.: so comes snow after fire :.

Look, a proper entry from my pc and not from my cellphone! The eyesight is still funky, so sorry in advance for any weird spelling. They said it takes time to get better. Anyway, here's what I've been doing these last few days: walking in the sun with my cousin, I went to the pharmacy to buy a soap and a new cream, I did my first cortisol shot with a super sweet doctor who moved here from Africa 30 years ago (we live in a very small town in the mountains of Piedmont, believe me when I say we were not expecting a doctor who came from anywhere but Northern Italy). I'm eating a lot, and everything's so delicious and I missed my aunt's cooking so much. I'm re-wathing all Studio Ghibli films, and I even made my own breakfast yesterday! I was a bit worried to use the stove, with the eyesight and everything, but I did it and boy, it was even more delicious because I did it all by myself. ^^

So yep, these antidepressants are really working. I was a bit worried they'd make me sleepy, but so far they just make me feel at ease and... normal. Just myself.

And thank you thank you thank you for all your messages. I don't reply because of the eyesight that makes it really hard to write, but I read them all a hundred times and cherish every single one. I love you guys! ♥

Last entry before departure: I got my tickets, I got my passport, I got my suitcase. Hope I didn't forget anything important. I got a make-up bag full of medicines because I get super anxious everytime I have to leave the country. I'll take pictures on my phone because that camera is way better than the actual camera I bought in 2012.

The last few days were spent taking long walks downtown to build up my stamina, marathoning all the X-Men movies (except for the ones Days of Future Past made irrelevant, because those two suck anyway), going to the cinema to watch Beauty and the Beast, which I loved. Today we're going to visit Tati's sister and her baby, and then I hope I'll be able to sleep, because I'm always anxious the night before I have to take a plane.

See you on the other side! \o/

I'm back in Piedmont for a week. Yesterday I went to the hospital for the usual therapy, although there was a bit of a mishap. They were supposed to do the usual blood tests, and leave the needle inside my arm for the drip later. The nurses thought I was only meant to do the blood tests, so they took the needle out, to which I reacted shouting "wait, I need that later, put it back!!". You can imagine their faces. They did not put the needle back in, in case you were wondering, and so I had to be poked again three hours later when they attached me to the drip. Oh well. Did my therapy, saw my oncologist, who made me promise I'll show her pictures of my trip to London next time. Yep, the trip is coming, I can't believe it!

While I was in Venice my cousin's professor wrote back with his corrections to our first draft of the thesis, and they were all cosmetic ones (commas, how to write notes, etc), but I was so nervous while reading them Tati had to make me sit down and drink a glass of water. I had forgotten how stressful it can be, to read a professor's corrections on a paper you wrote, and not knowing if it sucked until you get to the end. It's been ten years since I graduated, I am so not used to it anymore.

Anyway, I'm taking a week here to help my cousin with the rest of the thesis, especially the intro and the final chapter, and then I'm back in Venice so that we can fix those gas tubes with the plumbers. It's like jumping from 22-year-old me to 33-year-old me back and forth. So weird.

I've decided to do a re-watch of Person of Interest from the start, although with the thesis and all I'll only be able to do it in the evening. I miss that show. ♥

Quick update on the thesis, today we're sending our first draft to Francesca's professor. I'm so nervous, let's hope he likes it! I was talking with my therapist yesterday, and we both agreed on how much this has helped me: working, having a purpose, doing something that only I can do, it makes me feel so useful, something that I haven't felt ever since this whole cancer thing started. I have noodle arms, so helping with physical tasks is out of the question (when I try I get tackled by the nearest family member and offered a cup of herbal tea), but using my brain is exactly what I'm good at! \o/

Yesterday I was talking with my aunt about the thesis, and it quickly snowballed into a heated discussion about angelic hierarchies and politheism in monotheistic religions. Then we had a glass of warm milk and honey and went back to the role of Michael as related to God. I'm learning so much while working on this thesis, and there is so much food for thought and discussion.

Unrelated, but have you heard the news? Philip Pullman is publishing a new trilogy, the Book of Dust, set in the same universe as His Dark Materials, and Lyra will be back! I'm so excited, I loved those books so much, but I never thought we'd get more novels. What a wonderful announcement!

I can't believe it's been two weeks already since my last entry! The big news is, I had my quarterly visit with my oncologist, and it went splendidly! She says everything's going great, and that I'm to keep taking the same meds and we'll see each other again in April. That means that this is officially the longest I've been doing the same medicine ever since I started doing chemo. \o/ We also talked about the Concert (it's a concert in London I bought tickets for last May, as soon as I finished the first round of chemo - it's Yoko Shimomura, whose music I adore, but it's also a promise I made to myself to keep feeling better and better so that a year later I could take a plane and visit another country, a promise it turns out I kept!), and she was very enthusiastic about it and rescheduled my March appointment so that I could go! And she asked me to make her a cd of Shimomura-san's music too! How cool is that?

