"Unfucking believable! Unfucking believable. This is just unfuckingbelivable!" Doctor Holmes, one of the Veterinarians at Windhover Veterinary
Clinic who oversees the care at the Sterling Animal Rehab Center in Walpole,
looked up at myself, the Vet Tech on duty, and the Clinic's current intern, "Excuse my language, " she
apologized, "but I just can't believe this. The lump is gone. I mean it's totally gone!"
Betsy, a 10 year-old Golden Retriever, was diagnosed
with what her Vets believed to be Lymphoma in late April of 2012. Lymphoma can
present in numerous ways but in Betsy's case it appeared as a painless enlargement of the peripheral
lymph nodes. It looked and felt as
if someone had cut an overly ripe cantaloupe in half and placed it under the
fur and skin on the left side of her neck.
Had Betsy been human, the large mass might have resembled an extremely
bad case of the mumps. In other words,
the mass growing around Betsy neck was quite large and if left untreated,
likely to get bigger.
Betsy, like most Golden's (sadly), is prone to
cancer -- this was not her first cancer diagnosis
-- so her owner, Mary Anne, has chosen to steer clear of chemotherapy that
might negatively affect Betsy's quality of life or any type of radiation
treatments that have the potential to exacerbate the cancer or encourage other
cancer growths. Instead, Mary Anne has
chosen to treat Betsy non-traditionally with Chinese herbs and weekly
acupuncture appointments that I have, as Betsy's "driver" (yes, Betsy
has an entourage - she is a "V.I.D."!) had the privilege of witnessing.
The acupuncturist who practices at Sterling, Ann
Murphy, is nothing short of a present day miracle worker. Like stories of Jesus, factual or fabled, she
seems to have the power to heal with her hands.
Anne is also the one who suggested and has been supplying the Chinese
herbs, specifically Ganoderma 18 by Seven Forests, which Mary Anne has been
administering to Betsy daily.
Anne explained to me that there is no word for
cancer in the vocabulary of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). "According to TCM, good health depends on
normal flows of fluid and energy (blood and gi). These flows are responsible for nourishment
and discharge. Poor flow (stagnation)
can lead to accumulations such as tumors, cysts, etc. Normalizing these flows through acupuncture
and Chinese herbs tends to promote
healing, recovery, and general well being" (drshen.com).
Betsy's "team" has been treating her
tumors holistically since April 10th, 2012. By early July Mary Ann insisted
that the tumor had shrunk (she is a master of the art of positive thinking) but
when Dr. Holmes measured it, she found that although it had not grown, it
really had not decreased in size either.
This in and of itself was good news because lymphoma is known to be an
especially aggressive cancer. According to Wikipedia, untreated dogs
have an average survival time of just sixty days (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lymphoma_in_animals#cite_note-13).
On July 30th, as I was
picking Betsy up for her treatment, Mary Anne was giddy with the news that Betsy's
tumor was gone; however, this was her
own personal assessment. Dr. Holmes had
yet to evaluate Betsy since a couple weeks ago when the two equally
strong-willed women got into a friendly debate about whether or not the lump
was shrinking, with Dr. Holmes backed up with her medical degree claiming that
the numbers don't lie, and a smiling, persistently positive dog owner insisting
that mathematics and science (and
veterinary measuring tools) be damned.
Mary Anne was starting to remind me a bit of Steve Jobs with his
"reality distortion field". But
it would seem that some people truly have the power to will things true.
I consider myself to be
a pretty open minded person, but I'm also someone who rarely believes in
absolutes. I think life is painted in
varying shades of gray, with a few brush strokes of black and white used
sparingly. When I was a little kid I wanted to believe in absolutes - good and
evil, heaven and hell, a higher power, and happily ever after. I actually agonized over these concepts. Now as an adult, I realize that there's
mostly no such thing. My fence-walking
has led me to be open minded yet skeptical of most things, acupuncture and
eastern medicine included. I saw that
physical therapy and acupuncture had definitely helped Betsy when she tore her
ACL and also when she was suffering from a fever and indigestion issues. But cancer?
I mean, cancer still manages to outwit the most intelligent doctors ,
the most devoted exercisers and healthy eaters, the newest technologies, the
young, the clean and toxin free-living, and generally the overall healthiest of
people. Cancer is, in my mind at least,
the human race's greatest foe and overpopulation's greatest ally. I believed that there was a good possibility
that all these treatments could help Betsy.
But I was not absolutely convinced like Mary Anne. And it seemed neither was Doctor Holmes. Until now.
When Doctor Holmes,
ever the consummate professional started cursing, I knew she was flabbergasted
(in her defense, she apologized for her potty mouth after the initial shock of
her findings). With her jaw agape, she
confirmed what Mary Anne seemed to will true.
The tumor was gone. Completely
gone. Doctor Holmes had never seen
anything like it in her professional career.
She muttered something about writing up the case in a medical journal of
some sort. I was overwhelmed not just by
Dr. Holmes findings, but also to her reaction to her findings. She was absolutely blown away.
The things is, had the same outcome occurred
on a human, my overly analytic mind might have guessed it could have been due
to the "placebo" effect, or some sort of psycho-somatic B.S., but dogs do not have the capacity for this
type of rational thought. For the
placebo effect to work, a high level of cognition is required, cognition of the
type that dogs lack.
After I dropped Betsy off and went into the
office I share with my dad I put Ann's business card on his desk and told him
to call her and make an appointment. My dad does not have cancer, thank god,
but he does have a whole list of other ailments. This was not the first time I
asked him to call Anne, but this time I recounted the story of what I had just
seen, the same story I have just shared with you now. Lucky, as we lovingly refer to him, might
just be the greatest skeptic of all, but even he was persuaded. He called Anne and when she expressed doubts
about him wanting to drive all the way down to Walpole when he could find a
practicing acupuncturist much closer, I insisted he endure the dreaded Expressway
to see Anne explicitly. He actually
agreed, without much persuading needed on my part. He has an appointment with Anne this
week. And if Anne can make Lucky, the
most ardent of skeptics a believer, than she truly is a miracle worker.
Lucky's treatments and prognosis to
follow. This story, like our endless journeys on this planet is, to be continued...
