I’d forgotten how tiring it is to be adopted by a new cat. The problem is trying to find a balance between spending time with the new kitty, so he can get used to us and learn to love us, AND paying enough attention to the other cats who don’t like what they smell and hear…

And also, as all cat lovers know, cats don’t like CLOSED DOORS. Peekaboo, perhaps our most curious cat, has really been trying to get inside the bedroom where Prezzemolo has been “segregated” since we got home yesterday afternoon. She scratches at the door (off and on) quite insistently and almost got in once, so we have to be super careful when entering or exiting the room. I don’t want any contact to take place between Prezzemolo and the others until the vet has given us the green, “he’s healthy!” light. 

Okay, so how did we get ourselves into this furry mess? 😉 Well, I’m a member of a Facebook group called “Adozione gattini Firenze,” which means “Kitty adoption Florence.” (It’s run by members of one of the famous Florentine cat shelters, located in Bagno a Ripoli, just outside of Florence.) It was there that I recently read the story of Amelia, a 2-month-old black kitten who had been adopted together with her little brother but then, shortly thereafter, was brought back to the cat shelter. Alone. The little brother stayed with his new family.

Well, Stefano and I were simply horrified. I mean, how can you keep one kitten but refuse the other? So we called the cat shelter and–through the lovely ladies who are in charge of it–the kitten’s new foster Mom. She and I chatted on the phone for some time. The problem with Amelia, it turns out, is that she is VERY shy and runs away from people. So her foster Mom and I thought that perhaps it wouldn’t be a good idea to plop her into a household with other five cats of which one, Pinga, is a bit on the aggressive side. Amelia didn’t need any new psychological traumas, in short.  

Then her foster Mom suggested another kitty for us. Another black kitty, as it turns out (this must be a good year for black cats!), who is a month or so older than Amelia and has a blind eye. The poor dear had developed an eye infection that hadn’t been treated in time (this happened before he was abandoned at the cat shelter, where his eyes were treated immediately), and that is how he lost sight in one eye. After hearing his sad story, we really wanted to adopt him, but there was a problem here, too. Basically, since our cats are all indoor cats, not even one of ’em is vaccinated, so we’d have put them at risk with this kitten. The cat shelter ladies were very open and honest with us about this, which I appreciated. Are you yawning yet? 😉

Well, the cat shelter ladies didn’t give up on us. They suggested we go see three 4-month-old kittens up at the cat shelter. Again, a sad story of abandonment. But the ladies were 100% certain that these kitties came from a home, which meant they wouldn’t bring any illnesses inside our no-vaccine house. And so yesterday afternoon we drove out to the cat shelter to have a look at the kittens: two little tigers and a black one. We decided to see which one would pick us…and it just so happened to be the one we liked the best, little Prezzemolo, who let Stefano pick him up, while his brother and sister hid underneath a piece of furniture. So he’s the one that came home with us. By the way, that’s how our vet chooses her dogs (or rather, is chosen by her dogs!): the one that jumps in the car is the one that goes home with her…

Stefano spent last night in my parents’ bedroom with Prezzemolo, and I slept in our bed with the other cats. Stefano and I don’t like to sleep apart, but this was for a good reason, of course. 

Prezzemolo is going to be a very handsome adult cat. He has gorgeous sleek fur. But right now he’s a baby that wants to play almost all the time. And so we play. That’s the best thing to do with a curious, growing, purring, happy kitten… 🙂

Update: I just read on FB that his brother and sister were adopted today. So happy for all of them! 🙂

Cat number six joined our crazy but very happy feline household today. It’s a long story, which I’ll save for a rainy day since right now we’re taking turns staying in my parents’ bedroom with the new kitty, a four-month-old black male that we’ve named Prezzemolo (= “Parsley” in Italian).

Actually, he hasn’t quite “joined” the family yet, since we are keeping the new kitty separate from our adult cats, for obvious reasons. I will take Prezzemolo to the vet on Monday. After that, if everything’s okay, we will slowly introduce him to the others. The entire process usually takes about a week.

