A suspicious item

I have scheduled a senior wellness checkup for Leo this week, mostly to make sure that his heartworm test comes back negative and to get a few weird things looked at (is that a granuloma? what about the hairy tumor thing on his leg?). I was poking around, and there's a lump - a lymph node - behind his right rear leg. I can feel it - that's bad. Now, he's got all kinds of scabs and hot spots on his back quarter - seriously, it's awful! - so it could just be from the infection/scabs/bites/what have you. I hope.  We shall see.

Bruno RIP

I have found out that Bruno, Leo's dog-friend, has passed away.  Bruno also had cancer. The last time that we saw Bruno it was on Friday. He was not doing well, and when Leo went up to him he didn't get up - but the tail was wagging, and he perked up when his old pal came by to say hello.

ELEVEN

The quote is "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics"; I'm going to say there's even damned statistics.  Leo has made it to eleven years old, which is, statistically, improbable.  But here he is, and I'm happy for it.

Leo's friends

Do dogs have friends? I know, weird question, but it's certainly something that I think about when I see him interacting with other dogs.

Lies, damned lies and statistics

As I do the statistics necessary to write a climate paper, I am struck by the outlier I see regularly. That is,  Leo, who is the definition of an outlier.  He's part of the long tail of a distribution.  The unfortunate fact of the matter, it's a distribution of outcomes, of recurrences - in short, of survival.  The fortunate part is he's on the good end of things, the part where statistics stop mattering so much.
It is hard, at times, to look at something or someone that you care about as the result of statistics.  But it's true - we are all parts of various distributions, whether we know it or not. Some are happy (our long-tail-dwelling friend), and some are not (the poor souls whose cancers don't respond, or whose remissions are measured in days, not years).

I am simply happy that Leo's good health, and good luck, continue, and that he continues to be part of the Long Tail of outcomes.  It's not only good for him - it's good for me, too!

2 years

I'm very late with this, and happy to be late.
2 years ago, I got a terrible phone call from L that something was wrong with Leo.  When I saw his face, I knew it was bad.
On March 29, 2012, Leo was diagnosed with Lymphoma.  He began chemotherapy on 3/31/2012.  His life expectancy was anywhere between 9-18months, with a median survival of 1 year or less.  Hence the name of this blog.

Checkup

Leo's been having a bit of trouble with his throaty-thing, so it was back in to see the doctors.  This wasn't a "let's do something!" visit, but rather a "let's figure out if we should do something" visit.  And again, after a lot of time and patience and poking and prodding, we've come to the conclusion that there's nothing obviously wrong. Which is good!