Lark had a significant seizure on March 18th. George was home and he rushed her to our vet. He called me and I met him there. Her initial blood work was pretty normal but because she was having trouble calming down after the seizure and had some minor neurological abnormalities, our vet advised us to take her to the Veterinary Specialty Center for overnight observation and additional diagnostics. After I left her there, they took chest x-rays and determined she had three large masses in her lungs.The next morning they did an ultrasound of her abdomen, which came back normal. We had determined if there were masses in her abdomen that would have been a decision point to let her go, but because the ultrasound was normal we decided we would like to spend some quality time with her while we could because other than the seizure she seemed pretty normal. However, because of her seizure presentation, it was a certainty that what was going on in her lungs had already metastasized to her brain. We opted not to do an MRI to confirm this since the additional information wasn't likely to change her outcome. We took her home with steroids and anti-seizure meds. She did pretty well for about a month, but started to decline over Easter weekend, losing left side awareness, doing a lot of pacing and bumping into things, and going into corners and not being able to get out. Based on these symptoms, we think it was the brain tumor vs. the lung mets that caused her decline. We let her go on April 23rd.
It is still difficult to describe the loss I feel. She was the em-path of the house and helped my husband and I through many personal family issues in recent years. She was the giving tree of dogs. She did everything I ever asked of her. She was my first BBE champion and my third Rusty Jones award recipient. She earned her MACH last fall, waiting for me to be ready to run her again and running better and faster for me once I figured out she wanted to be handled with blind crosses as much as possible, to give her the illusion she was chasing me around the ring. But most of all she was a true companion. I treasure our many walks and time hanging out on the couch as much as her many accomplishments. I miss her so much, but am fortunate to have her son and her niece to love and to train. And although I'm very sad, I also feel some peace knowing we did what we could for her as long as we could but also tried not too hold on too tightly or too long.
