Dear Marion,

The wiring in the basement isn't quite finished, but I decided to 
interrupt so as to send my Friday letter before you start wondering
where it is. I make no bones about the circumstance that your medical
problem has been much, and almost continually on my mind, and if
there's a mistake in the wiring, it's because my thoughts distracted
me. I have been reviewing three large pdf files on CLL; they are
published by a company that calls itself "Up-to-date". You can
check on the company on the Internet:
http://www.uptodate.com
Their publications seem to me quite responsible and authoritative.
If you would like I can e-mail you my copies. Please let me know
your wishes.

I make a distinction between my role as a physician in which I 
prescribe to my patients what I advise them to do, and my role
as a human being - it's ironic that the distinction should be
necessary - which requires me to tell those who are dear to me
what I would do if I were in their position. I am much aware of
how different we are from each other and that the "right" course
of action (or inaction) for me, might quite possibly be the
"wrong" course of (in)action for you. That's a decision which only
you can make. If I had chronic lymphocytic leukemia I would do
nothing unless and until the disease disabled me. What, if anything,
I would do then would depend on the symptoms, signs, and laboratory
findings. As for "gold standards", in medicine they almost always
turn out to be pyrite.

Please remember that you have a standing invitation, what ever
the state of your health, to come to Belmont - or to Konnarock -
and to stay as long as seems best to you. In each of the houses
we have more than enough space for you.

In addition to meditating on CLL and installing more basement light
fixtures, I've been corresponding with Caner Cetinkaya, the 
Braunschweig physician who grew up in the house in which I was born.
I am about to post this correspondence on my website in
publically inaccesible files, and when I have done so, will e-mail
you the URL, in case you're curious or need entertainment.

Last evening, while looking through some of my parents' art books,
I disovered by chance a 25 page long story about life in Nazi
Germany. I was stunned, because I had no memory at all of having 
written it and was unable to identify the author. Finally, after
finding numerous corrections in my handwriting, I could no longer
deny that I was the guilty one. Even more compelling were astute and
sensitive corrections in my mother's handwriting, the first evidence
ever that she read anything I wrote other than my letters. The date of 
composition, probably 1947 or 1948. I used an American typerwriter and 
backspaced to the " to print Umlaute. There are two differing versions 
which I did not take time to collate; but I scanned them both into pdf
files which aggregate 10 megabytes and are too long to e-mail,
especially from Konnarock. I have started to translate the pdf
files into the much smaller text (txt) files, which in due time
I expect to put on my website. You can then explore my mind at
age 18, if you care to.

Jochen