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I love Buddy.
[Laugh] I have had him for, gosh, 8 years now.
Buddy was a gift to me
from my dad.
I think it was maybe
dad's way of, saying well
here's that one last thing,
you know, that I can give you before I go.
He's been my best friend and that's kinda weird but I don't know, Buddy reminds me of him
just because
he was there
with dad before he was gone.
A dog's love is
unconditional they're always there, you know, to kind of support you and
they're always happy to see you.
When I go get a coffee he'll sit outside the shop
and he's kinda like a boyfriend! [Laughing] He's just a really good companion. I don't go anywhere without him.
I started noticing some behavior changes in Buddy. He's always been really energetic and,
you know, athletic and
he just wasn't himself at all.
I got worried and I took him in for his checkup at the vet
and the vet said that it was
liver cancer. Terminal liver cancer and and that there wasn't really
anything they could do for him. Basically he said I could just take him home and, um, comfort him and
wait for him to die or we could put him down.
That would be the most humane thing to do.
I was devistated, and you know
I told the veterinarian I said I'm not going to kill my dog.
I ran across this book by Dr. Shawn
and it was so inspirational and I thought well
what do Buddy and I have to lose. [Dr. Shawn] She read one of my books
and learned about alternative therapies
and decided look, I've got nothing to lose so let's give it a try.
I see so many cases that are not being solved correctly. I see cases that aren't
responding to conventional therapies and I see cases for which there is no
conventional therapy. My approach when people come to my office is say look, I
know things may seem bad
but looks may be deceiving. Maybe there is some hope down there let's work
together to try to find what's best for your pet.
Melissa had been to her veterinarian
who told her that Buddy had liver cancer
and the prognosis for pets with liver cancer is not very good. They have just
literally a few weeks too live so he told Melissa the bad news was that Buddy
was not going to be with us much longer
basically take him, go home and enjoy him but you have to come back very shortly and
euthanize him.
And no owner wants to hear them and certainly Melissa didn't want to hear that either when her
pet seemed to be in pretty good shape. He still hasn't really diagnosed cancer. He
thinks it's cancer but
without a biopsy he can't say that for sure.
Very often we get a diagnosis that just doesn't really fit the picture the
owner is telling me.
Was this tumor that buddy had malignant
in which case the prognosis was not not going to be very good
or maybe there were some hope because he had a different disease.
Most pets with liver tumors do have cancer
but enough don't to where this may not be as hopeless as he made it seem. There may be
something we can do
so we need to schedule an ultrasound for him and if
that shows he doesn't have cancer
that's good.
It's not great, but it's good so forget the euthanasia.
We'll deal with that
maybe if we need to and when the time comes.
[Melissa] It was so refreshingly
because
I had gone to all these doctors and they had said the complete opposite. [Dr. Shawn] He does have a
liver tumor
but the good news is it's benign not malignant. He still has a long road ahead
of him
the prognosis is better so this case is very typical of one I see
where often I'm dealing with a misdiagnosis. And the good news is the
misdiagnosis turned out to be in Buddy's favor.
So we did surgery on Buddy and got that tumor out of there
but we know that there's the potential for his liver to develop tumors because
they already did one time so
we wanted to try to do our best to prevent or at least minimize more tumors
coming back.
And that's where we use the alternative approach we use some herbs, some other
nutritional supplements, change his diet, change his vaccination protocol. And all of
these things are designed to keep his liver
and the rest of his body as healthy as possible so hopefully Melissa won't
have to go through this devastating problem again.
The good news is the ultrasound we did today everything looks OK. There's no more tumor. You're doing a good job,
he's doing great. We're going to repeat that in three months
and if that looks good and I expect it will, then just twice a year we're going to see him
and just keep doing what you're doing. [Woman happy] You're doing a good job. [Melissa] Thank you! Yea!! [Dr. Shawn] You're welcome. You're a good client.
[To Buddy] You've been good, too! [Melissa] I know that Buddy
is getting better. I can see it in everything that he does. I know my dog. I've lived with
him for so long.
[Dr. Shawn] Either you have to accept despair, and bad news, or we can say no, and I don't want to do that.
I want to do some research on my own and find someone who can help me
facilitate this healing because there really can be hope for those hopeless
cases. [Music]
[Melissa] I can't expressing enough
how
happy I am and
so grateful to Dr. Shawn
for not only helping Buddy but for showing me that there is hope. [Crying] Buddy's my best friend in the whole world.
[Music]