It has not been my best week ever . . .

Monday night driving home from work, I got a flat tire on the freeway. Even knowing AAA was on the way, it was a bit disconcerting to hang out on the side of the road.

Thanks to everyone for all your good wishes for Hanna, and I wanted to let everyone know how she's doing. We went and talked to the oncologist today, who I really like. Here Hanna waits patiently for her adoring fans at the doctor's office to arrive and give her loving . . .

Hanna had her first dose of chemo today, and I'll also be giving her prednisone at home. The doctor did an ultrasound, and also took a needle aspiration of her spleen to try to ascertain whether the cancer has spread, and to what extent. We won't have the biopsy results of the spleen until tomorrow, but the ultrasound showed it has spread to some of her other lymph nodes. Asssuming she tolerates the chemo (which 90 - 95 percent of dogs do), we'll keep up with that, pretty aggressively at first and then tapering off. Unfortunately, the prognosis is not that good long term, and what we're looking at realistically is keeping her healthy and happy for about a year. Hopefully, she will be Super Dog and do better than expected.

She has quite the reputation around the Vet's office. While she was in the back for testing and chemo, the techs were trying to entice some poor dog who had lost his appetite into eating. They took their eyes off of Hanna, who promptly stole a cookie out of the tech's hand.

When I came back to pick her up, and was checking out, she noticed that there was a stuffed animal dog in a Vet outfit on the counter. In the blink of an eye, she jumped up and stole it off the counter. From there she hightailed it to the door, waiting for me to aid and abet her by opening it up for a quick getaway. Eventually, she put it down, and I stole it back for the office. If she didn't put it down I would have let her keep it. . . . she has cancer for chrissakes.

On top of this add the superficial problems of eating nothing but Jenny Craig, salads, fruit and vegetables all week, and the robin's egg bump on my forehead where some bug bit me in the middle of the night, and I might go off my diet long enough to have a glass of wine tonight.

But as Miss Scarlet might say . . . tomorrow is another day!