This is a Haiku written for one of my patients, a 4 year old Lab named Bucko with lymphoma. Actually, I have never seen this dog - his owner contacted me via e-mail asking for help, since his local vet had never treated a pet with cancer before. I have been offering advice, helped choose the chemotherapy protocol, and monitor his progress (he has been in remission for 8 months now, and is still hunting every week-end with his owner)

Cancer makes the rules
unfair; but still we have hope
Together, we fight

So what's the big deal, you say? Maybe you don't think it is a very good haiku. The interesting thing is that his owner is a 55 year old, self described redneck from Arkansas who works for the electric company. He had never heard of a Haiku before I mentioned that some of my students had started writing them to remember patients they had while on my service. In fact, his exact words were "what's a Haiku?", and I had to explain the syllable counts to him, etc. Today, this one arrived in my e-mail, titled: To Bucko, my friend.

Pretty amazing that the owner of a hunting dog who thinks of himself as a redneck took the time to write a poem for his friend.