I know, I know! It seems as though we just got back from Amsterdam and now (= on Saturday…yes, I mean THIS Saturday!!!), we’re getting on another plane. Why, I’ve barely unpacked! 😉

This time we’re flying to London, where we’re being picked up and hosted by a dear friend, Paul, whom I met thanks to the blog years ago. Paul and I began corresponding via email and ended up meeting on one of our UK trips and becoming very good friends. He and his family have been to visit us here in Florence, and Stefano and I have been to visit them in London…well, just outside London, to be precise (such a lovely neighborhood!). Anyway, we haven’t seen them for about two years now, so that is going to be wonderful.

Then on Sunday Paul, Stefano and I will be driving from London to Wales where, on Monday, we’re getting on the boat for Skokholm Island. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, type the word “Skokholm” into my blog’s Search box (at the top right of this page, just above “Recent Comments”) and you will discover that Stefano and I are totally obsessed with puffins = hole-nesting auks (seabirds) with big heads and a large, bright orange beak. 

In fact, our bird watching hobby (by the way, my blog header right now is a photo I took a few days ago of a baby bittern at the Parco della Piana, a bird reserve just outside of Florence) began with puffins, and it was all thanks to Paul who suggested, more than six years ago, that we go to Northumberland (UK)…And that is where we saw our first puffins, on Inner Farne Island…An unforgettable experience.

Anyway, Paul, Stefano and I will be staying on Skokholm Island most of next week, just as Stefano and I did last year. Shared compost toilets, no hot water, no showers, no Internet, etc. etc. etc. It sounds a bit uncomfortable but really it is one of the most amazing life experiences I’ve ever had…completely relaxing…magical. In a nutshell: I can’t wait to leave. The puffin chicks, called pufflings, have been hatching, and I hope to get a glimpse or (even better!) a photograph of one this year.

I know I’ve been neglecting my research and my blog in the past few months, and I’m sorry about that. My blog is very important to me, and that will never change. But one of my best friends recently said this to me: “I’ve chosen to live.” Now, she was referring to the little messes that she didn’t have the time to straighten up in her apartment, but that sentence really rung a bell with me…for an entirely different reason…

I can’t change the fact that I have myeloma cells in my body. I know that I can’t run away from this cancer, and I have no intention of doing so. But myeloma won’t and can’t stop me from living. Not now, anyway…(fingers double crossed!).

And so, like my friend, I choose to live my life…the way I want to live it. And I will do so for as long as possible…I will keep traveling…enjoying the company of Stefano and of my best buddies and of my cats…rejoicing for my niece who recently sneaked off to Las Vegas to get married to her longtime companion without telling us or anyone else (way to go, sweetie!!! So happy for you both, yaaay!!!)…watching the World Cup soccer games even though Italy and the U.S. are both out now, argh…finding happiness in small things, such as an unexpected visit from a good friend (also met via the blog) yesterday…and planning future trips with Stefano…

No, myeloma can’t stop me. And so on Monday I’m going to immerse myself completely in the wonderful, magical world of puffins and razorbills and Manx shearwaters and guillemots and gannets and…the list goes on…

Life goes on…

🙂

We got back from Amsterdam the other night. Vacation over. We had such a wonderful and interesting time…loved the city, its canals, its houses, its houseboats, its cyclists…(In the first photo, you can see the floating…well, at one time it was…flower market, on the right.)

We walked everywhere. And when we got super tired, we hopped on a tram, if possible. If not, we’d rest for a while, then keep walking. But, I admit, walking and walking and walking got to be a bit tiring…

And so, after watching almost every single inhabitant of Amsterdam whiz around on bicycles (I mean, they are EVERYWHERE…there are even traffic lights for bikes, see photos), and figuring it would be easier and faster for us to get from place to place on a bike, we decided we’d follow suit. Two days after we arrived, we rented a couple of bikes at our hotel…but it was not meant to be…

We went outside the hotel to unlock our bikes and get on our way. Stefano got his bike ready before I had done fiddling with mine, walked it over to me and asked: “Hey, does your bike have any brakes? Mine doesn’t.” Sure enough, there were no brake levers on my handlebars. 

