More John Carter memories...

Here's some more reminiscences of brilliant cancer vet John Carter:

He was an incredible character and we got to know John quite well over the years. On a few occasions when we were there on Saturday mornings we were there the same time as you Beverley. I remember you bringing your Beardie for treatment. That would have been in the early 90's when I first went with our old Beagle, Bramble. She had bladder cancer and our own vet gave her 3 months maximum to live but with John's treatment she lived for 14 months and had good quality of life.
I used to drive to his Surgery in Middlesex from Birmingham three times a week to start with and after a couple of months only had to travel about once fortnightly.
A friend used to travel with me and she had a dog with lung cancer and was only given three months to live and she actually lived for another 3 years and she was 13 when she died.
As for the diet, when our dogs were on the regime it was 2ozs raw organic (or NZ ) lamb's liver plus a good portion of mixed organic vegetables, preferably raw but if not just lightly cooked. John Carter did after a while allow cooked organic chicken, again just 2ozs. That was for a Beagle sized dog but obviously more would be given to a larger dog etc. I used to give mine potatoes, carrots, cabbage, swede. No salt or sugar in the diet at all and no cereals other than organic oats. I used to cook the potatoes and swede as he told me not to give those raw but the greens and carrots were given raw, just grated and mixed up with all the other stuff. They could have any veg so long as it was organic but no parsnips as apparently they had too much natural sugar in them.
Since those days I went back to John with 3 other dogs and he helped them tremendously even though they were in advanced stages of cancer or at least 2 of then were and the other one who was misdiagnosed originally turned out to have a fungal disease (Aspergillosis) and sadly died but I am convinced the drugs she was on killed her.
John use to sit and talk to us after surgery as he was fascinated about our life in the countryside. He was so annoyed about all the difficulties he was trying to overcome with the powers that be and his battle with the drugs companies who would have loved him to fail.
It is so sad that he isn't alive to see this progress but I know he will not be far away from it all.

Our current vet has always been interested in John's treatment and I know he will follow it up and probably try and get to administer it to anyone he feels wants to try it for their animals.

Our vet has told us that he has ordered some CV247 and will be starting treatment next week on a couple of his patients where conventional treatment can no longer do anything for them.

At least there is now hope for their owners.

So many of us know what it feels like when you are told there is nothing left for them

There are no nasty side effects with the treatment btw.

One of our dogs is having chemo' at the moment as after John died we couldn't get hold of anyone to administer it as it hadn't been licensed at the time.
We now have to continue with the chemo' as it is very much tailored to Jan's condition but she finishes the course in April. If unfortunately she relapes which is quite possible we will be taking up the CV247 treatment.

I have to say though that it is so important that you stick to the diet as the nutrition part of it goes hand in hand with the rest of the regime.

I wish you all the very best

Sheila