Around Christmas, I started noticing that Pearl would just start panting for no apparent reason. We would be watching TV and she would be on the couch between my husband's legs, which was her favorite spot, sleeping and all of sudden she would start panting. I would comment to him about being concerned, but he thought maybe it was due to the fact that she was getting older. She seemed to go on her walks and play in the yard with her Frisbee, although not as much as when she was younger and we would take a shorter route at the park for our walks because we knew she had arthritis...so did we! When I would mention it to our Vet, he could never find anything wrong and also felt it could be the aging process. I was always concerned about her heart because of the Cavaliers and the Heart Mitral Valve issue, but my Vet would always say that her heart sounded good.

In 2001, Pearl seemed to have a problem with her leg and would yelp while running in the yard and wouldn't put her leg down. She was x-rayed and it was determined that she indeed had a luxating patella as our Vet, thought might be the case. As she got older, it "seemed" to disappear but, every once in awhile, she didn't want to take the stairs or she would seem melancholy and we knew that something was up but, of course, she couldn't tell us what was going on.

In 2005, Pearl was being treated for "seasonal" itchy feet. She was doing a lot of licking and biting, and that seemed to continue although a topical prescription spray seemed to help.

In 2006, Pearl started having these little episodes like little twitches, very slight, but noticeable. I thought that maybe she might be having some sort of epileptic seizures. In the next few years they became more frequent although never debilitating. She would have them more when she was resting as opposed to when we were walking at the park or playing in the yard. I thought that maybe she was bored and needed to be kept more active! We would call them her little "brain issues!"

Sometime in 2010, Pearl awoke out of a sound sleep, yelping and running from one end of the bed to the other, in some sort of pain. I didn't know what to do to comfort her and it scared me to death....I couldn't imagine what was going on. I thought she had gotten bitten by a bug. My husband thought she might have had a "bad" dream! We took Pearl to our Vet for a consultation about the "yelping" incident. He did an extensive examination and really could not find an explanation because everything seemed to be fine. Pearl was not in pain or showing any kind of discomfort during the exam. She seemed to be her tail-wagging"happy"self .... always so happy to go visit the Vet! She would start barking the minute the car made the turn into the parking lot and would get very impatient waiting for him to come out to get her. He would always kneel down and she would shower him with her kisses.

We decided to do a complete blood panel to see if we could find an answer. The test results came back normal. At that point, he thought that it might be arthritis, which is when Pearl started taking Carpofen. Things seemed to be a lot better and there weren't any more of those crazy episodes. Although, every once in awhile when my husband would pick her up a certain way, she would let out a yelp and we always thought that maybe her hair had gotten pulled in between his fingers. I find it ironic that our Vet started Pearl on the Carpofen, not knowing about Syringomyelia, and it turns out to be one of the medications used to control the pain associated with the disease...so, it was helping Pearl deal with the symptoms she was experiencing. It wasn't till more than a year later that we would learn about Syringomyelia.

Because Pearl was on Carpofen and it is an anti-inflammatory, and can affect the kidneys and liver, we kept a close eye by having a blood panel done every 6 months to make sure. Her test results always came back normal......until March 2012.

I will never forget the call from our Vet. Pearl had elevated lymphocytes. My heart sank. The word, cancer, was too scary for me to say out loud. He suggested that there was a more extensive blood panel we could do to narrow down the diagnosis. This blood panel would be done by the Colorado State University Veterinary Hospital. We agreed to have it done. I was hoping more than anything that the first blood panel was wrong....there just had to be a mistake. But, it was confirmed after about two weeks of waiting for the results, that our "Pearly" had leukemia. Our Veterinarian suggested that we see an internist to determine how to proceed with Pearl's care at this point. He recommended someone not too far from our home. All of her records were faxed over and we had an appointment a week later at this emergency hospital. Our consultation, with this specialist, was not a good one.

We had just learned that our "Pearly" had leukemia and felt no empathy from him at all, in fact, he didn't even talk to Pearl... he was very clinical and instead of sitting with us to help decide how to proceed, he was very authoritative as to what we "have" to do. He wanted to do "an" xray (it ended up being 3 xrays which we only learned when the receptionist gave us our bill!) to check for lymph node activity and since Pearl did not have to be sedated we agreed. It (they) seemed to be fine, except his mention of her severe arthritis. He talked about a bone marrow test to determine which leukemia it was before being able to treat it.

There were a lot of questions, like what that panting was all about and we wanted to ask about the "digging," but we left there with them unanswered, feeling like we were not doing the best for our "Pearly," because we wouldn't agree to the bone marrow while at his office. When we got home from our visit, I had decided to call and talk with him and let him know how I was feeling. He seemed annoyed with me. I pursued the conversation wanting some answers to my questions. I mentioned again, that Pearl was doing this obsessive digging at night on our bed, which is when he mentioned, Chiari Syndrome......I had never heard of it. He mentioned an MRI. I told him that we would talk about the bone marrow testing and would get back to him.

