In March 2007, when I created this blog, I thought nobody would be very interested in my story — the story of a woman with a relatively uncommon type of cancer (based on American Cancer Society statistics for 2014, U.S. citizens have a 0.7% lifetime risk of developing myeloma). And, as if my membership in a rare cancer club wasn’t enough, I was (still am) at the inactive or smoldering stage…not to mention my decision to ignore all the experts’ “just watch and wait…” recommendations, choosing instead to test a few scientifically-backed alternative treatments, mainly curcumin.

Ho-hum, zzzzz, boooooring…

Well, I was wrong. My readership kept growing…to the point where I admit I became somewhat “greedy”: I wanted have more and more readers. I wanted to be THE most popular myeloma blogger on the block. 😉 Well, okay, I’m exaggerating here, but it’s true that for some time I did get dragged into a sort of blogging obsession. I even tried to find ways to increase my blog “traffic,” that is, ways to attract increasing numbers of readers/visitors to my blog. Apparently the best system is to write a post EVERY SINGLE day. In fact, many bloggers write more than one post a day.

So for a while I wrote a post every day, too. Or I tried to.

But at one point last year I began to ask myself: 1. What’s more important…quality or quantity? 2. Should I go play cards with my girlfriends or stay home and write a post for tomorrow? 3. Won’t my readers get bloody tired of hearing about my cats or even the research I do for myeloma? Wouldn’t they prefer to know or imagine that I am out there, in the real world, doing fun/interesting things?

I finally decided that blogging every single day simply wasn’t worth it: it absorbed too much of my free time…and now I don’t really care if only ten people read my blog every day. Even though my blog is VERY important to me, and it will always be important, I have made my choice: blogging takes second place. I am going to enjoy my life as much as possible.

And, to be honest, even when I don’t publish anything for more than a week, Google Analytics tells me that hundreds of people are still reading my blog every day. True, those numbers usually go up whenever I post something new, but I’m satisfied even when they aren’t as impressive. I don’t need five million readers…Indeed, if I had millions of readers, I would NEVER be able to answer any messages. I’m hard pressed to answer the ones I already get (see the post I wrote on this topic a month or so ago).

Okay, let’s move on. Speaking of living out in the real world, yesterday I had a lovely (and very cheap for Florence!) lunch at the vegetarian restaurant with a couple of friends — one of my best friends, who lives in Arezzo (a lovely Tuscan city, about a 40-minute drive from Florence) and a college friend of hers whom I hadn’t seen since…well, since I was here in Florence doing my M.A….23 years ago…is that possible? Yikes. Time…

Anyway, the three of us had planned to meet at 12 pm, but yesterday was such a splendid sunny day that I took an early bus into town so I could stroll around on my own for a bit…and take a few photos…

I couldn’t resist taking a photo of these tourists (above) standing in line while taking photos of the Duomo (Florence’s magnificent cathedral) and Giotto’s bell tower (I took more or less the same photo after they’d left, as you can see). Too cute!

Well, okay, I guess that’s about it for today. I’m still working on a couple of posts, but Stefano and I have visitors staying with us this weekend, and I’ve been getting ready for that. Not easy, especially since we are still dealing with our newly adopted — elderly but feisty — kitty, Pammy. Speaking of Pammy, we figure that at least one of her ancestors must have been a barn owl. Seriously. Whenever one of our other cats gets too close to Pammy, she emits the loudest and scariest screeeeeeech I have ever heard…I mean, it makes me jump! And it makes the other cats run for their lives and hide. It’s understandable: Pammy has had to defend herself from other aggressive outside cats for the past 9-10 years. So she needs time to adjust…I just hope this screeching business will stop soon…uhm, my nerves, y’know… 😉

And finally, speaking of cats, my sweet handsome little boy, Prezzemolo, would like to wish a very HAPPY HALLOWEEN to everyone! 🙂

Too funny! You have to watch this video, which shows a baby laughing hysterically…but wait until you find out WHY he is laughing (awwww, too adorable!!!)…It’s a must-see that will brighten your day, afternoon, or evening…Enjoy! 🙂

I just watched a short video showing a man trying to give some medicine to a couple of very playful pandas. And here I thought that giving medicine to a cat was an almost impossible feat! Hah! 🙂 Anyway, the video is unbelievably cute and amusing, so….enjoy! Here’s the link: http://goo.gl/QEBR54

Incidentally, right now I’m working on a complex blog post (basically, I’m trying to transform some impossible scientific language into something a bit more comprehensible…aaaaagh! I’ve been sweating over this stuff for days, now…sick of it, to be honest, even though, yes, some of it has been interesting)…I hope to finish it by the weekend. What a challenge…pant pant.

In the meantime, I have a couple of other things that I mean to post about. Sooooo…stay tuned! Ciao! 🙂

I just read about a new experimental drug called DPT3 that can kill myeloma cells by targeting a protein complex called GADD45beta/MKK7, which is very active in myeloma and is tied to the NF-kappaB signalling pathway, a pathway that I’ve written many posts about in the past (just do a search of my blog).

