Today's sad email from Charles Rathbone............someone I met in the 60s...........

Dear Friends,

As a number of friends and family members have recently asked how I’m doing, i thought I ought to post a chronology and update.  Towards the very end of December, I was attacked by an aggressive form of cancer, a lymphoma.  I was immediately hospitalized and began a treatment consisting of six blasts of chemotherapy.  Ideally, these treatments should have been spaced out every three weeks, but chemotherapy is tricky and responses to it are unpredictable.  In my case, it often took more than the three weeks for my body to be ready for more of those corrosive chemicals; nor did it help that, while waiting for my white cell count to recover (leaving my immune system vulnerable), I managed at different times to contract once a cold, once the flu, and once pneumonia! These unforeseen blips naturally conspired to send me back into hospital, thus delaying my treatment.

Fast forward to June.  The treatments were over, the cancer in full remission and the last of their chemicals washed out of my system, but I was left emaciated and weak, hairless and on a walker, being seen by a visiting nurse and a physical therapist each twice a week.  I began the climb back to something approximating normalcy.

So now it’s the end of August.  I am at last beginning to gain back some of the 46 pounds I lost back in January; though my discriminating palate isn’t fully back, I am eating often and well; I have driven myself several times to my outpatient PT sessions and have eaten out a half-dozen times at restaurants.  I even walked around Fresh Pond once (on Edie’s arm, to be sure, though it a good is 2.3 miles). All of that spells progress!  My guess is that, if I keep going at this rate, I’ll be in nearly full swing by the end of October.  We are already planning some trips.

This may tell you more than you really want to know, though I’ve got to say that I’ve left out many details of this nasty little adventure, ones you really don’t want to hear.  But I’m on the mend, committed to the many physical exercises that have been prescribed for me and, above all, I’m in good spirits and optimistic. Thanks for your concern and good wishes.

Charlie 


September 11

Just had an email from Charlie, telling me he's doing well!

That's great news. Keep it up, Charlie!!