and know it was so useful and critical emotionally and psychologically; as was the medicine..  Compared with all the civilian and military tragedies which occur daily around the world, I am indeed blessed:  medically, through friendships and by the Higher Power, for which I am so thankful.

Thanks for your support.

Phil