Now, since I began my myeloma journey (by the way, I’ve had smoldering myeloma now for more than NINE years, yaaaaay!), I’ve learned not to get overly excited about promising new myeloma treatments, which often seem to vanish into thin air. In this case, however, I must admit that I am intrigued and want to follow any future developments…and here’s why:

This drug, developed by a European research team, apparently has NO TOXIC SIDE EFFECTS. The researchers found that it harms only myeloma cells, NOT normal, healthy cells, which, as we know, is a huge problem in conventional myeloma treatment. And that is what I find exciting — the fact that this new drug seems to leave healthy cells alone while killing off myeloma cells.

Now, I should note that the drug has thus far been tested only on mice and myeloma cells in a lab setting, so we don’t know how it will behave when tested on humans. Human clinical trials are set to begin only at the end of 2015. Bummer. More waiting.

In the meantime, you can read more about it here (this is the “plain language” summary): http://goo.gl/dK8P3s

The study is available for free online at this link: http://goo.gl/VaqYaZ (click on “PDF 2.9 MB” to view the full study). Here’s an interesting excerpt: myeloma patients who, at diagnosis, have high levels of the above-mentioned GADD45beta/MKK7 have “significantly shorter overall survival” compared to myeloma patients who have lower levels of this stuff…even if they have all had the exact same conventional treatments. This means that there is a “strong correlation between GADD45B expression and disease progression,” and the researchers have now linked GADD45B to “more aggressive disease.” Ugh.

I have to confess that I haven’t had the time to read the full study yet…I just had a quick glance here and there…All I can say right now is that it’s way too early to crack open the bubbly, but…yes, it’s all very interesting…

So…let’s keep our fingers crossed! 🙂

Seven cats…yes…well, I suppose it’s official now: Stefano and I are a couple of crazy cat people…And, I would like to add, proud to be so… 😉

How we went from six to seven is a long, complicated story, but I’ll try to keep it short…

In April, while Stefano and I were in the U.S., one of our neighbors here in Florence sold his house and moved to another (Italian) city, a mere three hours’ drive from here. He took his dog with him and promised to come back as soon as possible for his cat — a female “inside/outside” cat that had lived with him and his family since she was born, about ten years ago. Yes, the cat is 10 years old…keep that in mind as you read the rest of the story…

The day he moved, my next door neighbor kindly offered to feed his cat, at her own expense…And as soon as I returned from the U.S., I began feeding the kitty, too. In the beginning, we were sure that our former neighbor would return for his cat. He just couldn’t abandon her after all these years…right?

But the summer months went by, and there was no sign of him. No calls…nothing.

By the time Stefano and I returned from the U.S., in late August, it was obvious that the kitty had been abandoned. I don’t think I need to comment on that…

Now, it soon became clear that the kitty had taken a particular fancy to Stefano and me (well, how could it be otherwise? 😉 ). She spent most of her time in our garden or on our terrace. Every time I’d go outside, she’d come running with her tail straight up in the air, and she’d begin rubbing against my legs, purring madly. Such a sweet little lady.

Winter is coming, although the past week you wouldn’t have know it — it’s been quite warm and damp here in Florence…more like early summer than late fall. But the cool nights are around the corner, I’m sure. And Stefano and I couldn’t bear the thought of this kitty out in the cold, without proper shelter, etc. And so, with our neighbors’ approval, Stefano and I decided to adopt our little lady.

Last week we took her to our vet for a checkup, which went very well, except she has ear mites, which means that she has to be kept isolated from the other cats for about a week (ear mites, which are very common in outside cats, are very contagious to other cats). She also has a rather bad case of gingivitis, which I am attempting to treat with curcumin (mixed in with her wet food). We’ll see how that goes…

Anyway, until the ear mite problem clears up, she can’t be introduced to our other cats, which means that I am sleeping with her (and spending as much time as I can with her) in our second bedroom.

The first night we spent together I barely got a wink of sleep — she kept kneading me, from head to toe, purring in my ears, walking all over me…the happiest kitty in the world.

She’s definitely ours now. And we have finally found a good name for her…we’ve named her after my sister: Pammy.

Pammy now has a loving family…

A forever family, this time!

“Letting go: what should medicine do when it can’t save your life?” is the title of a New Yorker article — written by a Boston surgeon in 2010 — that I read a few days ago (thanks to a member of the myeloma support group on Facebook who posted the link).

It’s so long that you might get a bit fidgety, but try to hang in there until the very last word. I’m sure you’ll find it as interesting as I did…so interesting, in fact, that I decided not to make any comments about it, which is very unusual for me. 😉 Seriously, though, right now I’d much rather read what YOU think about it, so please drop me a note or, even better, please leave a comment here on the blog, if you can find the time etc…That would be great. You see, I’d like to write a post about this delicate but very important issue, but I need more time to sort through things, and your input would be invaluable. Thank you!!!

Here’s the link to the New Yorker article: http://goo.gl/DbbjkN