One Week Since Jack's Thymoma Surgery: Success!

[Lara Kretler]

Jack had his thymectomy (thymoma removal surgery) at OSU Veterinary Teaching Hospital on 5/13/09 and by one week after surgery he was almost back to his normal healthy self! He has been eating like a pig, sleeping lots and going for walks morning and night (short walks at first, but now lengthy ones!).

Before surgery, Jack was being vertical fed (canned dog food made into meatballs) and taking Mestinon. He had MG symptoms (muscle weakness, slack face, intolerance to exercise, inability to walk more than a few steps without lying down to take a rest break) which seemed to be improving slightly with the Mestinon. He also had ME symptoms (coughing, regurging water and some food, excessive drooling). We were working hard to put weight back on him - he had lost 15 lbs since his initial ME diagnosis in 12/08 - and it was working, slowly but surely.

He tolerated the surgery extremely well. He stayed in the hospital for two nights/three days. We were able to visit him on the day after surgery and he was in good spirits upon seeing us - tail wagging despite the IV, catheter, sore incision, etc. When we picked him up the following day, he was in even better spirits but drooling a lot and obviously in some pain. He came home on four meds - the Mestinon, Tramadol for pain, Famotidine for stomach acid and Metaclopromide for MG symptom relief.

Today, he's sleeping at my feet after a nice long walk. He has made amazing leaps and bounds in his recovery. As you can see from the photo, he is back to sleeping in his favorite position, flat on his back with his belly and boy parts in the air - "hey mom, it shows off my cool incision/scar, check it out!" like a typical boy. ;) Jack has 36 surgical staples in his chest but you would never know it. It's taking all I've got to keep him from chasing rabbits, birds and chipmunks! He feels GREAT and has not had any MG symptoms since 2 days after surgery. Granted he is still on the Mestinon, but we're spacing his doses farther apart (used to be every 6 hrs, now about every 8-12 hrs) and he is 100% active and feeling strong. It's like a miracle! :)

As for his ME, I wish I could say the same. It's better than it was... but still not resolved. We're hopeful that over time it may resolve. We're not able to vertical feed due to his chest incision but we are "alligator feeding" (I stand above him and drop the meatballs down into his mouth as he stands on all fours or sits up tall). We've also tried elevated feeding (bowl of food on a table at about chest/neck height for Jack). I would prefer to vertical feed but he had his entire chest/sternum/ribs sawed open one week ago so I'm sure you can imagine why we're not eager to hoist him up just yet. At the two week mark when he gets his surgical staples out, we'll ask the surgeon if we can start doing the Bailey (vertical) hold again to feed and water him.

Jack is mostly regurging water at this point, not food, but he's coughing a lot and I know he would do better with vertical feeding/holds. We'll resume as soon as we can and hopefully the ME will continue to get better the way the MG has!

That's it from our house... still hoping and praying for more, but extremely grateful and thankful for our miracle dog's recovery so far! :)