Former SFWA president Norman Spinrad has been battling stomach cancer for some time now. This Thursday he goes in for surgery to try to remove the mass of tumors blocking his stomach.  In his words, “If nothing is done, this is a slow death by starvation.”

He’s posted about it on Scribd.  We wish him the best of outcomes.

more dire straights

Edited to add: We are happy to report that Norman Spinrad’s operation was successful. From Jerry Pournelle’s website.

I’m less than 24 hours out of surgery and so not in condition to write at length, but I have to tell y’all that it went better than 100%. The surgeon in effect did the job he wanted to do after much more chemo, took out the tumor and a suspicious lymph node, didn’t take my whole stomach, seemed to have extemporized when he went in and saw what the scans couldn’t. Dr. Dan Qoit, crackerjack job!

And so thanks to y’all (and Greg I do think that Southern second person plural should be official, real useful) for your prayers of all kinds and degrees. More when more able.

Norman Spinrad