Alexandria, Va

Thursday, May 6th, 1:15 pm Eastern Time

We have been remiss in posting to this blog, but there has been a lot going on the past few days. We are now back at Shelly's after disembarking in San Diego and a cross-country flight yesterday. Kudos to Kristen for doing the midnight airport pick-up.

We had a wonderful day around Cabo San Lucas on Monday, including a typical Mexican lunch on the patio of the Hotel California in Todos Santos, followed by a little shopping. But when we got back to the Ryndam about 3 pm, we had a message from Kristen waiting for us.

To get right to the point, our longtime friend and frequent traveling companion, Charley the Poodle, is very sick. We had left him with Shelly, who noticed over the weekend a sudden and serious change in his behavior--listlessness, weakness, not eating, not eliminating. A trip to her vet in Alexandria Monday morning revealed an enlarged spleen, fever, and severe anemia. The diagnosis was anemia of unknown origin or lymphoma--neither very good. In fact, the vet said his red blood count indicated he was "on the edge" and his prospects were slim. She prescribed Prednisone and antibiotics, which has stabilized him somewhat, but as of this morning, he has not appreciably improved.

Charley is 10 years old and standard poodles generally have only an 11- to 12-year life span, so despite his historically good health, his age is not in his favor. We are playing this day-by-day right now, but hope to get him back to Vermont either Sunday or Monday. At that point, a very difficult decision may need to be made.