An update on Jake (the dog)

I'm careful now to specify Jake the Dog versus Jake my Son so that no one panics unduly. You're welcome. (If you don't know who Jake the Dog is, click here.)

Jake had back surgery yesterday, and it went well, all things considered. He'll have a long recovery and will need lots of physical therapy, but eventually they hope he'll be able to use his right leg. (The nerve is severed, but there are other nerves that they hope to be able to teach his body to compensate with.)

They confirmed with an x-ray that his right cheekbone and upper-left jaw are fractured, but those should heal on their own, given time. When I was at their house the other night, the vet's office called and said that Jake had had a short seizure, and this is apparently common with this type of head trauma. They're going to keep an eye on that, for sure.

And when his back is more stable, they'll do oral surgery to remove the roots of many of his teeth (perhaps all of his top teeth, in fact). They're broken, but leaving the roots there could cause a dangerous infection. Luckily he has started to eat a little, and they're hopeful that he'll continue.

They are SO thankful for everyone's prayers. (Just look how much Rob loves this sweet boy. Awww.)

If you haven't already joined the Facebook page to keep up with Jake's recovery, please do. If you joined really early on, you may have joined the Group, not the Community, and the Group was harder to update so they deleted it. Click here to join the Community, which is updated regularly -- but doesn't send you an e-mail every time ... it just shows up in your Status Feed like a regular page.


Switching gears, National Geographic's annual photo contest is going on right now, and they've posted some of the amazing early entries over on The Big Picture. Click here if you'd like to see them ... they're amazing.

And also, I'm having some strange formatting issues on my blog. They started on Wednesday and they won't go away. I'm looking into it, but just in case you thought I'd had a change of heart and decided that mixed-up fonts were all the rage, I HAVEN'T.