I am sure that this internist at this animal emergency hospital is a very qualified Dr., but, we really got the feeling from sitting in the waiting room talking with other patients that it was all about the money and how many procedures they could sign your cat or dog up for. We were trying to spare Pearl unnecessary procedures that would only cause her pain, prolong her suffering and have her final days consisting of being on drugs that made her sick, unable to eat, having diareaha and being miserable. I am not saying that there is not a time and place when a pet needs surgery, especially a younger dog or cat but a lot of what they do is experimental, they do not know everything.....there are no guarantees. And remember, they can't talk to the patient to see how they are feeling, hurting, or dealing with the outcome.

There was an article in Prevention, d, Safe Passage, that talked about a Dr. who is devoting his life to helping human terminally ill patients and their families face their final days with "honesty," dignity and compassion. Maybe the veterinary world needs to take a lesson there. I really believe that so many of our beloved pets...are suffering unnecessary procedures. They can't tell us it hurts so much, they want to die. They can't tell us they don't want to have that procedure....again and again. They need us to look out for them, to do what is best for them...and not be blind sided with a false hope from these mega hospitals that are ruled by the almighty dollar.

I went straight to my computer to find out what this Chiari Syndrome was.....and learned about Syringomyelia! I was amazed at how many of Pearl's behaviors and things that we thought were "doggy" things seemed to be symptoms of this disease. She did a lot of licking of her paws, the leg issues, the scooting, running her face across the couch, the fly catching, holding her head up sometimes and barking at nothing, the digging, the panting, plus her back legs were giving out on her. I remember being puzzled by the times she would jump off the couch and go lay down on the section of floor that was tile. I couldn't figure out why she would want to be on the cold floor. She had so many of the symptoms and we just did not know it was this awful, incurable, syringomyelia.

We knew "Pearly" was not well. She was panting a lot more, drinking almost constantly and losing weight. She was doing this obsessive digging on our bed at night. We were having nights where she was up all night, along with me.....while she was panting so hard, I was washing her down with cool wash clothes thinking she was hot and crying because I knew she was in distress and I couldn't help her. I felt like she was looking at me and asking, "can you help me?" She had actually wet our bed one night, something that she had never done. Another day, she had urinated by the back door on the carpet.I was on my computer and heard her bark, so when I got to the door to let her out, she actually showed me the spot and then put her head down....all ashamed. It was the saddest thing. She had trained so quickly when she was a puppy and never made a mistake in the house once she was trained. She just was not her "happy" self. She didn't want to go up or down the stairs...I was carrying her in from outdoors because she wouldn't take the two steps onto our deck. Because she was drinking so much, I was taking her out a lot more so she wouldn't have any more accidents. Sometimes we would be outside at 3am.

We had done a lot of talking about what we should do and one thing we definitely agreed on was that we did not want her to suffer or be in pain. It wasn't like we could sit down and discuss it with her...all she knew is that she was in pain. We felt that the bone marrow would be too painful plus the fact that she had severe arthritis in her hips and legs could affect the outcome and we didn't feel she was strong enough. It seemed as though she had the "fast" growing leukemia and it had taken hold of her, along with the Syringomyelia,it was apparent that she was in distress and we knew that there was no cure for the Syringomyelia.

That Friday night, May 11th, was one of those "up all nighter's"... there had been several of those in the past two months. We had a scheduled appointment with our Vet on Monday morning because we had decided to take her off the carpofen and put her on prednisone to try and alleviate her pain and the appointment was to evaluate the change in medication. But, it had been about a week and she really was not getting any relief. She was sleeping some during the day but at night she would be up digging and panting so hard, that one night while I was holding her, I actually thought she would have a heart attack from the extreme panting she was doing. It's kind of ironic, because the internist , we took her too, commented that she must be the only Cavalier without a heart murmur!

It was around 5am on Saturday morning, when I went to my computer and emailed our Vet, to ask him if we could come in today, instead of Monday because Pearl had had a terrible night and I didn't think we could let her go through it anymore. Our appointment was set for 11:00am. He had made it so that all the other patients would be gone. We sat and talked about Pearl's condition, and my husband and I both felt that anything we tried would just be prolonging the inevitable. Maybe we would get another day, a week or even a month with her...but it would be for us. I just couldn't bear the thought of my sweet Pearly being in pain for another day. So, on May 12, 2012, around noon on a Saturday, we decided to let our "Pearl" go. It felt like I was going through this "out of body" experience...the worst possible kind.

We were with her...I was holding her, talking to her, telling her it was alright.....she wouldn't have to be in pain anymore. She was peaceful. It seemed to happen so fast, and....she was gone. We stood there with her "sobbing" like we had never sobbed before. We took her home with us to bury her in her favorite spot in the garden and as you probably are not surprised....I go out to be with her every day. We had almost 12 years with the sweetest, happiest dog who brought so much joy and love into our lives. Pearl actually helped me come up with "Pearly's Path" because our deck is the length of our house in our backyard, and there is a potting shed at the one end where Pearl's favorite garden spot was....well, you can go either to the left around the front of the shed or to the right, which is a small "path" between the house and the shed.....that was always the way Pearl would go to get to her "spot." And, one day when I was going out to visit her, I decided that from now on, I would always take" Pearly's Path."