"Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do not tell."

Oh, my doggie is not well. Not well at all. This picture is of a cute canine moment where she is relaxing in the sunshine streaming through the window of my apartment. What's funny about it is that I live on the first floor and only get a narrow shaft of natural light between 3:30pm and 3:56pm (DST), and only when it is exceptionally bright out. It is just enough to warm up the wood floor, not even enough to cover her 85-lb frame, and has always been a favorite nap spot. I cannot imagine what it might be like not to trip over her as I try to get to the telephone table under the window.

Since that first trip to the vet two weeks ago, when this sick-dog venture began, I have been in some sort of bizarre denial that it could be very, very bad. When vets started throwing words around like "lymphoma" and "biopsy", it sort of stunned me into inaction. I realized when I woke up this morning that in the last two weeks I had not once--not once--looked up canine lymphoma on the internet. I'm not sure I can hammer home how insane that really is for me:

The internet is my personal oracle. I look up EVERYTHING on the internet. Recipes, travel directions, new Frye styles for 2005, news clips, song lyrics, classic comic book prices. I've been known to get out of bed in the middle of the night and switch on the computer because I can't remember the name of the drummer from Culture Club. What prevented me from investigating doggie cancer? I suppose I just didn't want to know. She didn't seem to be in any kind of pain (although, now post-biopsy, she looks mighty uncomfortable and I'm getting some meds from the vet) so I think I just allowed myself to pretend that some antibiotics would shrink down her golf-ball sized lymph nodes. They didn't.

So now there's just the post-biopsy waiting; test results, to treat or not to treat, that sort of thing. I used to think that not knowing was the very worst part, but now that I actually forced myself to do some research, I know that's not true. There are far worse things that waiting.