I wanted to thank everyone for their kind words on my previous post. I really appreciate it, and it did make me feel better.

For the past couple of years I've talked about my dog, Spike, and his throat tumor. It was completely gone when they checked last November, but two weeks ago, he started to show symptoms that he had never had before (labored breathing, no energy) and his regular vet and the Vet School Hospital confirmed that it was back and much worse than it had been before. The medication they gave him helped his breathing a little, but last night he got very bad, to the point where he was clearly suffering, and this morning we took him to the vet school and held him while they put him to sleep.

When he had his first chemotherapy appointment last Fall, there was a girl in the waiting room crying because she'd had to have her dog put to sleep, and I knew someday that would be me, and today it was. He had a good life, but we should have had a lot more time with him.

Thanks very much for everybody's good wishes for Spike. We just picked him up from the vet hospital, and it's really not good news. The tumor's back, it came back a lot more quickly this time, basically since November. It's making his larnyx swell, and it's paralyzed one of the larnygeal flaps, so that's why his breathing got so bad over the past few days. He's got a prescription for an anti-inflammatory to hopefully ease the swelling, but the long-term options aren't good. At this point, it sounds like the solution is pretty drastic, wouldn't guarantee him very good quality of life, and also wouldn't guarantee that the tumor wouldn't just come back. We're still thinking about it, but it just pretty much sucks right now. We're going to just keep him at home right now and see if the anti-inflammatory works. I think I've known this was coming for a while, I was just in denial about it.

I had to take Spike the dog back to the hospital today. If you've been reading this LJ for a while, you may be familiar with Spike's adventures with his throat tumor over the past couple of years. When it came back after the first operation, his regular vet referred him to the Texas A&M University Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital. The tumor turned out to be something rare and strange, and he got operated on by the top dog respiratory surgeon in the state and basically has more teams of doctors and surgeons and oncologists at this point than I've ever had in my life, even when I was in the hospital. This was all without showing a single symptom of anything other than noisy breathing. He's also a favorite with his vets, because he's very friendly and easy to handle for everybody, and has been called "the well-socialized little dog" and "a rock star."

But over the weekend, he started to act lethargic, and to have intermittent bouts of labored breathing. This was really upsetting, since even when the tumor was at its biggest, he never seemed this affected by it. I took him to the regular vet yesterday, but he couldn't find another cause, and so Spike is back at the hospital getting his tumor looked at again. Hopefully I should hear back this afternoon.

( picture of Spike )

ETA: Oh, one of the neat things about the vet hospital waiting area (which as you might imagine I am well acquainted with) is that a lot of people come in from out of town, have to wait for their animals for a long time, so they have a shelf of books to borrow. 90% of those books are science fiction or fantasy. It's also the only medical waiting room I've ever been in that has Sci-Fi Channel Magazine.

Took Spike (the dog) for his first chemotherapy appointment this morning, for his throat tumor, and just got him home. He seems okay so far, and there's a chance he won't have any side effects, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

The A&M vet hospital gets a lot of interesting cases -- when we picked up Spike after his operation last month there were two zookeepers there waiting to pick up their panther. This time there was a girl sitting next to me who had to have her dog put to sleep. The admitting nurse was there talking to her, the girl is crying, I'm about to start crying because she's crying, and they brought Spike out. Spike hates to see people upset, and the whole time I'm getting instructions from the resident (his poo may be toxic for the next 48 hours) he's fighting to get to this girl so he can lick her, which he thinks is the cure for any human-related problem. At least he made her laugh a little.

Had one last question to answer:

zornhau asked: So, what do you think you have to work on most? Go on... Every writer has their flaws - what are yours?

I need to be less nice to people? Actually I think I've had a problem maintaining my concentration, which made me less prolific than I would have liked to be. I think I'm getting over that one now. I also need to make my plots less complicated.



What I've been doing this week: Three photos below, Spike (the dog) pre-tumor surgery, then two of how he looked post-surgery on Wednesday evening. He's doing much better today.

( Spike photos )

He had a large rhabdomyoma (a benign skeletal muscle tumor which is not supposed to show up on the throat) pressing on half of his larnyx and also causing an inflamed salivary gland. They had to take out the gland (and the tumor), but everything else is fine. The bad thing is, the tumor will probably come back.


ETA: Forgot I was going to mention, a couple of the projects in my Donors Choose literacy challenge are about to time out without getting the money they need, meaning any money donated to them will go to another project. If you have a chance and some spare money, take a look and see if you'd like to donate to them. I also added a few new projects to the challenge. All of them involve buying books or other materials for classrooms in low-income areas.

sartorias has a great review of The Sharing Knife books by Lois Bujold here. I loved both books, and I've really enjoyed all Bujold's fantasies. The Curse of Chalion is probably still my favorite, though.

I'm kind of busy, kind of freaking out. My dog Spike is going in for surgery again tomorrow, for his throat tumor. It's benign, but keeps growing back. And I had other things I was going to post about, and now have no memory of them.

Oh, Black Gate has an article on Catherine Moore's (C.L. Moore) impact on fantasy. Jirel of Joiry: the Mother of Us All.