Amsterdam, cancer treatment and New York

Miracles start to happen

When you give 

as much energy

to your dreams

as you do to 

your fears

 ~ Richard Wilkins






The apartment we rented in Amsterdam turned out to be as good as depicted on the internet.  This is not always the case.  Our lovely apartment was right across the road from  the Amstel Canal, which is actually a river and is wider than most canals.  We were walking distance to many of the sights we liked including the Rijks Museum, Rembrandt House and Rembrandt's Plein.  I seemed to be getting some energy back and the peripheral neuropathy was bearable.  Thank goodness for the joggers I bought the day of our departure from Sydney.  They are light and soft  and have been a godsend.

Amsterdam is flat except for the little bridges over the canal so we managed to do quite a bit of walking.  Very pleasant along the canals and amongst the old houses.  We spent quite a bit of time just strolling along the canals.  We were also lucky to find an organic food store close to the apartment.  One of the ideas of having an apartment as opposed to a hotel is that we can be more picky about the food and so eat more healthily.  Our landlady even brought us a freshly made vegetable juice.

I don't like museums much as I find them very tiring but we went to Rembrandt House which is quite small and so easy for me to get around.  It is a lovely old house from early 1600's and Rembrandt lived there from 1639 to 1658.  It is a beautiful old house with interesting old features such as the beds.  These were in cupboard like structures with doors and very small as people sat up to sleep as they thought they would die if they were lying down.  There was an old hand water pump in the kitchen which reminded me of one we had in our kitchen in Holland when I was very young.  The other really interesting part was the demonstration of paint making.  Rembrandt only used mineral based paints as they would last longer than organic based paint.  It required the stones to be ground and mixed with oil.  Hard work, very interesting process and apparently mostly done by Rembrandts students.  We also walked to Rembrandt's Plein a few times to have refreshments at one of the many cafes and enjoy the ambiance.

In the short time in Amsterdam we managed a little excursion to Bussum, where I was born.  The landlords drove right to the street where I was born and dropped us off to give us time to look around and make our own way back to Amsterdam by train.  I was standing in front of a house, number 11, thinking maybe it was the one I was born in.  I rang my sister, Yvonne, in Australia and asked if she knew what the number was and it was in fact 11.  Amazing.  We had a bit of a look around the village and visited a couple of nice cafes to rest before catching the train back to the beautiful central railway station in Amsterdam.

The highlight was catching up with family.  My cousin, Joke, organised a family get together starting with some drinks and nibblies at the Amstel Hotel which is a beautiful old hotel on the Amstel and very close to our apartment.  My cousin Carla was there who I had not seen for 38 years so that was very special.  Her partner also came and I had not met him so that was nice too.  My cousin Joke was there and her mother and it was delightful to see them.  We then went on to an Indonesian restaurant near the Flower Market.  The fabulous food and the wonderful company made for a great evening. 

We also met up with another lovely cousin, Ingrid, and her partner, Evert.  They came to our apartment and we looked at some photos then went to have dinner at the cafe in the corner, a few doors up from the apartment.  It was wonderful to catch up again.  They also took us to the airport when we were leaving to go to New York.

Our trip to Amsterdam was cut a bit short as we had to go back to the clinic in Germany so I could have some more antibody treatment.  One treatment was an apoptosis (tumour cell death)  inducer and the other treatment was a little more complex.  It involved blood being sent to a Greek laboratory six weeks prior where they grow up the cancer cells and manipulate the genes which then somehow comes back as an infusion.  Not fully clear on how it works but it is supposed to address some of the genetic problems the cancer cells have that stops them being destroyed by my immune system and treatments.  For example the MDR (multiple drug resistance) gene in the cancer cells is over expressed by 65% which means that the cancer is very resistant to a lot of treatment options.  If this can be improved I would obviously have a lot more treatment possibilities that are likely to be successful.  So we flew to Stuttgart on the 12th (via Hamburg to get a cheap flight), caught a taxi to the clinic, had the treatment and left again at 5.45am the next morning to go back to Amsterdam.  The next day we flew to New York.

