Babe Keach
November 1, 1991 – December 21, 2003
On November 23, 2003 we had taken our pups out for their daily walk and noticed Babe was limping somewhat; later that night I was on the floor with Babe giving her lots of pats and noticed a lump on her elbow. It was probably the size of a golf ball and was extremely hard and did not move.
I called the vet first thing the next morning and it wasn’t good news. It was a mast cell tumor. We then took her to Western Specialty Centre in hopes they could perform a miracle. They took a biopsy of the tumor and some of her lymph nodes to make sure the cancer hadn’t spread. On December 8th (our daughter’s 21st birthday) we received the news that Babe’s cancer had already spread to her lymph nodes and that it was Stage 2 high.
We opted not to put her through chemotherapy and decided to go with herbs, vitamins, homeopathy, etc. in hopes that we could at least slow the cancer down, but we had other hurdles to deal with as well; where the biopsy was performed it had never healed leaving the tumor to constantly bleed. We did manage to get control of the bleeding for approximately a week and then things changed for the worse. Within a couple of days she stopped walking so had to carry her out to go potty; then she decided she didn’t even want to get up to eat, so fed her while she laid on the floor. Then overnight the bleeding increased and she began panting uncontrollably; was not the slightest interested in her food, and could no longer stand. At that point, a decision had to be made, so called a wonderful vet to come to our home. With the whole family by Babe’s side including her brothers and sisters, we sent Babe to Rainbow Bridge at 8:23 P.M. on December 21st, 2003.
“Gone but never absent from our hearts.”
The Keach Family