A little holiday

May 26, 2022 / Margaret / 3 Comments

Well, actually, for us it’s a BIG holiday: we’re driving to the Loire Valley tomorrow and will be traveling around the Tours and Blois area, visiting castles and pretty medieval towns for about 10 days. Bliss!

She hated the collar, but she didn’t complain, especially after she found a new…friend with a similar collar…

News snippets: 1. Petunia was sterilised last week and is doing beautifully. She is such a sweetie (unless you try to put her inside the cat carrier, in which case she goes absolutely ballistic and twists and turns and…well, those of you who have cats will know what I mean, I’m sure…)…Anyway, I took her to the vet for a check-up yesterday, and her wound is basically healed. So, all is well with Petunia, my little princess…such a relief!

2. A few days after we get back from France, in early June that is, I’ll be taking Puffin, her brother (see photo) to the vet clinic to be neutered. Ah yes, the…fun never ceases. Ugh. 🙁

3. The renovation work on our house will begin in early July, not mid June as we’d been told. A bureaucratic issue, as it turns out. We are taking advantage of the Italian government’s so-called Ecobonus or Superbonus, which allows homeowners to deduct 110% of the cost of adding energy efficiency upgrades to their homes (and we will be doing just that…new roof, solar panels, etc.) and that sort of thing. In order to receive this Bonus, though, we obviously have to have all of our technical appraisal documents in order…and, as it happens, the last one only just came in. Uff! So…a bit more waiting. No problem. As long as it gets done…

4. Did I tell you that I am a dual citizen now? Oh yes: U.S. and Italian. As you (may) know, I am a U.S. citizen married to an Italian (a wonderful wonderful guy whom I love to bits!)…Well, I finally decided to apply for Italian citizenship a couple of years ago. After months and months of collecting and translating all the necessary documents, I became an Italian citizen in early November. I already have my Italian identity card, and a few days ago I also applied for my Italian passport, which I should have at some point in June. I’m so happy! I mean, HAPPY! Yaaaaaay!!! Oh, I love this country…

Anyway, sorry for the long ramble. I actually just wanted to mention that I won’t be blogging until we return from France, but then I got a bit carried away, hehe…

Well, until I get back and post some of our photos, do take care, everyone, and be well…Ciao! 🙂

Castles and croissants

May 6, 2022 / Margaret / 4 Comments

Hi everyone! I hope you’re doing fabulously!!! I’ve been getting messages from blog readers with a variety of queries, and that made me realise that I haven’t been blogging for a VERY LONG TIME! So sorry about that! Yes, true, I’m still quite “blogged out,” but mainly I’ve been busy with a bunch of projects that I’ve been putting off for years.

In June we’re having our roof redone and solar panels installed, as well as a bunch of other stuff, including having air-conditioning put in the only (two) rooms that don’t have it. Our cat-vomit-stained-cotto-tile-floors are going to undergo a new sort of treatment that will be much more resistant to stains and whatnot.

This is only a partial list, of course, but the long and short of it is that we’ll have workers inside and outside and on top of the house for a month and a half…I’m certainly not looking forward to all the dust dust dust dirt dirt dirt…Just the thought makes me sneeze!!! But the work must be done, and the house will be fabulous in the end, and much cheaper to run compared to now…

Point is, and yes here we get to the point of all this rambling: in order to prepare for this long…ordeal, we have been going through and getting rid of heaps of stuff that we don’t use anymore and that is mostly stashed in the attic. A clean sweep, so to speak, before the dust and dirt covers everything…

Attics…wonderful places, you know. That is, until you have to CLEAN them, especially when you’re being followed around by a bunch of very curious cats intent on getting into bloody EVERYTHING. But I don’t mind…they are so adorable…!!!