Loved the time in Amsterdam - beautiful city and wonderful family.  I feel blessed and grateful.

New York was not really a city I was looking forward to visiting.  It is a good stop to break the journey to my sisters place near Phoenix but the last two times we were there I was too sick to enjoythe city and spent most of my time in bed in hotels that were less than pleasant.  It was warm when we arrived late evening and we had some packets of organic tomato soup which has been a staple for me when I have been unwell from treatment or the cancer itself.  The apartment was very nice exceptfor the street noise although that didn't keep us awake.  The next day was sunny and warm and I was feeling pretty good again.  We caught a taxi to the big Apple store near Central Park, found a phone store and got US SIM cards for our phones to help keep our bills to a minimum. It was then a short walk to Central Park where we got a bicycle buggy into the park.  We had a bit of a walk around, checked out some buskers and then had a leisurely lunch at the famous Boathouse by the lake.  We then walked to Times Square and watched to passing parade of people before heading back to the apartment.  We also managed to book some tickets to a Broadway show, Mama Mia.

The next day I had developed a nasty head cold (no surprise after 5 flights in 3 days).  That put me in bed basically for the rest of the stay other than managing to get to the Broadway show.  Glen went off to the United Nations, Rockefeller Center, Radio City and Ellis Island.  I read several books and slept a lot.  Unfortunately my health is such that a small cold can really affect me.  Fortunately was getting much better by the time we left for Phoenix.

Living and thriving
Linda

Germany and Italy

Life always offers you

a second chance

It is called

tomorrow.

 ~ Gregg Braden





It has been a busy time since my last entry having a holiday.  After four years of hard work with little time off from treatments it is good to have a break with just doing the basics.  Less than 20 tablets per day, one infusion per month, two injections per week into muscle plus another one once a fortnight.  Minimalist really.

After our lovely time in Bad Wiessee we went east of Munich to Aichach and stayed in the old part of the village along a cobbled street along the old town wall just between two towers dating back to 1604.  Very picturesque and the hotel was quite nice with a spacious room with a veiw of the tower and some other old buildings.  We only had a few days there but they were very pleasant and we went to a friends wedding on the last day which was lovely and very special to share.  We also met some interesting and wonderful friends of the couple there.

Next we went to Berlin.  The first day was nice and warm and despite our tiredness we went to the Brandenburg Gate after we had settled into our hotel on the Kurfustendam.  There was lots of activity at the Gate with buskers and horse drawn carriages and of course lots of tourists.  Great way to start our Berlin visit.  Unfortunately the weather turned cold and bleak after that.  We bought tickets for the City Tour jump on jump off bus.  With the bus it takes about 2 hours to do a round trip but you can get of at many designated stops and hop on another one when you are done.  They came every ten minutes so never had to wait very long.  We saw sections of the Berlin Wall from the bus and used it to take us to Museum Island where we enjoyed the Neues Museum, which had a good Egyptian Section including a bust of Nefertiti,  and the Pergamon Museum which had the Ishtar Gates, from ancient Babylon, which were truly amazing.  We caught up with some friends, Carolin and Liam, from Australia who were also stopping a few days in Berlin and our trips happened to overlap.  We went to a nice Italian Restaurant nearby the hotel and on the last day visited the zoo where I managed to lose my camera. I was in a wheelchair as it would have been too much to walk around there and I had taken some opiate pain medication which always makes me a bit ga-ga for a while and I must have dropped the camera from the wheelchair.  Luckily I had just downloaded photos onto my computer the day before so only lost those I took at the zoo.  I always have mixed feelings when I go to the zoo.  On the one hand I love to see the animals, on the other hand I hate to see them caged, no matter how elaborate the cages are. I know all the arguments for and against zoos but I still cringe a bit.

