“Joe was in the best shape he’s been since September 19, the day this whole thing started,” Gay Haldeman told SFF.net readers on November 4. “He walked across the room without help, got himself in and out of bed several times, sat up for a long time, ate well, talked about the future for the first time.” Doctors have decided not to do anything invasive yet and a new antibiotic is making him feel much better. 

Rose Fox celebrated Joe’s continuing improvement by answering his pancreatic poem with a double dactyl of her own:

Abdomen habdomen
Haldeman’s pancreas
Gave him a fever and
Twisted his guts.
Glad there’s no need for a
Pancreatectomy.
Get better soon, Joe–no
Ifs, ands, or buts!

(Reprinted by permission. Follow Rose’s commentary about the sf field on Publishers Weekly’s Genreville.)