Castelvecchio

View from the town castle looking west at Gagliano

When my  former employer decided to pull out of Ann Arbor, those of us left behind were offered a training allowance. There were no guidelines except the school had to be accredited. I enrolled in Wayne State's Summer in Abruzzo program to learn Italian and culture. Students would stay in a former monastery in the little mountain town of Gagliano Aterno.

Our monastery looking northeast

View from my window looking southwest

When I told people where I was going, they drew a blank when they heard 'Abruzzo' even though it is fairly close to Rome. Ask people where they want to go in Italy. Top answers: Venice, Florence, Rome, Amalfi Coast, Cinqueterre, Lake Como...Abruzzo never appears. It is beautiful with high mountains, 1000 year old towns, no crowds... Apparently the director of The American thought so too and was going to film there when the earthquake hit in April 2009. He wanted to film in L'Aquila, the provincial capital where the Italian students in our program came from but it was damaged too much. See http://www.focusfeatures.com/film/the_american/
He filmed in Sulmona, Castelvecchio, and another town instead. He wanted the world to see how beautiful Abruzzo is. 

 On my stat counter, I can tell which pages are visited the most and which pictures are downloaded. The number one picture is one of Castelvecchio that I took the last weekend I was there.

There is a gorge that Castelvecchio is on the edge of. These houses are typical Abruzzese structures. There is a curtain of plastic beads in the doorway of the house in the center. Also very typical.

 During the program, various towns would host us and make us dinner: Secinaro, Vittorito,Goriano, Molina, Celano,and Castelvecchio. Gagliano is a commune of 310 perched on the side of a mountain. Further up the mountain is Secinaro. Down in the valley, is Castelvecchio, having 3000 people, a supermarket, a ATM, a farmacia and 2 gelato stores. It also had a Alfa Romeo dealership which puzzled me as the residents seem to be very poor. If we needed anything, there was a van that would take us to Castelvecchio. We'd often chill out in the town piazza with our gelati or apertivi until dinner.

In the morning, I would run: either up the mountain to Secinaro or down to Castelvecchio. There are no flat pieces of land.

Medieval aqueduct that runs through Sulmona. There is a shot of this in the movie

My roommate yesterday had told me about The American starring George Clooney. She saw it and was thrilled to see some of the places where we had been. Several scenes were shot in Sulmona, the largest town in the area that we visited. The poet Ovid came from there so everything is Ovid this or that.

confetti

The town of Sulmona seems to have two industries: confetti making and apertivi (fancy liquors). Both were fun to sample. They would make elaborate bouquets of flowers made from candied almonds. Too pretty to eat.

I have to see this movie for myself.

Labor Day is the official end of summer. So sad. Although I love fall, it means the barren winter will be coming soon. We had a low key weekend. I did watch Ms. Maya for a while when Steve took Naomi shopping. She woke up wanting to eat and I had nothing for her.

Tonight a friend and I will go see Eat,Pray, Love with more scenes of Italy, the more well known spots.

Castelvecchio alleyway

Schizophrenia

Par-a-noi-a will Destroy-a

THE WHO

During the 31 and a half years that I worked as a medicinal chemist, I have worked on many projects: cancer, cognition activators (Alzheimer's), manic depression, inflammation, female sexual dysfunction, diabetic retinopathy, obesity, Parkinson's, manic depression, insomnia, anxiety, fibromyalgia but the project I have spent the most time on, in several iterations, was Schizophrenia. What do all those projects have in common? Not much although for years our department was divided into neurochemisty and chemistry. Neurochemistry was then subdivided into psychiatric disorders (schizophrenia) and neurological disorders (stroke being the biggest effort). Even then, certain projects would crossover these artificial lines. Fibromyalgia for instance combines anxiety (psychiatric), insomnia with inflammation. Although biologists are highly specialized, chemists not so much. Compounds are compounds. Although an anticancer drug may have completely different properties than an antipyschotic and a chemist should know the difference, we can be easily switched from one project to another.We do not get to select which project we work on. If we did, the personnel involved would weigh heavier into our decision. Some people are  just not fun to work with. I was very lucky for the most part: I worked only briefly for someone I truly could not stand and after 6 months of pure hell, adjustments were made.