The next stop was Sicily and we were looking forward to some sunny, warm weather.  Our flight approach gave us fantastic views of snow covered Mt Etna.  We caught a taxi from Catania airport to Taormina, which normally takes about an hour.  I had used Google maps to check out Taormina when I was booking the apartment to see if it was in a suitable location for what we wanted so I had a reasonable idea of what it looked like.  Next thing I know the taxi is sailing past what looked like where we should be getting out.  I questioned the driver but he was following his sat nav and indicated all was well.  There didn't appear to be any message in Italian saying "turn around you are going the wrong way" even though we were.  We ended up in narrow little streets in the next village further up the mountain after several tortuous bends in the road.  As we got to the next village he started to ask the locals about the address he was trying to find but no-one was able to help.  We ended up in a dead end street little wider than the car in which the driver somehow managed to turn the car around with minimal damage to the buildings either side of the road.  Not sure about the taxi fenders.  Let's just say it was noisy.

Down the hill we went again on the windy mountain road.  By this stage my back was in a bad state and I had broken out in a sweat.  We got back to Taormina and he asked other taxi drivers at the local taxi stand.  After much running around by various taxi drivers and much gesticulation we were off again.  Finally we stopped at a little plaza that looked familiar, the taxi driver got out, unloaded our heavy bags and pointed up the hill and said 'it is up there'.  There was no way I was going to be able to drag my bag up that hill without even being able to see the accommodation or how far up the hill it actually was.  So I refused to pay and indicated this was not satisfactory.  The taxi driver than hauled some hapless Italian off the street who spoke some English and I explained my back was too sore for me to haul my bag up the road.  Next thing I see is our somewhat overweight and short taxi driver is dragging both our bags up the hill.  With us in hot pursuit after much asking locals and turning down a couple of little alleys we got to our destination and I was able to give our by now seriously sweating taxi driver a round of applause and his money.  It had taken two hours to get from the airport.

We were meeting friends, Zana & Erica, at the apartment who had been working on some cruise boat as artists in residence.  It was actually their idea that we go to Sicily and that is how we ended up going to Taormina.  When I found the apartment it happened to be two bedrooms so we invited them to stay with us there as our stays overlapped a few days.  Although the apartment was lovely it was in fact only one bedroom with a sofa bed in the lounge room.  This wasn't in fact a problem as everybody other than me were out most of the day and I managed to sight see mostly half days and then had to lie down any way.  We ate out most nights and the food was great, inexpensive and really fresh simple Italian food. Yum.  The owner of the apartment, Vanessa, owned a restaurant about 25 meters from the apartment and the rental included one free meal there during our stay of which we availed ourselves the last night.

Our second day in Toarmina was lovely.  The weather was warm and sunny, the buildings old and interesting and a relaxed holiday atmosphere pervaded the place.  We were close to the main road through the town.  By this I don't mean the main road for cars but the main tourist road, mostly pedestrians with the occasional  car slowly driving through the throngs of tourists.  This road was lovely and flat so easy for me to manage with lots of interesting little staircased alleys running off either sides and plenty of shops, cafes and churches along the way.  There were a couple of old gateways along the way with some of the old town wall attached.  The views from some of the plaza was spectacular as we were quite high up and looked over the sparkling Mediteranean and Mt Etna.  We visited the Roman ruins of a Greek theater (very confusing) which were impressive, still used and had spectacular views from certain parts.  It was exhausting and wonderful.

Another lovely, peaceful spot in Taormina were the public gardens designed by Florence Trevelyan in the early 19th century. These gardens are planted with a huge variety of plants and shrubs ranging from the most common to the exotic.  A panoramic walkway with magnificent views over the coast and Mount Etna weaves its way along one side of the gardens.  Glen went on a couple of excursion, one to the top of Mt Etna and another across the island to Agrigento and then to the Roman Villa closer to Taormina.  I didn't go as they were very long excursion and would have been too tiring.

Next stop was Amsterdam and we had a terrific flight from Catania.  First we flew past the still snow capped Mt Etna, then saw Stromboli and then had a view right into the crater of Mt Vesuvius.  Amazing to see three volcanoes in one day.

Living and thriving.

Linda