Hello faithful readers,

We’ve mentioned before on this blog that our family often refers to Jonathan Alter’s lymphoma and stem cell transplant, and his Newsweek cover story called “Living with Cancer.”  Jonathan is a well-known writer, author, and television commentator on political and media issues.  Five years ago, he underwent an auto stem cell transplant and has often spoken about being a cancer survivor.

Read our original entry here:

Thought I’d include the link to Jonathan Alter’s story, My Life with Cancer, from Newsweek in April 2007.  In it, he discusses his battle with lymphoma and his stem cell transplant.  Read it here: http://www.newsweek.com/id/35765

Jonathan Alter is a longtime political and media writer and commentator for our favorite news magazine, and has more recently written many articles about cancer research and progress.  He remains in remission since his stem cell transplant.

While his kind of lymphoma, Mantle Cell, is a bit more dangerous than Mike’s (which is called Diffused Large B Cell), Jonathan’s story is honest and inspiring, without glossing over the influence of his treatments on his life.

Everyone in our family knows it well and we still have a tattered, well-read version of the original magazine in our house.  We hope you’ll find it interesting too!

Side note: My dad and I tried to find a way into Jonathan Alter’s party last year during the Democratic Convention in Denver, but alas we didn’t make it.  Maybe he can start reading our blog and we can become friends…?

As you can see, at the end of that post, I said that I hoped we could become friends with Jonathan.  Well, imagine our surprise when he called Mike this morning!!!  Mike’s cousin Tim Hagan is friends with Jonathan and arranged for them to chat.  He actually called my mom first, and was very gracious with her as well.

It was very exciting for all of us.  Jonathan was very friendly and encouraging.  We’ve been fans of his writing about both politics and cancer for a long time and it meant a lot to us for him to call.

Mike and Jonathan talked for 23 minutes – about life as cancer patients, their individual medical stories, the convention in Denver, Jonathan’s book The Defining Moment, and his upcoming book - which he promised to send.

!!!