The Dog Cancer Survival Guide (7 page)

Just like many dog lovers who get a cancer diagnosis, I had started with the Internet as my first source of information, and boy, was there a lot of it out there. Some of it, I just couldn’t stomach. Online forums and blogs are filled with people sharing their own stories or recommendations – but how much of this can be trusted? When I look at them from a medical perspective (even my expanded one), many posts are definitely suspect.

When it comes to cancer, dogs are physiologically very similar to humans: so much so that they are often the preferred test animals in human cancer treatment trials. Because of this, most veterinary cancer treatments actually come from human medicine. (Only two drugs have been FDA-approved specifically for dog cancer, both very recently.) Usually, once a treatment has been approved for human use, vets start evaluating it in dogs, including optimal dosing schedules and possible side effects.

Knowing this, I decided to try using botanicals that are currently being tested for use in humans. We will likely use them in dogs eventually, so why wait ten or twenty years for human approval, when cancer is the number one killer of dogs today?

* You’ll see sidebars like this one used throughout this book. These special sections add to or enhance the regular text.

After sifting through personal anecdotes, hyperbole, outright product sales pitches and miscellaneous gobbledygook, what I found really shifted my entire medical perspective on animal health and disease.

Some very simple lifestyle shifts may help fight cancer, for example: changing the diet and using certain supplements.

I also learned how much emotions impact disease development in humans, and was impressed by the possibility that our dogs’ emotions could impact canine cancer development. Our own human emotions, by influencing our thought processes, could also ultimately have an impact on the outcome of canine cancer.

I was surprised to find that some cutting-edge human cancer research is not looking for a cure in isolated chemicals. Instead, these research labs are exploring natural botanicals – agents found in plants – which induce apoptosis in cancer cells.

Apoptosis is the completely normal process that causes the natural death of a cell when it has lived to the end of its life. Cancer cells can turn apoptosis off, allowing themselves to grow indefinitely, at the expense of the body. Certain botanicals, called “apoptogens,” can turn apoptosis back on in the cancer cell, causing it to die a natural death (or, in the more colorful language of cancer researchers, “commit cell suicide”).

I wrote about all of this cutting-edge research, including information about some powerful apoptogens, in the first edition of this book. I received three main pieces of feedback about that edition:

The emotional management tools really helped dog lovers to calm down, think clearly and choose wisely.

Dogs like the diet I recommend, and it seems to help them feel better.

The apoptogens I recommend are not only effective, but also difficult to procure and clumsy to combine.

This feedback reflected the challenges I was having with my clients on Maui. Finding and preparing the apoptogens I recommend was tiresome and taking too much time out of already busy lives.

The good news was: these apoptogens, when given, were actually helping dogs. Dogs with lethargy and pain were perking up, sometimes within a day of taking the supplements. Even more exciting, some dogs (not all, but a significant number) experienced a shrinking of their tumors.

My natural skepticism had not let me imagine this outcome, and it was humbling to realize how much there was still to learn. As I continued to work with these cutting edge apoptogens, I grew happier with the results and ultimately decided to make them easier to find and administer and finally, invented a supplement. Today, you can find Apocaps online at Amazon.com (both in the U.S. and in Europe) and in veterinary practices across the U.S.

Not everyone has been happy with my work. I give some controversial advice, and I have received backlash from some of my colleagues, who believe their methods and livelihoods are being questioned. The “dog cancer vet” nickname rankles some oncologists, and I’ve even been threatened professionally. One blog comment I received – anonymous, but claiming to be from an oncologist – called me a “heretic” and warned me I was “playing with fire.”

I shared this with a sympathetic colleague, who reminded me of the story of Ignaz Semmelweis. After giving birth in his mid-1800’s Vienna hospital, mothers died of puerperal fever at a huge rate of 18%. Once his doctors were required to wash their hands after performing autopsies, the death rate dropped to just 2%. Semmelweis was an early proponent of the theory of germs (it inspired his policy change), which no one had yet proven to the satisfaction of the medical community. Despite his obvious success, he went to his grave discredited as a radical and a heretic. Years later, Louis Pasteur finally “proved” Semmelweis was correct in claiming that germs were responsible for, among other things, puerperal fever.

