Bad news about Dillon

He does have cancer after all. I'm devastated, and so is Anna, who heard the news (from me) shortly before leaving Seoul, S. Korea, where she spent last week on business while I came on home from our wonderful trip to Cape Cod.

I took him to the Snall Animal clinic at Texas A&M because no one here could read the xrays, and in fact the cancer didn't show on ordinary xrays-- only on a CT scan, which is actually hundreds of images.,/p>

He has a nerve-sheath tumor. It presses on a nerve that runs down his leg-- hence the pain that nakes him limp so heavily on his right foreleg. The tumor starts deep in the area of the armpit, then goes up under the shoulderblade and around the rib, heading for his spine. Poor dog.

They'be told us there are two options, one of which involves giving him pain medications and so making him as comfortable as possible for as long as possible-- maybe 4-6 months. The other involves amputating the right foreleg, a delaying action that nay add a year or 18 months to his life but leads eventually to the same result.

What to do? It's our call. As the doctor says, there are no right answers; and no wrong ones, ither.

If you've had experience with this sort of agonizing decision, let me mnow. We're hurting and at a loss; we need advice.

Love you,

John and Anna and Dillon.

John hone from Cape Cod, Anna's gone on to Seoul

This is just a quick note. We spent a wonderful week on Cape Cod, at the beautiful home of our friends Steve and Helen, on Scraggy Neck, near Catawmet. I sat on the deck, enjoying the sun and the breeze in the trees and the crash of the waves on the beach a few hundred feet away. One afternoon Steve and Helen and I went out in the boat for 45 minutes or so; another day Anna a and I drove down the Cape to Truro and my favorite beach, Fisher Beach (on Fisher Road, of c course), and then to our favorite restaurant, the Brewster Fish House in-- you guessed it-- Brewster. Yum. We didn't stay long at the beach-- we were both nade nervous by the fact that *as we realized when we were almost there) we didn't have a Town of Truro parking permit and dogs weren't allowed till after 6:00... We went anyway, Anna parking briefly in a handicapped parking space and allowing me to go on ahead. The walk up the slight incline and down again wore both me and Dillon completely out. I just don't have the strength yet. But I was delighted to be there.
Anna and I (and Steve) traveled back together as far as Atlanta; then I stayed on the plane, wich was going on to Austin (thanks tobrilliant arrangements by Steve!!)while Anna and Steve and another colleague went on to Seoul. She'll be back on Saturday, and I miss her.