Unexpected news

Dear family and friends,

The expected plans for the week have to be ditched. Merwin heard yesterday the result of his prostate biopsy. Not good. Of 12 probes, 6 were cancerous to one degree or another. Now Merwin has to go through the medical sturm und drang of CT scan and bone scan this week to make sure it has not spread. Harvey, whose degree is in pathology, will contact the top pathologist he knows, at Sloan Kettering, who will look at the slides and make some determination. Merwin is upset more for me than for himself, I think. He wants so much to be here for me.

We had to cancel our plans to spend an overnight in our NYC apartment and see Rhoda one day and cousins from Washington, DC, the next day. But the bright side is that now we can see Toby and Elliott, who planned to come here with an Asian dinner. And we still plan to go to the HD opera Don Carlos on Saturday, and if all goes well we will gt to spend some time with Harris and Evelyn, who are also going to be there—there being a movie theater in Westbury.

Later today, we will be seeing Dr. K, the local oncologist, who called to ask me to come in. She has spoken to Dr. M, at Mt. Sinai, but we have not heard from him yet about a drug trial. The WBC continues very high, causing intense itching. My UVB treatments have not begun working and anti0histamines seem to be worthless.

OK, enough of the medical news. I have begun delving into hamletworks.org. I am working on a discussion of the three sentinels who appear in three scenes in the first act and then not again, at least not again in the script, though directors often give them silent or even speaking roles later in the play. They should be easy to write about because they are after all minor characters, but my job is to survey everything that commentators have written about them as well as organize my own ideas.

Arthur corrected my version of his fish recipe: no oil in pan; the juices from the mushrooms and the fish prevent sticking. Bake 18 minutes not 20 in a preheated 400 degree oven. Yesterday was the first day I didn't make potato latkes. But we will have some kind of pancakes today—perhaps cheese pancakes: Cottage cheese, egg and matzoh meal made into a batter and fried.

I started the Cynthia Ozick book (I can't remember the title). It's very good on a sentence to sentence basis. She knows how to write. So life is good: lots of email, friends, family, books, work. We will rejoice in the good and overcome the bad as well as we can.

Knowing you are reading this and are with us is comforting and necessary to us.

Love to all,
Bernice