Anyway, here’s Prezzemolo. Stefano was brushing him, and he was purring like mad and kneading. A big purrbox, this one! We’re in love with him already. Okay, I have to get back to him now. He’s crying. Ciao! 🙂

A blog reader, thanks!, gave me the link to this recent smoldering myeloma study, an Italian study published in July in “Cancer.” You can read the abstract here: http://goo.gl/3WpkE

If you skip down to the Conclusions, it’s clear what this is all about: smoldering patients with at least 60% plasma cells seems to be at a higher risk of progressing to active myeloma. The authors recommend that these folks be “treated soon after diagnosis.” By the way, at the end of the Discussion part of the full study, this “soon” changes to “right away.” Now, in my book, “right away” is not the same as “soon,” but…perhaps I shouldn’t be so bloody picky…hmmm. 

Anyway, other “progression” parameters that you can find in the abstract: hemoglobin equal to or less than 12-5 g/dL and monoclonal component equal to or more than 2.5 g/dL. 

Okay, let’s have a look at the full study, without going overboard.

In the first paragraph, the study reiterates what we smolderers already know or should know: that, statistically, the risk of progression is 10% in the first five years. Incidentally, I can’t help mentioning that I’m at year 7 now…7 years and going strong!!! 🙂

And then they ask the key question: how can you figure out which SMM folks are at higher risk of progression? And WHO will progress more quickly?

To this I would add my own questions: if it were possible to know the answers to those questions, would you really want to know? Would it change anything you’re doing?

As far as I’m concerned, I can answer that I wouldn’t want to know, since I know that stress is such a significant factor in myeloma progression. In fact, it seems to be of particular importance in the early stages of myeloma. [In 2007 I wrote about an important Ohio University study the effect of stress on myeloma…Have a look at my Page on “Myeloma and stress” (scroll down my Pages on the right…it’s in the Myeloma section).]    

At any rate, thus far, the Italian authors claim, it has been IMPOSSIBLE to determine who will progress and who won’t, or who will progress rapidly and who will progress slowly. Lots of different, complicated (expensive) systems have been suggested, they say, but…well, these systems simply DO NOT work, including the complicated one set up by a group of Spanish researchers (= yes, I’m referring to that awful Spanish SMM-chemo trial designed by a bunch of researchers, including many who are CLOSELY tied to Celgene, hellooooo??? This trial stinks 100 times more than a fish left in the pantry for a month…). Where was I? Ah yes, fact is, all the “progression” systems created thus far DO NOT WORK, according to the Italians.

Well. Well. Well! Interesting.

And this leads to an excellent point, a point with which I happen to agree wholeheartedly!, that treatment in the absence of any symptoms has NO BENEFIT in terms of overall survival. Hah.

I’ve been saying the same thing for years…

Vindication…

The standard for SMM care, the Italians say, IN THE ABSENCE OF RELIABLE ELEMENTS TO PREDICT DISEASE PROGRESSION, is close follow-up without treatment.

Precisely. Esattamente. 

The authors then mention a Mayo Clinic study published in August 2011 in the New England Journal of Medicine (see http://goo.gl/wzeE0), which states that In patients without end-organ damage at diagnosis but with 60% or greater bone marrow involvement, the clinical course is characterized by progression to symptomatic myeloma within 2 years. Such patients should be considered to have myeloma that requires therapy at the time of diagnosis.

Statistics at work…again. Remember the Stephen Jay Gould essay on statistics? If not, please go read it. It’s excellent. I have a direct link to it here on the blog (scroll down and look on the right; it’s under “Useful links,” almost at the end…) or you can look it up via its title: The Median isn’t the Message.

Well, my own bone marrow “involvement” was “only” 50% in 2005 (that’s what changed my diagnosis from MGUS to SMM, in fact), which is obviously lower than 60%. But I have a real-life smoldering friend whose bone marrow biopsy result was 70% in November, 2005. So she would fit right in with the progression-within-two-years group.

But here’s the thing: she has NOT progressed and has no CRAB symptoms. And she’s doing fine. Perfectly fine. 

So much for progression in TWO years…So much for statistics. 