We are to target areas that have an unmet need, preferably a large (lots of patients, chronic condition) unmet need. Malaria would seem to fit the bill in terms of huge numbers of inadequately treated patients (worldwide, not here) but that is not attractive to the company as who will pay for them? Still our company or at least the smaller part that got swallowed whole had a program working in concert with the anticancer program. What does malaria and cancer have in common? A need for dehydrofolate reductase, the enzyme targeted. Both protozoa and cancer cells need it for rapid growth. That's all old news of course. Other approaches are in the works for both diseases. Cancer is not a single disease but many, many diseases. There will be no magic bullet that will cure them all. Even my enemy, TNBC, is not all the same: PARP inhibitors may have more value against one type vs another.

Despite the many drugs on the market for it, schizophrenia remains an 'unmet need'. It affects 1 to 2% of the population directly but as it is a chronic condition that develops fairly early in life, particularly with males, it affects a much greater number indirectly. The family is forced to deal with a delusional person, who can not hold a job or be trusted to care for oneself. It is a heartbreaking and extremely frustrating condition. Our family is part of the greater number that is 'indirectly' affected. As hideous and cruel of a disease as Alzheimer's is, there is an endpoint. In my mother's case, she needed constant care for 3 years and probably had it for 3 years previously. Six years versus close to a lifetime.

 Although there is a genetic component to it, it is not clear what causes schizophrenia. There is over activity of dopaminergic neurons in the parts of the brain involved in thought; too much dopamine. All right, we will block that and stop the delusions, agitation and aggressive behavior (known as the 'positive symptoms' not positive in the sense of good just as a 'positive' biopsy result isn't good) so now the patient is placid and easier to deal with. However the 'negative' symptoms remain: apathy, lack of drive, anhedonia (one of my favorite words: inability to experience pleasure. Woody Allen was going to name one of his movies that but didn't as he feared no one would no what he was talking about. Instead he went with Annie Hall). Furthermore, there are side effects for knocking out dopamine. For one thing, dopamine is necessary in the parts of the brain responsible for movement so patients start developing Parkinson's disease symptoms (caused by dopaminergic neurons dying in their movement areas). On the flip side, some of the early medications for Parkinson's can cause psychosis. We find subtypes that are found mainly in the targeted part of the brain. These don't work as well as we hoped. And other neuroreceptors are involved too. We try to balance out serotonin with dopamine, on and on. And by we, I mean the whole industry. Even with the new generation antipsychotics in which the negative symptoms are controlled along with the more annoying positive symptoms, new side effects emerge: metabolic syndrome in which the patient becomes morbidly obese and diabetic.

But the biggest problem: compliance. Many patients refuse to take their medications. Even though the medications make them much easier to deal with and now able to become a productive member of society, the patient does not necessarily feel better taking them.It is legally difficult to make a patient take something they don't want to. Also the disease process itself; if you are paranoid and distrusting, why should you do something that THEY tell you to. Sample conversations we've had with someone with the disease:

You must not call me. THEY are listening. Only communicate by mail.

Who are THEY and why would THEY care?

I can't tell you. THEY wouldn't want me to.

For the past 6 months, THEY have taken my oxygen away. As you know, oxygen is necessary to live...

Or

I have no heart. It is gone. The doctors don't know what they are talking about.

Bad Nazi, bad Nazi, bad Nazi.
(under her breath when disagreeing with someone of partial German ancestry..me)

Sometimes she is funny: we once asked her if she was still hearing voices.

I don't know. My hearing isn't what it used to be.

She refuses any medications for this condition. It is difficult to convince her to take medications for more pressing conditions. She will self-medicate with no good effect with the readily available ethanol. The voices come and go; fortunately they seem to be  quiet lately (or she can't hear them). Most of the time, she seems like a nice, friendly lady interested in her family. Other times: very scary with behavior that drove the family to financial ruin not to mention the emotional toll. As she does have long stretches of normal behavior, I suppose she does not have a severe case. Heaven help those dealing with  more severe cases. They are on the streets now. No more involuntary hospitalizations and their families have given up.

