Thank you all for your caring words and loving messages. Our journey as pet parents continues painfully today. Shortly before Pingu's sudden onset, she'd had a slightly lower appetite for a few days. We didn't think much of it, since she's a grazer and it's normal for her not to finish her bowl, but we had been keeping an eye on it. Unbeknownst to us, decreased appetite is a warning sign for CHF. We didn't realize, but if we'd taken her in sooner, we might have had a chance to medicate her CHF before she contracted her fatal embolism. On high alert from this, we are now acutely aware of any sign of illness from either of our other two babies. Which brings us to... Ella has been having some intermittent GI symptoms in the last few weeks, including some rather nasty loose stool. It was occasional and didn't seem very serious (she was eating and drinking and playing like normal), but we were planning on taking her in if she didn't improve. In light of everything that went wrong with Pingu, we decided we shouldn't wait, just in case it was a sign of something more serious. So, we took her in this afternoon. It was mostly to soothe our nerves, we figured - better safe than sorry, right? Turns out Ella has HOOKWORM. We brought her in early enough that she successfully avoided any dehydration, fever, or more serious infection. We've been sent home with prescriptions and digestive food to settle her system, a dewormer to put the parasites on the run, and a fresh six-month supply of preventatives to keep anything else off her back. She'll be okay (she doesn't even seem to have noticed anything is wrong)... but we feel terrible. She's been having symptoms for weeks, which means she's been battling parasites for weeks. Why didn't we bring her in quicker? Why hadn't we checked on a preventative for her? Between Pingu and Ella, we feel like the worst pet parents on the planet. Please, please, please learn from our mistakes. Low appetite or surprise GI issues can be a sign of something more, even if your pet doesn't seem bothered. We are going to take Ella and Caspy in for *anything* that strikes our concern from now on. What an awful, awful 24 hours this has been. https://www.instagram.com/p/BvuoKRrBXC6/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1lp8ujxcfddz4
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