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THIS IS NOT THE SAME PRODUCT!!!
September 18, 2002 To Whom It May Concern: The following document contains the detailed account, including photos, of our fight and triumph over an aggressive, rare in equine cancer this summer with one of our donkeys. We would like to pass the word that all is not necessarily lost when you are faced with such a frightening diagnosis and negative prognosis. There is hope when conventional methods fail. We kept this account of our treatment for informational purposes only. We do not intend for anyone to self-diagnose or begin self-treatment without the consult of several vets and/or without having their tumor or growth analyzed by a reputable laboratory. We would just like to pass along information that may be able to help someone else that may be facing a similar problem. We would like to pass along a little hope but would urge anyone that is thinking of following a similar treatment to do their own research and come to their own conclusions and decisions. We are only passing along what worked for us. I think you will find that what our donkey, Sassie, triumphed over is nothing less than miraculous. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact us at the above email address. Thanks and have a great donkey day!! Sincerely, Jimmy and Lorie Black
Sassie's Cancer Story When Jimmy and I returned home at the end of June from a mini-vacation to the FL Space Coast, we noticed an abscess-type lump behind one of our Mojave donkey’s ear. It looked as if she had been bitten by one of those huge horse/deer flys…..ya know, those 2 inch ones? We treated it like an abscess and did get some drainage. A small, marble sized, irritated looking lump remained. We still did not think too much of it, and just thought that Sassie must be rubbing the area and thereby keeping the tissue somewhat swollen and irritated all the time. We stalled her and tried to keep a closer eye on her to see if we could stop whatever was keeping the area irritated. We noticed no rubbing at all, as a matter of fact, the lump did not seem to bother her one bit. We then thought that it must be some sort of sarcoid growth and consulted with our natural vet contact. We started Sassie on nosode sarcoid medicine and a topical viral cream; since the most common sarcoids are caused by a virus. There was no change in the size or the irritated look of the lump, so we discontinued the medicines. On Monday, we thought the lump seemed larger; now about shooter marble size.
By
Wednesday of the same week, the lump was definitely larger and more irritated
looking. It was now about golf ball
size.
Our vet took one look at the growth, and said, “this is not good, this is serious”. He excised a handball or billiard ball sized (yes, it had grown that fast), irritated, weeping, cauliflower like growth from behind Sassie’s ear. The growth was sent to Auburn University in AL for analysis. We took Sassie home with her head wrapped up as if she had an “old fashioned” toothache to await the results from Auburn. We got the results on that Friday. Cutaneous Fibro sarcoma, an extremely aggressive cancer. It is most commonly found on cats, sometimes on dogs, and never, well, almost never,. on equines. By the time we got the results, the growth had already started back around the edges of the excision sight.
Our
vet could only find one other vet that has seen and treated this in an equine.
It was a similar growth on the leg of a horse.
With no other data to go by, we decided to follow the same course of
treatment. If this doesn't work, there are no alternatives. Sassie
was started on weekly injections of a chemotherapy drug 5-fluorouracil or 5FU
directly at the growth sight and surrounding area. We were encouraged that the growth seemed to be slowed.
Our elation was short-lived, though, as after about the 4th
day, growth was back with a vengeance. She
had her second treatment just last Thursday.
Again the growth seemed to be slowed and we were encouraged again. But once again, only about 4 days and then it's back with a vengeance. Sassie has to go back next week for her third treatment. The growth is up to shooter marble size again (at least), irritated, weeping and cauliflower like. By her scheduled appointment, it will probably be about billiard ball size again. Vet is talking excision again and more chemo. We have been in contact with several Veterinary Oncologists during this whole ordeal and they can offer us no hope for recovery. We are at a difficult time right now, as it seems such a shame to put an otherwise healthy donkey down just for a rogue growth behind her ear. If we let her live and just “let it go”, it will most probably metastasize onto her skull etc and lead to a slow, painful wasting away. Oh, man, how we hate this. We need the strength to face the inevitable. SASSIE: PART 2 Two weeks passed between Sassie’s second and scheduled third chemo treatment. By this time, the tumor was about fist size.