I later learned that most Amsterdam bikes work on the brake PEDAL system. That is, if you want to brake, you have to back pedal.

Now, since Stefano and I have always used the hand-braking system, we weren’t about to begin braking with our FEET for the first time in our lives in a city chock full of canals. I could just picture one of us or, horror, both of us sailing straight into a canal. Splash! Nope, forget it.

So we never rode a bike in Amsterdam. Not on this trip, anyway. However, I would like to add a note of appreciation for all Dutch cyclists. From that moment on I watched and admired HOW they braked. Hats off!

By the way, we could have rented what I consider to be a “normal” bike with handlebar brakes. But in the end we decided against it. Main reason: Stefano wouldn’t have had his camera handy at all times, and by the time he’d manage to stop the bike and whip his camera out of his backpack, any photo op would have probably vanished. Biking and taking good photos don’t really go together.

And so we walked. And walked and walked. Judging from the map that tracked our photo-taking, we walked along every single canal in Amsterdam, on both sides, from Singel to Amstel, and all the canals in between (Princengracht, Herengracht and Keisersgracht are the main ones, plus all the minor ones, too!) from start to end…and often back again several times.

We were in Amsterdam on the day (Monday June 23) of the Holland-Chile soccer match (is anybody else watching the World Cup?). I really REALLY wanted to watch the game in one of Amsterdam’s big squares, surrounded by Dutch fans…so we went to Rembrandtplein. The square was packed with orange-clad fans both inside and outside the bars, most of which had TV screens. At the beginning of the second half of the game, Stefano and I finally managed to find a couple of seats outside a bar…and had a decent view of the rest of the game. I was very excited, and my camera was turned on and ready to shoot.

After Holland scored its first goal, all the Dutch fans around us jumped to their feet, clapping and cheering. I took a few photographs, but they didn’t come out as well as I would have wished, as you can see. And then, toward the end of the game, the Dutch team scored its second goal. Well, let me tell you, the square went absolutely wild with joy–everyone was jumping up and down…lots of clapping and cheering and hugging. So exciting. And glorious. And, for us, a historic moment (= our first time watching a game in a public square…). 

And just as I was ready to take my exciting, glorious, historic photos, a message appeared on my camera screen:

“Change the battery pack.”

AGGGGHHHHHH!!!

So I didn’t even get ONE lousy photo. Not one. By the time I’d changed the blooming battery, things had quieted down.

This would never have happened to Art Wolfe… 😉

But then, later on, on our way back to the hotel, we heard loud and joyous singing as we approached one of the main canals. And there was my photo opportunity: a boat filled with young Dutch fans waving their arms and singing their hearts out. 🙂

We did all the touristy things in Amsterdam. Taking advantage of our three-day “I amsterdam card,” we visited many museums (Goya, Rembrant’s house, the National Museum (not for free, but there was a 25% discount), the Amsterdam Tulip museum, the houseboat museum, the Museum Van Loon, Our Lord in the Attic, and…oh a few others… 

Of course, we also visited the Anne Frank House, which  however is not part of the “I amsterdam” deal. Word of advice: try to get online tickets for the Anne Frank House, or you might end up spending 1.5-2 hours in a queue, like we did. By the time we saw the seemingly endless queue and  thought of buying tickets online, there were none left…even for the following day. So we stayed in line. It was worth it, though, of course.

That’s about it. I can’t think of anything else at the moment…

Bellissima Amsterdam!!!

I can’t believe that I’ve been back home with Stefano and our kitties since June 5 and haven’t written a post, not even a tiny post about…ANYTHING AT ALL!!! Well, a lot has been going on, and I’ve also been trying to get back into a normal routine = almost impossible right now, as you will see in a minute…

Let’s jump right in. The day after I got back to Florence (I left Cape Cod on Wednesday, June 4, arriving in Florence the following day), I found out that my Mom had been taken to Cape Cod hospital. To make a very long story short, she had sustained a new vertebral fracture (= spinal compression fracture–she suffers from osteoporosis, you see)…incredibly, unbearably painful.

