A Scary Weekend

Saturday was our last weekend for soccer at CYS.  I had made several trips back home for various things during the day.  The last trip home was after 1pm. I thought we would bring Shadow up to the field for our meeting after the last game of the day with the board of directors (both Scott and I serve on this board for soccer).  The last games were over and we had all gathered around to start the meeting.  Shadow was being such a good girl and just hanging out with us.  We had been meeting for about 45 minutes when Shadow had started coughing, so I moved her around to the back of the meeting as to not to draw attention to her hacking.  About 5 minutes after that, our lead Pastor for the group came over to her and said "is that normal", well she "fainted".  To put it more bluntly, she stopped breathing and her heartbeat stopped.  All I could say is "oh my God she is dead".  I really thought she was.  The others in the meeting stood up and came over to where Shadow was laying and I was standing and just looked at her.  I had to step away, I was already beginning to go into shock as to what was happening.  Some of the others went down to her and saw that she had started breathing (albeit very, very sporadic).  Rick picked her up (at least I think it was Rick) and moved her very quickly to the van and by this time her breathing had picked up a little, and her heart was starting back beating. Rick and Scott took her to the emergency clinic in Fayetteville to been seen and diagnosed.   At the clinic, they took and ECG and also a chest x-ray.  The emergency vet had concluded that she has heart disease and an abnormal arrhythmia.  We have done research on the internet and have found that this is the most common problem/disease that Boxers can have.  

I am taking her to our vet in the morning to have her checked out by them. Hopefully they will be able to tell us something more and give her medicine to have her heart rate beat more regular.  

I was really afraid yesterday afternoon that she was gone.  I want to thank Rick, Cristy, Kelly, Wendy, Rebecca, and the others for giving me hugs and being there for us.