Sunday August 9th 2009

DAILY

• ESSIAC tea (orally) 10 ml + 1ml extra Sheep Sorrel Decoction Twice a day.
  
• DAY 30 PREDNISOLONE 1.5 ml x2/day (60% of the original dose)
• DAY 40 OPC one capsule twice/day - South African 'anti-cancer' herb
• DAY 39 CF IP-6 & Inositol one capsule twice/day
• DAY 55 HYDRAZINE SULFATE one capsule/once a day in morning after food.
• SHEEP SORREL DECOCTION ON GAUZE compress : on back left leg lump. Nightly applied with a gauze soaked in the sheep sorrel, kept in place with first aid tape.

GOOD NEWS... Lucy has bounced back again gradually after a few days back on the steroid. I have brought the dose up to 1.5ml twice a day. (the liquid suspension is 5mg/1ml of liquid, so 1.5ml is equivalent to a 7.5 mg tablet dose which equals 15mg/day. Her original dose was 25mg/day)

SHEEP SORREL DECOCTION
The sheep sorrel soaks in overnight through the skin. This feels like a good way to introduce it to her system, in addition to the more well-known Essiac tea given orally. In the 1930's Rene Caisse was injecting Sheep Sorrel into muscle tissue, with great success at fighting cancers. However since I don't know how to do those injections, I am hoping that by soaking in through the skin a similar treatment is occurring. I am curious if anyone out there has managed to find a vet willing to try injecting it?

BLOG FOLLOWERS
Lucy's Love-oma now has a site counter. We were pleasantly surprised to find out that about 50 people a week are currently reading Lucy's blog. We hope the information we are posting here proves useful to those of you out there that are also fighting canine lymphoma.

SOME QUESTIONS sent to us by a blog follower in Nova Scotia:

So, a few things- you are suggesting we avoid the steroids altogether? So far we have started the essiac tea, twice a day like Lucy, cottage cheese with flax oil twice and two meals of boiled chicken with some steamed carrots. Honestly, she seems so great- and since we started this stuff- only three days ago- she seems like a whole new pup- so we are very grateful for this. You said that steroids decrease the validity of the homeopathic approach? I have read pages and pages over the last days and never read that- but we are new and certainly don't know much right now- we are just trying to know everything we can.

I also found through reading that i did not think a remission was even possible without chemo? You seem to think it is- can you please tell me everything you can about that?
Our vet is telling us to wait for the signs that your Lucy had before we consider the steroids- rejecting food, loss of weight, etc. He has already explained that steroids really do, unfortunately, only buy some precious time with your dog...

It's great to hear that the Essiac tea is helping your dog.

STEROIDS & REMISSIONS?
It was my homeopathic vet who told me that the Steroid treatment prevents the possibility of a remission. I will ask her to give me more information about this so that I can share it on the blog. The steroid seems to be a life-saver at critical times when the dog is crashing hard. However, it is best not to give it unless they need it... That is my own personal feeling about it, which vets seem to agree with. But each person must do only what they feel is right.
The reason seems to be that the steroid is useful to reduce cell inflammation and out-of-control cell responses, but in the process it also shuts down the natural healing processes. My homeopathic vet feels that some healing might still happen, if the steroid dose is significantly reduced, but the regular vet's doses would be too high for the cell's natural healing processes to happen.

This quote from WIKI:

Corticosteroids inhibit the inflammatory response to a variety of inciting agents and probably delay or slow healing. They inhibit the edema, fibrin deposition, capillary dilation, leukocyte migration, capillary proliferation, fibroblast proliferation, deposition of collagen, and scar formation with inflammation.

CHEMO & REMISSIONS?
Since I have decided not to pursue chemo treatments, I have not done much research on it lately. However when I did that earlier on, it seemed that it could only buy time in the form of a remission, but never a cure. So chemo might extend the life of the lymphoma animal by a few months, but those months would be more traumatic for the dog, due to the side effects and actions of the chemo treatment itself. Other factors for me about the chemo are the cost and the fact that it is modelled on human treatments. Chemo doesn't seem to work as well in dogs as it can in humans. It costs an average of $8-10,000 to treat a dog over several months with chemo. I don't have that kind of money, but if I did I would not choose the chemo path even if I was treating myself.
Since Lucy is only 6 years old, I feel that the homeopathic and 'alternative' treatment paths offered Lucy the best chance of a long-term remission. No-one ever seems to talk of a cure being possible, however the woman I spoke to in NY who is the main researcher for the Hydrazine Sulfate (which my vet had never heard of), has had successul results, extending the life of lymphoma and other cancer dogs by as much as 8 YEARS!

