I just finished reading this article (thanks, Hanna!): http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/10/07/a-sick-ceos-full-disclosure/ I particularly liked this quote: “I could sit at home and think about how much I want to get better, or I could keep myself busy and try to get better. I really believe that an incredible part of the healing process is your mental attitude.” 

Indeed. So do I…

I may finally have discovered why my feverfew extract didn’t work at all for me last year. According to a new study published in “Blood” (http://tinyurl.com/2f4l3oc), while parthenolide, the active ingredient in feverfew, has devastating effects on acute myeloid leukemia stem cells, it also induces cellular protective responses that likely function to reduce its overall cytotoxicity. AAAAAGGGHHH! That essentially means that a leukemic cell will raise barriers to protect itself from parthenolide. Obviously, not a good thing…!

But never fear: the indefatigable parthenolide “investigators” (=the authors of this study) have already identified those parthenolide compounds that do not induce any cytoprotective* effects in vitro. So, a bit of bad news is followed by a bit of good news, too…

(*Cytoprotection, by the way, has to do with how a cell protects itself against harmful agents such as chemotherapy or, as in this case, parthenolide.)

I have to admit that, after reading about parthenolide’s murderous effects on leukemic stem cells, I had verrry high hopes for PTL…And I was really upset when I saw that my myeloma markers had worsened quite a lot…

Well, this abstract at least provides a plausible explanation for what happened to me. So, for now at least, I am cancelling PTL from my list of supplements…with regret, I might add…

Well, I am still a bit under the weather. In addition to having a rather revolting cough, for the past couple of afternoons I have been getting bit of a fever (almost 38° Celsius). No worries, though: this is a “change of season” complaint that is making the rounds of many Florentine households, according to my family doctor. Ah, that probably means that Mr. Expectorate is off the hook, since I was most likely infected somewhere here…in a store, perhaps…

Anyway, it will pass in a few days, and my cats are taking good care of me (in this photo, as you can see, Priscilla is giving me a CAT scan, thanks Hanna for the suggestion hehe, while Puzzola waits patiently in the background…)…

In the meantime, my feline nurses and I are getting plenty of rest and watching some of the fabulous BBC costume dramas that I ordered from the UK last Xmas. Right now we are watching “Little Dorrit,” though I must say that my attention span is much higher than theirs (they take what I can only call “cat naps” during most of the episodes 😉 ). Ahhh, how I love those Dickens characters…

Ahhh, but now let’s get to the point of this post. This morning I came across an article of immense interest to me…particularly right now: http://tinyurl.com/24wxh6y This is not the first time I have read about fevers driving some cancer patients into spontaneous remissions, but there is more to the article than just that…so I thought I would jot down a quick post and urge you all to read it.

There is still no scientific explanation for fever-caused spontaneous regressions, but there are a couple of theories floating around, as follows (more details can be found in the article…): 1. the high fever jumpstarts the immune system, which, in its heightened state, is thus able to detect and eradicate the cancer cells; 2. the fever itself attacks and destroys the cancer.

Now, this fever-cancer eradication business hasn’t worked for me. In the spring-summer of 2006, I came down with a terrible case of pleurisy that almost killed me. I did recover…obviously!…but the high fevers unfortunately did NOT exterminate my myeloma cells. (If they had, my blog would now have a completely different title! 😉 )

Details: at the beginning of July (2006) I was still not completely over my pleurisy, but, since I hadn’t had any tests since March, I decided to go to the hospital lab for my routine tests. The results were not good at all. But then, just two months later (in September, that is), I had my tests repeated. Those were the BEST results I had had in years…and thus far I have not done better…

So this article provides some food for thought…

But right now, Pinga really wants to watch Episode Two of “Little Dorrit,” so I must go… 🙂

After feeling inexplicably tired for days, I woke up with a terrible sore throat yesterday morning. Uh oh, I thought. I immediately sprayed my throat with propolis, took some Sambucol (black elderberry extract) and ignored it. But whatever it is did not ignore me…

During the day the sore throat disappeared, but I developed a slight fever. All I wanted to do was sleep. So I stayed in bed, surrounded by my loving nurses (=Stefano, who is also not feeling that great, and my cats). Then this morning I woke up with a cough and the unmistakable beginning signs of a chest infection. Uffachebarbachenoia! So I guess that Mr. Expectorate, = a man who had a bad case of bronchitis and was on my Boston-Zurich flight, managed to “get” me after all! Drat…

I am on antibiotics now. Well, I think I caught this thing in time and should be okay within a few days. No worries. I just need to sleep it off…I mean, after all, I feel okay enough to be at my computer! 🙂

I wanted to make the point that this is a good example of what can happen to those who have a compromised immune system. A little sniffle can turn into a chest infection within hours. We must learn to recognize the symptoms and take immediate action…

Hmmm, is it a mere coincidence that The Virus struck me down almost as soon as I started asking you about viral infections….? 😉 Speaking of which, please keep sending me any “viral infection before diagnosis” accounts (see my September 28 post). As soon as I feel better, I will continue my research…