★★★★★
Our sweet red heeler (13 yo) was feeling lethargic and had mostly lost her appetite, and on the second evening of this we noticed a slight abdominal swelling. After bringing her to the vet hoping it was just a stomach ache, and then being sent to the emergency vet, we discovered she had suffered an abdominal bleed. They found a mass in her liver as well as additional nodes in her liver and one in her lung through a CT scan. Diagnosis likely Hemangiosarcoma in liver with metastasis to lung, not a candidate for surgery or chemo and a very poor prognosis, vet said that its hard to tell but she may only have days left. This is a very aggressive cancer that is prone to causing internal bleeds, and not usually discovered until a bleed happens. She put her on Yunnan Baiyao tablets, a combo blend of traditional Chinese herbs that are supposed to help stave off the bleeding and possibly slow the cancer a bit.
Our 42 lb dog is on a maintenance dose of 1 pill 2x day, her bleeding had slowed or stopped by the time we brought her home (they had dosed her during her overnight stay as well while she was still actively bleeding). That was 5 days ago, I've been feeding her cooked chicken livers and red meat to help build her blood back up and she is almost back to acting her normal self. Abdominal swelling has resolved and her gums are pink again. Because of the nature of this horrible disease (having no way to know when a bleed would happen) I wont really know if the Yunnan Baiyao is helping her, but the vet said there would be no ill effects using it. Nothing to lose. I very much appreciated the advice (especially given this is a conventional medicine vet) and wanted to put it out there for other people. Hoping this may buy us just a little more time. I have slowly started essiac and some other supplements as well, to hopefully slow down the cancer.
As a side note, the vet showed me the tiny red "emergency pill" in the center of the package. The package is mostly in Chinese and I wouldn't have known it was there otherwise. I fortunately have not needed to use it, and the vet said she wasn't sure of its efficacy, but just wanted to let others know it was there.
