After the doctor's appointment Wednesday I went home and went to bed (I had worked the night before and was supposed to work that night too). When John got home from work around 3 and let the dogs out he noticed that Atlas just didn't look right. He wasn't playful, didn't want to get kisses (those of you who knew him knew how much he liked kisses), didn't want to go outside, was real sluggish, and was breathing really hard and fast. He woke me up to see what I thought, and you could tell just by looking at him that he was very sick. I called the vet to see if we could take him in and they said to bring him straight there and they would fit him in. When we got there he began coughing up blood, they did an x-ray and said his stomach and bowel looked fine but his lungs looked really weird, like they were full of fluid or blood. We initially thought that maybe he had a bowel obstruction because over the last week we had found him throwing up more that usual and even throwing up some hickory nuts that he must have been eating from the back yard. We thought maybe he had eaten a nut and it had gotten stuck somewhere in his bowel causing an obstruction (thus the reason for the x-ray of the stomach). The vet said they could do exploratory surgery on his bowel to see if they could find anything, but he was more worried about his lungs than stomach and recommended we go the animal hospital where there was a surgeon and better machinery if there was something more serious wrong. So, we loaded up and went to the animal hospital about 25 minutes away. When we got there the surgeon did more x-rays and blood work. He said there was nothing wrong with his stomach but was very concerned about his lungs. He wasn't getting enough oxygen and his blood oxygen levels were only 88% so they had to put him in an oxygen chamber while we tried to figure out what was wrong. The doctor told us there was a few different things that could cause the fluid/blood build up in his lungs. 1.) Pneumonia - this was not it because his white blood count was normal meaning there was no infection. If this had been it there would have been a fairly simple way to treat it and he would have gotten better. 2.) Rat Poisoning - this causes decreased blood clotting which could account for internal bleeding in the lungs. This was not it because his blood clotting factors were all normal. If this was it there would have been a way to treat it and odds are he could have survived. 3.) Heart Failure - on the x-ray his heart was slightly enlarged and the doctor said that a congenital heart failure could cause fluid build-up in the lungs. This was not the cause because he had no heart murmur and his EKG was normal. 4.) Electrical Wire - apparently if an animal chews on a live electric cord somewhere in the house it can shock there system and cause there lungs to fill up like his did. There is no blood test to see if this is the real cause (just walking around the house looking at electrical cords) and there is no real way to treat it and the outcome is not good. 5.) Kicked in the side - if he had had some trauma to his chest it could cause internal bleeding in the lungs and show like he did. Once again there is no real way to diagnose this and if it is the cause, there isn't much to do about it and the outcome is not good.
Those were the options we were given, we ruled out number 1,2, and 3 and were left with the two gravest outcomes. We weren't sure about the electrical wires (once we got home that night we looked all over the house and couldn't find anything out of place) and we didn't know about chest wall trauma (though he and Caly never played hard enough for that to happen, we don't think). Faced with the option of leaving him the ICU at the hospital for a few days in the oxygen chamber and still probably not knowing what was really wrong with him and how to fix it (or if we even could fix it) we chose to have him put down.
We were able to stay with him until they were done and love on him while he passed. It was a very hard decision to make and one we have gone back and forth on ever since.
Caly is doing well, it is obvious that she knows he isn't here any more and misses him, we have been trying to give her extra attention ever since, but it still isn't the same. She will sniff where his crate used to be and walk around the house moping "looking" for him. But she is getting better.
Here are a few pictures in rememberance of him. Even though we had a very short time, we still loved him very much and neither of us will forget him.
