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We arrived at the hospital this morning (September 26) at 6:00 a.m. By 7:30 Mayumi was signing consent forms from her bed and being prepared for her operation, so I said good-bye and went to the waiting room. Nine hours later I received a brief telephone call from her surgeon, who told me that her surgery, which lasted 7 hours, went well.

I was finally able to visit Mayumi at 6:15 p.m. in the Intensive Care (IC) ward, where she will stay for another day or two, before she is moved to another part of the hospital. Although she is unable to talk because of a ventilation tube that is helping her to breathe more easily, she was surprisingly alert, in spite of the medicine she is receiving. She was eager for information, and insisted on trying to write down several questions for the attending nurse, such as "How long did my surgery last?" and "How many incisions did the surgeon make?" The ventilation tube should be removed tomorrow.

I was very impressed to find that even after a very long day, her surgeon and his assistant, still dressed in their gowns, stopped by her room at 8:00 p.m. to see how she is doing, and to give some instructions to the nurse.

She is in very good hands at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and I am confident that she will make steady progress in her recovery. We are grateful to the many friends who have called and written to her over the past few weeks; your expressions of concern and your reassuring words served to build a positive attitude that certainly helped her get through this day.