At 4 a.m. on Tuesday morning, we received a phone call that Elvis was having trouble breathing and had taken a turn for the worse.  We said that we were on our way, but we had about a 40 minute drive to the hospital.  As we were walking out the door, not ten minutes later, the phone rang again and we were told that Elvis had stopped breathing so they inserted a breathing tube and put him on an EKG.  His heart had been beating, but it had just stopped and they were trying to resuscitate him.  I immediately told them to stop.  If Elvis wasn’t going to respond to the treatment, we didn’t want him to suffer anymore.  He wasn’t even ten years old yet. 

Two days later, when I was finally able to bring myself to call the hospital and ask about the biopsy results that we had been waiting on for days, I was told that there were no traces of cancer.  The vet explained to me that Elvis most likely died from a blood clot that went to his lung, a very common problem associated with IMHA.  We would be remiss if we didn’t mention at this point how wonderful the doctors were at Garden State Veterinary Specialists – compassionate, informative, and extremely thorough.  We will always be grateful for the care they gave Elvis.