Buddy’s Natural Cancer Treatment

This is Buddy’s daily food diary for a one week period. His daily supplements are listed in Cancer Diary - Day 1

Wednesday

Breakfast

• 1/4 cup organic free range boneless skinless chicken breast -cooked in organic chicken broth and chopped;
• 1/4 cup finely chopped steamed asparagus;
• 1 tsp flax oil cottage cheese mixture - The Budwig Protocol;
• 1 Tbsp organic fat-free plain yogurt.

Afternoon Snack and Meds

• Buddy had some fresh watermelon as a snack today.

Supper

• 1/3 cup organic free-range boneless skinless chicken breast -cooked in organic chicken broth and chopped;
• 1/4 cup finely chopped steamed asparagus;
• 1 tsp flax oil cottage cheese mixture - The Budwig Protocol;
• 1 Tbsp organic fat-free plain yogurt.

8:30 Snack

• 3 one inch squares organic drug-free beef liver. (With his turmeric capsule in the liver)

He seems to be feeling well today. I gave him a regular size supper tonight and his belly seems slightly distended from that. Maybe even this is too much or something else is going on. I put some of my Bio-K probiotic drink in his supper, he gets lots of animal based digestive enzymes, some from Berte’s Immune Blend, and more from another whole pill. Could be the slight increase in vegetables, but he’s usually pretty good with asparagus. He does have gas tonight! His stomach is very sensitive! I did give him some chick peas for his dessert. He sits at the table with us and usually eats some veggies while we’re having dinner. Yes he’s spoiled but I love him and it’s not hurting anybody.

We went for a walk in the woods tonight and he slowed down after a bit so he’s still not quite as well as he could be. I’ve noticed his back and hind end area getting kind of hard. That can’t be a good sign but I’ve no idea what it means.

I called the vet to order some more of Buddy’s tinctures. Have to drive up there next Monday because they won’t ship it out. It’s over an hour from here too. Oh well, hope it’s a nice day! It really is a nice rural area with little towns here and there. My holistic vet is close to 70 years old and has a 90 acre farm with about 20 horses, chickens, dogs, a bird and I’m not sure what else. It’s a very interesting place to visit. I’m afraid of not being able to see her in case of an emergency. I will have to ask her if the local clinic could call her to consult in case, just in case.

This is Buddy’s daily food diary for a one week period. His daily supplements are listed in Cancer Diary - Day 1

Tuesday

Breakfast

• 1/4 cup organic free range boneless skinless chicken breast -cooked in organic chicken broth and chopped;
• 1/4 cup finely chopped steamed broccoli;
• 1 tsp flax oil cottage cheese mixture - The Budwig Protocol;
• 1 Tbsp organic fat-free plain yogurt.

Afternoon Snack and Meds

• Buddy had some chickpeas as a snack today.

Supper

• 1/4 cup organic free-range boneless skinless chicken breast -cooked in organic chicken broth and chopped;
• 1/4 cup finely chopped steamed broccoli;
• 1 tsp flax oil cottage cheese mixture - The Budwig Protocol;
• 1 Tbsp organic fat-free plain yogurt.

8:30 Snack

• 3 one inch squares organic drug-free beef liver. (With his turmeric capsule in the liver)

Tonight I made cookies. Since I had opened a can of chick peas earlier, I used a heaping half cup of them. Then I filled up the rest of the measuring cup with steamed broccoli. I put this mix in a dish, added 6 Tbsp organic chicken broth and used the Braun hand blender to puree it all. Then I just added this to the flour mix. That’s it, no fat, great for him ingredients and he LOVES THEM! The full cookie recipe is on this page.

Buddy is feeling much better today, even playing a little bit. I’m going to keep him on the smaller meals for at least another day, like a cleansing I guess.

This is Buddy’s daily food diary for a one week period. To see the supplements he gets daily, please go to Cancer Diary - Day 1

Monday

Breakfast

• 1/3 cup organic free range boneless skinless chicken breast -cooked in organic chicken broth and chopped;
• 1/4 cup finely chopped steamed broccoli;
• 1 tbsp flax oil cottage cheese mixture - The Budwig Protocol.

Afternoon Snack and Meds

• Buddy had some honeydew melon as a snack today.

