Well, okay, I was hoping for better…I was hoping for outstanding and extraordinary…yes, I was hoping for dazzling results.

 

But the tests that Sherlock and I had on July 31^st, at the end of our resveratrol experiment, are quite a bit less than dazzling. A first glance at my results turned me into Ms. Glum. I simply went to bed (it was bed time anyway)…all gloomy and doomy. In the morning, after a more careful perusal, I realized that my results weren’t THAT bad. Then, once Sherlock and I had finished comparing our tests point by point, I started feeling much better. Why?

 

Because she and I are still stable. What could be more important than that? I will take “stable” over “dazzling” any day. Well, okay, to be completely honest, I wouldn’t have minded glittering just a wee bit.

 

For some reason that puzzles us, though, our blood viscosity shot way up. Mine is the highest it has ever been: 97 mm/hr (the top end of the range is 30!). Sherlock’s blood viscosity went up quite a bit, too, though not as much as mine. I have my own theory about this sudden increase.

 

Preamble (to the theory): in July I began taking a homeopathic remedy that Sherlock has been taking for quite a long time and that is supposed to prevent bronchitis. She, in fact, hasn’t had a case of bronchitis in years. So, since my lungs seem to be my weakest spot, I asked my family doctor if I could take it, too. He said, “sure, go right ahead.” You have to take this remedy every day for the first ten days of the month, for three months, preferably beginning in June. The conscientious, meticulous Sherlock began in June. I, the disorganized procrastinator, in July.

 

Thing is, as soon as I begin taking this remedy, I had an almost immediate reaction to it, in the form of a runny nose and a sniffle. The same thing happened in August and now in September. No big deal, though.

 

My theory: could it be that my teeny tiny but feisty immune system had a reaction to the remedy? Since the blood viscosity value (=VES, in Italian) is an inflammation marker, I suspect that my recent high VES value could have been caused by the stimulation of my immune system. This is just a feeling, mind you. It could just be a freak result, as a friend told me. Or it may have been affected by other variables, such as the hot weather or testing conditions. In fact, a doctor friend of mine told me that the end of hot July is not the best time to have tests done. Ah. Anyway, who knows…I will ask my family doctor on Thursday for his opinion, too.

 

Other items. My hematocrit is slightly below the normal range for the first time ever. So are both my red and white cell blood counts. Just slightly, though. I am not too concerned about it.

 

Worrisome trend: my IgM has been going down a teeny tiny bit with every test. It is now 0,08 (the low end of the normal range is 0,40). What happens if it disappears altogether? Is that a possibility? And is there a way to increase that number? Hmmm…more things that I must investigate.

 

An oddity: even though both curcumin and resveratrol are supposed to lower cholesterol, my total cholesterol shot up to a second, all-time high. Hello?!!! Was it caused by the ice cream I ate during the heat wave in July? No idea.

 

But there is some good news, of course. My monoclonal component went down from 28.1 to 27.7 %. My total IgG went down a wee bit, but, more importantly, my M-spike shows very little change (a fraction of a fraction upward, from 2.44 to 2.46) since my last set of tests. Sherlock’s M-spike went up a bit more than mine, but it has been higher in the past…

 

These are the main things. My results show no significant changes in B2M, LDH, etc., so I won’t bother listing those (all within the normal range, as usual, anyway).

 

What is our conclusion? Well, we are a bit disappointed but also happy to be stable. The main value that Sherlock and I will be monitoring closely in our next set of tests will obviously be our blood viscosity. I am convinced that it will go down, though. 

 

A question just popped into my head: did we take enough resveratrol (one gram a day) to make a difference? Hmmm.

 

Well, even though these results show no incredibly positive trends, there are also no incredibly negative ones. So we both continue to amble along the path of stability. That’s what matters.

 

P.S. Sherlock and I will be taking more or less the same things (curcumin, quercetin and fish oil) until we have our next set of tests in late October. 

 

Together, just like the good friends that we have become.

The other evening Stefano arrived home from work and asked: “there is an amazing cloud in the sky, have you seen it?”

 

“No,” I answered.

 

We went outside. For a few minutes, until the tiger mosquito “clouds” sent us hurrying back inside, we stood side by side, gazing in admiration at a huge, odd-shaped cloud illuminated by the setting sun.

 

Hand in hand, like little kids.

Yesterday, as I do on an almost daily basis, I checked out other myeloma blogs to see how my fellow bloggers are doing. Well, I wish to thank Teresa (“The Beast” blog) for leading me to Randy Pausch’s “Last Lecture.” You may have heard about the talented computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University who delivered a lecture in September 2007 titled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.” The lecture has been seen by millions on YouTube.

 

Prof. Pausch had pancreatic cancer. His last lecture was literally his last. He died in July 2008.

