Dickens was helping me in the guest room.   Maybe he was afraid it was chaos downstairs.  
Granger said, "I'm not chaos!"  That's true.   He just sweet.  Naps are his thing.
Toasty is still recovering from his back injury.  I am continuing his red-light therapy.  Dickens still gets it too.   Toasty would love to be chaotic, but we limit him.  He needs to heal.
Tuk Tuk would love chaos-- he can't play with Toasty right now-- not allowed- but he's tried to get Cinnamon involved.  She was not amused.  LOLTuk Tuk checked out the lounger in our room but then got on the bed beside me.  
There he is with Granger on the middle part too.  My tall husband's area is definitely being affected. After Granger tried to fit in the flowerpot, I found a box in the attic.  He went right into it.  
Gomez' mom made his box fancy!  He even has a "Peke look out." 🤣Tuk Tuk had to try it out-- and he began chewing on some of it.  Toasty is getting sleepy.   I think it's time for a rest.   I might join him.  They're all spread out around the porch.    Nap breaks are great!! 😴💤
 

Magoo came into rescue almost five years ago.  He was part of the Potomac Six from NC. Since he was adopted, he has traveled so much!  Italy, Germany— and now he has moved to Hawaii!  He visited some friends on the way there. It takes a long time to get your furniture all the way from Italy.  Magoo has a lot of empty space to play in. 

Here’s yet another one of those “Man, biology just will not stop piling on the multitasking” examples. Everyone has heard of serotonin as a signaling molecule and neurotransmitter - it’s one of the few that has name recognition even among people who don’t work in biomedicine at all.  But its effects in vivo are extremely varied and complex, not least because there are 13 subtypes of serotonin receptor stretched across six different families, with these occurring in a bewildering variety of different tissues (cardiovascular, the immune system, and many more). It’s a perfect example of evolution stumbling on a useful tool and then picking it up over and over again.

This new paper proposes, for example, that the serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which are famous as antidepressants among other uses, could have a role in cancer therapy. The reuptake pathway seems to inhibit CD8 T-cell antitumor immunity by keeping serotonin levels inside tumor tissue low (there’s that immune system connection just mentioned). And the paper shows that administration of SSRIs like fluoxetine (famous under the brand name Prozac) or citalopram (widely known as Celexa) at normal therapeutic doses in mouse cancer models significantly reduced tumor growth and improved survival across a range of different types (melanoma, colon, bladder, breast). Closer examination indicated that more active CD8 T cells appear to have been behind these effects. You might expect such a mode of action to synergize with anti-PD-1 immunooncology therapy, and so it proved: giving the SSRI drugs along with antibodies against mouse-type PD-1 showed even greater effects than either treatment alone. 

This would seem to be immediately actionable in clinical trials. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that the number of cancer patients who are already getting SSRIs is not insignificant, so that is going to have to be untangled along the way. Perhaps some of the benefit of that (and other) cancer treatments that we’ve seen have been unexpectedly helped along a bit because we didn’t take this effect into account. And there are of course a lot of other potential mechanisms at work here, given the complexity of serotonin signaling in general. But it should be relatively straightforward to see if adding an SSRI to the treatment regimen patients getting anti-PD-1 cancer therapy improves their outcomes. And if it does, so much the better! These drugs are cheap and widely available.

There are plenty of other immune-modulating pathways that we’re just beginning to get a handle on (or are just beginning to realize that they exist at all). And that’s why I roll my eyes when I hear anyone say that they wonder if immuno-oncology is somehow “played out”. No, we’ve just been messing around with the stuff that we know the most about and running variations on those. It’s going to be a long, long time before we’ve exhausted the possibilities. If you’re looking for a boost to your company’s stock price by the second quarter of next year, then yeah, that’s tougher. But in the long term of the real world out here, there is just so, so much to do.

Granger came into rescue w no long hair and a thin coat You wouldn’t know that now!  His hair is thick and can get long. 
So Granger is having a haircut.  Toasty is helping. 
Is he next?  He hopes not.  We’ll see.  Granger isn’t a great fan of haircuts.  Since he has a heart condition, he had some calming meds from his vet.  It really helped. And…he gave up.  He will take a nap while he becomes more beautiful.  💤😴
 

 GIDGET 💕

Gidget came into rescue in December of 2021.  
Gidget came into rescue because her owner was dying and could no longer take care of her.  Gidget was 9 years old.  She also began seizure meds when we got her. Gidget is so cute.  I love her white eyelashes.  Gidget had a special talent. She’s SINGS!  Loudly.  If you aren’t there, if you leave, she will SIIING.  🎶🎶

He has somehow passed that on to Tuk Tuk. 😫I went to visit yesterday.  They were all there.  Granger, Gigi, Tuk Tuk and Toasty.  (Charlie my grand cat passed away last week at 18. 😢)
Granger was in his big box part of the time.  His orange hair from October is almost gone. 😝Toasty was on my lap.  They all know me. 
He has the saddest face. But he is such a happy boy. 
Granger must be giving Tuk Tuk tips on boxes and their uses.  You know- playing in them, sleeping in them, tearing them apart.   

Tuk tuk seems to say “What?”  
And then back to pulling pieces off the box. He has been able to make a hole.  It’s only the beginning. 😂 I predict pieces of cardboard all over the place. LOL.