Monday, April 6, 2009

Earthquake in Abruzzo!

Typical Abruzzese homes perched on the edge of a canyon. This is a scene from Castelvecchio, a town I would run down to this summer. The epicenter in today's earthquake some 20 K away was in Castelnuovo (new vs old).

As some of you know, I spent 5 weeks last summer in Gagliano Aterno, a small mountain village in the Abruzzo region learning Italian. This village is exactly 12 miles from the epicenter (Castelnuovo) of the earthquake that hit very early this morning. Apparently there have been at least 9 little earthquakes there in the past year (news to me-I only knew it was an earthquake area when we spent a day in Celano (3 miles from the epicenter) when they kept saying this part of the castle was rebuilt in such and such a year after ...then they listed several earthquakes) The news seems to be centered around L'Aquila, the largest city in the region where the university that the Italian students came from for our program to teach them English. A dorm collasped leading to some of the 92 fatalities (and counting). I hope none of our students were among them. Lots of the buildings in these little towns were built on edges of cliffs. I can't imagine that they would survive an earthquake. While we were in Italy, various villages (Molina, Secinaro, Goriano {update: that church we visited now has a major crack in it-I found an Italian blogger: terremoto}, Vittorito, Castelvecchio) would host us at night feeding us. I imagined feeding Americans put quite the dent in their budget-these are not wealthy people. The chances that these villages came out unscathed is very slim.

There was 6-8 inches of very wet snow here this morning. No school for Ms. Naomi. No gas in the car as Steve loves to play gasoline roulette to see how far we can go on fumes. Even though we have lost at this game before and he knows how irritating I find it, still he will drain the car.
Every five days, they take extra x-rays so my session was quite long. A 2 year old was in the waiting room. They knock her out for her treatments. Her mom and grandmom were with her and have moved to Ann Arbor for her 8 months of treatments. How unfair cancer can be! I talked with the grandmom quite a bit.

1 comment:

Kellys Blog said...

Ciao Sue! I found you thru another blog, I had a 2.2cm triple neg removed via lumpectomy 1/30/09 - 2 mm on Sentinal node, so they ripped all 24 of those out, too (biopsy had FAILED, was diagnosed after surgery, rotten story). I've got 3 A/C under my belt - every other Fridays, last Friday was treatment - so feeling like DOOKIE today. Will do 1 mo A/C, then 4 Taxol (EVERYONE I connect with is miserable on the Taxol!!!) then 6 1/2 weeks of whole breast radiation. If all goes well, I'll end chemo 6/12, start radiation 4-5 wks later. MERRY SUMMER TO ME. I'm 45, my kids are 15 & 22, I'm husband is far better than average, and I live in Dallas. It helps me immensly to find you ladies forging the path ahead of me! I feel like sh*t 5 days after A/C, then slowly get better for a week, then WHAM next treatment. Bald, queasy, sleep probs, raw mouth, runny nose, sores at the corners of my mouth for 3 damn weeks now. Wah, wah, bitch, bitch. Your husband gives you your Neulasta shot? WOW. I go back and have them do it the day after. Keep writing sista!

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