 

I urge you to watch it when you have slightly more than an hour of free time…you won’t regret it (I think): http://www.thelastlecture.com/aboutr.htm. This link will take you to a page where you can read a bit about Prof. Pausch, his work, pancreatic cancer, etc. Click on “Randy’s website” (or here: http://tinyurl.com/2brkxr) to find a series of videos, including his brief testimony before Congress and…his last lecture.

 

I laughed out loud, I teared up, I listened. I learned. Early in the lecture he tells the audience that We can’t change the cards we’re dealt, just how we play the hand. Indeed! He then focuses on his childhood dreams. While listening to his words, I tried thinking of my own childhood dreams. Not much came to mind, oddly enough, but I did recall spending hours putting jigsaw puzzles together as a kid (this is pertinent, as we will see). The more difficult the puzzle was, the more pieces it had, the better. The absolute best was putting together 5000-piece puzzles. I still love puzzles, and would have one spread out on a table right now…if we didn’t have cats, that is!

 

In fact, and this is a brief aside, my early enjoyment of elaborate puzzle-solving explains a lot about who I am today—my curiosity, my desire to learn and do research about practically everything under the sun. Of course, now I have an extra “push”—the quest to save my life and (I hope!) help others in the process. My childhood dreams certainly never included developing myeloma! But what is myeloma if not a big and daunting puzzle…the most difficult puzzle of all, in my experience???

 

Anyway, and here I get to the point (!), the first childhood dream that comes to mind is related to my love of puzzle-solving: I wanted to become an art restorer. The idea of bringing ancient paintings back to life was fascinating to me. Well, I never did go into the art restoration field…my life took other turns.

 

Then there was the “Margaret the Archaeologist” phase…another example of how nerdy I was even as a child. At the age of ten or so, I became obsessed with the “mystery” of the Etruscan language. I was certain that I would grow up to be the first to unlock the secrets of that ancient language.

 

My parents took me to many of the Etruscan sites and museums all over Tuscany and waited patiently while I painstakingly copied tomb inscriptions and the baffling symbols I found on urns (etc). I still have my Etruscan notebooks in a sealed box somewhere. Well, I never did find the solution to the Etruscan puzzle, but when I went to college in the United States I took some archaeology courses as part of my major in Social Anthropology…and I wrote a paper about the Etruscan civilization and language. So even later on in my life I had a connection to this particular childhood interest. Still do, in fact. I love visiting ancient sites, Etruscan and non-Etruscan.

  

I don’t recall having any childhood dreams as creative as Prof. Pausch’s dreams of being Dr. Kirk (Star Trek) or experiencing zero gravity. The closest thing would be my longing to sprout wings on command and be able to fly. I still dream about flying, but I have in recent years added the ability to become invisible so hunters won’t shoot me down…hey, you’ve got to be practical, after all! 🙂

 

Well, I don’t want to harp too long on this subject. I simply wanted to post about a fascinating lecture that gave me quite a lot of food for thought and will probably be of interest and use to other cancer patients. Prof. Pausch offers a lot of good advice, including the following: never underestimate the importance of having fun. Very true! And I loved what he said about his near-deathbed conversion…but I won’t spoil it, you will just have to go watch the video to hear what happened… 🙂

 

I would like to end the post with a bit of advice that I have taken to heart and that Prof. Pausch talks about in his last lecture:

 

Never lose the child-like wonder.

I already knew that under certain circumstances it is not a good idea to swallow pills with grapefruit juice, but I didn’t know that orange and apple juice have recently joined the no-no list. New research shows that they, too, may limit the body’s absorption of drugs, compromising their effectiveness. I found this quote and more information in a HealthDay News report published on August 19^th: http://tinyurl.com/5rrc9e.

 

So all three juices may lower the body’s absorption of some medications. Lower? Hmm, this is not good news at all. The HealthDay News story provides a list of medications that are affected by the three juices, by the way.

 

I used to swallow my curcumin capsules with grapefruit juice (or even a whole grapefruit) whenever possible because I thought, or hoped!, based on my readings, that the latter might increase the bioavailability of the former. I knew, though, that it isn’t a good idea for certain drugs (chemotherapy, e.g.) to be lingering in your bloodstream. But with curcumin we have the opposite problem…oh well, no more juice around pill-taking time from now on.

 

In sum, to be on the safe side, the best way to swallow any sort of pill seems to be with water…full glasses of water, not just a few sips. At the end of the HealthDay News report, I learned that it’s also best to drink cool water, not hot, because your stomach empties cool water faster, sending the medication on its way to the small intestine and finally the blood stream. Ok, I didn’t know that. So tea is out, too, I guess. So much still to be learned…

I read a fascinating news report earlier today. A Massachusetts resident who has been suffering for the past 12 years from the painful after effects of a famous case of salmonella poisoning began sprinkling turmeric on her food a couple of months ago. Well, her life has changed. For the better.

