4/28/07 - Penny Pancake went to the bridge tonight.  We got a call from her foster mom, Debbie, around 7 pm that Penny had some sort of "episode", maybe a seizure, she was not sure, but it lasted almost 45 minutes, and she rushed to he emergency vet. She seemed to perk up, but at the vet, she had another episode, they thought is was cardiac related, and she went into respiratory failure. On my request, they resuscitated her, but she needed to be put on a vent to help her breath. Her eyes were fixed and dilated, and we decided to to wait a bit longer to see if she would get better (it was 2 hrs into it, and things looked, in the vets words, grace.
At 11:15pm, we spoke to the vet again, and now, 3 1/4 hrs into this, penny was still not breathing on her own. Her responses to some of their tests (pinching the toes, flashing light in her eyes) was VERY delayed or non existent. She was basically gone, unable to breath on her own, being kept alive by the vent.  The vet said while there is always a chance of a miracle, it was highly unlikely penny would have one.
The vet was wonderful, spoke to us at great length about what was happening. She felt that during the episode at Deb's house and on the ride to the vet, since the heart was not pumping regularly, her brain was deprived of needed oxygen. Then, when she had the episode at the vet, when she had to be resuscitated, a clot that probably  formed when the blood polled in her body, was thrown off and logged somewhere, perhaps the brain. She was in effect, in a coma and possibly brain dead.
Everything that could be done was done, including keeping her on a vent for over 3 hrs. Sadly, nothing could be done and at 11:15, we decided to have the breathing tube removed and to let penny go peacefully.