Guest post Series by Colin and Cathy Moon
It is with great sorrow that - we gave little Charlie his wings on Friday, January 25th, (2008). He was only 2 years old. He fell asleep in my arms at the vets on Friday night. Colin and I, along with our vet, decided that Charlie had struggled enough with SM. We all miss him terribly as he has been the center of our lives since I brought him home this past October.
For those of you who don’t know about Charlie, he had severe SM symptoms for well over a year before we adopted him in October 2007. According to his veterinary records, he had what most of us would call severe SM symptoms at 5 month of age. Shortly after we brought him home, he had decompression surgery. He improved dramatically for a time, but he still had permanent neurological damage and his pain episodes never went away.
During the past month, he had gradually deteriorated. His pain medicine dose was doubled as we tried to buy him more time for possible healing. But we finally reached the point when we knew we had to give Charlie relief. It was heart wrenching to decide to let him go.
We love you and miss you, little Charley Barley.
To read Charlies entire story please visit his blog
http://charliesm.wordpress.com
In my mind Charlie's legacy is to educate rescues on the importance of getting dogs in their care who are diagnosed with Syringomyelia / Chiari Malformation the help they desperately need. His legacy is also to show potential adoptive families that no matter how long or how short your adopted baby is with you that all they need is your love and compassion. Charlie needed a family that understood his disease and were willing to give him the medication and treatment that would allow him to have dignity and a chance at a happy pain free life. Charlie knew love and dedication in the last few months of his life and even though he made his journey to the Rainbow Bridge way to early he made it having known love and that there were people in the world that cared so very much about him.