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It began this past September 9, a Saturday. I received an e-mail from Ben Luberoff, the founder of our predecessor magazine CHEMTECH, and current CI columnist. It was titled, innocently enough, “Benjigram #1”. Ben said,

This is not good news; Big Ben has a BIG cancer. I figured you might like to keep up with what’s going on, so I’ll be sending out these Benjigrams from time to time.

Ben went on to say, more matter-of-factly than you or I would, that a pain and subsequent swelling he had been experiencing in his upper thigh turned out to be a rare sarcoma, and that this tumor would need to be removed. The doctors were optimistic that they would be able to save his leg and that Ben would not need to be in the hospital more than a couple of weeks.

The chemist in Ben then kicked in, and he went on to describe the technique they used to make the diagnosis—positron emission tomography, or PET—in some detail. He also went out of his way to apologize for not being able to keep his writing commitments for the foreseeable future.

Sadly, Ben’s and his doctors’ optimism was not realized. After some delays, Ben’s surgery took place on September 20. Ben’s children, Nancy and David, and his wife Renee took over the Benjigrams at that point, with Nancy writing in Benjigram #3,

My father went into surgery yesterday as scheduled. He went [in] with enthusiasm (of course) and optimism (of course) and with us all at his side. The surgeons removed a large sarcoma, half of his pelvis, and a portion of his femur. They attempted to save his leg.

Unfortunately, none of the surgeons anticipated the enormous amount of blood that my father would lose. They had a difficult time stabilizing him, even after transfusing him with 35+ units of blood. The surgeons terminated the surgery after 6+ hours, with the goal of completing the surgery and radiation treatment after my father’s condition stabilized.

Unfortunately, his [condition] continued to deteriorate, and . . . the surgeons informed us that our only option for saving my father’s life was to amputate his leg. So, he had a second surgery late last night, lasting about 2 hours.

There was a third surgery to remove the packing, and that went well. However, what followed was a series of Benjigrams by Nancy and David describing the long vigil while Ben was chemically sedated, was on a respirator, was on regular dialysis, and was receiving extensive antibiotics, drugs to boost his blood pressure, and blood transfusions. He required over 100 units of blood and blood products. As you can imagine, the family underwent an enormous amount of trauma as Ben’s condition alternately improved and worsened.

Ben’s breathing tube was removed about a week after surgery, but of course, it took a while for him to be able to speak clearly and without discomfort. Then a few days later, the tube had to be reinserted, and Ben had to be sedated again. Shortly thereafter, a yeast infection set in, followed by a staph infection. And there was the frequent, and then continuous, dialysis. Even when things looked bleak, the prognosis was mostly positive, thanks largely to Ben’s enormous inner strength.

On October 10, Ben had a tracheostomy and a feeding tube was inserted. These were actually good things, because they facilitated communication. The “trach” enabled him to be weaned off the respirator. A couple of days later, he could speak well enough to be understood. Ben’s improvement accelerated from there: The infections disappeared; he was off dialysis; and he could even be raised to a sitting position.

Then, on October 30, came the Benjigram (#32) that we had all been waiting for—from Ben! It started off

This is me—no, I’m still an editor—this is I, BJL himself, in person, in bed. I guess we might all have guessed that turning an editor’s daughter loose with a publication called Benjigrams was probably opening a Pandora’s box. I understand that Nancy, David, and Renee have been doing yeoman’s service writing Benjigrams. My only concern is that they need an editor sitting on top of them to assure that the reader was not bored out of his or her skull.

Ben went on to say lots of things about his ordeal. We hope he’ll tell the whole story in an upcoming issue. Here’s a sneak preview:

Today is a major celebration. It turns out that when you’ve been anesthetized for a long time as I was, you forget how to swallow. So you take swallowing tests and swallowing training, and the training consists of making everything the viscosity of SAE 10 motor oil. Horrible! Well, today, for the first time I got to drink a clear, cold liquid. What a pleasure!

In the meantime, we’ve asked him to select his favorite Industrial Chymists from the past, which we will start printing with next month’s issue. Ben has been so prolific that we still had enough new material from him to get us through this issue.

Ben is now out of the hospital and in a rehabilitation center. I bet he won’t be there long either.