Anyway, back to the Italian study. According to these authors, progression risk was based on the following: hemoglobin or HgB, m-spike (monoclonal component), bone marrow plasma cell involvement rate; Beta-2 microglobulin, ESR (erythrocyte sedimentation rate; = VES in Italian), serum calcium, gender and age.

Of these, the really important ones were HgB, m-spike and bone marrow plasma cell rate, especially if it was above, or equal to, 60%.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, the authors believe that the subset of patients with a 60% or higher BMB result should be treated “right away”…that is, before any CRAB symptoms appear.

OUT-RAGE-OUS. This is a perfect example of a sweeping, generic statement bordering on the ridiculous, if not the dangerous: “oh yes, uhm, let’s just give chemotherapy to any smolderer whose BMPC involvement is at least 60%…”

😯

Interesting bit of news: according to these authors, the best way to identify the subset of what they have identified as “quick-progression” SMM patients would be to do a bone marrow ASPIRATE, not a bone marrow BIOPSY. You can find two references to this in the abstract…e.g., where it says: BMB was more sensitive for the detection of BMPC involvement, even though BMA was a more reliable indicator of a rapid progression to sy-MM.

Well, at the end of the full study the authors go as far as to state that this BMA finding strongly suggests that BMBs is NOT helpful to assess SMM patients…

Holy cats, mackerels, kingfishers and puffins! 

Well, the post title says it all. I’ve been super busy. With fun and not-so-fun stuff (but nothing to do with my own health…no worries there, at least!).

I finally handed in the website translation…one of the hardest things I’ve ever done…but it’s over and done with, as the saying goes. Phew! 

A few days ago I started reading an interesting new study but haven’t finished writing my report on it yet. I won’t be able to work on it tomorrow, either. Tomorrow a friend and I are going out of town (we’re driving down to Monte Amiata, in southern Tuscany) to attend the funeral of another friend’s father who died in the hospital last night. The poor man had been in a lot of pain for quite some time…very sad…

I must say, this has not been a very good period. But I always see the light at the end of the tunnel. And that’s the main thing…

Okay, for a bit of cheer, here’s a photo I took just the other day of our eldest kitty, Puzzola (11 or 12 years old). Isn’t she pretty? (She’s lying on a cat toy, which sticks out on the right…in case you were wondering WHAT that was… 😉 )

For women ONLY. 😉

I read this hilarious story a couple of weeks ago on Facebook. I don’t care if it’s true or not; to me, it sounded totally plausible…Many years ago, in fact, when I was a rather vain adolescent, I tried to wax my bikini area, and OUCH I still remember the blinding pain…And the result was pretty much the same as in this story. Needless to say, that was THE ONLY TIME I did anything that stoooopid (I use a razor now…).

Oh, and by the way, in case you’re wondering!, what you are about to read did NOT happen to me, and I did NOT write it, although my own waxing story is somewhat similar, if much less extreme… 😉

NEVER WAX YOUR HOO-HA

All hair removal methods have tricked women with their promises of easy, painless hair removal – The Epilady, scissors, razors, Nair and now…the wax. Read on…

My night began as any other normal weeknight. Come home, fix dinner, play with the kids.

I then had the thought that would ring painfully in my mind for the next few hours: ‘Maybe I should get the waxing kit from the medicine cabinet.’ So I headed to the site of my demise: the bathroom.

It was one of those ‘cold wax’ kits. No melting a clump of hot wax…you just rub the strips together in your hand, they get warm, you peel them apart and press them to your leg (or wherever else), and you pull the hair right off. No muss, no fuss. How hard can it be?

I mean, I’m not a genius, but I am mechanically inclined enough to figure this out. (YA THINK!?!) So I pull one of the thin strips out. It’s two strips facing each other and stuck together. Instead of rubbing them together, my genius kicks in, so I get out the hair dryer and heat it to 1000 degrees. (‘Cold wax,’ yeah…right!) I lay the strip across my thigh, hold the skin around it tight and pull.

It works!

