Update - 24/08/2026

Hello, and welcome to another weekly update. I hope you all had a great weekend. I'd rather not bother you with personal stuff again, but this time it's actually affecting my work performance and I need to make sure you guys understand why.

Gara, my older dog, started having a swollen neck a few months back. She's prone to having small fat deposits here and there under her skin, and when I touched it, it felt like that, so I ignored it. But she started losing a lot of weight, very quickly, and I started getting worried. So two weeks ago I took her to the vet, and they told me it could be either hypothyroidism or lymphoma. The first results pointed towards hypothyroidism, so I was relieved. But the vet didn't understand why she had such a big swelling, and on top of that, she didn't have any symptoms of hypothyroidism, just the bloodwork came out with the markers for it. So this last week we did more tests, and well, turns out her neck is swollen because of all the lymphatic fluid being pushed up from her lungs, because she has several tumors. As a matter of fact, her chest is full of liquid, that is why she can barely breathe. We needed more tests, so on Friday we took her for a CAT scan, which was a pretty horrible experience for her. They also drained some of the liquid (a whole fucking soda can worth of it, and she is not a big dog), so now she can breathe much better. But this is just temporary, she will be filled with liquid soon enough.

So now we're waiting for the results to let us know if there's something we can do, a mix of surgery with chemotherapy, to see if we can at least prolong her life. But it is honestly not looking good at all, and the vet has already hinted that we should prepare to say goodbye. This is honestly the worst experience of my life, I knew it was going to hurt but I never imagined it would be so hard. I've had this dog for 12 years, since the day she came running to us as a lost puppy in the streets of Belgrade. And I haven't been separated from her longer than a few hours since. We've been across all Europe together, travelled everywhere, moved across countries, and I just cannot imagine my life without her. This may sound callous, but it's much worse than losing a human family member. I'm just devastated, and all I can do is cry, so I'm really struggling to get any work done.

So I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to have Broken Shores ready this month, as I promised. I will have the vast majority of it ready, but I still need to write the Bestiary chapter. I will keep trying, but aside from being completely broken, I'm going to be spending a lot of time going to the vet, and hopefully, to the hospital for her surgery.

So yeah, I wish I had better news (or no news), but that's the situation right now. Regardless of anything, I'll share the next version of the PDF with you this week. You will at least be able to create your characters, now that all the gear is in.

Have a great week!