So to sum it up, I am currently putting my faith in the combination treatment of Essiac Herbs, Sheep Sorrel compresses, Hydrazine Sulfate, the OPC herb (ordered online from a cancer researcher in South Africa) and the homeopathic remedies prescribed by my vet. This is quite a load for Lucy daily, but she seems to respond very well to them all, without any obvious side effects.

There are labels for these treatments on the right hand side of this blog with links as well so you can find out more about these treatments.

Tuesday August 4th 2009

DAILY

• ESSIAC tea (orally) 10 ml + 1ml extra Sheep Sorrel Decoction Twice a day.
  
• DAY 25 PREDNISOLONE 1ml x2/day (Back up, but still a 40% reduction from the original dose)
• DAY 35 OPC one capsule twice/day - South African 'anti-cancer' herb
• DAY 34 CF IP-6 & Inositol one capsule twice/day
• DAY 50 HYDRAZINE SULFATE

JUST TODAY

• SHEEP SORREL DECOCTION ON GAUZE compress : on back left leg lump.

STEROIDS, STEROIDS, STEROIDS... MIRACLE OR CURSE?
So when we chose to put Lucy onto Prednisone steroid treatment, it was an act of desperation. She was crashing severely and refusing food and water for ten days. I had to force feed her with an oral syringe into her mouth at that time. She lost 2 kilos of weight in two weeks.
However I did not know that once a dog is on steroids, it halts the natural healing process. That was not explained to me at the time. It acts as an immune suppressant, and so can only buy your dog time, but will prevent any chance of them going into a cancer remission... which is the obvious preferred goal.
For that reason, once Lucy was back to her normal diet and activity level and seeming comfortable and happy again, I discussed with the vet the option of weaning her off the steroids. The risk is that if she needs the steroids again, they may not work as well a second time. The bonus being that if she copes with being weaned off, the other therapies may then kick in giving her a chance of going into a cancer remission.

DIFFICULT TIME DURING THE LAST 48 HOURS
So over the last three weeks we have been reducing the dose of steroids. Her Prednisolone dose came down to 0.5ml last Friday (31st July) as planned (a 0.5 ml reduction each week for four weeks, to wean her off steroids). She started to crash physically on Sunday night... 48 hours after this new lowest dose began.
The lymph glands swelled up again very large and hard and tight. She had a difficult time sleeping on Sunday night, so I slept on the floor with her. She kept close to me.
On Monday she had no energy at all and went out into the garden to sleep by herself... NOT something she has ever done before (being a typical border collie, she likes to keep close to her humans as much as possible.) I was scared.
PALE LIPS & COOL SKIN
I noticed that her lips were pale, and her skin very cool to the touch, considering the hot weather. Being a holiday in Canada, my own vet's office was closed. I called an emergency vet and did some quick online research. Pale lips is usually caused by either Anemia or Low Blood pressure (which can be caused by internal bleeding). Either way it can be very serious.
I left a message for my own vet to call me back on their emergency line as well.

INTUITION & COURAGE
I sat in the garden with her, and meditated on what to do. Having been around dogs most of my life, experiencing both human and animal 'western' medical systems (both of care and of billing!), I had to decide now whether I should now drive to the 24 hr emergency clinic, despite them being unfamiliar with her case and health details.
It can be so hard to make a decision, especially when you are choosing alternative therapies for the good of your beloved companion, who can't speak for themselves.
I had already had one battle with a conventional vet, who was angry with me for choosing homeopathic & alternative options (and so consequently charged me $50 for my homeopathic vet to have access to Lucy's own xrays that I had already paid $200 for!)

I decided to give her another dose of the steroid, to bring her back up to 1.0ml and then I sat and I waited for my homeopathic vet to phone me back...
MIRACLE! Within 45 minutes of the extra dose, Lucy was transformed! It was so strange to see her go through 24 hours of such obvious decline & body distress.... (panting, pale lips and skin, exhaustion, hiding) to deciding to chase a crow up the garden and then coming to ask me for food. After which she hunted down a tennis ball and insisted I throw it for her.
So I gave her another 1ml dose in the evening, and have increased it again this morning to 1.5ml.
The glands are reducing in size again and her appetite is returning now as well.
I thought I would be able to handle the transition off the steroids much more bravely, but it was horrid. I hope that I have not caved in too easily, with increasing the dose again? My new decision is to keep her at the minimum dose needed to prevent this kind of crash. I will not put her back up to the full amount but nor will I try to reduce it to zero again for the moment. It seemed she was getting the full benefit of the drug at a dose of only 40% of the original dose, so there is no need to go higher than that. Sooo... SHE IS BACK ON AN UPWARD SWING AGAIN now.

