It Was Fun While It Lasted!

The two weeks when I was back home after being in the hospital for two months gave me the chance to reacquaint myself with my family and friends, and it was a real boost.  No more hospital food.  Being able to take walks. And not insignificantly, having an occasional glass of wine or a mugful of beer was like manna from heaven.  It was great seeing everyone at the just concluded Netsuite Open.

However, today, as planned, I am back at Alta Bates to begin my consolidation phase during remission.  Another week of chemotherapy, followed by two slow weeks of recovery, is what's in store for me.  I'll be confined to my hospital room for the next three weeks and hopefully I shall be discharged by my birthday (Oct 24th).  What a way to celebrate my 60th!!  Over the next two months, I'm waiting for a bone marrow donor and otherwise if none is found, I shall have to repeat the consolidation process for another cycle next month until a donor is found.  Ugh!

Be that as it may, it was a pleasure to see everyone during my two week respite. The heartfelt support gave me ample motivation to keep fighting the good fight.

******

Victor Elmaleh was a national caliber handball player when he took up the game of squash. He quickly learned the game and had a particularly bright moment in St Louis when he and the irrespressable Victor Neiderhofer won the National Squash Doubles. On the way, they played 5 game sets in each of their last three brackets.

Their plan was simple. Neiderhofer would play three quadrants of the court and Elmaleh would cover the left hand rear box. Elmaleh had a razor sharp reverse corner which earned a number of points.

Elmaleh was such a focused player that even in a friendly game he would want to beat his opponent 
15 - 0.

In his prime, I (Jim Prigoff) was not a match for Victor, but as we aged, since I was younger than he, my hard serve gave him considerable trouble. But leave it to Victor to offer a solution. One night after we had played, he said to me that a hard serve was not really squash. My response, with a laugh, was that I would gladly switch to a soft serve if he would give up his rapier like reverse corners.uring two  upphupporsthemontgivev

During the next