The pain had begun, in fact, a couple of days before I left for Italy. Odd thing: it wasn’t located in her back, but in her rib cage area, and her main symptoms, as far as I could tell, were occasional but very painful spasms. And she couldn’t take deep breaths. Thinking that she might have bruised or even fractured a rib, I insisted on taking her to the emergency room, but she refused. And let me tell ya, when my Mom refuses to do something, she is impossible to deal with. The adjective “stubborn” doesn’t even cover it. However, since she was still moving around in the house, we all let her be stubborn…and I left for Italy as planned…

By Friday, however, the pain had gotten so intense that she finally agreed to go to the hospital. And that’s where they found the new compression fracture.

She spent several days at Cape Cod Hospital, where, after a few days, she had kyphoplasty (= basically, a procedure designed to lessen or even eliminate pain caused by compression fractures and also prevent them from worsening…a very common procedure for myeloma patients, by the way, and that’s how I knew all about it = a fact that impressed Mom’s doctor, whom I spoke with by phone, in fact…), which gradually diminished her pain to a semi-tolerable level. She is still in a certain amount of pain, unfortunately…but it’s certainly not like it was before…

A few days after the kyphoplasty procedure, just as the hospital was getting ready to discharge her and send her off to the same rehab center where my Dad spent three weeks after his stroke, a nurse noticed that Mom’s left leg was swollen and purple. And that is how they discovered she had a blood clot. So they kept her in the hospital a few more days…Sheesh!!!

The good news is that she is now in the rehab center and will probably go home soon. Boyohboy, though, it’s been really tough to be so far away from my parents. I felt and feel completely helpless…unable to do anything but speak by phone with my parents and their caregiver and, of course, with my sister, who is in Arizona. Such a drag.

In spite of all the worry, though, life goes on. It has to. I’m working, of course, though I still haven’t caught up with my backlog, sigh…I’ve met up with a number of close friends…And Stefano and I are about to take off on a couple of trips that we’d planned (and paid for!) months ago.

Our first trip will be to Amsterdam, a city that neither of us has visited before. We’re leaving tomorrow, actually, and will be gone until next Tuesday (Stefano’s cousin, and the cousin’s girlfriend, will be moving in with and taking care of our cats). Like many other Florentines, we’re taking advantage of the fact that next Tuesday is a holiday here in Florence: it’s the city’s patron saint’s birthday…St. John the Baptist, to be precise. This gives us a four-day holiday…perfect for visiting a European city (if you live in Europe, that is! 😉 ).

(Fascinating fact: did you know that Amsterdam has MORE canals than Venice? I’d have never guessed! And no, no way, I’m not going to count them! 😉 )

And then, in early July, Stefano and I are flying to the UK to meet up with our fabulous British friend Paul (whom we met via my blog several years ago, in fact). The three of us are going together to Skokholm island (Wales, UK) for four full days, mainly to see our beloved puffins. (We won’t, er, mention the fact that Italy beat England 2-0 last week in the 2014 FIFA World Cup… 😉 ).

Then Stefano and I are flying back to the States to visit my parents in early August…

So, as you can see, I’ve got a lot on my plate right now.

I would like to add that, since I returned to Italy, I’ve answered as many blog reader queries as possible, but please don’t be too upset with me if I haven’t gotten to yours…yet. Just to give you an idea, when I got home I found 2400 unread messages in my inbox. No kidding. True, I’d already read many of them while I was in the U.S., but there were still quite a few that I hope to have the time to read at some point soon = this will be a slow process, though. As you can imagine, right now I have to give priority to my own (paid!) work AND, of course!!!, to the messages I get from my family.

If you have an urgent query, though, try writing to me again, or contact me on Facebook. But not until next week, after we get back from Amsterdam. Thanks!

Please note that if your question has already been answered somewhere in the blog, or if it is an impossible-for-me-to-answer question, I might not answer it at all. Try using the “Search” box option…it’s so handy that I use it myself!

