"To our dear friends....

I'm not the most religious person in the world, but what I'm about to tell you IS, by all standards, nothing less than a miracle. For the past six and a half months, I have been unable to speak... could only whisper... often with a volume level even less of a whisper. Frustrated, bewildered -- I simply could not talk! Around the end of last March -- I lost my voice... completely. Could not utter a sound. I presumed I was going through a siege of laryngitis. But after about five days of that, I thought I'd better see a doctor. When a videotape was made of my vocal chords, it was visually obvious that my left vocal chord was completely PARALYSED".

"An immediate X-ray and subsequent cat-scan showed the shocking cause; there was a tumor. And among other things, it had impacted and damaged the nerve leading to that vocal chord. Such damage was almost always irrevocable, I was told. ...We were in shock. My speech, as I knew it, would not be returning... Devastating, as that was to contemplate, there were, of course, bigger concerns that had to be dealt with -- and were. Two months of radiation and chemotherapy would follow. It was not the best of summers. Didn't exactly have the time of my life. Not exactly a million laughs. But we got through it. And -- with great results. All successful. All positive. All hopeful."

"One of the most heart warming aspects of all of this was the ongoing kindness and affection of the Lost In Space cast. Along with Kevin Bums of 20th Century Fox, they called, mailed, sent cards, flowers, Violet Crumbles, gifts. And while, when they called, I couldn't speak to them on the phone -- Adrienne and I were deeply affected by their obvious expressions of love and concern. Add our dear Australian friends to that list: LISA; all of you helped illuminate some of our darkest moments".

"Let me try to explain about my voice. The vocal chords, when properly working, sit side by side and nearly touch each other while vibrating... resulting in the sound we know as speech. Because my left vocal chord was totally paralysed (due to nerve damage) -- it could not move to be able to virtually touch the normal chord. Instead of coming together -- there was air space between the two chords. And so, there was no volume and there would be no sound".

"Dr. Edward Kantor, one of this country's most pre-eminent physicians specializing in vocal problems (he's taken care of Streisand, Sinatra, Gene Simmons of KISS, and many famous others) and who first videotaped my paralysed vocal chord - recently introduced me to Dr. Shawn Nasseri. I met with Nasseri. He described a surgery developed by a Japanese plastic surgeon about 25 years ago. Comparatively rare and not well known, the paralysed vocal chord is physically MOVED ... could be repositioned MUCH CLOSER to the working chord. The gap between them would be eliminated. The working vocal chord would be able to touch the paralysed one. Dr. Nasseri told me, 'I think we can get most of your voice back".

"I didn't really believe him, but understandably felt that ANY kind of sound would be an improvement over what I had. So on October 6th, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Dr. Nasseri, assisted by Dr. Randy Shnitman, began the four and a half hour procedure... After surgery, Adrienne and I and our four children were absolutely euphoric. Not only was I speaking --- but speaking with my old voice! You could hear me across the room. And I sounded just like my old self! I called my brother from the hospital. "How are you?, " I asked. He said, "Oh, my God!" and started to cry. 


The day after surgery, I could say 
"Danger Will Robinson!" and "That does not compute!" 
and it was EXACTLY like the Robot sounded in 1967 and in the 1998 movie".

"My family and friends are still incredulous, ecstatic. Me too. 

And all of us know -


It’s nothing less than a MIRACLE!”