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Robert Ebert Recovers after Cancer Operation

The entertainment fans are waiting for the veteran film critic Roger Ebert to recover from the cancer operation he has undergone recently.
Because of the operation, which required the reconstruction of his jaw, Ebert, 64, has spent two months in hospital, which had been, as he said, no entertainment and no fun at all. He had lost much of his strength while confined to bed. Ebert also added that he would need practice at speaking because his vocal cords had weakened during treatment.

Ebert has rated more than 5,000 films for the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper. The TV double entertainment act he formed with Gene Siskel, who died seven years ago, was famous for the "thumbs up" and "thumbs down" reviews that the pair would give to movies.

The critic wrote on his website: "When I announced that I had a recurrence of salivary cancer that required surgery, I had no idea when I went into the hospital on 16 June that I would still be here on 16 August. I had a particularly intense form of radiation [treatment] called neutron beam radiation, which is more effective for certain cancers, but which is also more debilitating to healthy tissue than conventional radiation." He said he is doing well now and that he is "a lucky man" and praised the medical staff at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, who were "enthusiastically optimistic" about the entertainment critic`s recovery.