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Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Hi All,

We were on our way into the city by 7am. Tsvika played the Rocky theme on his laptop and I felt really the champ. We got through the tunnel by 7:33. How did we do that? And I was starving (started those horrible steroids again that make me so hungry and fat and keep me up all night). So Yoni drove up to Bagels and More and I got a really fresh pumpernickle bagel with scallion cream cheese, a prune danish and cheesecake. I proceeded to devour half the bagel and I ate the whole danish by 9am. I saved the cheesecake for later. I feel like I'm on a quest for the perfect cheesecake. This one turned out to be good, but it wasn't so cold by the time I ate it and it was a bit too soft for me. Oh well.

The best part of the day was going up in the elevator when we got there in the am. It was packed and everyone was really quiet and it was bothering me. So I said, "Everyone's so quiet today! Does anyone have a joke?" No answer, a couple of chuckles. So I said "Okay, no jokes. How 'bout a song?" and this great lady piped up and said "I have a song" and we asked her to tell us. "We shall overcome". So Yoni started up with a deep, resonant, gospel rendition and a few others joined in. Everyone loved it. I bet it made everyone's day. It was great. Next time we'll be prepared with a joke.

My MRI was totally fine! Whew. But my white blood cells are a little bit low (so I really have to be careful not to get sick) and I lost 4 pounds total in the last 3 weeks. I feel great but I don't want to lose too much so I can qualify for some great test trials after the chemo. Dr. Krug said I'll probably gain it back anyway. I don't really want it back! Better lay off the cheesecake.

The healing fluid went in great. Dr. Krug changed my drug cockatail - no more Cisplatin - now I'm getting Carboplatin with the other 2 drugs. Much milder side effects all around and the treatment takes much less time. Once they mixed the drugs (It took 2 hours - we all went over to Dave and Busters on 42nd Street for the wait) it was only 1.5 hours of IV after that and we ate the BEST hamburgers with sauteed onions and portabello mushrooms from Deli Kasbah. It was me, Yoni, Ella, Tsvika and Tzvi. We had much fun and filmed all the good parts.

Tzvi brought his guitar and we sang niggunim after the nurse removed the IV. It was very uplifting for us, very annoying for the other patients. So we moved upstairs to the lounge near the gift shop and sang some more. This great guy started dancing. He was ear to ear smiles.

After we left Sloan-Kettering it was earlier than we had expected to be done so we headed out on the town. I'd never been to Chelsea Piers so we drove over and checked it out. We found the bowling alley - and oh boy! What an operation. You get a private escort to procure shoes and balls (mine was pink). You pay for it too. I bowled 70. What a bunch of losers we all were! I won't tell you the other scores but Tzvi won, Yoni came in second. I actually got one spare and a strike. Lots of gutters. But it was really fun! Thank you muchly to the team for making the whole day so memorable that i I'm actually looking forward to the next time!!! I hear there's kosher Chinese in Chinatown....

We drove downtown and had some great veggie drinks and snacks in the East Village and reminisced about NYU (Mine, Ella and Tsvika's alma mater) We found a miraculous parking spot right in front of a kosher bakery and bought some yum stuff to take home.

It was a long lusciously fun day. Thank you for your tefilos! They make such a difference. Please don't stop over the next few days while the drugs are working hard.

Will write more later in the week, IY"H.

BTW, it was Yoni that won Balderdash.

Much love,
SE
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Dearest Friends,

Many thanks to Chaya and Dovid, Chaya Ita, Ruchama and Yisrael for coming over for a lively game of Balderdash last night. Chaya won, but it was neck and neck between she and I at the end. One more round of play and I surely would have pulled way out into the lead.

Please keep me in your tefilos today.
I'm psyched and ready for Round 2.
Okay, now I'm thinking like Rocky Balboa.
I'm the champion and I will win!!!!

There have been lots of requests for us to post the preview online. Sorry folks! Yoni and Tsvika have convinced me that too much of a good thing too soon will spoil things for later. Tsvika won't even give ME a copy! They know I can't be trusted to keep it under wraps. But Tsvika did promise to condense into a 1 or 2 minute trailer, which we will post as soon as it's ready.

I managed to convince them to take the full preview with us to Israel and we'll schedule an event there to show it to all of our friends. Most likely in the Old City.

Which brings me to my next point. I realized after the last round of healing liquid that traveling so far in between rounds is probably not the smartest thing in the world. So, IY"H, we are rescheduling the Israel trip for soon after Purim, after I've recovered from the final dose. What a celebration that will be! I'll keep everyone updated as plans develop.

Please note that Shany Gejerman's shiur has been rescheduled to 3PM on Shabbos. Don't miss it! It's great stuff.

I'll try to post again later in the week, but no promises.

