Today has been absolutely crazy…teaching a new course (technical English…about which I know absolutely NOTHING…Eh, I must say, stuff like this makes life, er…interesting…hmmm), getting ready to leave for Le Marche (tomorrow AM!)…But I did find the time to check Facebook, where I found three really FUNNY videos that I just have to share…

Cat versus printer (translation): http://goo.gl/VWvom

Chattering: http://goo.gl/aNnpx

Last, but not least…Single white feline (BBC comedy): http://goo.gl/DAqVr

Take care, everyone! Ciaoooo!

In addition to having quite a bit of work to do these days, I am also trying to plan our holiday weekend. Puff puff, rush, rush. On Saturday morning, you see, Stefano and I are leaving for the Italian region of Le Marche…Specifically, we are heading for the lovely walled city of Urbino, which is a World Heritage Site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbino My parents took me to Urbino when I was a kid, but I don’t remember a thing, so this will be like visiting it for the first time. Does the name Raphael ring a bell? Er, the famous Renaissance painter, not the archangel. Well, he was from Urbino…And in fact our hotel is about a stone’s throw from the house where he was born in 1483…verrrrry exciting…

On Sunday we are leaving Urbino and driving towards the coast, near where Stefano has a work-related meeting on Monday. While waiting for him (to finish his meeting), I will wander on the beach, read my book and take photos…Ahhh, can’t wait!

Obviously, a close friend will be moving into our house for the entire weekend to look after our cats. She adores our kitties and plays with them until they flop down, exhausted…and they adore her, so this is a purrfect arrangement…

In spite of all the rushing and puffing, this morning I found the time to read a couple of Science Daily articles, mainly this one: http://goo.gl/V7p1t What I found interesting about this new type of therapy is that the immune system doesn’t have to move a finger, which means that even patients with compromised immune systems would benefit from it, at least theoretically: The fact that this therapy does not require participation of the patient’s immune system to kill cancer cells is a big advantage over other newly developed technologies, such as the cancer vaccine. Those technologies depend on the patient’s immune system to destroy cancer. Unfortunately, they are not effective in the presence of a compromised immune system, which is true for many cancer patients. In contrast, Dr. Rosner’s therapy will be able to treat even the most severely immuno-compromised patients with the same degree of success as in treating patients with a fully functional immune system.

Now, the article mentions that this therapy could treat a large variety of tumors, such as prostate, lung and breast cancers.  There is no mention of blood cancers…but you never know. Oh, I thought the nonchalant reference to the fact that this therapy might cause a lightening of skin hue was rather bizarre, to say the least…What in the world does that mean? Anyway, it will be interesting to see what comes of this…

And now for the funny video…yes, yes, yes, it’s a commercial, but it’s ohsoincrediblyfunnyandcute…so I just had to go ahead and publish it: http://goo.gl/DL7qC Enjoy! 🙂

Back to work! Then I am dashing off to spend the evening with my hilarious girlfriends. Ciaooooo! 🙂

A recently-published study on a high vitamin-D bread tells us that as many as 70% of the U.S. population may have insufficient vitamin D status. Eeeek!!! A blogging friend (thanks!) sent me the full study…Now, you can find the gist in a Science Daily article (http://goo.gl/dBufl), but if you are feeling particularly audacious, go have a look at the study abstract: http://goo.gl/PqyzS

This could actually be a bit of very important news, especially for those of us myeloma folks who don’t believe in supplementation, particularly in vitamin D (not my case, of course! Even though, come to think of it, I don’t take a huge amount of stuff…mainly, curcumin, fish oil, quercetin and vitamin D…oh, and a vitamin B complex right now…but normally I don’t take any vitamins etc. I try instead to have a healthy diet with lots of herbs and spices…).

Another point. If you are new to my blog and need some convincing on how important vitamin D is for MM, MGUS and SMM folks, please have a look at the 2009 Mayo Clinic study, which proved that MM patients with normal levels of vitamin D had better outcomes than those with low levels of this vitamin. You can find the link here: http://margaret.healthblogs.org/life-with-myeloma/what-is-multiple-myeloma/myeloma-and-vitamin-d/ After reading that study, I began pushing for the vitamin D test to be part of our routine tests, especially especially ESPECIALLY at diagnosis. I mean, you don’t want to be in the “worse outcome” group, do you? No, didn’t think so. I don’t, either!

Okay, I have to go now…I am busy busy BUSY these days, but I will check the full bread study as soon as possible to see if it contains anything that I should report about, here…Hmmm, how about a vitamin D and curcumin bread? Now there’s a super thought! 😉

P.S. I wanted to mention that sometimes my replies to blog reader queries get rejected by the oh-so-bothersome “Mailer Daemon.” So it’s not always a question of my forgetting to answer your messages or, worse!, ignoring your messages. I am mentioning this right now because it just so happened that the Mailer Daemon rejected the reply I sent to Wes a few minutes ago…Wes, I really hope you read this note and don’t feel neglected or ignored by me. Scroll down my Pages on the right-hand side of the blog—you should find all your answers there. Or send me a different e-mail address, and I will try to forward my rejected reply to you. Thanks!