Double Dose of Bad News

I'm leaving in a few minutes to take our Shiloh Shepherd, Flash, to the vet for surgery. He has a bone spur in his elbow that's making it very painful to walk -- he gimps around the place like a drunken pirate. They can do it via laparoscopy, so hopefully the recovery time won't be too bad.

In much worse news, our good friend Lori, who Annie has known since high school, is having to go in this morning for more tests on a lump in her breast that came back as cancerous after a biopsy.

Sickness and pain are as much a part of life as beauty and joy, but that doesn't make it any eaier to cope with or understand. Lori's a very tough customer, one of the nicest people I know. We all hope that maybe the test was mistaken somehow, or that the tumor (if that's what it is) turns out to be benign, but breast cancer is a very, very scary phrase. We're all hoping and confident that it'll work out all right after it's all said and done, but if you have a spare moment in your day, please think positive, encouraging thoughts about her.