Things were not looking good, and we thought we were facing the inevitable. We posted online what was going on with Sassie and we received several urgent emails telling us not to put her down until we tried “black salve” on the cancer, first. Sounded like some sort of voodoo to us, but we were not in a position to doubt the success stories and testimonies of these folks. One email mentioned Cansema Black Salve by name and gave us a web site to look at. Thus began the research into alternative treatments for Sassie. We decided to give the Cansema Black Salve Veterinary Formula a try. Even though it had never been used on a Fibro sarcoma, it had been used successfully on other types of skin cancers. We really had nothing to lose at this time and everything to gain. The treatment that we were using was not working, it was time to try something different. The Cansema salve is supposed to be applied to the tumor itself. It only attacks the neoplasm, killing it, which causes the body to reject the whole dead tumor. The tumor then falls out, intact, in 4-5 days. All the testimonials were for much smaller, less aggressive cancers than what we were dealing with, so we decided to have the tumor excised once more and then treat the excision sight with the salve to kill any “micro-cancers” and any pre-cancerous growths. The tumor was excised on Thursday morning. Surgery went as expected with profuse bleeding and many ligations along the way. A pressure bandage was applied with instructions to not remove it until Saturday morning.
Day 1: When we removed the bandage, the bleeding had stopped but already small “pimples” of growth could be seen around the edges and in the center of the excision sight.
We slathered the entire excision sight and the surrounding area with the Cansema Black Salve. When the salve attacks and kills the cancer cells, the body’s natural defense mechanisms kick in to rid the body of the dead cells. This is in the form of pus and serous fluids. We expected lots of drainage from such a large wound, so we covered the area with a women’s sanitary pad and bandaged her head with co-flex. Day 2: The directions for the salve recommend that you clean the area with peroxide daily before re-applying the salve. When we removed the bandage, we were very encouraged by what we saw. The edges of the wound were already black and dried up. The whole wound had a concave look to it. All the small “pimples” of growth around the edges were gone. The only active looking sight was in the middle. We still saw small “pimples” of new growth. We cleaned her with peroxide, slathered the whole sight and surrounding area with the salve, and again covered it with a sanitary pad and co-flex.
Day 3: We could hardly wait to remove the bandage. There was massive drainage as the pad was soaked, but the wound looked great. It was even more blackened and when we cleaned it with peroxide, the center area looked clean of any of the “pimples”. It had an “eaten away” look and was now very deep in the center area.
We again cleaned with peroxide, slathered the wound and surrounding area with the salve, covered it with a sanitary pad and co-flex. Day 4: When the bandage came off, all looked blackened except for one small, pencil eraser sized pimple of new growth. For the first time, we had thoughts that this cancer was so aggressive that it was going to grow right through this treatment, too. We cleaned with peroxide, slathered with the rest of our salve (we were out now, and had more on order), covered with a sanitary pad and co-flex. Day 5: We were afraid that when we took the bandage off this time, we would find that small growth from yesterday had gotten larger. No!! There was no evidence of that growth at all! The wound looked clean of all growth!! The blackened edges were beginning to loosen and getting ready to be sloughed off.
There is also a lot of “pock marks” in the surrounding area, up the ear and down the cheek that must have been small, pre cancerous growths that had not appeared as “pimples” yet. The Cansema apparently had killed them, too, leaving small, swiss-cheese like areas of pock marks. We had no more Cansema, so we cleaned with peroxide, covered with a sanitary pad and co-flex. Day 6: Today the wound looks great. The blackened, dead tissue is even looser and the healthy, moist, pink tissue underneath is visible. It looks as if we took a knife and sliced the dead tissue away, it is that clean of a break. Unfortunately, it was dusk when I took the picture so the flash made it over exposed and it therefore does not show the detail that I was looking for. We cleaned with peroxide, covered with a sanitary pad and co-flex.
Day 7: Still can’t believe the results we are seeing today. The dead tissue is all but sloughed off. It is hanging on only in the deepest center of the wound. The tissue underneath looks so healthy and pink. There is no evidence at all of any “pimples” of new growth. There is a massive amount of drainage and she is soaking more than one pad each day. Skeptical me has purchased another jar of Cansema “just in case”. I just can’t believe that such an aggressive cancer that we have been fighting since July is dead and sloughed off in about a week.
