An ancient and very important Irish creature

September 14, 2022 / Margaret / 2 Comments

(No, not a leprechaun…hehe.)

Wow. What a trip! Stefano and I, and our friends, actually got back at the end of August, but since then I’ve been busy with finishing the translation of an article and other stuff…no time to write a post. Here I am, though, finally!

We spent three weeks traveling around Ireland, from Dublin to Kilkenny, then down to Cobh (near Cork), and then, after stopping at Mizen Head, Ireland’s most southwesterly point, up to Kenmare, Dingle, and Doolin.

It would take me hours to write about all the beautiful things we saw and all the things we did…and about the Irish people, warm and friendly and very funny. Today, though, I have time just to pick one of my favourite things, perhaps my most favourite, in fact.

Valentia Island, one of Ireland’s most westerly points, is where, between 350 and 370 million years ago, a tetrapod, which sort of looked like a big lizard, came out of the sea and left a series of footprints (and a bit of a tail and body drag, too) on a (then) tropical, muddy shore, which turned to rock over the years, as you can see in these photos.

This, incidentally, is one of only FOUR sites–the other three are in Scotland and Australia–in the entire world that documents the transition from water to land of a vertebrate…an enormous turning point in evolution, of course. Oh wait, wait, I just read of another tetrapod print site recently discovered in Poland…I will have to look into that. I was already planning a trip to Scotland to check out the other tetrapod prints! 😉

Stefano and I have a fascination with dinosaurs…When we were in Scotland a few years ago, we spent quite a bit of time searching for dinosaur tracks on various beaches (I posted about this part of our trip, with photos). But this meter-long Irish creature lived and walked on Earth long before the dinosaurs…Extraordinary. I must say that I was a bit overcome with emotion when we got to the bottom of the cliff and were able to view and photograph these well-preserved prints. Imagine how it must have been back then…

Oh dear, I must go now, so I will quickly choose a couple of photos…I hope you enjoy them… Ciao! 🙂

New curcumin myeloma clinical trial

August 5, 2022 / Margaret / 20 Comments

Well, well, well, how about this bit of news??? Yesterday I wrote a quick Happy Holidays post that I would have published here today (Stefano and I are leaving tomorrow for a three-week holiday in Ireland, with two of our best friends and their young daughter), but then this morning I saw the news about a new clinical trial titled “Curcumin as adjuvant therapy to improve remission in myeloma patients: A pilot randomized clinical trial,” which I just had to share with you. How could I not? Wowsie!

Here is the link to the free, easy-to-read article: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35919637/

Check out the Conclusion: “Curcumin has an efficacy in improving overall remission and decreasing NF-kB, VEGF, TNF-a, and IL-6 levels in myeloma patients.”

And so we have more proof…and this proof comes from actual myeloma patients, not from cells grown in a Petri dish. The evidence is piling up!

I wonder when (or if!) our myeloma luminaries and organisations are going to wake up to the fact that curcumin has a real potential to help us myeloma folks at every stage of this cancer. If I could, I would tell them (the above luminaries and organisations) to ignore the profits and benefits (international conferences held in exotic locations, e.g.) they receive from the big pharmaceutical companies and to focus instead on us, their patients, and on our wellbeing. (Hah! Utopia, I know. Not going to happen…)

It’s so frustrating to see no move in that direction. And so we must move on our own, for example by printing out these articles and giving them to our specialists. It’s going to be a slow process, that’s for sure…But I see no other way at present.

We are the only ones who can push for a change…

Well, I’m about to go on a lovely holiday with some of my favorite people in the world, so, to be honest, right now I want to think positive, happy thoughts and not go on a long rant about big Pharma and the obvious (financial) hold it has over the cancer system. So…enough.

And now I have some packing to do, including putting my bottle of curcumin inside my carryon suitcase. Can’t forget my curcumin! 🙂

I hope you all have a lovely August and stay well (wear your masks!). I’ll see you after I get back, at the end of the month…I’m going to try to get some nice shots of the beautiful Irish coastline for the blog. Fingers crossed. Anyway, take care, everyone, and…ciao! 🙂

The hidden village: Isola Santa

June 28, 2022 / Margaret / 2 Comments

Last Friday was a holiday here in Florence…San Giovanni, = St. John, Florence’s patron saint. So Stefano and I decided to spend the three-day weekend in an ancient village called Isola Santa ( = Saint Island) up in the Alpi Apuane (Apuan Alps), a mountain range in northern Tuscany. Isola Santa is perched on the side of a mountain and reachable by a rather steep walk down from the main road where we parked our car.