Finally, let me mention that I really REALLY appreciate the kind comments I’ve received in this period. I probably won’t get to answering those, either, due to lack of time, but I wanted you to know that they make me feel so much better. So thanks and double thanks for taking the time to write comments and/or send me private messages. Much appreciated! 🙂

Okay…that’s it. Take care, everyone!!! Ciao…or rather, tot ziens!!! See you next week! 🙂

Many thanks to Karen for posting the link to a Mayo Clinic article that contains more details about the modified measles vaccine study that I discussed briefly in my previous post. More specifically, it tells us more about the woman who had the best response to the treatment, which gives us the personal side to this story…always very nice to have. An interesting read: http://goo.gl/rUyK9j

Fingers crossed for her…and for all of us!!!

My Dad is finally home from the rehab center. Relief! Joy!

As you can imagine, I have been incredibly busy in these past few weeks (so much to do!), but I’d still like to apologize for having ignored the blog for so long…AND I’d also like to thank those of you who have written me private and public messages of support…much appreciated in this difficult time, let me tell ya!!!

But really, things are going very well. Dad has made a remarkable recovery from the stroke (=it was a lacunar stroke, we were informed), and, as strange as this is going to sound, in my opinion he seems better than before the stroke, which goes to show that all the exercise he did on a daily basis at the rehab center has worked like a charm.

I’m still at my parents’ house, of course, and I will be here for another couple of weeks, just to see my parents through this initial phase. I plan to be back in Florence for Stefano’s birthday…June 7, that is. Because of what happened to my father, Stefano and I weren’t together on our 15th wedding anniversary earlier this month (indeed, I confess I completely forgot about it until now!), but I really want to be with him on his birthday…

Now for the measles vaccine mentioned in my post’s title: about ten days ago I was notified by many blog readers of a possible “cure” for myeloma. So I clicked on and read many of the articles discussing this matter. In a nutshell, two myeloma patients were singled out from a Mayo Clinic Phase I clinical trial testing a genetically modified, high-dose measles virus on patients with myeloma who had been through all the usual treatments and really had no options left.

From what I read, it seems that most patients did not respond to the modified measles treatment. But the news went viral anyway, based on the case of a patient, a woman, who went into complete remission, which is amazing news, of course…or so I thought at first. According to a Cancer Research UK article (see below link), the tumor she’d had on her forehead, which had initially disappeared during treatment, did return at some point and is now being treated with radiotherapy. So I wonder what that means…hmmm…

As for the other patient, also a woman, her myeloma initially responded well to the treatment but then, sadly, came back with a vengeance (that is, it was worse than before), according to the Cancer Research UK article, which I really encourage you to read, mainly because it has a lot of details about the trial, including dosage of the vaccine, etc. AND it is easy to read.

So, what to make of all this? Not much, in my opinion. It’s simply too early, and I don’t feel very excited about it. But, certainly, it’s an intriguing study…

And now for the links:

Here’s the Cancer Research UK article: http://goo.gl/Bufh7s

I chose this Medical News article mainly because, toward the end, it links to another article discussing a study that has found a link between the “aging” gene and myeloma….certainly worth looking into when I have more time: http://goo.gl/KR0sGs

Stefano sent me this article published in one of Italy’s top newspapers, the “Corriere della Sera,” proving that there has also been international interest in the outcome of the Mayo Clinic measles trial (note: the article is, obviously, in Italian!): http://goo.gl/5OCF4M

For those who enjoy/understand medical jargon, here is the link to the actual Mayo Clinic trial proceedings: http://goo.gl/b4QzPW

That’s it for now! Take care, everyone! Ciao! 🙂

Something else happened last week (weekend, really), which could have been really devastating, especially for me. It has nothing to do with myeloma or strokes, but with flights and airlines…

On Saturday Stefano left for Italy…or so we thought. As usual, at a certain point I began tracking his flight online. No problem, in the beginning. The airline’s website showed that the flight had left more or less on time.

I checked back about an hour later and discovered that his flight had been “diverted” and was on its way back to Boston.

Diverted? DI-VER-WHAAAT???

