Hal O'Brien

Back from a quickie trip to Astoria, OR, Cape Disappointment, WA, and various toodling about the far end of the Columbia River.

This is perhaps my favorite shot of sunset that I took.

More, including videos and panoramas, on my Flickr page.

About a month ago our dog Sarah had some surgery. She'd been licking the crevices in between her left front footpads almost constantly. We took her in to the vet, and it turned out she had what's known as a mast cell tumor down in those crevices. The surgery was to take out as much of the malignant tissue as possible.

At first she was hobbling about, then she was perky enough to chew through her bandages about every 48 hours. Now the bandages are completely off, and she seemed mostly fine.

Until Friday.

At first I noticed she was just a step behind where she usually is. When I went down to pick akirlu up at the train, Sarah had trouble jumping into the car to come along. As Friday night progressed, she developed a large amount of swelling on her left front shoulder, and the length of her relevant leg.

We took her in on Saturday morning, and our vet took some samples to send off to the lab. It being a holiday weekend, we wouldn't get results back until Tuesday. Over the course of the day, Sarah got slower, and was obviously laboring more to move. It was as if she'd suddenly gotten old. Which at ten years old, I suppose she is, but she had never seemed that way before.

She perked up enough that when Vanguard was hosted at our house that night, she seemed mostly OK, if a bit barky -- but then she's taking steroids to help with the swelling.

Sarah loves the beach. I mean, she loves the beach. So on Sunday, we took her to Dash Point, where it was... wet. Very rainy and wet. And slimy. And somewhat smelly from the kelp and whatnot.

So Monday we went on a field trip to the Astoria, OR area. I'm not going to tell you the specific beach, because it was so wonderful I'm afraid of a Tragedy of the Commons effect.

Saturday I also bought a new pocket zoom camera, because the old one had been lost. The new one -- a Panasonic DMC-ZS1 -- has many whizbang shooting modes, including a "Sunset" setting.

So this is Ulrika and Sarah at our semi-secret beach.

More at my Flickr account, tagged "beach day".

P.S.: I just got off the phone with our vet. Things are still inconclusive. I'll be taking Sarah in tomorrow morning for more tests.