 

She can now do things that she wasn’t able to do before, such as vacuum the floor. And here I do feel compelled to comment that it is a tad beyond my comprehension how vacuuming the floor could possibly be viewed as a positive thing…!!!

 

Seriously, though, this is a very interesting story, published on August 15^th, see: http://tinyurl.com/5nzu5d. And it gives us a further example of the importance of spicing up our food!

This morning I read some of the PubMed Alerts that I received during my absence. One of them led me to the abstract (see: http://tinyurl.com/5wrw5p) of a recent study on quercetin and prostate cancer cells published in “Prostate” at the end of August.

 

The researchers wanted to evaluate the effect(s) of quercetin on normal and malignant prostate cells and to identify the target(s) of quercetin’s action. Their results have implications for myeloma, too, as we will see later on: Our findings demonstrate that quercetin treatment of prostate cancer cells results in decreased cell proliferation and viability. Furthermore, we demonstrate that quercetin promotes cancer cell apoptosis by down-regulating the levels of heat shock protein (Hsp) 90.

 

Quercetin killed the malignant cancer cells by inhibiting this thingie called Hsp90, but did no harm to the normal prostate cells.

 

As their name suggests, heat shock proteins protect cells that are exposed to dangerously high temperatures. They are also triggered when, for instance, our cells are exposed to infections or toxins (etc.). But, and there is a BUT!, they can also be essential to the survival of cancer cells. You can read more about this process in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hsp90 (scroll down to “Cancerous cells”). Inhibition of Hsp90 has thus become an important area in cancer research.

 

The main reason I am reporting about Hsp90 is that I found that it is a target of conventional myeloma treatment as well. I located several studies on the involvement of Hsp90 in the survival of myeloma cells, such as this one, published in August 2008 in “Leukemia”: http://tinyurl.com/59k4g8. It confirms that this particular heat shock protein is over-expressed in myeloma cells and critically contributes to tumour cell survival. Definitely not good!

 

A pertinent aside: a quick search of the Clinical Trial website revealed that there are currently three clinical trials involving multiple myeloma and two different Hsp90 inhibitors in combination with Bortezomib (Velcade). Two of the trials are still recruiting, the other is active but not recruiting. Interesting.

 

In conclusion, our (Sherlock’s and mine) most recent experiment did not include any quercetin, but I had already planned to resume taking it after the summer holiday. And so, last week, I added one gram of quercetin to my regular protocol.

 

After reading the Hsp90/quercetin abstract this morning, I am very happy I did so!

Wherever we went in France, I was looking for cats. Of course, I found and took photos of quite a few.

 

This particular one (photo below) was one of my luckiest cat shots, taken as I was strolling down the streets of Auxerre, an absolutely adorable Medieval town in northern Burgundy. Stefano had trotted ahead of me, in fact he had disappeared from my sight, but I wanted to have enough time to take in the charm of Auxerre’s ancient half-timbered houses (if you look carefully at the photo on the right, beyond the 15^th century clock tower, you can make out a half-timbered red house in the background).

 

So I meandered. Slowly.

 

I looked up at one point and saw two cats, very much like my own Piccolo and Priscilla (except you would NEVER catch the latter licking the former!), perched on the window sill of a second floor apartment. If I had been walking at Stefano’s quicker pace, I wouldn’t have taken this photo. Incidentally, I was soon joined by other pedestrians, curious to see what I was craning my neck to photograph. Their oohs and aahs of delight mirrored my own.

 

This episode merely reinforced a feeling I started getting after my diagnosis–that sometimes it’s not a bad idea to slow down in order not to miss even the small things in life.

 

And so I strolled during the entire vacation…

I am still in holiday mode, also a bit tired (tired from a HOLIDAY, shame on me!!!), so I am not doing any research or reading any of the interesting material sent to me by some of you (thanks!). I will in the next few days or so. In the meantime, here is another petit anecdote.

 

We spent the last three days of our holiday in a glorious bed and breakfast, a lovely 18^th century country house with scenic views of the Provençal countryside, just 10 km. from Avignon. Our room was huge, the bed was comfortable, and the views from our bedroom terrace were splendid. Breakfast was served on a large ancient stone-paved terrace shaded by grapevines. Again, lovely views all around.

 

We planned to tour the Parc Ornithologique of Camargue on Tuesday, the day after we arrived in the Avignon area. We were eager to see pink flamingos and some of the 100 other bird species that nest there during the summer (for more photos, click on Les Oiseaux: http://www.parcornithologique.com/).