I immediately called the airline (which I won’t name…pointless to do so, since I imagine that all airlines react in the same manner…) and was told absolutely NOTHING…something similar to this: “I’m sorry, m’am, all we know is that the flight has been diverted and is returning to Boston.” During that first phone call, I burst into tears and began shaking (I never shake, by the way…And, FTR, my common sense kicked in after about 20 minutes, so I stopped shaking…but boyohboy was I scared…).

In addition to tracking Stefano’s flight on the airline’s website, I also used a website called Flight Beware (= not its real name, in case you’re wondering)…A handy Flight Beware graph showed that Stefano’s flight had turned around more or less around Halifax, Nova Scotia.

But…why had it turned around? WHY??? What had happened?

For three hours I tracked Stefano’s flight on every tracking website I could get my fingers on.

For three hours, more or less every 15-20 minutes, I called the airline, hoping for some news. And every time I got the same, standard, almost robotic answer: “Sorry, m’am, we don’t know what happened. Thanks for calling THE AIRLINE.”

Thanks for calling THE AIRLINE??? You’ve got to be BLOODY KIDDING!!! I know it’s part of the airline reps’  training (and in fact I resisted the temptation to get angry and/or growl…after all, none of this was the fault of the poor rep!), but really, under special circumstances such as these, the airline should really prepare their reps to handle things in a more reassuring way…and GIVE US SOME NEWS, for crying out loud!!!

Now, according to the airline’s website, Stefano’s flight should have landed in Boston at 8:01 PM. And that is precisely when Flight Beware–which, until 8:01, had been tracking the flight closely–suddenly displayed “no result.” NO RESULT???

I admit that I panicked and began calling THE AIRLINE almost every five minutes. Worst case scenarios popped into my mind, even hijackings, since the airline reps were refusing to tell me ANYTHING…

At 9:30 PM,, a reasonable rep finally let me know that the flight had landed…an hour and a half earlier…uhm.

Then, just a few minutes later, Stefano called. He’d just gotten through customs and had been informed that he was to spend the night in Boston. RELIEF!!! Happy dance!!! 😀

He told me what the airline reps hadn’t: about two hours into the flight, the pilot announced that a RED light had gone on, that it was therefore too dangerous to proceed and that he was turning back toward Boston (thank you, Mr. Pilot! If I could, I would hug and kiss you, every member of your family, and your next door neighbors…Grazie!!!). So it was some sort of mechanical problem…obviously not a big one.

And this leads me right into the main point I’d like to make: what possible security rule would have been violated if, shortly after 8 PM, an airline rep had told me that my husband’s diverted plane had landed safely back in Boston? Why did I have to wait another hour and a half to receive this information? I can understand that the airline reps would hesitate to inform me of a mechanical problem while the plane was still up in the air, but why couldn’t i have been told that it had landed?

Believe me, when it comes to airport and airplane security, I’m the first to approve. I take off my shoes before being told to do so, I don’t mind waiting in line for ages (lots of people get irritated when there are delays, but I don’t), I’m super careful about liquids in my hand luggage, etc.

Speaking of liquids…I follow the security rules, even when they don’t make much sense…like when, a few years ago, a customs official threw away my organic hand cream because it was in a tube that was more than 100 ml…And here let me bring up a pet peeve of mine, just quickly: if I’d put that very same hand cream inside a few 100 ml bottles, it would have been okay. Same cream, same quantity. Yet, as I recall, you can bring a couple of your golf clubs on the plane with you. So yes, I don’t understand some of the rules…But fine, whatever, no problem, lesson learned, won’t make that mistake again.

As you know (see previous post), last week wasn’t the easiest week for me and my family. And then, what happened on Saturday evening with Stefano’s flight…well, I don’t know how I managed to get through all those scary hours, not knowing what had happened to the love of my life…my best friend…my handsome brilliant soulmate…

Well, this experience highlights the need for airlines to revise their policies concerning customer “assistance.” In some cases, exceptions should be made…providing, of course, that no sensible security issues are in danger of being violated.

But this is just my opinion, as usual. And hey, the most important thing is that my Stefano is fine. He spent the night in an airport hotel in Boston and left for Italy the following day. He’s now safely back in Florence…with our cats.