Next monday I'm going back to Venice for a week, as I have to meet with my lawyer and go to the bank. And also tell everyone I know how brilliantly the visit went. :D On wednesday I already have an appointment with my therapist, who I couldn't see last time because of the awful combination of cold weather and delicate lungs. This time the weather should be nice, plus my therapist has started doing pet therapy too, and I'm hoping I'll get to see one of the dogs. She sent me some pictures, they look so cute and huggable!

In fandom news, I watched Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency on Netflix, and I absolutely adored it. It's a fantastic adaptation of a series of novels by Douglas Adams, and it's as weird and funny as you would expect it to be, while having fantastic plot and character development, a diverse cast, great female characters with their own storylines and agendas who are never sexualized, and really great acting. It's eight episodes, around six hours long, and it's *Arthur Shappey's voice* brilliant. *____*

Now I have to run, my uncle went out to buy pizzas, and at 9 pm we're going to the cinema to watch Rogue One (third time for me!) ♥

Hope you're all having a great time with your family and loved ones! Happy Holidays, of whatever kind you celebrate!

Quick update, I caught some stupid virus from my aunt, and spent the last three days with a fever and a horrible cough. Nothing serious, only really annoying. I drank a lot of fluids, took my meds, spent the days in bed with my laptop. Boring but effective, because today I feel a lot better.

Just before the fever hit I managed to do the usual exam for my heart (the meds I take can affect the heart, so I have to keep an eye on it), and everything looks great as always. So yay! I'm so happy I had the exam when I did, because six hours later I wouldn't have been able to leave the house, so double yay for my body's timing. Now I'm free until the 29th, when it's time for the usual immunotherapy.

In other news I'm still marathoning Prison Break, and it really helped passing the time when sick. I'm almost halfway through season 4, and really, really loving it. Great acting, great dialogues, but most of all a great story that keeps raising the stakes with every new season. *____*

So that's it for me. Happy Holidays everyone!

Great news everybody! Yesterday I had the big exams I have every three months, and lo and behold one of them shows my cancer is in remission! Some parts have disappeared, the rest has strongly diminished. I've gone through all stages of joy and relief, which included vibrating at such a high frequency the doctors told me I had to relax or they couldn't do the other exam. Then I came home and crashed. Goodbye adrenaline, my old friend.

Other highlights of the past few days include one of the doctors, the one who operated on me a few months back, telling me he could never forget me because I'm such a great person he looks up to me and my strength. Which left me blabbering and blushing for half an hour at least. That was so unexpected and so nice!

Then, on the evening before the exams I saved my family's life! We were all sitting in the kitchen, watching tv, and I started feeling weird and it hurt between my eyes. I ran to check the hob and there was gas leaking out. We opened all windows, and sat in the cold night air breathing it in for a while. My aunt got really scared, and now she insists on buying one of those thingies that can tell when there's a gas leak. I'll see if I can get one on amazon. She also called me her guardian angel, and I haven't stopped smiling since. ^^

In fandom news, I binge-watched all of Legends of Tomorrow, and it was surprisingly much better than the reviews I had read said! The first season suffers from a very boring villain, and that Kendra and Carter storyline, but other than that I thought it was intriguing and funny, and there were a couple of plot twists there that had me shouting at the screen. With the second season we got much better villains (one of my favourite villains ever, let's face it) and Sara got an even larger role, so I'm as happy as I can be with the direction the show has taken. Plus I really love Amaya, and I hope that cameo in episode 9 means a certain someone is coming back to the show for good.

I've also started watching Prison Break, super late, I know, and so far I'm really intrigued. I started watching it because of Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell, but I'm really enjoying everything about it. I have to say I'm a bit puzzled they did four seasons of it, considering the premise should cover one season at best, but hey, I'm only at episode four, so what do I know? *shrugs*

So yep, it's been a pretty eventful week for me. My cousin comes back from Ireland tomorrow, and on sunday we're going to see Rogue One together, and then have sushi. We did the same thing last year, almost to the day. I had just started chemo, I was still hurting everywhere and I'd just lost my hair. A couple of days later I got surgery for the cvc. It was as tiring as climbing a mountain, but I was so ecstatic to be out of the house for something other than being in the hospital. So now it's our December tradition to celebrate how far I've come: watch a Star Wars movie, have sushi, and this time nothing is going to hurt! \o/