The C word.

(No not the rude one, the scary one)

Eighteen months ago, it was a word beginning with a small "c". It was something you heard on the news that ageing celebrities had died from after "a long battle with". It was something your neighbour's, auntie's, second cousin's hairdresser had had, and was mortified because her hair had fallen out.

Then it came crashing into our life with a giant capital "C", when Colin was diagnosed with a soft tissue sarcoma in September 2007. And it has been a part of our lives since. Happily he had it removed - it was a lump on his forearm - and after 6 weeks of radiotherapy in Nov/Dec 07 he was put on regular check-ups and "touch wood" he is fine. When his sister lost her battle in June 2008, he took it upon himself to raise money for Cancer Research UK and you can read about his efforts (and maybe sponsor him???) on his website 365challenge.co.uk and read about the gathering momentum of the publicity for it on his blog.

On Monday he took Susie to the vet to have her stitches removed, and the results of the lump were in. It was a soft tissue sarcoma! What are the chances? The report was that they believed they had removed it all, and that it wasn't the type of thing that metastisizes but may reoccur at the same site. They do not do radiotherapy so we just have to keep an eye on it and if it reoccurs they will remove it again. We wonder if her previous owners knew, but they hadn't told Labrador Rescue about it and they hadn't noticed it. It's not really something that you would miss on a family pet.

But the bright side for her is that she has us. We will look after her no matter what. We love her to bits already and we'll be keeping an eye on that leg. And, now the stitches are out, she can go off the lead again and have a jolly good run around at the park, chasing the ball and meeting her new friends.