Daisy was a super dog and I've been meaning to write her story for a while, but I was crushed when she crossed over. A few weeks ago I was contacted by a family going through the same thing that we went through and it reminded me I need to get information out there.

I had noticed Daisy was breathing faster than the other dogs in the house and her friends. Her vets checked her out and we couldn't find anything wrong. Her CBC and Full chem panel came back normal, she looked perfectly normal aside from breathing faster, but my gut was something was up. We tried to 2nd guess and say, maybe it was b/c it was summer, maybe b/c she was getting older, maybe because she was a golden.. but my gut still said something was wrong. Eventually we did a series of x-rays and found a 10x12x11 cm mass on her liver. We work with a holistic vet and she was already on a good diet, so we started chinese herbs to work on the tumor after a couple of months it had shrunk by 2 mm.. That was great but we were worried about it rupturing and bleeding, so after interviewing a number of surgeons we selected the one we thought would be best for our girl. I"m very happy we did select this one! Daisy ended up having to have 1.5 lobes of her liver removed, her gal bladder removed, and her hepatic duct needed to be reconstructed with a stint. She ended up having 2 emergency surgeries after the first one b/c of the hepatic duct needing to be reconstructed. We were given a very poor prognosis but with energy healing, chinese medicine, homeopathy and a team of amazing vets who really cared, Daisy was back to her normal self in a month. In 3 months she was pronounced cancer free! IN 6 months her internist said her stint had passed and her duct looked perfectly normal! She was running, swimming, playing wrestling and having fun. The following fall I had to go back to an office to work. The dogs had always had me home with them. They were used to 2 walks / day, being able to go in and out when they wanted and always having me to play with them. It was horrible for all of us but I had to do it. In Jan 2010 Daisy started to get pale in the gums. We had been away on vacation but I had noticed it slowly happening - and when we got back it really stood out. We had 2 blizzards back to back and after the 1st she was out playing in the snow, got stuck and didn't look good, she made it out, and came in the house, was really uncomfortable, circled and went looking for her dad, went to the basement, circled and collapsed on the floor. She looked at me and seemed to say , I'm dieing.. I tried to get her up but she wouldn't.. I thought she had torn a staple from her liver surgery.. so I picked her up, we got her in the jeep and drove off to the hospital. A few minutes later the cardiologist came out and told us she had a ruptured hemangiosarcoma and had an hour or 2 tops. They asked if we wanted to put her down. I said No (knowing she would probably lose consciousness and bleed out and drift away if this was going to get her) So I asked for a private room, asked them to give her an emergency yunnan baiyao pill (chinese herb that stops internal bleeding used by vietnamese and chinese militaries). They said they already had, so I asked for a 2nd. What was it going to hurt? We sat with her for hours.. The sun was coming up now and I had dozed off. Her heart monitor was all over the place, it would flat line then jump back, then flat line.. I finally turned off the volume and I eventually dozed off while praying over her.. I was woken up by her jumping up off the gurney. We were trying to hold her down but she wanted up and out (She had to go potty!) The techs came running and took her out back then she came bouncing back in to see us. They checked her vitals and everything was normal! They decided they were going to hold on to her for a few more house so the cardiologist could see her again and then wanted us to take her home b/c another blizzard was coming. We went home, took a nap and came back to get us. They stressed she only had a few days tops and probably wouldn't make it through the night.. We kept her on the Yunnan Baiyao and called our holistic vet and set up an apt for after the storms.. She was put on Yunnan Baiyao (1 capsule 3x/day - she's a 75 lb dog - melatonin (3mg)- which we discovered needed to be given at night or she was just out constantly, CAS options for dogs. 4 days later she had another rupture at home. It was horrible, but we gave her an emergency yunnan baiyao pill and 4 hours later she was back to normal. We kept her as calm as we could - we all moved down stairs and lived in the living room and slept on the couches and the floor so she wouldn't go up or down any stairs. We built her a ramp so she wouldn't have to go up or down the 3 steps to get outside and go potty. After a week she was getting stronger, after 2 weeks she was carrying her stuffed animals around again. We added Oncoplex to her suppliemnets, and (major antioxidant made with concentrated broccoli sprouts from Johns Hopkins University). We started ozone therapy as well (given rectally - made a HUGE difference) After about 1.5 months -2 months her cardiologist told us that her tumor was no longer in danger of rupturing. It was actually solidifiying, after 3 months it was starting to shrink! 4 months in her oncologist wanted to try some experimental chemo and see if that would do anything.. I asked for chemo sensitivity testing to be done, I was told it would be ok and she would respond well but the tests were never run. I noticed Daisy really not feeling well once she started the chemo so I took her off, got a stern talking to that I needed to put her back on and that chemo is not supposed to make you feel well.. Again she didn't feel well at all - we put her on a lower dose.. she still wasn't doing well.. within 2 weeks she was in kidney failure and apparently there was no going back from that. She unfortunately passed over from kidney failure.. We had licked the cancer.. without chemo.. and tried chemo and that did her in. I know that I should never say never.. but I really want to say I will never ever do any sort of chemo again with me or any of my pets. We have an 18 yr old who I'll add shortly who has a meningeoma and we have declined chemo for him and have him on chinese herbs and prednisone only.. I don't want to put anyone through what chemo did to Daisy. She fought so hard through so much and won.. and it's so horrible that a chemical that the doctors thought would make her better, actually did much worse to her. I like the philosophy of chinese medicine much better than western medicine. Chinese medicine treats the whole being, including the emotional causes behind things like cancer. Western medicine just treats the disease without regard to what it may do to other parts of the being. Chinese Medicine may be slower than western medicine but quality of life is better, harm to the body is better, and balance is good and important.