We were hoping to escape the horrendous heat wave that has hit Florence in this period…really awful, damp heat…

And, in part, we were successful, although it got warm there, too, during the day…but nothing like Florence.

We’d never been to what turned out to be a very interesting area of Tuscany, famous mainly for its marble quarries (Michelangelo!), which were clearly visible at many turns in the winding mountain road.

So…Isola Santa. The ancient, fortified village was originally built in the Middle Ages around a lodging for tired pilgrims and travellers…

In 1950, however, the inhabitants of Isola Santa were forced to abandon their homes, and the village essentially became a ghost town for decades.

The consequences are still clearly visible…caved-in roofs, ruined walls covered with ivy and other plants, and so on. What happened was that a hydroelectric power station/dam was built upriver, creating an artificial lake that submerged part of the village, including the old mill (we saw some ancient ruins emerging from the water).

In 2001, though, a couple decided to bring the village back to life and embarked on an ambitious renovation project. To sustain the costs of this renovation, they began renting rooms and studio flats. They also built a restaurant and a café.

We stayed in a double room on the third and last floor of the ancient guard tower, with lovely views of the mountains and the lake and, of course, parts of the still-ruined village.

The village, its lake, and the woods surrounding it are super peaceful. Magical, really. Oh, and no TV, no Internet, no Wi-fi, very few people around. We spent two and a half days in almost total isolation from the world. Bliss.

One of the most amazing features of this lake are its reflections…it’s almost impossible to distinguish a reflection from the thing being reflected (as in the last two photos). Paintings, almost…

Ohhh, and our walks along the lake, in the woods…wow. Such peace. No noise, apart from the wind blowing through the trees…The best was just sitting on a bench in the woods and listening to the water…to the wind…so relaxing…

Such a treat…such a lovely treat.

P.S. I took these photos with my cellphone…

Châteaux de la Loire

June 14, 2022 / Margaret / 4 Comments

Wow, what a trip! The villages, the scenery, the food and, of course!, the castles, the fabulous châteaux of the Loire Valley.

Here’s the list of all the castles we visited from May 28 to June 4 (June 3, really, since we left for Annecy on the 4th). So, 7 full days in the valley.

During our two-day stay in Blois we visited the following castles: Château de Blois, Château de Chambord, Château de Cheverny, Château de Chaumont.

Chateau de Chambord (the exterior was being restored, so, unfortunately, my best photos are of the interior)

We spent most of our stay in Tours, and from there we visited these: Château de Chenonceau (perhaps the most famous, deservedly so), Château de Loches (it’s more than a castle, more like a fortified village atop a hill), Château de Villandry, Château d’Azay-le-Rideau, Château d’Amboise, Château du Clos Lucé (Leonardo da Vinci’s last home), Château de Chinon (more of a fortress than a castle), Château de Langeais. And we had an outside look of the Château de Saumur.

The towns we visited were Bourges (its cathedral is a UNESCO World Heritage site…but I remember Bourges best for its half-timbered houses, see photo 2, and its macarons, which were amazingly tasty, and, hey, I don’t really care for macarons, normally), Amboise, Chinon, Loches, Chédigny, and, of course, Blois and Tours. Lovely Medieval centres.

And also a 12th century abbey, the Abbaye Royale de Fontevraud, where the body of Richard Lionheart is buried (but not his heart, which was embalmed and sent to Rouen, and his entrails, which were buried in Chalus…a bit gruesome, yes, but I thought it was really interesting) next to his wife and his parents.

Village of Chédigny, lovely roses everywhere

Speaking of the parents, I have read quite a bit about this period of history, especially about Richard’s mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine (have you seen the BBC series “She-Wolves: England’s Early Queens”? Well, I found it enthralling…And Eleanor of Aquitaine is one of the…she-wolves). Anyway, that was all very interesting…Lots of history, there…

Okay, here are a few of my million photos (the earliest ones, up to Villandry…I may post more in the coming days)…

Château de Villandry, famous for its stunning gardens

Oh, a quick note: with my “new” (relatively speaking, since I had the operation in late November) hip, I walked between 10-13 kilometres a day without any problems. Up and down hills, up and down stairs, too. I was, and am!, very pleased!

