it's been a few days.

Today Hope and I are reading a lot on www.caninecancer.com. They have a lot of ideas and references for diets, supplements, treatments, and, ultimately, end of life stuff.

We're not reading so much on the end of life stuff.



Some interesting things are something called "Essiac Tea". The person writing the website claims that it "cures" cancer. I am not sure how true this fact is but I'm willing to consider it once we get Hope's meatball removed. It cautions that this tea can cause tumors to increase in size and I'm thinking Hope's little buddy is already big enough so we'll wait.

The nutrition portion of the site is neat. It references Dr. Greg Ogilvie's cancer diet and theory which I have seen and read a little bit about before. You can read more here if you are interested. It also mentioned Monica Segal and her webpage on cancer. I am actually already on Monica's yahoo group for nutrition and natural feeding so that was a pleasant surprise that I'm at least headed in the right direction.

In any event, many supplements are suggested. My only thought to this is "how the heck would I ever get this dog to take all that". We are still struggling to get her to eat. The Orijen 6 Fresh Fish is still being eaten but it is a chore to get her to actually ingest it(think: breaking all the pieces in half, sometimes mixing with cottage cheese, and hand feeding it piece by piece). It hasn't been fun, to say the least. I'm really ready for her to go raw but I worry about the whipworms and causing any more digestive upset.

Just after midnight last night Hope had some awful diarrhea. She's never had that before. She was given a tiny piece of bacon yesterday morning(like a crumb) and then "half of a tater tot" - says her Dad. I'm thinking it was one of those two things. Chris was the lucky one to get up with her and he said she sneezed and 'sharted'. Hilarious but in an "awww poor baby" tone. This morning's output was normal, however.



Hope is still itchy but we gave her the first Revolution dose on Thursday and it is one of those things that gets worse before it gets better(or so I'm told). The mites dying off cause even MORE itching. To combat that Dr B had given us a script(yes another one) for Temaril-P. It seems to help but you can tell when it has worn off.

So the list of medications is dwindling - we no longer have to give her Cephalexin or Benadryl. She gets her ear meds, eye meds, and now the Temaril-P(which she takes pretty easily hidden in something).

Her disposition has been good but she is still shaking and crying most of the time she isn't asleep. One day at a time.