I take inspiration from Semmelweis, and many other thinkers and inventors, who take a wideangle view to discover new methods. I’m hoping that by looking at dog cancer in this way, reviewing
the basics of how the body works, and looking ahead to future breakthroughs, we can find new angles and maybe – dare I say it? – even hope to cure cancer, someday.

After I invented Apocaps, it was clear the first edition of my book needed updating and revising. My publisher and I started planning the second edition.

During this time, I attended a veterinary oncology conference, where I ran into a friend from vet school, Dr. Susan Ettinger. Dr. Ettinger is a hotshot veterinary oncologist at the prestigious Animal Specialty Center, in Yonkers, New York.

After catching up with each other, Dr. Ettinger realized I was the vet who blogs at
www.DogCancerBlog.com
and the author of this book. She narrowed her eyes and said, “Who supervised your section on oncology?” When I told her I had, she sniffed.

“You should have an oncologist do it.”

“Why don’t you?” I asked.

Our partnership makes perfect sense. As a medical oncologist in a large specialty practice, she prescribes chemotherapy every single day of her career ... but she’s open to new ideas and concepts. I’m interested in treatments beyond the conventional options ... but I don’t exclude them.

Luckily for all of us (although perhaps not so much for her very patient husband and two young sons), she agreed we would make a good team, and joined me as my co-author.

Dr. Ettinger’s contribution is invaluable. While most of the book is still in my voice, her experience and formal oncology training has informed every paragraph. She has expanded and solidified the scope of the section on conventional medicine, so much so that our editor asked her to write entire chapters in her own voice. Her section contains her best recommendations from conventional medicine for twelve common dog cancers.

Dr. Ettinger and I are physically separated by an ocean and a continent and our collaboration stretches one quarter of the way around the planet. It also spans the Full Spectrum of what’s available for canine cancer treatments. This book tells you everything we want you to know if your dog has cancer of any kind.

The Dog Cancer Survival Guide, 2nd Edition
, is divided into five parts, plus five appendices and an index.

Section I: My Dog Has Cancer, Now What?
This section covers a lot of ground, including how to tinker with your mindset, so you can make good decisions about your dog’s cancer.

Section II: What You Should Know about Dog Cancer
covers some of the most important things you must know about the root causes of cancer, so you can make good decisions for your dog.

Section III: Full Spectrum Cancer Care
takes you through the five most important facets of cancer care: conventional medicine, apoptogens, strategic boosting of the immune system, diet, and modifying your dog’s brain chemistry.

Section IV: Making Confident Choices
gives you a step-by-step framework from which you can make decisions for your own dog’s cancer case. There is also a section on end-of-life care, advice for working with your veterinarian or oncologist, and some advice about how to get and stay organized.

Section V: From the oncologist
is Dr. Ettinger’s section of the book. She describes each of the twelve common canine cancers in detail, including lymphoma, mast cell tumors, mammary cancer, osteosarcoma, hemangiosarcoma, transitional cell carcinoma, oral cancers, malignant melanoma, nasal tumors, soft tissue sarcomas, brain tumors, and anal gland tumors. She gives her most up-to-date recommendations for treatments from a conventional perspective and discusses the most common chemotherapy drugs, including their side effects.

Writing about cancer is tricky, because so little is known
for sure.
While most of the time Dr. Ettinger and I agree with each other, we do disagree on some occasions. In these cases, it will be noted in the text, or you will see a sidebar explaining the difference in our perspectives.

My strongest recommendation is that you start at the beginning of the book and read all the way through, including Dr. Ettinger’s chapter on your dog’s cancer. When you do this, you will have learned how to handle your dog’s cancer in the most thoughtful, compassionate, and “full spectrum” manner I can imagine.

There are many sidebars throughout this book which contain information that enhances the main text or goes into great depth on a subject. Here are the symbols we use for each type of sidebar so you’ll be able to “tell at a glance” what information is presented.

These sidebars allow me to present my ideas and get larger points across that may be only briefly discussed in the main text.