Laurie's Story
My love for animals began when I was a toddler. My best friend was a Daschund called Woofie.
My love for writing began in high school. I was the only one I knew who actually loved writing long papers.
After graduating college with a BA in literature, I decided I had taken the wrong fork in the road. I wanted to go to vet school, but I could not apply until I completed three animal pathobiology classes. I took them at UConn and worked at two vet clinics.
Still torn, my love of writing was calling me. For about a decade, I worked as a writer/producer of media for high school students. I was assigned such fascinating subjects as study skills, getting along with your parents, mastering algebra or geometry and computer technology. I also did freelance jobs.
Finally, the universe found a way to combine my love of animals and my interest in medicine! I landed freelance jobs writing medical articles for animal magazines. In 1998, I became the Editor of Catnip, a newsmagazine from Tufts Vet School. While I was editor of Catnip, I helped launch a volunteer program at my local SPCA. Then the unthinkable happened.
My Dog Has Cancer
Bullet started chemo the day after he was diagnosed. Bullet’s chemo vet urged me for a year to write this book. I did not want to write it – I wanted someone else to write it! In 2002, when I found that there were still no such books, I did wrote the first edition of Help Your Dog Fight Cancer. The book has been so popular that I have since released a second and a thrid edition.
Help Your Dog Fight Cancer
This award-winning book contains a ton of information that you will need, but you will not find it anyplace else. I provide a lot of information that is not even provided by most veterinarians.
I love that this book is helping so many people and their dogs fight cancer. I hate that there are so many people who need the book.
Order the book here.
Laurie Kaplan, author of Help Your Dog Fight Cancer, lives in the suburbs of New York City with husband Mike, Puck (Pitbull/GSD mix), and Rip (Siberian husky). She loves writing, hiking, gardening, tennis, and jigsaw puzzles.
Bullet's Story
In 1992, I adopted an 18-month-old Siberian Husky called Max at the local SPCA. Anyone who has ever lived with a Siberian will tell you that they are more than a bundle of trouble. He was willful and ornery, smart and demanding. His primary objective in life is to escape and run free. The name Max didn’t fit the dog. In the weeks following the adoption, Max’s first (of many) series of escapes earned him the name Bullet (as in faster than a speeding…).
In July 2000, when he was 9 years old, Bullet was diagnosed with lymphoma. I was shocked to learn that my dog had cancer. He had chemotherapy and I learned all I could about caring for a dog with cancer. I put together a great diet and home care regimen for him.
Bullet was in a very small percentage of dogs to survive the disease. Bullet’s chemotherapy vet, Paolo Porzio, used to go for hikes with us. He sent his patients with lymphoma to me to learn what I was doing for Bullet. It was at Dr. Porzio’s urging that I wrote the book Help Your Dog Fight Cancer.
Dogs Can Survive Cancer
Dogs with lymphoma generally survive 12-18 months, if the chemo protocol works. In November 2002, at the age of 11, Bullet was declared a lymphoma survivor. He had survived more than 2 years. I was amazed, relieved, and so happy. For a minute I believed that now he would survive forever. I sort of forgot that even though a dog can survive cancer, he will still be taken away at some point.
But when he had congestive heart failure, I remembered. Tests showed that he had dilated cardiomyopathy and atrial fibrillation, and the prognosis was six months to a year survival. Bullet endured another congestive heart failure episode in April 2003 and another in August 2003. He did not respond to the usual cardiac meds. I wound up getting FDA approval to import a medicine not yet approved in the U.S., and it kept him with me for an extra 2 years.
After a 4-year and 4-month remission from lymphoma, a 2-year survival with a deadly heart condition and 5 congestive heart failure episodes, Bullet’s vets started calling him “the Magic Bullet.”
Eventually, the Magic Bullet ran out of magic tricks. We could not avoid the inevitable. On November 20, 2004, at almost 14 years old, Bullet’s kidneys failed and he passed to the Rainbow Bridge, still cancer-free.
Bullet was one shining moment that graced my life for 12 years, 2 months and a day. Bullet’s legacy is the Magic Bullet Fund. I ran this nonprofit for 20 years, and provided financial assistance to 920 people who had dogs with cancer but could not afford treatment costs.
It has been years since my sweet Bullet went to the Rainbow Bridge, although it seems like yesterday that I held him in my arms. Bullet is my guardian angel, my inspiration and my hero.
Every day I whisper to him,
“My sweet precious boy, I’m still holding you.”