Speaking of curious cats, our kittens, see photos, have almost reached the age of sterilisation, which will happen in early June, before the work begins. In Italy, kittens normally don’t get sterilised before they are seven months old. And these two little monkeys are almost seven months old…

Anyway, I don’t want to bore you with the long list of all the things I’m doing right now zzzzzz and will be doing in the next few months zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!! No. I just wanted to write a short, chatty post to let you know that I’m fine…just caught up in my life. Oh, BIG NEWS: I’m walking and have been walking for a while now…My crutches are a thing of the past! Yaaay! And where are the crutches, you might be wondering? Why, in the ATTIC…where else? Hahahaha! 🙂

So all is good…actually, VERY good…Stefano and I are going to take a break in a few weeks and drive up to the Loire Valley…Nothing but castles and croissants for ten days…mmmh, can’t wait…I will certainly post photos here when we return.

Okay, must stop blabbing now…Take care, everyone! Ciao! 🙂

“Why multiple myeloma returns”…

March 2, 2022 / Margaret / 14 Comments

That’s the title of an interesting Science Daily article that I came across this morning (and that blog reader Ana also told me about in a comment I read soon afterward, thank you!). Here’s the link: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220301131117.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email

In a nutshell, a group of researchers at the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin discovered that the culprit to the HUGE problem of drug resistance (non-genetic drug resistance, in particular) in myeloma is the increased production of a protein, the CDK6 protein, which not only activates cell proliferation but also, interestingly, binds with one of myeloma’s best buddies, Cyclin D1 (about which I’ve written quite a lot…do a Search of the blog if you are interested in the topic).

Okay, so we now have a culprit: CDK6.

Guess what? Well, by now this should not come as a surprise: curcumin inhibits CDK6, just as it inhibits Cyclin D1.

Bazinga!

Will the curcumin-CDK6 connection ever be studied in the conventional myeloma world? I doubt it, oh very much so, for what I believe are obvious reasons. No, what will happen is that a conventional drug, probably with lots of side effects, will be studied, tested, and put on the market.

It’s frustrating…so many missed opportunities to help us myeloma folks (as well as other folks with different types of cancer). So many missed opportunities…

To be honest, I think that’s probably the main reason I got such a serious case of burnout and stopped doing research…I knew it wouldn’t go anywhere, really, and that, no matter what I uncovered and wrote about, nothing would move in the conventional myeloma world. The only thing that has moved, which is a huge deal, of course!, is that many of us now take curcumin and other natural extracts that I’ve researched and posted about. And even though my blog is almost at a standstill now, I still get lovely messages on a daily basis from blog readers. It means a lot to me…thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Anyway, changing topic before I get too carried away, I wonder what other natural extracts inhibit this blasted protein. Hmmm…

If I can tear myself away from our amazingly adorable 4.5-month-old kittens, I will definitely have a look. 🙂

Take care, everyone! Ciao!

P.S. Here’s the link to the article itself (I haven’t read it yet…zzzzzzz!): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-28515-1

After hip surgery

December 11, 2021 / Margaret / 4 Comments

I had my left hip replaced last Tuesday, November 30, and am happy to report that the surgery went amazingly well. I’m going to be using the word “amazing” a lot in this post…I mean, just think that my wound was closed with some sort of super glue. Glue! No stitches, not even one. Isn’t that…amazing? 🙂 Well, it’s amazing to me, anyway.

On Friday, that is, just three days after surgery, I came home…walking! Sure, I was walking with two crutches, but using them as you use walking sticks when you’re on a hike. Ama…zing!

Okay, it wasn’t all a picnic in the park. I mean, something had to go wrong, right? And so, in spite of being oh so incredibly cautious!, I came down with a cold about four days before surgery, and, as if that weren’t enough, I developed a mild but productive (yuck) cough over the weekend. Darn! How did that happen? Well, Stefano had come home from work one day, all stuffed up, but we thought it was his usual allergies acting up so we didn’t take the precaution of sleeping in separate bedrooms. Bad decision: I caught what he had, although his was a much milder case. Different immune systems, duh.

So there I was, the weekend before surgery!!!, with a blasted cough. I couldn’t believe it. Drat! On Monday morning, figuring that we might have to postpone surgery, noooooo!, I called the clinic and was told to to show up early in order to be checked out by a doctor. Luckily, that went well: my lungs were clear. I did have to have another Covid swab, which turned out negative like the swab I’d had two days earlier.