Nothing else really matters…

It’s just a story…

Luckily…

This post will explain why I haven’t posted a word on the blog for many days, why I have “disappeared” from Facebook and why I haven’t answered any blog reader queries since Sunday, April 27, which is when Stefano and I returned to Cape Cod from New York City.

By the way, we had a total BLAST in New York…an incredible amazing fabulous fun interesting time…and let me add that a very big part of our marvelous NYC experience was the time we spent with my blog reader John, his wife and their two super-adorable pugs…thankyouthankyouthankyou, you two (I will be sending you a package soon!)!!!!!

But I’m not going to talk about New York right now…I will write a separate post about it at some point…

No, today’s topic is the week from hell (mentioned in this post’s title) = the week after we got back from New York…

Where do I start? Well, my father taught me it’s always good to start at the beginning, so that’s what I’m going to do.

Let’s see. As I mentioned, Stefano and I got back to my parents’ house on Sunday, April 27, in the late afternoon. Everything was fine.

Then, on Monday night, my father mentioned he’d had a bit of weakness in his legs while he was going up the stairs to go to bed. We thought nothing of it. He’s very tall and has had a few “balance” problems for years. We just thought he was tired. After all, he’s 86 and a half years old…

The following day (April 29), right after lunch, I heard a strange banging noise coming from the half bathroom on the ground floor. I knew my father was inside, so I asked if he was okay. He answered that he had somehow slipped to the floor and couldn’t get up. I tried to open the door, but he was leaning against it. Now, this is a very small bathroom and, as I mentioned, my Dad is a big guy, so I called Stefano and finally, after getting my Dad to move slightly away from the door, the two of us managed to get inside. My Dad was exhausted and sweaty from the effort of sliding away from the bathroom door. And, since he couldn’t stand on his own, we essentially picked him up and took him into the dining room.

Mom called an ambulance, even though Dad tried to reassure us that he was fine and didn’t want to go to the hospital, and in fact he looked fine and was speaking normally. But we knew that what had happened in the bathroom wasn’t normal and wanted to have him checked out.

After getting to Cape Cod Hospital, Dad had a bunch of tests done, including a CT scan. We were told that nothing out of the ordinary had showed up but that he was being admitted to the hospital on “observation” status for the night.

The following morning (this would have been Wednesday), Dad had an MRI that showed he’d had a mild stroke (more than a TIA, but not a massive stroke). We were not informed about the stroke, however, until late afternoon, when Dad’s hospital doctor finally came to speak with us.

We were stunned. Absolutely stunned.

And this brings me to WHY I’ve given so many details about what happened. Until now, I had been under the impression that strokes are always accompanied by slurred speech and drooling and paralysis. Well, that is not the case. There are different types of strokes, and different levels of severity.

Dad’s stroke was caused by a blood vessel popping and bleeding in the right side of his brain, which controls the left side of his body..I believe this is called a hemorrhagic stroke. As far as I can tell, and from what we’ve been told, his main post-stroke symptom is a bit of weakness on the left side of his body (weakness, not paralysis, thank goodness), so he should be able to recuperate 100%…or thereabouts.

After a four-day hospital stay, Dad was transferred to a rehabilitation center, where he will remain for about two weeks. He’s doing amazingly well, I think. And I have to say that I’m really impressed with the level of care he’s been receiving, both at the hospital and now at the rehab center.

Well, I was supposed to go back home to Italy with Stefano on Saturday, May 3. But I couldn’t leave, of course. I’ll be staying here until my father comes home…and until I’m sure that my parents will be okay by themselves.

Needless to say, from now on we will be paying plenty of attention to any signs of weakness in our limbs…all possible signs of a stroke…

And that is the main reason why I’ve written this post…this information could possibly be of use to others, too.

Always pay attention…

Well, yes, I’ve been incredibly busy…busy visiting with my parents, busy playing with Muffet (their lovely cat), busy running errands with my mother, busy planting flowers in my parents’ garden and…well…busybusybusy. In a good way, of course!!! And when I haven’t been busy with that sort of stuff, I’ve had to work, too, which means that, at least for now, my plans of reading and posting about the studies I brought with me haven’t quite worked out. Oh well!