Supper

• 1/4 cup organic free-range boneless skinless chicken breast -cooked in organic chicken broth and chopped;
• 9 crushed blueberries;
• 1 serving spoon organic fat-free plain yogurt.

8:30 Snack

• 3 one inch squares organic drug-free beef liver. (I put his turmeric in the liver instead of using low-fat ricotta today)

I’m glad I’m keeping track of this because right away I can see that Buddy is getting too much of the flax seed oil mixture. He doesn’t need a big tablespoon full of it, it’s just too much fat for him to handle.

Over the last 2 days Buddy has shown signs of his stomach being upset. Yesterday and this morning first thing he would go out and eat grass. Yesterday he threw up a bit of grass. Today I got home from work and after a while he jumped off the couch and started dry heaving. I called him over and started rubbing his tummy for him and after a bit he seemed fine.

His behaviour seemed similar to last year when we thought he had a bout of pancreatitis or poisoning from pesticides and/or fertilizer. He had to go on small meals of bland food for 5 days. So tonight I cut the flax oil altogether, cut down his protein, used non-fat yogurt and a few crushed blueberries instead of a veggie.

Plan

• Continue to feed light meals for the next few days;
• Give 1 teaspoon of flax mix in each meal instead of a big tablespoon;
• Stop feeding lamb, he didn’t like it before, did have some trouble digesting it, and can’t find organic except for 1/2 lamb (way too much);
• Never give 2 eggs at once as a replacement for his chicken or beef, only 1 egg!

I really have to get past the ‘More is Better’ state of mind, it just doesn’t work for me or my boy.

This is Buddy’s daily food diary for a one week period. To see Buddy’s supplements and the things he gets daily, please go to Cancer Diary - Day 1

Sunday

Breakfast

• 1/3 cup organic free range boneless skinless chicken breast -cooked in organic chicken broth and chopped;
• 1/8 cup mashed steamed cauliflower;
• 12 blueberries crushed;
• 1 tbsp flax oil cottage cheese mixture - The Budwig Protocol;
• 5-6 very small bites of 7 grain toast with peanut butter.

Afternoon Snack and Meds

• Buddy had some honeydew melon as a snack today.

Supper

• 1/3 cup organic free-range boneless skinless chicken breast -cooked in organic chicken broth and chopped;
• 1/4 cup finely chopped steamed asparagus;
• 1 tbsp flax oil cottage cheese mixture - The Budwig Protocol.
• 3 one inch squares organic drug-free beef liver.

That’s it for today. His bedtime snack and meds are always the same. Till tomorrow…

Thought it would be a good idea to see in print exactly what Buddy is eating. Exactly. That way it’ll be easier to know where any fine tuning needs to be done. So here goes…

I will have to do this one day at a time because I really don’t remember the finer details of yesterday. Geez I’m getting old!

Saturday

Breakfast

• 1/3 cup* leg of lamb - cooked in organic chicken broth and chopped finely;
• 1/4 cup mashed  steamed cauliflower;
• 3 one inch squares organic drug-free beef liver;
• 1 heaping tbsp flax oil** cottage cheese mixture - The Budwig Protocol.

Afternoon Snack and Meds

• My mom gives Buddy an afternoon snack of either fresh fruit or fresh vegetables. He gets a small quantity. This is at about 2pm just after he has his afternoon medications/tinctures dropped on small chunks of sardine.

Supper

• 1/4 cup leg of lamb - cooked in organic chicken broth and chopped finely;
• 2 soft-poached eggs - cooked in a shallow mix of water and organic chicken broth;
• 1/3 cup mashed steamed cauliflower;
• 1 1/2 tbsp flax oil** cottage cheese mixture - The Budwig Protocol.

Bedtime Snack and Meds

• At 9 or 10pm, Buddy gets another tsp of low-fat ricotta cheese with his second turmeric capsule stuffed in it.
• Then he gets 3 more chunks of sardine with his tinctures.
• At about 10:30 my mom gives him his bedtime cookies. He gets 4-5 of these every night.***

Supplements added to breakfast and supper are the same every day

• 1/2 tsp Berte’s Immune Blend by B-Naturals (no affiliation but highly recommended!);
• 1/8 tsp Green Blend;
• Extra**** animal based digestive enzymes that support the pancreas, contains ox bile;
• 1 capsule Kyolic organic aged garlic extract with L-Arginine, B6, Folic Acid and B12;
• 1/8 tsp crushed egg shells (morning meal only);
• 100 mcg Selenium;
• 1/2 dropper HAC Immuno Stim-R (off and on depending on health); 

*Buddy gets less meat at breakfast because every morning, just before he eats the main meal, he get 4 chunks of sardine packed in spring water. These are what I drop his herbal tinctures on. He also gets a tsp of low-fat ricotta cheese in which I stuff his turmeric capsule.

