CHARLIE UPDATE:
Well, the biopsy results are back and Charlie is fine. Five hundred dollars worth of fine. The lump, it seems, was not even of the fairly common and suspected fatty-tumor-variety, but in fact a self-inflicted abscess caused by licking himself (to which I have to say: He is a dog. Isn’t that, like, what they do? Why is this not more commonly known and how come NOTHING about it came up when I searched online?).
We are of course thrilled that Charlie is healthy, and that we have caught his weight problem before it turned into some chronic health crisis. But I can’t help drawing an eerie parallel between this and when our cat, Dinah, pulled the same kind of $500-self-mutilation and scratched her own eye (I swear she did. She wore the Cone of Shame for weeks because of it), resulting in a permanent squint that does nothing for her already menacing overall look.
I did mention to Doug that if Drew turns out to be a cutter, we will have to seriously re-evaluate our parenting philosophy. Because therapy can run $500 a week for that sort of thing.

We had a little health scare at home - Charlie the dog had a tumor! It was on his ankle, and the vet wasn’t gravely concerned, but Charlie had to have the lump removed and biopsied last Friday. I can’t even cope with the idea of a crappy diagnosis for anyone I love, pets included. In fact, I am calling a total moratorium on tumors in the house. No more are allowed, ever. Anyone found with one should be prepared to face the consequences.

Charlie also, it seems, is fat.

I have noticed him rounding out over the past few months since Drew learned to sleep under circumstances other than strapped to my chest in the Baby Bjorn, wandering endlessly around the streets of Oakland with the dog. When we went to the vet in March for shots he weighed 86 pounds. Big, yes, but just right for his size (gigantic). Last week he tipped the scales at 102, and was immediately put on a special (read: expensive) new high-fiber meal plan.
When I told all this to Melanie, she said, “Oh, I could tell. When I was at your house other day I hardly recognized him.” Like he was someone we’d gone to high school with who’d put on 75 pounds!

Ironically, the tumor removal procedure puts Charlie on the DL as far as training with me goes. We ran 4 miles on Thanksgiving, but that will be all for him until his stitches heal in about 2 weeks. I, on the other hand, am beginning to get more comfortable with running for prolonged periods of time (more than 30 minutes), and can actually see how, with a lot more work, I will be able to make it for the whole half-marathon.

This weekend at our run in Walnut Creek, one of my Team in Training Honorees, Brenda, was there with her two boys. She had a stem cell transplant in September (her second) to fight a recurrence of Leukemia, and was a reminder of why I signed up to do this in the first place.

I am so grateful for my friends and family and the opportunity to participate with Team in Training.

As always, thank you for your support!