China Rescue Update! This is Golden. He's an 8 year old saved from a slaughterhouse in China on January 20th. Half of his right ear was cut off to make dog ear soup.

This dog has been through a lot and was rescued in a joint effort with China Rescue Dogs. When he arrived on May 12 in the United States, he was rushed to the emergency animal hospital with pneumonia and was nursed back to near full strength. He is doing better, but needed more medical work, including chest films. The cost for the tests, meds, oxygen, overnight ER stay, etc. was $2,777.

We had additional costs the following week as he took a turn for the worse and it was discovered he has cancer and most likely needs a bone marrow transplant.

At this point, he was too ill to fly in a regular jet to Ohio across the country from Seattle and a private corporate jet needed to be found to fly him to our rescue and his new family who has been waiting for him since February.

Even if it is for a few hours, a few days, or a few weeks - we all wanted him to be with his true "meant to be" family and put the word out for help. Thank God for non-profit, Pilots N Paws who scheduled three different pilots and three planes to bring GOLDEN to his family on May 29th.

GOLDEN was rushed to an emergency vet when he landed where he had a blood transfusion. His red blood cell count improved as did his white blood cell count. He spent two nights at the ER Vet in Indiana. This cost was $1,452.03. On Memorial Day, he finally made his way to his forever home in Toledo Ohio.

Everyone falls in love with Golden where ever he goes. He has been to multiple vets since arriving getting subcutaneous fluids locally as vets were concerned about damage to his kidneys. He had an appointment Medvet near Columbus on June 11th. The multitude of prayers and well wishes are doing wonders for Golden, as his blood work was improved and the worry about his elevated calcium is disappearing as his calcium level was normal! He still has a high protein level and hematocrit is still lower, but it is holding steady since his transfusion. He is now on oral chemotherapy as doing well enough to come home instead of staying in the hospital.

On June 28th, he had a recheck and reassessment of his Multiple Myeloma. Since his last visit he gained almost 7 pounds and appeared overall improved physically as well as his vitals were within normal limits. His platelet count was normal, which is a significant improvement and his red blood cell count was stable. He was continued on his medicines.

Unfortunately on July 8th he was taken back to Med Vet in Worthington. He had a lot of bleeding overnight and his platelet count is now back down to 15, which is where it was when he got his first transfusion. We thought we would receive another blood transfusion, but could not as it would have been too risky. He started on a new medicine and came back home for a blood recheck mid-July. After his local vet reviewed the notes, he was placed on a more aggressive chemo via IV beginning July 15th.

August 6th Update: Golden has been on a roller coaster of good news, bad news, good news. The chemo drug he got a few weeks ago knocked down his hematocrit level, knocked out his WBC count, didn't do anything to keep his globulin level from going up and sent his platelet count way down. The oncologist said we probably needed to forget doing chemo and go to palliative care. As you know we're not ones to do nothing when the boy obviously wants to keep fighting, so we asked what we could do to bring his RBC count, platelets, etc back up. There is a drug, darbepoetin, that can help with those things coming up but with his bone marrow not being in great shape she wasn't sure it would do any good plus the medication is expensive.

Golden had also started running a temperature and having some strange skin lesions. So we started him on another antibiotic to see if it would help fight off whatever infection he had going on since the amoxicillin wasn't doing it. The clindamycin brought the fever down. Then he got an injection of the darbepoetin and an injection of iron. Yesterday when he saw the oncologist again after having all of the new meds the week before, he had great blood work numbers!

His hematocrit was the highest it has been since arriving in the USA at 22.8! The platelets were up, his WBC count was up and he was feeling great again! So we will continue the weekly injection of darbepoetin and the oncologist said lets go back to the first chemo drug, cyclophosamide as he seemed to tolerate this well. We're working now to see if we can get that globulin number down.

August 21st & Seotenber 10th Update: After many tests, it was discovered that Golden most likely has Waldenstrom's Macroglobulinemia, which is like a sub-diagnosis of multiple myeloma, an immunoblobulin-producing plasma-cell disorder. Rarely does it affect the bones; more often it affects liver, spleen and lymph nodes. Many dogs with this disease who respond do go on to live a good life for several years!
The medication he is on now costs our non-profit $612.00 every two weeks or about $1,224.00 each month. His medical costs from the specialty vet is Columbus was $2,053.21.

We all feel Golden is here on a mission to teach us about what is really important in life. We are incredibly thankful for everyone's prayers and well wishes, as you all are making a difference in Golden's ability to fight this cancer!

Please continue to pray and support us in his care.

If you would like to watch his complete journey from China, check out previous posts on our Facebook page @goldenrescue.

We need donations to treat this pup and get him healthy. It costs our non-profit $1,648.12 each month to care for golden.

None of us expected this dog to be ill, and he has come too far for us to let him down. Many would say to just send him to heaven. We believe his boy's will is so strong and he has overcome so much that he has a real chance. Please believe in him with us. This boy is just the best dog.

Please donate to his care today and we thank EVERYONE who has donated so far! #TeamGolden. Please pray for him :)

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