I am trying to wrap my head around what just happened. On Friday night my mom was driving Luna to my sisters house for a quick visit and 30 minutes into the ride she started having trouble breathing. It sounded like she was trying to breathe through a straw. She had never had any breathing issues whatsoever (she is on the smaller side, has a slightly longer face than many prototypical bulldogs). My mom rushed her to an urgent care place where things just deteriorated rapidly. She was not getting much oxygen and her tongue started turning blue so they intubated her. She stabilized briefly so they took the tube out and put her back in an oxygen tank to recover. This place closed at 11pm so my mom had to rush her to a nearby 24 hour ER. It was a 10 minute drive. I raced there from New York and met them at the ER as they were arriving. She was immediately admitted and put back in oxygen and was then intubated again. The vet wasnāt sure what was going on and said that she was having an acute respitory crisis. X rays came back normal. They thought it was possibly a collapsed larynx. I slept in the parking lot overnight waiting for an update. By morning she had not improved. A surgeon came in and said that it likely was a collapsed larynx and that he could try an emergency elongated palate surgery but that it was unlikely to fix the structural damage. And it was extremely high risk because of the condition she was already in along with her being older (she was 9 - her 10th birthday would have been today). I refused to believe this was happening so I called her primary care vet who specializes in bulldogs and knows her very very well and loves her. She broke down over the phone and said there was nothing that could be done. That this surgery would probably fail and that we should let her go without the trauma. They brought her into a private room and we said our goodbyes. She was struggling so badly. She literally couldnāt breathe. She died in my arms. 18 hours after being seemingly perfectly healthy.
I am in shock. It all happened so fast. When I saw her a few days before I commented that it was the healthiest she had seemed in a long time. She was so happy. So playful. She had puppy like energy and was loving every second of life. And even right before this all unfolded my mom said that she was looking amazing that day. She meant everything to me. Today was her birthday. I am broken. I donāt know what happened and canāt help but blame myself for making the wrong decision. I still have no idea what happened. I am living in a nightmare.
I am in shock. It all happened so fast. When I saw her a few days before I commented that it was the healthiest she had seemed in a long time. She was so happy. So playful. She had puppy like energy and was loving every second of life. And even right before this all unfolded my mom said that she was looking amazing that day. She meant everything to me. Today was her birthday. I am broken. I donāt know what happened and canāt help but blame myself for making the wrong decision. I still have no idea what happened. I am living in a nightmare.
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