OK, so it wasn’t the best feeling, but it wasn’t too bad. I can do this! Hair removal no longer eludes me! I am She-rah, fighter of all wayward body hair and maker of smooth skin Extraordinaire. With my next wax strip I move north. After checking on the kids, I sneak back into the bathroom for the ultimate hair fighting championship. I drop my panties and place one foot on the toilet…

Using the same procedure, I apply the wax strip across the right side of my bikini line, covering the right half of my hoo-ha and stretching down to the inside of my butt cheek (it was a long strip).

I inhale deeply and brace myself…RRRRIIIPPP!!!!

I’m blind!!! Blinded from pain!!!!….OH MY GAWD!!!!!!!!!

Vision returning, I notice that I’ve only managed to pull off half the strip.

CRAP!

Another deep breath and RIPP! Everything is spinning and spotted. I think I may pass out… I must stay conscious…I must stay conscious. Do I hear crashing drums??? Breathe, breathe…OK, back to normal.

I want to see my trophy: a wax-covered strip, the one that has caused me so much pain, with my hairy pelt sticking to it. I want to revel in the glory that is my triumph over body hair. I hold up the strip!

There’s no hair on it. Where is the hair??? WHERE IS THE WAX???

Slowly I ease my head down, foot still perched on the toilet. I see the hair. The hair that should be on the strip… it’s not! I touch….I am touching wax. I run my fingers over the most sensitive part of my body, which is now covered in cold wax and matted hair. Then I make the next BIG mistake… Remember my foot is still propped upon the toilet? So I put my foot down.

Sealed shut! My butt is sealed shut. Sealed shut! I penguin walk around the bathroom trying to figure out what to do and think to myself: ‘Please don’t let me get the urge to poop….my head may pop off!’

What can I do to melt the wax? Hot water!! Hot water melts wax!!! I’ll run the hottest water I can stand in the bathtub, get in, immerse the wax-covered bits, and the wax should melt, and I can gently wipe it off, right???

*WRONG!!!!!!!*

I get into the tub – the water is slightly hotter than that used to sterilize surgical equipment – and I sit down. Now, the only thing worse than having your nether regions glued together is having them glued together and then glued to the bottom of the tub…..in scalding hot water. Which, by the way, does not melt cold wax.

So, now I’m stuck to the bottom of the tub as though I had cemented myself to the porcelain!! God bless the man who had convinced me a few months ago to have a phone put in the bathroom!!!!! I call my friend, thinking surely she has waxed before and has some secret of how to get me undone. It’s a very good conversation starter.

‘So, my butt and hoo-ha are glued together to the bottom of the tub!’

There is a slight pause. She doesn’t know any secret tricks for removal but she does try to hide her laughter from me. She wants to know exactly where the wax is located, ‘Are we talking cheeks or hoo-ha?’ She’s laughing out loud by now…I can hear her. I give her the rundown, and she suggests I call the number on the side of the box. YEAH!!!!! Right!! I should be the joke of someone else’s night…

While we go through various solutions, I resort to trying to scrape the wax off with a razor. Nothing feels better than to have your girlie goodies covered in hot wax, glued shut, stuck to the tub in super hot water and then dry-shaving the sticky wax off!! By now the brain is not working, dignity has taken a major hike, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to need Post-Traumatic Stress counseling for this event.

My friend is still talking with me when I finally see my saving grace…..the lotion they give you to remove the excess wax. What do I really have to lose at this point? I rub some on and OH MY GOD!!! The scream probably woke the kids and scared the dickens out of my friend. It’s sooo painful, but I really don’t care.

IT WORKS!!

I get a hearty congratulation from my friend, and she hangs up. I successfully remove the remainder of the wax and then notice to my grief and despair….THE HAIR IS STILL THERE…….ALL OF IT!

So I recklessly shave it off. Heck, I’m numb by now. Nothing hurts. I could have amputated my own leg at this point.

Next week I’m going to try hair color……how bad can that turn out???