1) Always keep a positive attitude, your dogs can read your emotions, the images in your mind, and your energy. Live day by day, not looking down at the future.. Live in the moment like your dog does!

2) Understand that your dog may not bounce back like they were before but they still can have a very good quality of life. It'll be just different for everyone. In Daisy's case she was expecting to bounce back like she was before. She had gone into cardiac arrest! She needed to find a new "normal" and get used to that. We had to find different activities.. in stead of going for a 2 mile walk, we went for a ride in the car, or drove to her favorite park and would sit and watch the people go by, or sit by the river together and I'd brush her fur. We also got her hooked up with the local sr. citizens home and she went in to visit with the other seniors. It's a perfect activity! We also discovered Nina Ottoson's puzzles for dogs. Great to keep the mind going if the body isn't super strong! www.nina-ottosson.com

3) Keep your dog's mind stimulated!

4) If you can find integrative care - holistic and conventional go with that - some alternative therapies can support the conventional western medicine. Personally I really feel more comfortable with a holistic approach and herbal support vs. conventional - at least at this point and with Max, my other dog right now and his situation, but that may change with another dog down the road. Know your options, fight for your dog, research as much as you can. You are your dog's best advocate.

5) Alternative therapies we used - Yunnan Baiyao (stops internal bleeding), Ozone therapy - helps kill cancer cells and strengthen RBC (can not be done the same day as antioxidant therapy - they will contradict each other. I'm sure there are many others out there

6) For us personally we also opted for a lot of energy healing. To some people this can be the power of positive thought, envisioning the cancer going away, could be prayer, working with energy healers, reiki, qi gong, laying hands, you name it.. just make sure it's all positive energy going towards your pup. If anyone gives you a time frame.. find another doctor... None of us come with a time stamp on the bottom of our foot... Keep thinking positive, Mind over matter, we are what we believe. YOu may even want to ask for prayers! Use face book, set up email lists, use blogs, what ever you can to get enough prayers, and positive thoughts coming to your pup. There's a doctor by the name of Adam who has been an energy healer his whole life. His dad was a scientist and saw what adam could do.. but also taught him about the scientific method.. Adam grew up to be a medical doctor but also grew up to do a number of studies on the power of intention. He wrote a book titled "intention healing" and another about "Dream healing" and has a website http://www.dreamhealer.com and http://www.intentionheals.com/ He has actually done studies that prove that when large groups of people focus their minds on healing someone it works. he used a group on one side of the world and didn't tell them who they were to focus on, the subject patient was else where in the world with electrodes on their head to measure brain activity. The patient had no idea when the group was going to do their thing but the activity in the brain increased at the very moment the group started to focus their intent on healing the patient. Anyway - thought this might be of interest to some people.. so thought I'd include it. Others may not find it very interesting. But this has been scientifically proven with the laws of physics and nanotechnology.. which I find interesting, having come from a scientific background myself.

Some websites to find holistic vets, vets trained in Traditional Chinese Medicine, Acupuncture, etc.

American Veterinary Holistic Medical Association
http://www.holisticvetlist.com/index

American Academy of Vet acupuncturists
http://www.aava.org/php/aava_blog/aava-directory/

Chi Institute - Traditional Chinese Medicine & Acupuncture Certified (great org)
http://tcvm.com/

Inter'l Veterinary Acupuncture Society
http://www.ivas.org/

Veterinary Botanical Medical Association (Herbs - chinese and western)
http://www.vbma.org/directory1new.html

American Academy of Veterinary Homeopathy
http://www.theavh.org/

International Association of Veterinary Homeopathy
http://www.iavh.org/

American Veterinary Medical Association
http://www.avma.org/

American Veterinary Chiropractic Association
http://www.animalchiropractic.org/

Search for American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine Board Certified specialists including Cardiologists, Surgeons, Neurologist, Oncologist, Internists, etc

http://www.acvim.org/websites/acvim/index.php?p=3

(this is not a conclusive list of websites to find certified specialists but it can be a good start!)