There is still a massive amount of drainage. Today’s drainage was bubbly and foamy. We treated the newly exposed flesh with Neo-Predef antibiotic powder, covered the wound with a sanitary pad and co-flex. Day 8: Today there is still massive amounts of drainage that is foamy and bubbly. Dead tissue is still hanging on in a few places but should be sloughed off soon. We treated the newly exposed flesh with Neo-Predef powder, covered with a sanitary pad and co-flex. Day 9: Dead tissue has sloughed off completely today. Wound, although much larger than original excision sight, looks clean, moist and healthy pink. Wound is not so deep and seems to be healing nicely. We treated with Neo-Predef powder, covered with a sanitary pad and co-flex.
Day 10: The dead tissue has completely sloughed off and the wound appears to be clean of any new growth. There is little to no drainage although wound is moist and pink and healthy looking. We slathered the wound and the surrounding area with an aloe-vera vitamin A,E and D cream and did not bandage the wound.
Still day 10 (pm) and wound is crusting and scabbing over nicely. Cleaned wound with cool water to remove excess debris and slathered it and the surrounding area with aloe- vera vitamin A,E and D cream and did not bandage. Days 11-18: We re-applied Cansema to a small portion of the wound that just did not look “right” to me. Jimmy says that I am worrying too much and that it was just healing tissue. I’d rather be safe than sorry, knowing how aggressive and fast growing this was. There has been minimum drainage and we used no bandage (which means that Jimmy was probably right). We continue cleaning the wound twice daily with cool water, peroxide and applying aloe-vera, vitamin A,E and D cream to the wound and surrounding area with no bandage.
Day 19: We are waiting for the scab to be sloughed off from this second application so we can see what is underneath. The pock-marked areas surrounding the wound have completely healed. The wound margins are healing nicely. The tissue is still healthy and pink. We are washing the wound daily with cool water, peroxide and slathering the wound and surrounding area with the aloe-vera, vitamin A, E and D cream. It is still amazing to me that something so aggressive and fast growing could be brought under control in such a short time. It will be interesting to see just how much of the hide and hair will grow back. So far, it is healing rapidly and nicely.
Day 21: Three weeks since our first application of Cansema Black Salve. Since the scab from the second application was sloughed off on the evening of day 19, the wound seems to be healing faster and faster. Seems we can see a difference from morning to evening when we clean it….getting smaller all the time.
Day 28: Wound looks great!! We are still cleaning at least once each day with peroxide and slathering the whole area with aloe-vera, vitamin A,E and D cream to keep the newly healing tissue moist. There are still small, deep “holes” in the very center that will probably take the longest to heal. Wound area is so much smaller each day. Hair and hide seem to be filling in with minimal scarring. Simply amazing!!
Day 35: No words are really needed….picture speaks for itself. Wound is healing very nicely with minimal scarring. Hide and hair are growing back nicely, too. We are still cleaning the area daily and applying Aloe-vera, Vitamin A, E and D cream to the wound.
Day 42: Six weeks from our first application of Cansema salve. The largest area of the wound is about my thumbprint size. There is no drainage at all and it is just a plain ol’ flesh wound healing nicely. We continue to put aloe-vera, vitamin A, E and D ointment on it daily.
Day 49: Seven weeks from the first application. There is almost no wound to see. I have photographed my thumb in this picture so you can see the size of the wound that is left. We are still putting the aloe-vera, vitamin A, E, and D cream on it daily. Wow!!
Day 56: Eight weeks have gone by. The results are tremendous, beyond our wildest dreams. Just eight weeks ago, we thought we had to put Sassie down due to her cancer. Wow!! Just look at this wound now!! Can’t thank everyone enough for taking the time to inform us about Cansema Black Salve.
Sassie’s treatment will continue until the area is completely healed. Since we were dealing with such an aggressive cancer, we will continue to monitor the area for new “pimples” of growth. We have another jar of Cansema Black Salve “just in case”. We will update this story as needed, so please keep checking back on her progress. Have a great donkey day…..Sassie is!! UPDATE: February 2004. It has been over one year and a half now since Sassie's original diagnosis and treatment. She is cancer free. As a matter of fact, she doesn't even have a scar!! If you didn't know she ever had anything wrong with her, you would never even be able to find where it is. She is a normal, healthy donkey. Great stuff.
THIS IS NOT THE SAME PRODUCT!!! |
