This week, I received a copy of the report my kind graft doctor sent to my family doctor. This report gives the last informations regarding the “two years” visit” I had with her a few weeks ago .

As you can see in the document below, it is stated that I am now in “cytological and molecular remission” (rémission cytologique et moléculaire in french). My understanding is that there are no trace of my defective stem cells in the bone marrow: everything belongs to my donor’s hematopoietic stem cells!

So, I am “half man” “half woman”: perfect chimera!

My next visit with my graft doctor will be at the end of september. Maybe at this time, she will give me the news I have been expecting for months now: no more ciclosporine! If she says so, maybe I will hug her… it will be difficult to resist!

At the end of this year, I will have more vaccins, the ones I could not have before. At this time, I will be like a baby, fully protected again :-)! But an old baby ah ah!

Next week, we will head to Toronto to visit our daughter and son in law. Looking forward for meeting them again !

Thank you to the team at St Antoine (my fantastic graft doctor and the other doctors, the nurses, the photopheresis nurses), to my graft donor and my big family. I love you all!

And don’t forget to take care and enjoy life !

 

 

Greetings from Bures! After the very successful stem cells graft I had 2 years ago, I became “young again” :-)! (Thank you my kind graft doctor at Saint Antoine, my donor, my family, my friends!).

So I am planing for a new carriere, since I cannot do chemistry anymore: I would like to become a pastrycook! The kinds of sweet things I can do are very limited at this time, but I am thinking of taking class in pastry-making!

Below is samples of what I can produce now: carrots cake, banana bread, cherries batter pudding, sourdough bread, jams…

The problem is that if I make too many cakes and eat them, I will become diabetic, ah ah! So I need to give them away ;-)!

 

 

 

 

 

And to put an end to my carriere in Chemistry, I would like to share with you some photos of my former labs…

Before my former lab in Curie became unreachable (“Pavillon des sources” locked for good), I took some photos to keep memory of where I worked for around 20 years…

Here is a video of the lab:

 

 

Also, here are photos of the hood where I used to work during my visits to Dave’s lab in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Colorado-Boulder. Thank you Eva for “saving it” during the times I was back in Curie!

 

As my daughter used to tell me: chemistry is not everything in life :-)!

Take care and enjoy life!

With love…

 

Today, I would like to share with you my personal collection of Saint Antoine’s statues. It all began a little more than two years ago, when I started to visit frequently the Saint Antoine hospital. I started to take photos of the statues each time I met one, on visiting churches or cathedrales. When possible, and following a well established tradition in the family, I lighted a candle too!

With time, everybody in the family and also friends became aware of my passion for this guy ;-)! This way, I received many more photos of him, either from France but also from abroad!

Of course, I will continue my quest for more statues. At some point, I will have to go to visit Padova and Saint Antoine’s grave there! (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padoue).

But making jokes about Saint Antoine does not prevent me to remember that if I can make those jokes it is because of the wonderful people of the hematology department at Saint Antoine hospital: my kind personal graft doctor and the other doctors and nurses. I don’t forget the nurses/good friends of the photopheresis! Of course nothing would have been possible without my stem cells donor I will never know. And of my family and friends too! I love you all so much!

Take care and enjoy life!

Today, I went to the Saint Antoine hospital for my last photopheresis…

I started the treatment on June 2017, and had around 23 rounds of photopheresis.

It was mixed feelings. Of course, I was happy with the success of “the experiment” (GvH is gone, maybe with the help of ciclosporine), but a little sad, as I will not meet so often my nurses, who with time had become more and more my friends. This morning, when I started to talk with her, we could see tears in our eyes. I promised that whenever I will come to Saint Antoine for the regular apointments with my nice graft doctor, I will stop by to say hello.

But it is also a step forward to a full recovery, a “small step” but in the right direction!

The speedy recovery I am enjoying results from the outstanding quality of the team at Saint Antoine. (doctors, with a special thank to my graft doctor, doctors and nurses from the 4th floor, doctors and nurses from the day hospital, nurses from the photopheresis, all the other people I had the chance to meet like my “graft nurse”,…). I will never forget them. They saved my life, together with my graft donor, my wonderful family and my friends. I love you all!

However, it is not yet the end of the story! I am still on the boat, which picked me when I landed on the sea. A few months to go…

To be continued!

Trying to become real canadians….

Paris suburb starts to look more like the south…. oleander in our garden!

And now some music….