Sunny goes home in an hour. She misses her dog parents. We take her for walks and throw her the ball but at night, she whines for them.

Scenes from a Marriage

When I was going to school, a few us went to see Scenes from a Marriage. Earlier that day, I had a bicycle accident. Though I didn't break anything, I did badly sprain my arm. I had no money for meds so I decided to tough it out. This was such a long movie and I didn't understand it one bit. I just kept feeling my arm.One of the women I went with was married. She said I would need to be married to understand it. Well maybe...

The Happy Couple

The guests. Our half is to right of the bride. Naomi wearing Josh's jacket is next to the groom. Josh is holding Daniel and Shanna is holding Oliver. Dontae is behind Naomi and next to me

Steve shakes the groom's hand

Oliver getting down
Anyway, my new SIL sent these the other day of her wedding a couple weeks before Maya was born.

The 3 sibs. Yeah they look alike

A beautiful cool day. After running, Steve and I went shopping. I'd figured we'd be the only ones left in town but NO.....

Sunny was much better last night although at 4 am, she started her whining.Her parents might pick her up tonight..we'll see.

A Half Ton of Fat

Twenty-eight years ago, I had a 5 month baby, a 3 year old, and to my chagrin, lots of baby fat. Previous to having Josh, I swam long distances and played racquetball 3 times a week ( Queen of the company B league..Woo-Hoo!) but with 2 kids, it was hard to fit that in and work full-time. Right before Labor Day in 1982, instead of eating lunch, I ran down the hill for about a mile. I planned to keep doing that until I wasn't fat anymore. My labmates said that anyone could run DOWN a hill. Why don't I run up it? By the end of the week, I did. After 6 weeks or so, I ran my first 10K..very slowly but I never stopped (although probably at the same speed I'm running now). By X-mas, the excess fat was gone and I was running faster and faster. By the next year, I was collecting trophies. By 2 years, I ran my first marathon breaking 4 hours. After a while, I branched into doing triathlons and doing week long bicycle rides. I was in very good shape and although I was never bone thin, I had very little excess flab. I kept track of all the miles I ran. Giving myself  100 cal/mile credit, I've run 35,000 miles as of today burning 350,000 calories or 1000 pounds of fat.
But am I 1000 lbs underweight? NO! I'm still overweight! But all is not in vain. I have a low resting pulse, good skin tone, no varicose veins, no lumps of fat. If I stretch my leg next to Naomi's, it would be hard to tell them apart (now our bellies..that's another story..despite Maya's recent birth, Naomi has a very thin waist and no belly whatsoever).
There have been a few periods that I couldn't run. When I started my third trimester with Naomi, the last time I ran, it took a while for the contractions to stop when I stopped running so I went back to swimming. I started running again when she was 1 week old (and that was very, very hard). I developed Grave's Disease not long after she was born: good for weight loss but very hard on the body. When she was 30 months old, I developed 'thyroid storm'. I had almost collapsed doing a 10 mile race. I eventually went to the ER as my heart was pounding out of my chest at rest. I thought I had some strange heart disease but a physician noticed how much I was sweating in a very cold (to everyone else) room. I was too weak to run for about a month until I got the thyroid levels under control After a while, they destroyed my thyroid by radiation and I haven't been the same since. I was still able to run but depending on my thyroid levels, it was hard to run very fast. I had to take another break from running when I broke my arm 3 years ago for 3.5 months. Then the next year I had cancer. I tried to run while doing chemo but it was very, very hard. With each cycle it became harder. I'd end up running a minute and then walking for 10. Today I ran more than 80 minutes without stopping and I felt good. But I am so slow.

So we have Sunny now while her parents spend the weekend up in Charlevoix. Josh and I walked her yesterday. She of course, loves to run in the woods off leash but this made me nervous as the woods around here have so much poison ivy. I guess I'll find out soon if she brushed up against it. She didn't go on a hunger strike as usual. I guess she is used to us now but she has so much energy. She'd spend the whole day fetching balls if it were up to her. Last night she paced alot of the night. Very annoying.

