TEXT B
Dearest Julian and Juliette,
You must be back from Africa, I imagine, by now but meanwhile Africa has come to us; with a vengeance, in a frightful hem wave with temperatures day after day of 105, and 80 degrees at night. In my own case, meteorology has been compounded by a spell of ill-health, due to the after-effects on long course of radiation which I had to take this spring. I hadn’t told you of this trouble before, since it hadn’t seriously interfered with my activities and there seemed to be no point in spreading unnecessary apprehensions. It started in 1960, with a malignant tumour on the tongue. The first surgeon I went to wanted to cut out half the tongue and leave me more or less speechless. I went with him to nay old friend, Dr Max Cutler. Cutler recommended treatment with radium needles and so did the Professors of Radiology and Surgery at the U. of Cal. Medical Centre at San Francisco, whom I consulted. I took the treatment in the early summer of 1960, and it was remarkably successful. The tumour on the tongue was knocked out and has shown no signs of returning. However, as generally happens in these cases, the lymph glands of the neck became involved. I had one taken out in 1962, and this spring another mass appeared. This was subjected to twenty five exposures of radio-active cobalt, an extremely exhausting treatment from which I was just recovering when at last I was able to make the trip to Stockholm and London. Since my return there has been a flare--up of secondary inflammation, to which tissues weakened by radiation are peculiarly liable, often after considerable intervals. Result: I have had to cancel my lecture tour ... Another handicap is my persistent hoarseness due to the nerve that supplies the right-hand vocal cord having been knocked out, either by an infiltration of the malignancy, or by the radiation. I hope this hoarseness may be only temporary, but rather fear I may carry it to the grave.
What the future holds, one doesn’t know. In general these malignancies in the neck and head don’t do much metastasizing. Meanwhile I am trying to build up resistance with the combination of a treatment which has proved rather successful at the University of Montreal and the University of Manila--the only institutions where it has been tried out over a period of years--and which has been elaborated upon by Professor Guidetti, of the University of Turin, who has read papers on his work at the last two International Cancer Congresses, at Buenos Aires and Moscow. I saw Guidetti while in Turin and was impressed by some of his case-histories, and with Cutler’s approval we are carrying out his treatment here. When this damned inflammation dies down, which may be expected to do in a few weeks, I hope to get back to regular work. For the present I am functioning at only a fraction of normal capacity. (515)
Much love to you both from both of us,
Ever your affectionate
Aldous
The author seems to be rather ______ about his disease.