Again, Château de Villandry (you can spot it in the distance), one of my favourites

A little holiday

May 26, 2022 / Margaret / 3 Comments

Well, actually, for us it’s a BIG holiday: we’re driving to the Loire Valley tomorrow and will be traveling around the Tours and Blois area, visiting castles and pretty medieval towns for about 10 days. Bliss!

She hated the collar, but she didn’t complain, especially after she found a new…friend with a similar collar…

News snippets: 1. Petunia was sterilised last week and is doing beautifully. She is such a sweetie (unless you try to put her inside the cat carrier, in which case she goes absolutely ballistic and twists and turns and…well, those of you who have cats will know what I mean, I’m sure…)…Anyway, I took her to the vet for a check-up yesterday, and her wound is basically healed. So, all is well with Petunia, my little princess…such a relief!

2. A few days after we get back from France, in early June that is, I’ll be taking Puffin, her brother (see photo) to the vet clinic to be neutered. Ah yes, the…fun never ceases. Ugh. 🙁

3. The renovation work on our house will begin in early July, not mid June as we’d been told. A bureaucratic issue, as it turns out. We are taking advantage of the Italian government’s so-called Ecobonus or Superbonus, which allows homeowners to deduct 110% of the cost of adding energy efficiency upgrades to their homes (and we will be doing just that…new roof, solar panels, etc.) and that sort of thing. In order to receive this Bonus, though, we obviously have to have all of our technical appraisal documents in order…and, as it happens, the last one only just came in. Uff! So…a bit more waiting. No problem. As long as it gets done…

4. Did I tell you that I am a dual citizen now? Oh yes: U.S. and Italian. As you (may) know, I am a U.S. citizen married to an Italian (a wonderful wonderful guy whom I love to bits!)…Well, I finally decided to apply for Italian citizenship a couple of years ago. After months and months of collecting and translating all the necessary documents, I became an Italian citizen in early November. I already have my Italian identity card, and a few days ago I also applied for my Italian passport, which I should have at some point in June. I’m so happy! I mean, HAPPY! Yaaaaaay!!! Oh, I love this country…

Anyway, sorry for the long ramble. I actually just wanted to mention that I won’t be blogging until we return from France, but then I got a bit carried away, hehe…

Well, until I get back and post some of our photos, do take care, everyone, and be well…Ciao! 🙂

Castles and croissants

May 6, 2022 / Margaret / 4 Comments

Hi everyone! I hope you’re doing fabulously!!! I’ve been getting messages from blog readers with a variety of queries, and that made me realise that I haven’t been blogging for a VERY LONG TIME! So sorry about that! Yes, true, I’m still quite “blogged out,” but mainly I’ve been busy with a bunch of projects that I’ve been putting off for years.

In June we’re having our roof redone and solar panels installed, as well as a bunch of other stuff, including having air-conditioning put in the only (two) rooms that don’t have it. Our cat-vomit-stained-cotto-tile-floors are going to undergo a new sort of treatment that will be much more resistant to stains and whatnot.

This is only a partial list, of course, but the long and short of it is that we’ll have workers inside and outside and on top of the house for a month and a half…I’m certainly not looking forward to all the dust dust dust dirt dirt dirt…Just the thought makes me sneeze!!! But the work must be done, and the house will be fabulous in the end, and much cheaper to run compared to now…

Point is, and yes here we get to the point of all this rambling: in order to prepare for this long…ordeal, we have been going through and getting rid of heaps of stuff that we don’t use anymore and that is mostly stashed in the attic. A clean sweep, so to speak, before the dust and dirt covers everything…

Attics…wonderful places, you know. That is, until you have to CLEAN them, especially when you’re being followed around by a bunch of very curious cats intent on getting into bloody EVERYTHING. But I don’t mind…they are so adorable…!!!

