San Francisco, California
September 26, 2000

Dear Readers,

Today’s letter is from Aliza Pollack, a twenty-nine-year-old marketing consultant who lives in Los Angeles, California. It’s the second installment in our week-long series of open letters from returning correspondents. Aliza’s first letter, which we published in August, was about the experience of being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and her first chemotherapy treatment.

As I explained in my editor’s letter at the time, Aliza’s letters weren’t written for Open Letters; they’re actual emails that she sent to her friend Miriam during her treatment. We’re playing with time a little, here: though it has today’s date on it, today’s letter was written back in April, a month or so after the first one; Aliza and I have decided to let her account of her ongoing treatment proceed in more or less real time, until we catch up with her present, in another letter or two.

Tomorrow, we have a new letter from Cheryl Wagner, in New Orleans. Cheryl’slast letter was about her next-door neighbor, Gabriella; in tomorrow’s letter, she tries to convince her friend Julie to name her as godmother of Julie’s child, and offers up, in support of her case, a controversial theory of Purgatory. I can tell you that it involves Patrick Swayze, but I can’t say more; not yet.

Yours truly,

Paul Tough