FOOD
During this new downswing, she totally lost her apetite again. She went back to wanting only biscuits and stopped drinking water as well. This is exactly what happened the first time around before we put her on the steroid.
Now that her Prednisolone dose is back to 40%, she is eating again. It may take me a few days to get her back onto the Raw food. She refused it so far, but did eat two small cans of canned EVO this morning as well as some grain-free biscuits.

BUMP ON HER RIGHT ELBOW
Lucy has always had a callous on her right elbow since she favors lying down on that side. However I have noticed that she 'flumps' down more heavily since her illness began. It may be that the glands in her legs feel awkward, or some other discomfort is causing her to flop down more heavily from a different angle. Anyway she has made that callous irritated and it is a bit raw/scratched looking. She keeps licking it, so I have been cleaning it with 2% iodine (disinfectant) since yesterday, and today I put a soft dressing on it to pad it a little and give it a chance to heal up again.

Thursday July 30th 2009

DAILY

• ESSIAC tea (orally) 10 ml + 1ml extra Sheep Sorrel Decoction Twice a day.
  
• DAY 20 PREDNISOLONE 1ml x2/day (An 80% reduction from the original dose)
• DAY 30 OPC one capsule twice/day - South African 'anti-cancer' herb
• DAY 29 CF IP-6 & Inositol one capsule twice/day
• DAY 45 HYDRAZINE SULFATE

JUST TODAY

• SHEEP SORREL DECOCTION ON GAUZE compress : on back left leg lump.
  
• SCHRHINNUM 3 doses 8 hours apart. Twice today.
  

Sheep Sorrel Decoction : Soaked Dressing on tumor lump
Excited! The mast (?) cell tumor on Lucy's back leg shrank by about 30% in 24 hours with the Sheep Sorrel decoction soaked dressing. I shaved that area yesterday lunchtime and tapped a soaked gauze dressing on there. Before doing this, the lump was one hard irregular shaped mass, about half an inch high and diameter of 3/4 of an inch. Today it is smaller and softer and seems to be breaking down.
Shaved Chest & Heat Wave
Due to the heatwave and the need to apply soaked dressings, and have a better look at what is going on with the enlarged lymph glands, I shaved Lucy's chest area again yesterday. She seems quite happy about it. It's amazing how soft her skin is!
You always hear that heat waves are not good for people with chronic ailments, so I am paying particular attention to keeping her cool. She gets hosed down in cold water two or three times a day as well as keeping her in the shade as much as possible, and less exertion than normal. However I feel it's good for her to run a little every day to keep her lymph system active. (Not sure if that is scientific... but feels right to me).

Food & Energy
Appetite very good still, despite being on a reduced steroid (Prednisolone) dose of only 1ml (=5mg) twice a day. She is happy and playful, despite the temperature in Vancouver today being over 32 degrees! Big smiles.

a shamanic photo from our trip away.. a jaguar and a dog

Wednesday July 29th 2009

DAILY

• ESSIAC tea 10 ml + 1ml extra Sheep Sorrel Decoction Twice a day
• DAY 19 PREDNISOLONE 1ml x2/day (An 80% reduction from the original dose)
• DAY 29 OPC one capsule twice/day - South African 'anti-cancer' herb
• DAY 28 CF IP-6 & Inositol one capsule twice/day
• DAY 44 HYDRAZINE SULFATE

JUST TODAY

• SHEEP SORREL DECOCTION ON GAUZE compress : on neck for 30 minutes, and on back left leg lump.
  
• SCHRHINNUM 3 doses 8 hours apart. Tonight and twice tomorrow.

Appetite normal. Not so voracious as the steroid 'obsessive' eating drive that she was experiencing on the higher doses. Her lymph nodes seem to have stabilised again, although still bigger than they were on the higher dose of steroid. I am feeling positive about the steroid reduction again today.
It is very very hot in Vancouver, so we are staying inside in the cooler air mostly. Luckily our back garden is in the shade, so we can go out back to play for a while every now and then.

Poop back to normal. Perhaps she was cleansing something from her system yesterday?