I’ve been reading some bad news about Roundup lately*. And today I read a 2011 Huffington Post article that didn’t really surprise me, but…well, see for yourselves: http://goo.gl/JcLjC

In short, if you play golf OR use Roundup (made by that awful monster called Monsanto…hardly surprising…) to kill the weeds in your garden, I would suggest that you NOT go back to the golf course until you find out what sort of herbicide is used on it and/or, if you have any of the toxic crap in your house, dispose of it immmmmmmmediately. 

Quote from the article: “The agency also said it is looking at a study partly sponsored by the EPA and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that found some users of glyphosate were observed to have a higher risk of multiple myeloma, a cancer affecting bone marrow, than people who never used the chemical. The two-fold increased risk was considered “non-significant” and EPA said the findings were preliminary and based on a small number of cases but it is still part of the review.”

The safest things to do: pull up your weeds by hand (I know, I know)…or spray a bit of vinegar on ’em (do make sure it’s a sunny but windless day…the wind could blow drops of vinegar onto your other plants and kill ’em all…)…

Or…

Simply…

Live with weeds…!!! 😉

*UPDATE: What’s happening in California with Proposition 37 sparked my interest in doing some research on Roundcrap, by the way. And that’s how I found out about the myeloma connection. Well, I just read an LA Times article showing that a majority of Californians, THANK GOODNESS!, are probably going to vote for this initiative to require food manufacturers and retailers to label fresh produce and processed foods that contain genetically engineered ingredients: http://goo.gl/XBHts That’s excellent news. The potential costs of adding the labels (and so on) are NOT as crucial as knowing what’s inside the food we eat. Just my opinion, as usual! (Oh, and I got a different take on this news from a blog reader…have a look…hmmm)

Okayokayokay, yesyesyes, I’m totally biased, but I do think that my cats are the best cats that have ever walked the earth…the smartest, most beautiful…THE MOST…EVERYTHING! 😀

My cats do the darnedest cutest things, which would make them the most popular felines in the history of YouTube–if only I had a camera hanging around my neck at all times.

But the truth of the matter is: my camera is usually in another room when cuteness happens…

And cuteness happens all the time in our household. Whenever the kitties, especially that adorable nutcase called Pinga (everyone who meets her agrees that “there’s something really special about this little cat” and wants to adopt her…hah, over my dead body!), begin doing hilariously funny things, I rush off to grab my camera. 

By the time I get back and am ready to begin recording, however, all the cuteness has stopped. Suddenly. I find the cats sitting quietly exactly where I’d left them, casually licking their paws and looking up at me as if to say, “Hey, what’s your problem, Mom? I’ve got better things to do than wait for you…” (I can almost hear them thinking: licklicklick…ignore Mom…licklicklick…and especially ignore that blasted torture device hanging around her neck…absolutely no cute stuff until that thing is put away…)

(Mom sighs and gives up.)

In addition, Priscilla, Pinga and Peekaboo absolutely HATE the camera flash, so whenever I bring out the camera (even when there’s enough light, and I don’t need to use the flash…but of course they don’t know that…), they will immediately shut their beautiful eyes and stop all their cute doings.

It’s incredibly frustrating.

But there you go…

They are CATS, which is precisely why I love them. 🙂

Anyway, point is, in the past couple of days I’ve been taking a few photos of my cats to to cheer up my parents who are going through a bit of a tough spot right now. And this morning I thought, ah why not?, I’ll stick ’em on the blog, too. 

So here are my cats…OUR cats, I should say, since they are also Stefano’s cats:

1. Puzzola, 11 or 12 years old, drinking from the ceramic cat fountain (= the BEST cat purchase we’ve ever made); behind her head, impossible to see in this photo, is a lovely ceramic sphere containing a small motor that generates a little spout of water at the top (of the sphere)…they love it!

2. Piccolo, 9 years old, sitting on our dining room table (rumpled tablecloth…oops!) after lunch, gazing outside. He’s our only male kitty; he enjoys skyping with my parents and playing computer games or watching documentaries on TV. An amazingly intelligent cat, this one.

3. Priscilla, 7 years old, taking a cat nap in her favorite spot = the hammock on the cat tree, located between my desk and my study window. 

