Shaye — Today at 2:51 PM
@everyone On Tuesday, January 28th, Skye left us on her journey across the rainbow bridge. The previous Friday she wasn't feeling well and went to work with me for a check up and some routine blood work, an ultrasound showed an issue with her gallbladder bile duct, but nothing extremely concerning and no gallstones or sludge present.
Monday evening, some bruising was noted on one of her front arms, after speaking with our vet we were told to keep an eye on it, as it may have just been some residual bruising from having her blood drawn. No worsening of the bruising was noted before I went to bed for the evening. Very early Tuesday morning when I went to do AM meds, her arm had turned fully black and did not have any response to stimuli / pain. She immediately went back to work with me, and after an examination it was determined that the tissue had died and amputation was the only option. Given her age and additional health concerns, the choice was made to let her pass peacefully, as it would not have been fair to her to pursue amputation. An autopsy was performed and pathology reports came back uneventful, initially our vet had suspected a very aggressive form of cancer called Hemangiosarcoma, however, the cause was determined to be acute limb ischemia, a very large blood clot had been thrown into the axillary artery of the brachial plexus, cutting off blood flow to the limb. She had heart disease and a related blood clotting issue which she was on medication for, but unfortunately it is just one of those unpredictable things that can happen. Her brothers are coping well with her loss, thankfully, but she will be very missed.
Note: the clot was fully unrelated to the blood draw