Shaving her fur. I plan to do this later today. We are having a heatwave here, and lots of dogs walking by have had the clippers treatment :) I am also going to shave the area where that new lump is, so I can put a Sheep Sorrel soaked gauze pad onto it.

Tuesday July 28th 2009

ESSIAC tea 10 ml + 1ml extra Sheep Sorrel Decoction Twice a day
SHEEP SORREL DECOCTION ON GAUZE compress : on neck for 30 minutes
DAY 18 PREDNISOLONE 1ml x2/day (An 80% reduction from the original dose)
DAY 28 OPC one capsule twice/day - South African 'anti-cancer' herb
DAY 27 CF IP-6 & Inositol one capsule twice/day
DAY 43 HYDRAZINE SULFATE

APPETITE
Appetite low this morning. Ate some rice with an egg, after refusing raw dog food.
Lunchtime - would only eat dog biscuits... but ravenously.
Evening - ate with gusto, back to normal. Raw food.

SLIMY POOP
Her morning poop was rather small & odd looking. It seemed to have a slime on the outside layer. Looked like the kind of phlegm you would see when you cough up bronchitus.
Only one poop so far today... despite going for two more walks...

RIGHT BACK LEG - New MAST CELL TUMOR??
A small lump has appeared on the outside of her right leg-upper shin. It feels similar in texture and nature to the Mast cell tumor she had removed from under/just behind her right front leg last November 2008. Could it be another Mast cell tumor?
The vet told me it was very odd (impossible? or extremely rare?) for a dog to have two kinds of cancer at the same time.... and a Mast Cell tumor is not the same as Lymphoma... Is there a chance she does not have Lymphoma after all? But then why are her lymph glands so enlarged?
Time to revisit the vet? Perhaps she needs to have another lymphoma test or more blood tests?

Sunday July 26th 2009

ESSIAC tea 10 ml + 1ml extra Sheep Sorrel Decoction Twice a day
SHEEP SORREL DECOCTION ON GAUZE compress : on neck for 30 minutes
DAY 16 PREDNISOLONE 1ml x2/day (An 80% reduction from the original dose)
DAY 26 OPC one capsule twice/day - South African 'anti-cancer' herb
DAY 25 CF IP-6 & Inositol x2 - supplement
DAY 41 HYDRAZINE SULFATE


PREDNISOLONE dose is now down to 1.0ml (equivalent to 5mg of the tablet form she was originally on) which is an 80% reduction from the original dose.
Today I noticed that her throat lymph glands are bigger and harder again. So the reduction in the dose is now beginning to show in her body response.
This is a difficult time.. I am nervous, but still feel we are doing the right thing. The next few days are crucial, to see if her own body system will kick in and take over from the steroids. Her appetite is also reduced. She did eat, but not as eagerly as normal. Most people's reports seem to concur that the steroids cause a rampant hunger and appetite as well as to reduce the lymph swelling size. That certainly holds true for Lucy. We have been letting her eat as much as she wants.
Last night I also soaked a Gauze pad with Sheep Sorrel Decoction and wrapped it around her neck for half an hour.

We have just come back from a walk at Jericho Park. First we saw a Flicker bird... (first nations here believe the Flicker is a call to Prayer and to raise the Chanuppah (medicine pipe).
Then we sat for a rest in the shade, only to realise there was a large Grey Heron a few feet above us in the tree, watching the beaver pond.
And then we watched THREE Belted Kingfishers, as they fished (successfully).. watching the water from overhanging willow branches. I think it must have been a breeding pair and one offspring.


Here is my prayer for the Flicker bird to carry behind the veil:
Creator, Great Spirit, All That Is, All That Ever Was, All That Ever Will Be, As you are the perfection in all things, perfect flow, perfect health, perfect love, perfect cells, We acknowledge that we are a part of this magnificent design of life, and that we too, contain within us and are but one small part of the same perfection. We thank you for the beauty of the lives we live and the loves we all share. We thank you for lucy's big radiant loving self, and for the joy she feels in her body when she runs and plays and swims. We thank you for the perfect normal functioning of her cells returning now, as she re-aligns herself with your perfection, and chooses to stay longer in her beautiful strong and healthy body. For this we are so grateful. And so it is.

... and one photo from last night in East Vancouver at the Luminaires event. There was a massive thunderstorm and heavy rain, but in a lull in the storm you can see Lucy and I standing next to a solar powered 'Burning Man' chariot. Very cool design. The batteries for it are charged by riding a stationary bicycle, so it is powered by people power and the sun.