I want to thank you all so much again.
I was talking to my mother yesterday. And for those of you that do not know me, my whole family is involved deeply in dogs. ( born into it). My Mother had Cavaliers almost her entire life. With such a large family in dogs, the whole family is stunned with Femka. Its not just about Femka but also raises other questions. Some of these questions are hard.
One question is that how many times is autoimmune type triggered meningitus misdiagnosed as CIDD. Then when no real improvement is shown, the decission is the same we were going to make sunday. It was only out of routine to put to sleep to exam one more time in my vets that the other signs showed up. This disease, just like in humans takes weeks to come full course and to properly diagnosis. My original posting on this was to hopefully help someone else who might be reading the " Femka thread" and say " hmm wait- that sounds like my dog...". Even though blood work was drawn at the onset ( actually how we were able to see her thyroid had crashed) the rest of the signs were not there. My vet is telling me this is highly rare condition. Now I am wondering just how rare is really is. We were trying so hard to not have to put her down, even letting the medications run the full 3 weeks as the vet said although it was obvious she was in pain and terribly hard to watch. At the end of the 3 weeks- is when it was found- possibly saving her life we hope if the antibitics can work in time now.
I was critized once with something like " its been 3 weeks Michelle- enough is enough.." Well now I know my answer- .. 500 dollars later- and we still didnt know what was wrong as we found out- and a 29 dollar blood test and exam in the later time frame maybe have just saved her life.
If I have learned anything from other than the wonder nature of people, is that if your dog is showing a disc or spinal cord problem- just for the heck of it- start the antibiotics. The vets know it takes weeks for full blown symptoms to show up. However all the pain management in the world was not going to stop the progression of the disease without antibiotics. I do not fault my vet- if anything I am relieved he had one more exam without before putting her down. Granted we do not know at this point how much damage this left. What we do is the important part- she is starting to show signs of being pain free. And at only 7 and half years old, she deserves it! I pray my little girl goes back to her " happy,silly prancing paws", alias " the black bullet".. My prayers were answered in that that horrid doubt we always have at the time to decide of the stage of euthenasia was answered " YES- THERE IS something else we can do that might make all the difference in the world.."