Speaking of busy, Stefano arrived last Friday (from Italy), and tomorrow we’re driving down to New York City for a short holiday (until Saturday). We’ll be staying with a generous, lovely, kind blog reader and his wife in Manhattan. This is how that happened: when I posted my appeal for help in finding a decent but not too expensive hotel or B&B in New York City (here on the blog), a few blog readers generously offered their homes to us. I really didn’t expect that…and I was quite overwhelmed, I admit. I turned down the offers as gracefully as I could…I mean, don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy meeting blog readers (in fact, the readers I’ve met in real life are now friends of ours, which is absolutely lovely), but Stefano and I are two very independent people who don’t want to be a nuisance to anyone…especially to folks we haven’t met!

But when John wrote and said he’d be delighted if we would stay with him, it was different. I feel that I know John personally, since we’ve been corresponding for quite some time now. He has an interesting “smoldering” background, but I can’t say more than that until (if!) he gives me permission to do so. Suffice it to say that I can’t wait to meet him. 🙂 And I am also looking forward to meeting Liza who also offered her NYC home to us…and possibly a few other blog readers, depending on their schedules this week. Should be FUN!!!

The idea of going back to New York after so many years has brought up a lot of different emotions. I am referring mainly, of course, to 9/11, which had a huge impact on me even though I didn’t know anyone who died in the attack. I was in Italy when it happened…in fact, I was at home alone when a friend phoned to tell me to turn on the T.V., just in time to watch the second plane crash into the South tower. I will never forget…

Okay, time for a change of subject!!! A few days ago a close friend (whom I met through the blog, by the way!) sent me the link to a very interesting BBC article: Sir Anthony Epstein was interviewed recently about the Epstein Barr virus connection to various forms of cancer: http://goo.gl/zMm65r

As you know (if you have been following my blog for a few years), I am very interested in the possible viral connection to myeloma. The main reason (for my interest) is that while I was in grad school I myself became very ill due to an Epstein Barr viral attack…and this occurred, coincidentally (or possibly not!), just a few years before my MGUS was discovered…

Anyway, this article describes HOW the two researchers (Epstein and Barr) discovered the blasted virus that was named after them…A verrrrry good read even if you don’t find viruses particularly interesting…so do have a look…

Okay, Stefano and I have a zillion things to do today (rent a car, etc.), so I’d better get going and do at least some of them…Have a great week, everyone! 🙂

I’m here. At my parent’ house on Cape Cod. It’s great to be back… 🙂

As soon as I set foot in my parents’ house–after first hugging Mom and Dad, of course–I asked: “so, where’s Muffet? (Muffet is my parents’ new cat…I wrote a post about her last month.)

She was asleep on my parents’ bed, but after about 5 minutes she came downstairs, sniffed me and let me pet her. Then, to everyone’s surprise, she jumped right into my lap–the lap of a complete stranger (to her, I mean)–and settled down.

Muffet is the purrfect lap cat…such a sweet cat…very playful, very gentle. Adorable. When she wants to play, she leads me into the living room where most of her toys are. Smart kitty!

These are the first photos that have been taken of Muffet after my parents adopted her. Isn’t she (also!) a beauty?

Anyway, clearly, all is well here on Cape Cod…!!!

How did this happen??? Wasn’t it Xmas just the other day??? 😉 I still can’t believe that it’s April, and that I’m taking off for the U.S.A…again. Yep, I’m leaving tomorrow to go visit my parents and their new kitty, Muffet. The last few months have gone by in a flash, I must say…

Speaking of which, I would like to apologize to those whose emails have remained unanswered. I’ve done my best, but I just haven’t had the time to reply to some of you…

Anyway, while I’m in the U.S. I’ll have access to my Mom’s computer, so I will be online every day (working, mostly…yeah, the paying job/s 😉 ), except for the few days we plan to be in New York City,  and will try to write at least a couple of posts. I’m taking a couple of scientific studies with me, hoping I’ll find the time to read, and post about, them. Interesting stuff!

Okaaaaay, I’d better get back to my packing…Take care, everyone…I’ll write a post once I get settled. Ciao! 🙂