Result: I was given the okay for surgery, yay!, and so, a few hours later, I checked into the clinic. The following morning, I was the first patient in the operating room. Excellent.

I was awake for the entire procedure. I could have chosen to be sedated, but I decided against that, in part because I was afraid of coughing during surgery…For the record: that didn’t happen.

Thanks to the epidural, I didn’t feel a thing from my waist down, but boy oh boy, nothing, not even the Playlist I’d carefully put together the previous week (which included some AC/DC, not just classical music), could shut out the noise. I heard it all, loud and clear…all the hammering… Whack whack whack thump thump thump! But my interest in what was going on kept me from getting anxious. As I mentioned, this was my first surgery ever, and I was curious about it all.

Funny thing: before and after surgery, and actually for the first 48 hours more or less, all the doctors and nurses checking my vitals kept asking me the same questions : my name, surname, place of birth, birthdate…innocent little questions like that. It happened a lot, especially before and after surgery. I was a bit puzzled at first, since they clearly had all my personal data in front of them, but I soon figured out that they must be making sure that I hadn’t had a stroke or whatnot.

Speaking of which, I have an anecdote. After surgery, I was wheeled out of the operating room into a sort of recovery room where a nurse monitored me for quite some time, at least a half hour, perhaps longer, who knows?, I’d lost track of time by then. We had a very nice chat…once I’d told him my name and surname, birthplace and birth date, of course, hehe.

Well, it was in that room that I looked down and saw my operated leg for the first time since surgery. HOLY CATS! What the…???? For a nanosecond I almost had a “stroke”: my entire left leg (foot included) was bright red! And by bright, I mean BRIGHT! RED! I thought it was blood, and that was soooo freaky!, but then my brain told me that that made no sense…I asked the nurse what had happened down there, and he explained that it was just the color of the disinfectant they’d painted all over my leg in the operating room.

Disinfectant??? Gee wiz, you guys…why didn’t you let me know that I’d be coming out of surgery with a BRIGHT RED LEG??? Hellooooo??? What’s the bloody point of asking me my name and taking my vitals if you’re planning to give me a heart attack by painting my leg bright red and not telling me? (I’m joking, of course…hehe!!!). I was much relieved and even amused at myself, at my first reaction of semi-horror. Anyway, until I’m able to take a shower–about 10 days from now–my leg will continue to be reddish, although a couple of my nurses tried to wipe off the color. Didn’t really work. My leg is all spotty red now. Lovely. Anyway, a funny-in-retrospect moment at the clinic…one I will never forget!

Just a few hours after surgery, in the early afternoon, a physiotherapist came to teach me how to get out of bed. I even went to the bathroom by myself, well, on crutches of course, under his supervision (in respect of my privacy, he shut the door once I was safely inside). I also took a few steps outside my hospital door. All that, just hours after having surgery. Amazing!!!

By the following afternoon I was instructed to put my full weight on my operated leg. Wow! I am still amazed…amazed amazed amazed. Sorry, I’m over-using that word…but for me the entire experience has been really…well, you know. 😉

At the clinic, I was taught lots of things–from how to walk up and down a flight of stairs to how to get dressed by myself (putting on socks still isn’t easy, I tell ya…)–which I’ll have to put into practice and be careful about for the next couple of months, albeit less and less, of course, as my leg gets stronger. Also, no bending over and picking up anything that falls on the floor (fortunately, I found a pick-up-stuff gadget…fantastic!), no crossing my legs…the list goes on.

But, and this is a big BUT, the pain I had before surgery is gone. Sure, I had a bit of pain after the surgery, no point in denying that (pain for which I was given some lovely painkillers), but right now I have NO PAIN. What a wonderful change from my pre-operative state, when I was limping all over the place, grimacing with pain.

And now I’m now happily at home with Stefano (who took a week off from work to be with me) and the kitties…and lots of documentaries and TV series and movies to watch while I do my strengthening exercises. I’m doing very well. The physiotherapist who came to check on me yesterday was amazed at how well I’m walking. I will be using two crutches until my first checkup, week after next, after which I should be going down to one crutch for another 20 days. So by the middle of January I should be ready to fly on my own, which is good since the new kittens will be here, and I do not want to be on crutches with those two little fur balls running around the house! 🙂

Life is good. Take care, everyone!