Much love,
Simcha Esther
Monday, November 3, 2008
Dearest Friends,


I’m flying pretty high and feeling great! The concert was a huge success and Chaim Dovid was magical. It was just awesome having him here. The love in the room was beyond description. A lot of people couldn’t get over that. What an awesome community of friends I have. I am so blessed. There is nothing more healing than all that love. I hope everyone got lots.

The film preview was terrific, if I may say so myself. Tsvika and I worked into the wee hours many nights in a row last week editing the final piece. What a challenge! Taking all the zillions of hours of footage and turning it into what ended up being a 14 minute piece. But Tsvika is a real pro, and he did the hard part and produced a rough cut that was just blow away gorgeous. The footage is amazing. Beautiful and so funny! Who knew we were making a comedy?

Seeing myself on film is like meeting myself in a very deep way. It’s been an unexpectedly profound process of getting who I am. Very healing. And I had no idea I was so funny!!!

The phone calls and emails have been pouring in. Here are a few reviews of the event and the preview:

“I laughed and cried very hard in a few minutes, it is so real and so emes-dik and eye-opening in so many ways, it's inspiring, raw, painful, uplifting, all at the same time…yasher koach for all you have done, all you are doing to make this the time of your life and for making others live their lives in much more powerful ways.”

“I cannot get over the incredible event of today! To be a witness of such love, hope, giving and love of you, your beautiful family and of course through it all, Hash-m.Watching our beautiful Jewish men dancing, it seemed like a chassunah where they wanted to make the kallah besimcha, a healing simcha. May you go from strength to strength in all ways. Your film is very important and entirely engaging. It can make balei teshuvahs as much as it can get your other message of living and giving and serving Hash-m and His world with everyday that we are meant to have.”

“What a beautiful event filled with schechina, especially in your amazing documentary -- who could walk away and not be shaken, inspired. You're a queen.
Resentment or love -- that constant choice. Those are the words I'm holding inside me today.”

“I wanted to THANK YOU for such an amazing day!!!! It was truly fabulous. Your film exceeded all of my expectations BIG TIME !!! I don't know if I am totally prejudiced....but I found the film to be awesome.....Oscar quality.....artistic, meaningful, humorous, inspiring, everything it could be and more. You should be very proud of this accomplishment...I am SO PROUD of you. You have given the world a very special gift. I loved the concert too. It was a very heart touching, soul touching, wanting to return to Israel concert. Thank you for making it possible and bringing it to our little corner of the world.”

That’s just the beginning! Wow! I’m so excited about this project. It’s giving me so much life. I hope I don’t just explode from all the joy. And the pain in my rib is so much better. Something is working and I thank G-d all the time for that.

I had an MRI of my brain on Tuesday. It was an open MRI, and it was just standard operating procedure for one of the drugs I get, but I was still so nervous. They said it would take an hour and I remembered the last time and the anxiety attack I had as soon as they put me in the tube. I took 3 Ativan before and slept through the whole thing. Nice.

I saw Dr. Gatto today and he did a long prep for the next round of healing liquid this Wednesday. I’m totally ready and the team is lined up. I’m planning to laugh even harder this time around.

I’m on the program to show a piece of the film and do questions and answers at the ATARA conference this Sunday in the city. I hope I’m feeling energetic enough to make it. It looks like they have a fabulous program. Check it out at www.artsandtorah.org.

Thank you to my wonderful friends for the delicious challah, the schnitzel, the flowers and the pink crystal. Thank you also to my friend who made me a batch of Brad Fisher’s healing recipe. Yum!!!!

A huge thank you to Gina for the gorgeous painting made just for me, entitled “The Cure”. I am hanging it right across from my bed so I can look at it first thing every morning when I wake up.

Many thanks to so many people who helped make the concert such a huge success. I am full of gratitude to our dear friend Chaim Dovid for coming out and playing on my behalf, and to Avi Feinberg for helping to coordinate and promote the event – not to mention playing with the band! Thank you to the other musicians, Yaakov Dov and Nochi. Beautiful awesome job!

A very special thank you goes to Chana King, who helped to coordinate, promote and run the event. Many thanks to Racquel Houpt and Bikur Cholim of Passaic/Clifton for all your help, feedback and support. Thank you also to Basya Gutman and her girls, Judy Kruter, Chaya Ita Lapides, Shiffie Grossman, the Elson family, Irene Victor, Bella Levy and Rachael Gudema.

And a big yasher koach to all of our friends and sponsors who came out in support of the cause. Bravo! Production continues.

If anyone would like to make a tax deductible donation to the production of Time of My Life, please send a check made payable to Bikur Cholim of Passaic/Clifton and mail to me at: 86 Elmwood Avenue, Passaic, NJ 07055. We need to raise another $30K to get through post production. A percentage of all fundraising proceeds will benefit Bikur Cholim.

Blessings for a beautiful, love and light filled week!!!

Yours truly,
Simcha Esther
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