A cold front came through along with strong winds that have knocked down some of my flowers but it is so much easier to run in the cool,dry air.

Bats

There is a time of evening that suddenly all the bats take flight and cover the sky. Yesterday this was around 7:40 pm at Fuller Field. Hundreds of them with their high pitched squeals flying high. Lots of food for them too. Sometimes I confuse them with  my former tenants, the chimney swifts who hunt in organized packs constantly communicating to each other but of course, they fly high and fast. They are all gone now usually leaving for Peru in mid August. The swifts now have left my chimney alone for 2 years but were extremely noisy when they lived in it. When they roost, they are still chattering to each other. They can not land on a horizontal surface as most birds.

I pointed out the bats to Josh as he was finishing his game. No time to talk..he had to hurry home to register his fantasy football team but we'll take a long walk with Sunny this morning, weather permitting. Then he and Julia will leave for up north and we will have Sunny, the very energetic German shepherd.

Ms. Maya is now 2 months old and more aware of her surroundings. She smiled at me yesterday. The public health nurse weighed and measured her this week: 13#6oz and 24 inches. Naomi was the same length but more than a lb lighter at the same age. Maya is a big girl. Already her infant seat had to be adjusted to the highest setting to accommodate her long torso.

My realtor/friend presented the results of the inspection to the seller. Iffy electrical box but maybe we'd overlook it and some other minor cosmetic issues if he'd let us have the couch, which we had been covetting but he wanted $800 for. Sure, fine by him.

Meine Arbeit ist so Geheim, daß selbst ich weiß nicht was ich tun

When I ran my professor's physical chem lab while I was going to school, this was the poster he had in the lab: My work is so secret that even I don't know what I do. Wasn't that the truth.

The professor became aware of me when my classmates had elected me to negotiate a change of test dates as I was so 'charming', which I was able to do. My attendance in his class was spotty though as I had Pork Chops attend instead to take notes.

My boyfriend Pork Chop was a math genius who took the class for the hell of it and to explain to me what I couldn't immediately grasp. Although I score high on math tests, am fairly clever, did all right  in college math through differential equations, there is a level that I or few other people just can not get. No I don't understand that P=nP equation that was the big math topic last month. I only have a crude understanding of Fermat's theorem. I only have a fuzzy concept of quantum mechanics, which was part of the course. All this math that chem majors have to take was for this class alone. The highest math needed for my job in the outside world was algebra and later, with computers, that wasn't needed.

One day my professor showed up in my analytical chemistry lab ( he must have looked up my schedule plus he was good friends with my advisor). It was a Saturday. By ones junior year, it is impossible to fit all the labs in during the week thus the Saturday class. He said he was concerned as I wasn't in his last class. There were more than 60 people in his lecture. How could he miss me? I said that I had been ill but a good friend had taken notes so I was up to speed. He invited me to go to lunch once the lab was done. At the lunch, he proposed I run his lab. Now I was lucky to get a B in his class so he didn't invite me because I was such a stellar student. Pork Chop was damn suspicious (as usual) though eventually I had my professor hire him to correct tests, usually a job for grad students. This back-fired as students would come to me to complain about my f..ing boyfriend not giving them enough credit for their answers.  (So go tell him..)What I did bring to the table were steady hands (no caffeine or Graves' disease yet) and good motor skills.Allegedly my constant smile just lit up his day. Alll.. righty. I was to prepare extremely thin films of copper by evaporating it onto slabs of sodium chloride (salt). Yes evaporating it. You wouldn't think it would be possible to turn copper into a gas (mp 1083; bp 2595) but under very low vacuum, you can boil almost anything. He then used to these films to slowly oxidize them. Why? Ich weiß nicht.