**I have been switching approximately weekly between mixing flax seed oil and salmon oil with the cottage cheese. Still not sure if one is working better than the other, I just know that it’s helped Buddy’s skin sensitivity and coat quality IMMENSELY!

 ***These cookies constitute pretty much the only grains he gets in his diet. That is aside from a few small bites of 7 grain toast, a very few and quite infrequent.

****Buddy has always had difficulty with digestion. His stomach can and will blow up quite a lot! It has helped to FINELY cut the meat and add the extra enzymes to his food. I’m still overfeeding him a bit. It’s very hard to cut him down by much because he’s absolutely crazy when it comes to his food!

Okay, so now I have to take a pound of organic chicken out of the freezer for his breakfast tomorrow.

Buddy and I bid you good night and sweet dreams…

Buddy LOVES watermelon. I started giving it to him as an afternoon snack a few months ago now. My reasoning was I thought he was having kidney trouble. One of the tinctures my vet gave me had kidneys written on the bottle. That would be the knotweed he gets, 1/8 tsp once a day.

Then I thought I felt the kidneys were enlarged on his back. Wrong. It was compact lumps of fat evenly distributed on either side of his lower spine, not even that close to where the kidneys actually sit. So much for my knowlegde of canine anatomy. Not being a vet I have decided to forgive myself for not knowing everything about dogs and to continue to learn what I can that will or may help my baby boy.

So, this adorable Boston gets watermelon for the Vitamin C, the diuretic properties, and the extra hydration. He loves it! Here’s a link to the health benefits of watermelon:

http://home.howstuffworks.com/watermelon3.htm

And it replaces the cookies and other grain based treats he was getting in the afternoon. That’s another reason I started giving it to him: as a healthy snack. Buddy likes to eat! So I had to find something good for him. He sometimes gets cantaloupe or honeydew melon as well. He was even getting peaches for a couple days. Tis the season.

Thought I’d better say something about sugar and cancer. Sugary foods like fruit are not indicated in a cancer diet. My assumption right now is that Buddy is in remission. Denial or reality I’m not sure!  I don’t see the cancer, in his bloodwork or his state of health. I do see the benefits of the fresh fruit and veggies and all their vitamins and health giving qualities. My vet recommends it too for now so I’m staying with what’s working!

Yesterday I was going to write about how the glands in his neck were quite enlarged, growing steadily over the past few days. This morning they seem fine. Weird!

Gave him a beautifully lean leg of lamb chop this morning. Lightly cooked it in a bit of organic chicken broth with a touch of garlic. He gobbled it right down. But, he is having trouble digesting it again. This confirms it is the lamb. I will give him chicken tonight and try the lamb again in the morning. This time, however, I will cut it up really fine. Perhaps the pieces are just too big. And, I’ve not once seen him chew a piece of meat. Fruit and veggies he chews. That’s my boy! Loving every minute with him.

Well, what can I say? The vet said Buddy eats too much. I had to agree! I was so worried about the wasting that I associate with cancer that I measured on the high end of his limit. And he had lost that weight so quickly just before he was diagnosed. So I packed his meat down hard into the measuring cup for both breakfast and supper. His coat sure looks great from all that flax seed oil. Check out the shine.

His blood test showed slightly elevated BUN levels so I wondered if he was getting too much protein. He was not dehydrated. The vet said to cut down a bit. So now he’s getting just over a third cup of packed organic chicken or beef, I just bought some Ontario lamb chops for him too.

He liked the lamb he had yesterday. Tonight, however, his stomach is quite bloated after eating a lightly cooked chop. I chopped it up into small pieces to help his belly out. Even with the new digestive enzymes I’ve been giving him with Iron Ox Bile he’s gassy. The vet said I need to give him animal enzymes as opposed to plant enzymes.

