Today I would like to introduce a “new”artistic activity I started a few months ago: clay modeling.

After I had to stop to do experiments by myself in a chemistry lab a few years ago, i became somehow “frustrated” by not having anymore the oportunity to work with my hands, as I used to do during my long career as an experimentalist.As I was not very good as handyman, I had to find a new activity. I started to work on  stained glass projects 3 years ago (and I am still doing it once a week). As a Christmas gift, I got a one trimester class of clay modeling.

Here is my first experience…. Making “a head” is not as simple as I was thinking. There are “some rules” to follow such as the shape of the skull,  the relative positions of the ears, the noze, the eyes, the mouth… Our teacher pointed out all those rules and gave us an advice: when you “see” people on the street or on the TV, just “look” at them as if they were “models”!

At first, I had in mind to make a man head…here is the first step:

 

Trying to put in place the ears, shaping the eyebrows, the chin…

 

Then, one day, our teacher asked me: do you really want to make a man head? I answered that I had rather choose a woman head (you know, I am now “half-woman” after being grafted with stem cells coming from a young lady ;-)!). I had to make several changes : smaller noze and chin, smooth cheekbones and eyebrows, shape of the eyes…

 

Then I added hair….

 

Now an hair bun ;-)!

 

Et voilà! My head is almost finish….

Evolution in action :-)!

This woman head will be for me the statue of my anonymous donor :-)!

A big thank you to the doctors and nurses at the Saint Antoine Hospital, in particular my kind graft doctor, my wonderful family, and my friends: I love you all!

Yesterday, I visited the Tenon hospital dermatology department to have a carcinoma removed via surgery. This one, located on the left temple, had been treated by various techniques but each time had made “a come back”!

The surgeon removed a piece of myself (5 cents coin (euros), a dime coin ($ US)) under local anesthesia.He then sewed me up, the most painful part of the act… In two weeks, I will need to meet a nurse to have the stitches removed…

Here is the result:

I discussed with the surgeon on the oportunity to have some wrinkles removed during the process to look younger…just joking!  He told me that I looked young enough, and that I was “a miracle” after what I had been through…

My dream was that I could become a new Clooney…

Before/After

Too bad I did not succeed to convince the surgeon!

Next month, I will visit again the Tenon hospital to have another carcinoma removed, this time via dynamic phototherapy…

To finish on a sunny note, here are more photos of our trip to Gran Canaria: enjoy!

Take care and enjoy life!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

With love

 

 

As you might know, at this time of the year the Paris area has usually a pretty bad weather: rain, grey skies, even snow… That is too much for old people like us! We need sun! So, we headed south to an island, spanish territory, located near the Africa cost, called Gran Canaria. It is one of the many islands in The Canarias.

During this week, we enjoyed temperatures in the twenties, sunny weather and the like! On this volcanic island, the panoramas are wonderful, and depending the positions on the island, north or south, very different lanscapes are on display: dunes, volcano rims, humid valley, beaches… Of course the vegetation is changing a lot. We saw for the first time hills covered with almonds in bloom. So beautiful! and a lot of orange trees and lemon trees.

Of course, we visited several churches to fulfil my quest of Saint Antoine statues :-)! We found 3!

To finish on “a medical information”: on the first day of our trip, I noticed “a small pool of blood” under the skin on the right forearm.It was followed later in the week by a similar thing on the left hand. It was not the first time I had noticed similar blood spots on the arms and hands, but this time it was much larger. I was not really afraid as I had done a blood analysis a few weeks ago which showed that I had a large number of platelets. However, as I am curious and want to understand “everything”, I asked my kind graft doctor what it could be. She told me that it was common in people who had an hematopoietic stem cells transplant. She told me that it was related to some kind of “capillary fragility”. She has always the right words to reassure me!

With love!