Sweet dreams, little little one

We are so very grateful for the ten wonderful years you gave us. You may have left our lives, but you will never leave our hearts.

Abbey Rhodes Princess
May 27, 1997 - November 21, 2007

Godspeed, little one.

Abbey Rhodes Princess

That was the AKC name we gave her when we registered her. Her mom was something something Queen, and her dad was something Rhodes something. Hence, Abbey Rhodes Princess, which turned out to be a nice play on words on the Beatles' album title (Che being a big Beatles fan). She was born on May 27, 1997, and she came into our lives about 10 weeks later. She will leave it much too soon.

Unfortunately, the news today could not have been worse. The ultrasound showed a massive lesion on her spleen which has already ruptured and begun to bleed into her belly. There are also lesions all over her liver and her lungs. The oncologist was nearly certain that it is hemangiosarcoma, which has a very very poor prognosis. Surgical and chemotherapy options would buy us only months at best, and that's assuming she could even make it through surgery. She is already very anemic and would require plasma and blood transfusions to even undergo surgery. If the surgery is successful, it would stop the bleeding from the spleen lesion, but it would be just a matter of time before the other lesions would do the same. In the end, we decided that prolonging the inevitable would be more for our benefit than for hers.

So, the oncologist (who was a wonderful, wonderful woman for whom I gained the greatest respect and admiration in the short time we spoke - I am forever grateful that there are people like her in this world) sent us home with instructions to spoil her rotten in the few days we have left with her. We will be lucky to make it through Thanksgiving before we have to make the very painful decision to let her go, a decision that will be made easier by the fact that the alternative is letting her basically bleed to death internally. If we make it through the end of the week, that will be plenty enough for me to give thanks for on Thursday.

Please keep Abbey in your thoughts and prayers this week. I am not ready to let her go, but I know I have to be strong enough to spare her any pain or suffering.

They say that bad things happen in threes.

I hope that means we're due for a run of good luck. Che took two of our dogs to the vet this morning. Brandy was due for bloodwork but Abbey has been acting strangely since we got back from vacation, so she tagged along. She normally is a vacuum and will eat anything (and everything) in sight but the past few days, she hasn't wanted to eat anything. Turns out that she has a large mass in her abdomen. The x-ray shows her spleen being three times the normal size. The vet thinks the mass is in her spleen, and there's no way to tell yet if it's benign or malignant. Worse, it could be on her liver and possibly inoperable.

She is going in for an ultrasound on Monday, and in the meantime, we keep our fingers and toes crossed that (a) her spleen does not rupture before then; and (b) it turns out to be a benign mass that can simply be removed. Even though it's been more than five years since we lost our first beagle, Casey, to cancer, sometimes it still feels like yesterday and we are so not ready to go through that again.

Thank you to all my friends for your sympathies and commisseration on my injured foot and my lost job. But I can live with those things - they're nothing. I really really need my baby to be OK. Please send your good thoughts her way.

When it rains, it pours.

So I was sitting in the urgent care clinic yesterday waiting for x-ray results to tell me whether my foot was broken (after a spill down some stairs at work) when I got the call that they had offered the job to someone else. I suppose I was supposed to feel better to hear that they thought I was great, and that I made it a very tough decision for them, but I don't. Mostly because I know just enough about the other guy's qualifications to know that I could do the job better. And more importantly, I'm sure I want it more. In any event, I will keep my head up and just keep looking. The right job will come along sometime.

And no, my foot is not broken. But from what I'm hearing, I kinda wish it were. I think it would probably heal faster. It looks like I have soft tissue damage, and I have to get an MRI next week to make sure there is no ligament or tendon damage. In the meantime, I can't put any weight on it so I have a lovely walking boot and crutches.

So much for getting back to the gym pronto after vacation. And speaking of vacations, I'll have a trip report soon.

Checking in from the Islands

It's Day Four in Grand Cayman, and the weather has been a total bust. It's been rainy (and when it's not raining, it's still cloudy), windy, and the seas have been too choppy for much snorkeling or diving. But hey, I'm not in the office so I'm having a blast.

Despite the mediocre weather, we've still had a great time and are looking forward to several more days of fun activities before heading home on Saturday.

The highlight of my trip has by far been the Cayman Turtle Farm:

Unfortunately, cloud cover has put a damper on our sitting-on-the-beach-with-fruity-drinks-in-hand-and-watching-the-beautiful-sunset plan. This was the closest we've come to seeing a sunset on the beach, last night:

Goodbye Phoenix...

...Hello Grand Cayman! Well, at least for one week.

I know, you thought I was going to say that I got the job and am moving to Dallas. I wish. Hopefully by the time I return from a much-needed vacation, I will have that news. For now, I am still just waiting (after my second interview last week) and keeping my fingers and toes crossed.