Mystery of Demise

It all happened so suddenly, and the results are still unknown...baffling the state vets. I arrived home from work around 5:00 on Wednesday; we had arranged for our farrier to come shoe our horses at 6:00. He arrived early, and I just parked and hung out at the barn with everybody until he finished. I had seen the herd grazing on the hillside in one of their favorite spots, so nothing abnormal there. However, I was watching the farrier and the cows came over the ridge toward the barn. They're pretty nosy, and always ready for grain, so when we're near the barn, they come, too. I noticed right away that something seemed odd about Georgia...I asked our friend Jamie if her milk bag looked larger than normal, b/c something seemed different about her, she was walking slower than usual, or something. But what am I supposed to do, call the vet and say, our cow walked slower than usual to the barn? She was always curious and watched us from afar...especially from the top of the mountain when she could see us in the yard. Since I had not changed from my work clothes, Danny said he would feed, so I didn't help. I asked him when he walked in the house if they all ate their grain and if they seemed okay, and he said everybody ate as normal.
The next morning, Danny and his crew were working at our house in the lower pasture across from the barn. He had to get four of the cows out of the barn...they had busted in and were eating hay, but Georgia was standing just outside the barnyard watching. Weird, he thought, because Georgia was our bully who ate everything. He thought, maybe they just broke in and Georgia hadn't made it in there yet. Later, we had a lunch guest and did some shooting afterward, so I recall specifically that at 3:15 when I walked up to the house and made a special effort to see and speak to all the cows, Georgia was grazing with the herd, standing there looking normal and as gorgeous as ever. :)
Danny and I had to leave at about 6:00 to take care of some things, and when we were leaving, we noticed Georgia lying in the pasture with the other four around her. I rolled the window down and called for her, and she picked her head up and whipped her big ears around to look at me just as she would always do. So, another incident of something not right but she responded kind of normally to it.
We returned about 45 minutes later, and she was still lying, but this time, it was VERY different. Her legs were folded in a way that was not right. I jumped out of my truck and ran to her...seeing her labored breathing and blood in her nostrils. But she looked so peaceful, and in no discomfort whatsoever. I'm so thankful that I was able to rub her face and tell her I loved her just moments before she passed. She looked at me and then just laid her head down on her front legs, like she was so tired. I ran out of the pasture, peeled out in my truck to get to the house to call the mobile vet, telling our dear buddy Worth I thought it was too late. Danny was moments behind on a backhoe he was moving across the mountain. He came in to hear me talking to the vet, and realized the seriousness of what was happening. He and I ran to the pasture together after I completed the call, only to find that Georgia had died during those 30 brief minutes. She had died and rolled over, making Danny think she was still alive. I knew the instant I saw her she was no longer alive, telling Danny she was dead. We rolled her back into a more pleasant position and just cried, astonished that our prize-winning cow and sweet baby just died, for no apparent reason. We inspected her and could not find anything, only a pile of suspicious looking manure, with "red seeds". The red seeds were actually blood-coated grain, indicating hemorrhage. The vet came out anyway, and from what he could tell, confirmed that the death was very quick and baffling. During this, my heart just broke into smaller pieces because Jill stood at the gate and just mooed...
We loaded Georgia into the back of my truck and respectfully covered her in a tarp, and headed, with Worth, early the next morning to the NC Department of Agriculture diagnostics lab for an autopsy. A very somber trip, and quite sad to see Danny walk around her and pet her one more time, even the tip of her tail, as we left her on the steel table to be examined. By the way, we actually lost two cows. As we suspected, she was pregnant...with about a 4 month old heifer, in perfect health. And, Georgia still had her baby teeth. :( Danny has been so supportive to me and all my crying...he's just as heartbroken and misses her too. He's told everybody how special Georgia was, how trusting she was of us, how sentimental it was for Mama and Daddy to hand pick her to start our herd here, etc. I guess Danny and I have bonded more, we've gone through the stages of death together...sadness, disbelief, anger, etc. I can't bare the thought of us losing a human.