 

I must say, this was definitely a highlight of our entire trip, and I recommend that devoted bird watchers pay a visit to this park if they get the chance. If you go in August, though, let me warn you that parts of the trail around the park are completely unshaded, so come prepared (bring hats and water, mainly). Hot!!!

 

At any rate, early on Tuesday morning, waiting for Stefano to get out of the shower so we could go downstairs for breakfast, I was sitting on our bedroom terrace, enjoying the views, the peace and calm, and the sight of chirpy little birds fluttering hither and thither. Suddenly I heard an incredibly loud clacking/croaking noise…and a few seconds later a huge bird, with the biggest wings and the longest legs I had ever seen in my life, landed on top of a tall pine tree down in the field. Right in front of me. Stunned, I was unable to move for a moment (this incident occurred before I’d had some coffee, so reflexes were on the slow side…). Unfortunately, by the time I had grabbed my camera, the bird was gone. I got a miserable shot of its big wings flapping in the distance. Not worth posting.

 

Hopping up and down with excitement, I breathlessly declared to a dripping wet Stefano: I just saw a pink flamingo!

 

A pink flamingo? Well, he wanted to believe me, but I could tell he was sceptical.

 

Off we went to have breakfast. In my half-invented but apparently comprehensible French, I described to our hostess what I had seen. Grinning good-naturedly, she informed me that I had actually seen a heron that visited their fish pond at the same time every morning. She went on to reassure me that I would have another chance to take a photo of it. But the heron must have found other early morning feeding grounds in the following two days, since I didn’t see it again.

 

Mixing up pink flamingos and herons. I suppose that means that my career as a bird watching expert is over…even before it started!

 

Oh, this part of the trip was so much fun. It is very entertaining to watch feeding flamingos (see photos 2 and 3; in 2 you can also see a couple of irritated males confronting each other). They dip their heads into the muddy water, then (almost as a group, it seemed to me) raise them, making rather dreadful honking noises and waving them about in the air. Then their heads, upside down so that their beaks can filter micro-organisms out of the water and mud, go back down into the water…again, almost simultaneously. Up, down, up…very odd to watch.

 

But some of the best shots I got were of sleeping flamingos. They really do sleep perched on one leg, with the other leg folded up under their bodies and their heads laid over their backs, as you can see in the last two photos.

 

Too funny! But puffins are still my favourites…

 

Freaky facts that I read about flamingos:

 

-Their eyes are bigger than their brains (fancy that…!).

-Their beaks are referred to as “Roman noses.”

-Their pink colouring is due to the carotene found in their food—algae and small crustaceans. Without carotene, their feathers would be white.

I am going to jump back to the beginning of our holiday, to the part when we were still in Italy, more precisely in the Alpine region of Valle d’Aosta, a five-hour drive north-west of Florence.

 

Our hotel was located on the edge of the Mont Avic Natural Park, the first natural park in Valle d’Aosta (for more info, see: http://www.montavic.it/). Our room had a terrace with marvellous views of the Alps. In fact, I would have been quite happy just to sit out there all day, enjoying the chilly breeze and stunning views, but no, we had brought our trekking gear with us, so off we went on a long hike in spite of the uncertain weather (as you can see from my rather hazy photo).

 

This particular hike is recommended for “beginners” by the Mont Avic tourist info office. The trail led to a lake called Lac de Servaz, at an altitude of 1806 metres. The hike didn’t sound too bad, a little more than five kilometres roundtrip, an estimated two/two hours and a half each way. We figured, hah, no problem, we can manage that.

 

Ah, but we hadn’t calculated that most of the way to the lake was a steep climb up a rocky and rather jagged mountain. We ended up climbing a bit more than 500 metres. I must remember to thank Sherlock for giving us trekking poles. Without my poles, I probably wouldn’t have made it.

 

As it is, after about two hours (plus some) of climbing and sweating buckets in spite of the cool breezes, I felt that I just couldn’t climb any farther. I decided to tell Stefano to keep going up to the lake that I was beginning to believe didn’t exist, and that I would wait right there for him to return.

 

But I decided to go around one last vertical bend. And there it was. The lake. A haven of peace and quiet. We sank down on its welcoming rocky/grassy beach, ate our sandwiches and rested for 15 minutes or so. If it hadn’t been rather cloudy, my photos would have been amazing. But clouds obscured the view of the mountain peaks above us. Oh well, can’t have everything!

 

In the end, we were happy that we had made the climb. The views were spectacular, and besides, the entire trek hadn’t taken us more than five hours, so we felt that we had done quite well for two city folks with a rather sedentary lifestyle.

 

I’d like to end today’s post with the typical hotel sign that I found hanging in our bathroom, you know, the one that tells you to drop your towels on the floor if you wish to have them changed. The instructions in Italian were fine, of course. But the English translation read as follows:

 

“If wished the change left to earth your towels. Thank you.”