Speaking of curious cats, our kittens, see photos, have almost reached the age of sterilisation, which will happen in early June, before the work begins. In Italy, kittens normally don’t get sterilised before they are seven months old. And these two little monkeys are almost seven months old…

Anyway, I don’t want to bore you with the long list of all the things I’m doing right now zzzzzz and will be doing in the next few months zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!! No. I just wanted to write a short, chatty post to let you know that I’m fine…just caught up in my life. Oh, BIG NEWS: I’m walking and have been walking for a while now…My crutches are a thing of the past! Yaaay! And where are the crutches, you might be wondering? Why, in the ATTIC…where else? Hahahaha! 🙂

So all is good…actually, VERY good…Stefano and I are going to take a break in a few weeks and drive up to the Loire Valley…Nothing but castles and croissants for ten days…mmmh, can’t wait…I will certainly post photos here when we return.

Okay, must stop blabbing now…Take care, everyone! Ciao! 🙂

“Why multiple myeloma returns”…

March 2, 2022 / Margaret / 14 Comments

That’s the title of an interesting Science Daily article that I came across this morning (and that blog reader Ana also told me about in a comment I read soon afterward, thank you!). Here’s the link: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220301131117.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email

In a nutshell, a group of researchers at the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin discovered that the culprit to the HUGE problem of drug resistance (non-genetic drug resistance, in particular) in myeloma is the increased production of a protein, the CDK6 protein, which not only activates cell proliferation but also, interestingly, binds with one of myeloma’s best buddies, Cyclin D1 (about which I’ve written quite a lot…do a Search of the blog if you are interested in the topic).

Okay, so we now have a culprit: CDK6.

Guess what? Well, by now this should not come as a surprise: curcumin inhibits CDK6, just as it inhibits Cyclin D1.

Bazinga!

Will the curcumin-CDK6 connection ever be studied in the conventional myeloma world? I doubt it, oh very much so, for what I believe are obvious reasons. No, what will happen is that a conventional drug, probably with lots of side effects, will be studied, tested, and put on the market.

It’s frustrating…so many missed opportunities to help us myeloma folks (as well as other folks with different types of cancer). So many missed opportunities…

To be honest, I think that’s probably the main reason I got such a serious case of burnout and stopped doing research…I knew it wouldn’t go anywhere, really, and that, no matter what I uncovered and wrote about, nothing would move in the conventional myeloma world. The only thing that has moved, which is a huge deal, of course!, is that many of us now take curcumin and other natural extracts that I’ve researched and posted about. And even though my blog is almost at a standstill now, I still get lovely messages on a daily basis from blog readers. It means a lot to me…thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Anyway, changing topic before I get too carried away, I wonder what other natural extracts inhibit this blasted protein. Hmmm…

If I can tear myself away from our amazingly adorable 4.5-month-old kittens, I will definitely have a look. 🙂

Take care, everyone! Ciao!

P.S. Here’s the link to the article itself (I haven’t read it yet…zzzzzzz!): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-28515-1

After hip surgery

December 11, 2021 / Margaret / 4 Comments

I had my left hip replaced last Tuesday, November 30, and am happy to report that the surgery went amazingly well. I’m going to be using the word “amazing” a lot in this post…I mean, just think that my wound was closed with some sort of super glue. Glue! No stitches, not even one. Isn’t that…amazing? 🙂 Well, it’s amazing to me, anyway.

On Friday, that is, just three days after surgery, I came home…walking! Sure, I was walking with two crutches, but using them as you use walking sticks when you’re on a hike. Ama…zing!

Okay, it wasn’t all a picnic in the park. I mean, something had to go wrong, right? And so, in spite of being oh so incredibly cautious!, I came down with a cold about four days before surgery, and, as if that weren’t enough, I developed a mild but productive (yuck) cough over the weekend. Darn! How did that happen? Well, Stefano had come home from work one day, all stuffed up, but we thought it was his usual allergies acting up so we didn’t take the precaution of sleeping in separate bedrooms. Bad decision: I caught what he had, although his was a much milder case. Different immune systems, duh.

So there I was, the weekend before surgery!!!, with a blasted cough. I couldn’t believe it. Drat! On Monday morning, figuring that we might have to postpone surgery, noooooo!, I called the clinic and was told to to show up early in order to be checked out by a doctor. Luckily, that went well: my lungs were clear. I did have to have another Covid swab, which turned out negative like the swab I’d had two days earlier.

