MRI= no answers

Today was Buster's MRI. He wasn't allowed to drink or eat anything this morning which made him a bit hangry, but when we showed up at the vet, he started to shake out of anxiety/fear. Poor buddy. He went in for a two hour MRI (sleeping of course) and unfortunately, we have no answers. 

There is no cancer or tumor on his spine that would account for changing his peeing stance and barely lifting up his tail. CP also reported that he had trouble pooping this morning and almost fell backwards.

There is no narrowing of his spinal column to account for him not picking up his back legs enough so that they drag.

There is a little evidence of disc-related issues in his spine but nothing too out of the ordinary and certainly not enough to account for the lack of control he has over his back legs.

All of these are good things of course, but now we are left with, okay but what is wrong with him? He was fine up until the very beginning of the year and we thought that his issue with going up stairs was because of his partially torn ACLs....now....who knows?

While Buster was under anesthesia, the vet took some fluid from his spinal column to get it tested since the MRI was inconclusive. Most often with dogs if there is something in their spinal fluid it points to an auto-immune disease. If that sample comes back normal then we will get him tested for a genetic abnormality that can be found in Berners. It usually doesn't show up until a dog is 8 years old (Buster is only 6.5 years old), but Buster seems to have all of the signs despite being a younger dog. Fingers crossed that it is not this abnormality (called Degenerative Myelopathy) because the outlook will not be good.

So now I don't know what to think and I don't know how to help Buster. This is a terrible feeling.