And I’ve been adding more vegetables to his meals to bulk it up a bit. Never any grains in his meals, they clog him up immediately, for one thing, and grains are advised against in a canine cancer diet, for another. So could be the increased veggies that he’s having trouble digesting or could be the lamb. I’m not too sure.

The turmeric treatment is going well so far as I can tell. Buddy is not itchy at all. He has a spot on his hind left upper leg that I’m watching. Most of the hair came out of the tiny spot, about as round as a small pea, but it seems to be growing back now. I thought the skin had started to raise, I guess they call it plaque, but it looks good over the last few days, almost normal in appearance with the hair follicles still visible. The plaque previously seemed to have thickened the skin and filled in the follicles so no hair could grow. The curcumin is supposed to block a particular growth factor occurring in cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. So I’m guessing that would stop the skin problems. I’m hoping!

Anyway, I’m looking on the bright side! Wouldn’t it be wonderful to stop this beast in it’s tracks? FOR SURE!

The Internet is sooooo helpful in so many ways. I joined a couple canine cancer email yahoogroups and now have a wealth of hands on experience at my fingertips. On one group I found information about a study on Buddy’s specific type of cancer, cutaneous T-cell lymphoma or CTCL. It took a bit of scanning through several articles to come up with the “Danish study” that will hopefully make all the difference with Buddy’s skin problems.

 http://www.nature.com/leu/journal/v20/n10/abs/2404350a.html

This article is about curcumin, the main component of turmeric, more specifically, that curcumin was found to block a particular growth factor produced in malignant CTCL T-cells.

So now Buddy gets one capsule of turmeric twice a day. I’ve been getting him to swallow the capsule whole by putting it in a spoon of low-fat ricotta cheese. He gulps it right down!

My vet said, when she saw this study, that the Danes are much more advanced than we are in terms of vascular research. She also said she hadn’t seen any good (or bad) results so far with people giving turmeric to their pets, but this looked different, specific. She recommended sourcing the highest quality organic turmeric I could find. So I’ve got some feelers out. Trying to sort the ‘claims’ from the ‘truth’ is another story.

I’m also trying to find some organic lamb for my boy. The vet said it’s much leaner and easier to digest than the organic lean-ground beef he gets a few days a week.

Should I notice any difference in Buddy’s skin now that he’s getting turmeric, I will definitely write about it!

Happy Boy!, originally uploaded by buddyboy030303.

Buddy had a wonderful time at the cottage!
Here he is doing his second or maybe third most favourite thing, first one is eating, I think playing with the tennis ball is second. We don’t do that much anymore, he’s more fragile now. The air was clean and the weather cooperated for the most part. It was wonderful!

Yesterday Buddy’s lymph nodes in his neck were up quite a bit. I cried. His skin is flaking again almost like a snake shedding it all. The flakes are quite large but there is no redness or irritation underneath. His hind legs seem to be the flakiest. I guess he’s just a big flake. Couldn’t resist, sorry!

This morning he actually flew off the bed, came over and looked at me expectantly, bright eyed, then ran up the stairs with his tennis ball. Again, my dog is amazing! Lymph nodes back down to normal today! I’m so lucky Buddy feels well. Looking at him you would never know he was sick.

I got Buddy when he was 4 months old and within 2 days we went to the cottage. That was July 1999. He was the sweetest baby then and he is still the kindest, most adorable little boy now! On Monday we’re going back to the cottage for 4 days. Hopefully he won’t fall off the paddle boat this year like he did the during that first trip.

I brushed some tea tree oil through his hair today on the vet’s advice to prevent flea and bug bites. He doesn’t seem to mind that turpentine-like smell at all. Weird. Hope the deer and horse flies have died off a bit, they can be brutal.

I feel so lucky to have this time with him, to help him enjoy some nice clean air, to watch him chase frogs along the shoreline, to walk with him in the forest without a leash, and to lay in the hammock and read a book with him by my side. He always has to know where I am. I know I’m the same with him. We’re a team! I will cherish every moment with him. Have to remember to bring my mom’s fleece jacket for the air conditioning in the car. It’s too cold for her but need to keep it a little cooler so Buddy get’s some in the back seat. I put his fluffy pillow/bed back there and he relaxes whenever we’re in the car.

This will be a great vacation. I’ll take lots of pics and write all about it next week. Hope everyone is enjoying their summer, or whatever season it may be.