I want to thank each and every one of your for your kindness. I'm still in shock trying to make some sense out of such senselessness. The necropsy said that Bogart's lungs were fine, his heart was good, but that they found a lot of mucous in his airway. From what though? What irritated his airway to the point where his body produced so much mucous that it killed him? He was young and strong one minute and gone the next. He basically drowned in his own mucous...all alone...at an animal hospital that doesn't stay open 24/7. And no one was there to hold him while he passed. It breaks my heart. There wasn't any evidence of aspergillis anywhere in his respiratory tract, either.
The eeriest thing that keeps going on in my mind is that early this morning while I was getting ready for work, Maalik, my CAG made Bogart's call. I was startled by it and even looked in his cage to see if I could see him there. Of course he wasn't. This was before I knew that Bogart had passed. But Maalik made the sound several times before I left at 6a.m. and again after I came home tonight at 8. There's a part of me that almost believes it was Bogart reaching through my Maalik.