Result: I was given the okay for surgery, yay!, and so, a few hours later, I checked into the clinic. The following morning, I was the first patient in the operating room. Excellent.

I was awake for the entire procedure. I could have chosen to be sedated, but I decided against that, in part because I was afraid of coughing during surgery…For the record: that didn’t happen.

Thanks to the epidural, I didn’t feel a thing from my waist down, but boy oh boy, nothing, not even the Playlist I’d carefully put together the previous week (which included some AC/DC, not just classical music), could shut out the noise. I heard it all, loud and clear…all the hammering… Whack whack whack thump thump thump! But my interest in what was going on kept me from getting anxious. As I mentioned, this was my first surgery ever, and I was curious about it all.

Funny thing: before and after surgery, and actually for the first 48 hours more or less, all the doctors and nurses checking my vitals kept asking me the same questions : my name, surname, place of birth, birthdate…innocent little questions like that. It happened a lot, especially before and after surgery. I was a bit puzzled at first, since they clearly had all my personal data in front of them, but I soon figured out that they must be making sure that I hadn’t had a stroke or whatnot.

Speaking of which, I have an anecdote. After surgery, I was wheeled out of the operating room into a sort of recovery room where a nurse monitored me for quite some time, at least a half hour, perhaps longer, who knows?, I’d lost track of time by then. We had a very nice chat…once I’d told him my name and surname, birthplace and birth date, of course, hehe.

Well, it was in that room that I looked down and saw my operated leg for the first time since surgery. HOLY CATS! What the…???? For a nanosecond I almost had a “stroke”: my entire left leg (foot included) was bright red! And by bright, I mean BRIGHT! RED! I thought it was blood, and that was soooo freaky!, but then my brain told me that that made no sense…I asked the nurse what had happened down there, and he explained that it was just the color of the disinfectant they’d painted all over my leg in the operating room.

Disinfectant??? Gee wiz, you guys…why didn’t you let me know that I’d be coming out of surgery with a BRIGHT RED LEG??? Hellooooo??? What’s the bloody point of asking me my name and taking my vitals if you’re planning to give me a heart attack by painting my leg bright red and not telling me? (I’m joking, of course…hehe!!!). I was much relieved and even amused at myself, at my first reaction of semi-horror. Anyway, until I’m able to take a shower–about 10 days from now–my leg will continue to be reddish, although a couple of my nurses tried to wipe off the color. Didn’t really work. My leg is all spotty red now. Lovely. Anyway, a funny-in-retrospect moment at the clinic…one I will never forget!

Just a few hours after surgery, in the early afternoon, a physiotherapist came to teach me how to get out of bed. I even went to the bathroom by myself, well, on crutches of course, under his supervision (in respect of my privacy, he shut the door once I was safely inside). I also took a few steps outside my hospital door. All that, just hours after having surgery. Amazing!!!

By the following afternoon I was instructed to put my full weight on my operated leg. Wow! I am still amazed…amazed amazed amazed. Sorry, I’m over-using that word…but for me the entire experience has been really…well, you know. 😉

At the clinic, I was taught lots of things–from how to walk up and down a flight of stairs to how to get dressed by myself (putting on socks still isn’t easy, I tell ya…)–which I’ll have to put into practice and be careful about for the next couple of months, albeit less and less, of course, as my leg gets stronger. Also, no bending over and picking up anything that falls on the floor (fortunately, I found a pick-up-stuff gadget…fantastic!), no crossing my legs…the list goes on.

But, and this is a big BUT, the pain I had before surgery is gone. Sure, I had a bit of pain after the surgery, no point in denying that (pain for which I was given some lovely painkillers), but right now I have NO PAIN. What a wonderful change from my pre-operative state, when I was limping all over the place, grimacing with pain.

And now I’m now happily at home with Stefano (who took a week off from work to be with me) and the kitties…and lots of documentaries and TV series and movies to watch while I do my strengthening exercises. I’m doing very well. The physiotherapist who came to check on me yesterday was amazed at how well I’m walking. I will be using two crutches until my first checkup, week after next, after which I should be going down to one crutch for another 20 days. So by the middle of January I should be ready to fly on my own, which is good since the new kittens will be here, and I do not want to be on crutches with those two little fur balls running around the house! 🙂

Life is good. Take care, everyone!