Foreign friends

In 1985, I lived in China for a year. I made many friends, but one in particular was a woman who was one of my students. It wasn't a sexual thing. It was simply two personalities that got along well. She was happily married and I always called her Mrs. Li, instead of by her first name (which is really her second name, the way westerners would use them). In case you don't know, that's common in much of Asia to do so. Only very close people, like parents, siblings or spouses, would go beyond that.
Mrs. Li and I still keep in touch a few times a year. She's a few years older than I am, now in her early sixties and she's had a good life. She worked as a translator and traveled to Europe for work, which made her one of the relatively few people of her generation who saw countries outside of China and flew in airplanes. (When I was in China I knew sophisticated urbanites who had never ridden in a passenger car.)

The Chinatown Gate in Philadelphia.

As good as the English is of my foreign friends (I have a few others), when I write to them I tend to boil my ideas down more than I would for my fellow native speakers. I know they'd be able to figure things out, but I don't want to write something that has them searching for a dictionary every three sentences. When I write to them, I tend to keep things simple and direct. A bonus to this is that it makes me focus on what I'm writing.
Here's my latest to Mrs. Li:

Dear Mrs. Li,

Happy Year of the Dog! As you may remember, I am a dog.

I hope that you and your husband are well. I am not so well, to be honest. The bone condition that made my right leg strange has come back in a different form and one that can't be treated well. I will have my right leg amputated on Monday, February 26th. The amputation will be at the hip, so I'll be using crutches for the rest of my life. Sadly, I doubt I'll ever visit China again. The amputation will be done to minimize the chances of the bone condition from spreading, but it will probably spread anyway and there is already a little bit of it in my lung. It can't be treated with chemotherapy or radiation, only surgery, so if more of it spreads I will die, maybe as soon as six months from now, not longer than a year or so.

Is there any chance you'd ever come visit here? My parents left me money, so I'd be able to pay for your and your husband's trip.

I hope that the new year's celebration hasn't been too noisy and stressful for you.

My best,