New hip, new kittens, new citizenship…

November 17, 2021 / Margaret / 5 Comments

How did October fly past so quickly? ? I really should make a point of posting something once a week when I’m super busy with life happenings. But sometimes it isn’t that simple. In my defence, at least this time, a lot has been going on, as you will see…

I went through a lot of waiting in October–waiting for all my tests to be set up, waiting in waiting rooms to have my tests done, and then waiting for test results. Waiting waiting waiting. I still have some waiting to do, but most of it is over. I have all my test results, I mean.

The most important result is that my PET and CAT scans were both negative, meaning that I don’t have any bone lesions (NO BONE LESIONS, yaaaay!!!) and there are no signs of cancerous activity in my body. Nothing. Nada. Big relief, for sure.

This means, among other things, that I’ve been cleared for my hip replacement surgery, which is scheduled for the end of this month. After spending three nights in the hospital, if all goes well, fingers crossed, I will be sent home and should make a full recovery in about a month and a half. My hip has really started acting up lately, ouch, so I’m ready…

And here’s another, HUGE bit of news: about a year and a half ago, after spending many months collecting all the necessary documents, having them translated, authenticated, etc., I requested Italian citizenship. Well, just recently, toward the end of October to be precise, I received my citizenship letter, and about a week later Stefano and I went to the municipality of Florence where I took my citizenship oath. So now I have dual citizenship, U.S. and Italian. I’m ecstatic…completely ecstatic. I’ve wanted Italian citizenship for so long, so this is a dream come true…

And…more good news. After vowing that (Harry) Potter was going to be our last cat, that we are getting too old to adopt any more cats, blablabla, we recently fell completely in love with two Maine Coon kittens–siblings–who are now a month old. Potter and the two kittens, a male and a female, have the same parents. They will be joining our family in mid January, at the age of three months. We are soooo happy about the kitties…they are so adorable…

So, Italian citizenship, kittens, no cancerous activity, and a titanium hip…What else could I want?

I actually have a bit more news, but it’ll have to wait for another post…I have to go now.

Take care, everyone! Ciao! 🙂

BMB

September 22, 2021 / Margaret / 6 Comments

I had my bone marrow biopsy yesterday (BMB in English, BOM in Italian). The easiest I’ve ever had. It wasn’t completely pain-free, which would have been, methinks, impossible (after all, the needle has to penetrate your pelvic bone!), and in fact a couple of times I felt what I can describe as painful shockwaves running down my right leg, but no, nothing unbearable. And the BMB was also over quickly, compared to my three others.

After it was done, the nurse bandaged and iced me up and then asked me to turn over and lie on my back to apply pressure on the area. That was nice. My previous BMB doctors had simply said, “okay, you can get up now.” There was no lying about, no ice, no asking me how I felt, etc. 🙁

This goes to show that you can’t compare BMBs with other patients. Each experience is unique and depends mostly on who is performing the procedure. My previous BMB doctors had an aggressive approach, jamming the needle into the bone and making the procedure very painful for me and probably for all their patients, not just right there on the spot but afterwards as well. One of my worst BMBs had me limping for about a week. I remember it well.

But yesterday, as I said, I only had an insignificant amount of pain. The haematologist was as gentle as he could be. And today I am happy to report that I am fine. I don’t even have a bruise. Amazing. Now we just have to wait for the results, which will arrive late next month.

I’m quite pleased. This light-handed haematologist (who, by the way, was recommended to me by a member of my surgeon’s team) is now my new haematologist. The first thing that I liked about him was that he didn’t roll his eyes when, during our first meeting, I told him that I’ve been taking curcumin since 2006. On the contrary, he told me that some of his patients take curcumin (hmmm, blog readers, perchance?).

Yes, I’m pleased…

The fun is over…

September 17, 2021 / Margaret / 4 Comments

Stefano and I had a lovely relaxing holiday in August. The first leg of our trip consisted of three days in the medieval town of Sirmione on the shores of one of Italy’s largest and prettiest lakes, the Lago di Garda.