He wanted to mentor me. He thought I should go to grad school in dental materials. I knew from my father (who had him also so by now he was in his 60s) that he was also a minister ( in the Reformed Church of Latter Day Saints). A few years later, I came to him saying I needed a minister to get married. Oh but his license lapsed but not to worry, he'll get me married. So that's how we had a Mormon minister. Sadly he died of pancreatic cancer not long after Shanna was born. He did come to visit me when she was born giving me this beautiful dress for her. He had studied under  Linus Pauling at Cal Tech, probably Pauling's first grad student. Some silly chemists have 'chemistry pedigrees' tracing their mentors back to so or so. Well I have Linus Pauling by 1 degree of separation.

At UM, to get a degree in chemistry, one used to need a reading knowledge of German. I had fulfilled LSA's requirement with my high school French  and a placement test (as one of the years technically wasn't high school). I took a Scientific German class so my vocabulary is unusual: ameisesaure, ausbeute, harnstoff, stickstoff, zinn, etc.  Not too useful for ordering foods in Germany. But now, hardly anything (as opposed to most everything) is published in German so I hardly translated anything in the past 20 years.

And Pork Chops? Gone..gone ...gone. He said he'd love me forever but now, it's he'll shoot on sight.

Self improvement projects

I now have 2 newly repaired teeth! Actually 3 though one of them is a work in progress. Our new dental plan started today so I lost no time in using it. Six weeks ago I lost my balance on the step to my patio and did a face plant into a ceramic sculpture splitting my lip and my gum (lots of blood!), scrapping my knee, spraining my toe, causing a blood blister under the toe nail and chipping 3 teeth: 2 of the them being the top two incisors.  Everything has healed except the teeth.The dental office always treats me like their only patient (maybe I am) and were very welcoming wanting details on Maya. The most severely chipped one was fixed in 10 minutes. Only a corner seemed to be missing in the other tooth and I could live with that but he said, I had a filling behind the tooth that I unseated so that needed to be replaced. This was much more work. To have cavities in the front teeth is uncommon but when I was 12 or so, I was tired of being pudgy. I devised this really poor diet in which if I were hungry, I'd just suck on a lemon. I sucked on alot of lemons and suddenly cavities started forming (hardly any cavities before that). They didn't put silver fillings in incisors but this rough composite stuff that to my tongue, felt like plaster. My dentist said the stuff lasts forever (44 years until the face plant) but stains irreversibly. So my front tooth had this dark underside..but no more! The new composites with micronized porcelain are smooth and resist stains. All together, I was in the chair for 2.5 hours. Alot was for the crown I had agreed to previously..a crown a year.
The assistant is very interested in Naomi as she was a young, single mom herself. She had lots of good advice. Her child is spending the last 2 years of high school as a college student earning 60 credits. I keep a mental list of successful children of young single moms so I will add that one along with Shaq's name. His mom wrote an eloquent op-ed for Newsweek a few months ago about the struggles of being 16 and pregnant.

And back to the Y. My Livestrong scholarship had run out and the new lady in charge had never heard of such an arrangement. Even though our pension is quite small, it is still too big in their eyes. Finally she talked to upper management to continue the program for LiveStrong alums as we are role models for those in treatment and those just starting the program. So thank-you Y and thank-you Lance Armstrong. One of the things on my list is to give back to this program beyond my fundraising effort with Naomi's bball team. Perhaps I will become a trainer. So for 2 months, no strength training even though the program had supplied me with all sorts of stretchy things. There's always wall push-ups, Josh's abandoned weights, my friend's deluxe indoor gym in CA...did I use any of these things? NO!!! Lazy, lazy. I did run 250 miles though.

My daughter in law now relies on yoga to keep in shape. One of her classes takes place in a room above 90. Yuck! I can guarantee no women of a certain age in that class..pure torture. Apparently it is tough on men too. She recently invited her father to partake. After a while, he needed to walk out. Just stopping the activity wasn't cooling him enough and he's in excellent shape regularly running and skiing. She once told me that he was a Viet Nam vet. No, how can that be? The guys a year older than me were the last to go..my high school boyfriend must have had the highest lottery number to be drafted. But as usual looks can be deceiving. He is actually 4 or 5 years older than me..he just looks younger.

Hopefully this is the last day of the Heat. On to Happy Hour now..