On June 16th, seven years ago, I moved in a nice small room, with air conditioning, in the Department of Hematology at Saint Antoine Hospital in Paris. It was the first step toward receiving a new bath of hematopoietic stems cells from a young anonymous donor, a girl.

After the first week of “chemotheraphy”, to get ride of my defective hematopoietic stem cells, it was time to get the new stuff! Marie, the nurse in charge of performing this ( I was her first time :-)!), did it perfectly well (June 24th).

After 3 weeks only, because the stem cells were doing a great job, I was released on July 13th!

Of course, there were up and down during the first few weeks/months, but here I am, after 7 years! No problem what so ever, just getting older ;-)!

How lucky I have been! Because of the great team at Saint Antoine, and in particular my fantastic graft doctor, my wonderful family and friends, my anoymous donor, I am enjoying a second life!

Something is still disturbing me: my stem cells donor is a girl, so I have two DNAs in my body! For years, I thought that it was biologically impossible, but I was wrong! So, I am a true chimera :-)!

With years, I became a big fan of Saint Antoine (Saint Anthony), the real saint I mean! So, each time I visit a church, I look for a statue of saint Antoine, and, when possible, light a candle! I have been so good in promoting this saint around me, that now I get photos from around France and Europe, sent by family members and friends :-)! I ended up making my own statue in my modeling class! Here are “samples”…

A gift from my family: Saint Antoine from Saint Léonard church at Honfleur (Normandy):

Thank you all! With love!

We just came back last sunday from a visit to Spain- Andalusia. We had a great time there, visiting several cities and hiking in beautiful parks…

We first arrived in Seville, where we spent just one day, as we had been there before. We visited the cathedrale and la casa de Pilatos:

On our way to Cordoba, we made a stop to Zaharra, which is one of the numerous “white villages” of Andalusia:

We did a hike in Garganta Verde park: a long trail down to the bottom of a canyon, followed by a painful back to the top…

In Cordoba, we visited the Cathedrale-Mosque and various other places, like the Jewish neighborohood…

It was time to go to Ronda… but before we walked the “caminito del Rey”… At first it was kind of frightening because mainly of “the bridge” between the two faces of a ravine, but in fact the most scary part was when we realized that for most of the time we walked on footbridges which were above an empty space ! Great experience, worst it!

Ronda is a nice small city. It is made of two parts connected by an old bridge.

We also spent some time in Antequara…

It was time to go to Granada to visit the cathedrale and the famous Alhambra…

It was time to go to Malaga to catch our flight, back home…

We had little time to visit Malaga: a smartphone and a wallet were stolen from my backpack near the Picasso Museum…

We were very lucky: the weather was perfect and “the tourits” were not too numerous… I had plenty of time to eat ice creams:-)!

I would like to dedicate those photos to the people from the Hematology Department at Saint Antoine Hospital in Paris, and in particular to my wonderful graft doctor! I have been so lucky to meet her/them…

With love.