To be honest, though, I couldn’t wait to leave. It wasn’t the heat that got to me (after Florence, practically anything would have felt cool…), but rather the throngs of unmasked tourists surrounding us as we walked along the town’s narrow streets. I found that quite unsettling. True, you don’t have to wear a mask now when you’re out in the open, but those streets were too narrow to be defined as “open,” in my opinion. Stefano and I wore our masks, of course (in addition to being fully vaccinated against Covid-19 and having our Green Passes).

We do plan to go back to the Lago di Garda someday, but never again in summer…too hot, too crowded…

By the third day of our holiday, we were more than ready for a change, namely for some cool air, which we found at the Lago di Braies, known as the Jewel of the Dolomites. And a Jewel it really is! Lago di Braies is the most beautiful lake I’ve ever seen in my life. Its colours, ever-changing, were absolutely glorious. We spent a week in the (only) hotel facing the lake. Our top floor room had a balcony with panoramic views of the lake and the surrounding mountains (see above photo). Stunning. I would have been happy to have spent the entire week on that balcony, reading and enjoying the views.

But we didn’t, of course! We went on rather long and sometimes challenging walks. I admit that in the beginning I was a bit concerned about my hip…But I have to say that even though we walked between 5 and 7 kilometres every day, I didn’t have much pain, if any. Really weird. The lack of pain may not sound like much, but when I get to my medical stuff later on, you will realise that it really is (was) a big deal.

Check out the stairway (photo above, on the right) I climbed to get to the other side of the lake one morning. That whole path was up and down and up and down. Even regular hikers, in good shape, had to stop now and again to catch their breath…

But I’m so glad I did it: the views of the lakes and mountains were magnificent…

After a week at the Lake of Braies, we stayed a few nights at the nearby Lago di Misurina, another lake in the Dolomite range, mainly because of its strategical location near the Tre Cime di Lavaredo, the three most famous peaks in the Dolomites, and to Monte Piana, a very interesting World War I open-air museum located on a plateau at more than 2,300 metres above sea level, with amazing 360° views of the surrounding mountains. You can still see the trenches where the Italian and Austro-Hungarian soldiers fought for two years…Unbelievable…Anyway, highly recommended, if you are in the area. Again, my hip and I did quite a bit of climbing and hiking there, too.

On our way back to Florence, we stopped for three days in the city of Mantova (Mantua). I have nothing but high marks for Mantova. But, for reasons I cannot explain, it got harder and harder for me to walk for more than a few kilometres a day, if that…Odd!

Our holiday ended on August 28, when we finally got back to Florence and to our kitties who had been totally spoiled by our cat sitter. 🙂

In early September, I went through a battery of pre-surgery tests and met with various doctors.

My first meeting was with my orthopaedic surgeon and his assistant. When I told them about all the walking I’d done, especially around Lake Braies, they were visibly surprised. Speechless, in fact. It was there and then that I found out that my arthrosis is worse than I (we) had initially thought: I’m in stage 4 (the most advanced stage of arthrosis), not between stages 2 and 3, as it had seemed from my first X-ray. Yikes!

Looking back on our August holiday now, I have to admit that I feel a bit like Wonder Woman…hiking and walking for kilometres and kilometres with arthrosis in stage 4, I mean…Not bad, eh?

Getting back to my surgery story, I aced all the preliminary tests (electrocardiogram, etc.), but…yes, there is a but. My haematologist and I agreed that, before having this surgery, I should have some myeloma-related tests done, too. It makes sense.

My first test will be next week: my fourth BMB (bone marrow biopsy). Ouch! I am also going to have a PET scan and a CAT scan. In a nutshell, we want to make sure that I don’t have any bone lesions. If that is the case, no bone lesions, I mean, as I hope and imagine!, I will go ahead with the hip surgery as soon as possible.

If not…well, we’ll cross that bridge when (IF!) we come to it…

Let’s see, I guess that’s about it for now…

Take care, everyone! Ciao!!!

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Author: Margaret