4. Peekaboo, 5 years old, playing in the attic and trying to look cool for the camera (see what I mean about the eyes shut tight and zero cuteness?)…

5. Pinga, 3 years old, on top of the cat tree. She’s usually on her back with her paws waving in the air and her head at an impossible angle…but of course here she turned over for the photo and wouldn’t turn back! 😉

Cats!!!!!!

 

 

On Saturday afternoon Stefano and I decided to go over to the Parco della Piana, where we do most of our local bird watching. When we arrived, there wasn’t even a rusty old bicycle in the parking lot. I mean, the place was completely deserted… 

We immediately commented: “well, this probably means that the kingfisher has gone somewhere else and there is nothing to see. Bummer.”

But the idea of having the whole place to ourselves was too appealing. So we parked, grabbed our cameras and traipsed over to our favorite hut, where we’d always spotted the elusive kingfisher.

After we’d spent a half hour watching the growing, not-so-little-anymore grebes squeak for food and paddle furiously after their exhausted parents (a very cute sight…but one we’ve seen and photographed many times…), Stefano decided to go to one of the other huts. I stayed behind…ever hopeful of catching a glimpse of our little blue friend…

About 15 minutes later, an out-of-breath Stefano rushed into the hut, exclaiming: “Margaret, run! He’s over at the other hut!”

We ran. 

And there he was.

Perched conveniently on a branch right in front of us…just a few meters away. An unbelieeeeeevable stroke of luck. Of the one hundred thousand million photos I took, this is perhaps my favorite, even though you can’t see the very end of the kingfisher’s tail, hidden under the branch. The little guy had just swallowed a shrimp, which explains why his beak is slightly ajar…(Silly me, I could have shot some video, too, duuuuh…oh well, next time!)

Anyway, these are definitely the benefits of being ALONE in a bird reserve…rather than surrounded by a bunch of guys (yeah, why am I usually the only woman there? Puzzling!) boasting LOUDLY about their big expensive camera lenses (= drives me crazy)… 😉

P.S. For obvious reasons, I wasn’t going to mention which type of camera I use, but more than a few people have been asking about it, so…well…why not? It’s a Canon Powershot SX30IS. 

I just watched this video on Facebook and had to share it with you…why, it’s one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen…

Check it out here: http://goo.gl/TcnIY

Wow. Wow. Wow. 

Busy days…lots going on…And my boss is coming over for dinner so I don’t have much time right now. But I did want to post a couple of things, quickly. This afternoon I came across a newly published Belgian study  (abstract: http://goo.gl/q8b6p) that I found particularly interesting because the researchers used cyclodextrins, or CDs (but not of the sort that you listen to… 😉 ) to improve the bioavailability of curcumin. Aha.

In a nutshell, these guys combined curcumin with CDs and managed to reduce, REDUCE!!!, the size of advanced lung tumors in a bunch of mice. The curcumin cocktail did even better: it ENHANCED the antitumor effects of the chemo drug gemcitabine. Here’s a not-too-technical summary that contains a bit more not-too-technical information: http://goo.gl/MWZxK

Hey, give me some of those CDs! 🙂 By the way, CDs are produced from starch and, from what I gather, they are sugar molecules. I’ll have to look into this more carefully when I have a bit more time. And, bloody hell, I really should have taken a biology course in college… 😉

And here are a couple of news items that might also be of interest…

1. Drinking tea may help prevent chronic illness: http://goo.gl/eKCTD An excerpt: Green tea in particular may help reduce the risk for fractures and improve bone mass. Very interesting article…Check it out.

2. On September 19 2012 the Food and Chemical Toxicology Journal in New York published the findings of the first-ever long-term peer-reviewed feed trial. It explored the long-term health impact of consuming genetically modified corn and the world’s most popular weedkiller, Roundup:  http://goo.gl/PMdjh This link will take you to a 2.5 minute video…very short, that is. Upshot: after groups of male and female rats were fed genetically modified toxic crappy corn, they developed tumors. Quelle surprise! (NOT!) In fact, up to 80% of the female rats had breast cancer by the end of the trial.

Scary stuff. Okay, time to go clean up the kitchen and start cooking…Take care, everyone! 🙂