Unfortunately Fern passed away this afternoon. The noises she was making changed overnight, I was 50/50 on whether to call for medication to try, or to have her put to sleep, but she still seemed bright so I opted for meds but stressed it was urgent.
She was bright throughout the morning, just seemingly very tired. I checked on her every hour or so all night and today. Unfortunately when I went to check her at about 12:45 she had peacefully passed away laying down looking like she had been sleeping.
Oddly enough when I pulled my phone out to call the vet to let them know medication wouldn't be needed, my vet beat me to it to ask what had been going on etc, once updated, we discussed the meds for future reference but he offered for me to bring her down to see what on earth happened.
Upon post mortem examination, her trachea was normal all the way down until splitting into the 2 main bronchial tubes, where (I believe the left) one was thickened, grainy and inflamed so much he couldn't get his scissors in to cut it open. So effectively she was using only one lung. Both lungs were perfect, no inflammation, no fluid, no infection. Her heart itself was OK but the surrounding sack contained uncalculated blood.
The tissue and lymph nodes surrounding the cancerous airway were also grainy, inflamed and were all adhered together.
So, unfortunately, poor Fern had a heart related cancer that spread to her airways, nothing we did could have helped or changed the outcome
