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The Triple Whammy: Jack's new diagnosis

Jack spent the day (and my husband Eric and I spent half the day) at The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine Veterinary Teaching Hospital. Thanks to the great vets there, we now have a definitive diagnosis for Jack - some real answers and hopefully solutions. Unfortunately, after many tests and expert consultations, we now know he's got the triple whammy: his megaesphagus is caused by his myasthenia gravis which is caused by his thymoma.
Our poor sweet boy - he is such a loveable lug. The folks at OSU all commented on how good he was. He's out cold now from sedation given so they could aspirate/biopsy his chest mass - the thymoma. It's a rare cancer and quite operable. The vets hope the surgery - which is one of the most invasive/hardcore/risky/expensive you name it - will be successful and even possibly reverse the ME and MG symptoms. We hope so. We may be crazy, but Jack is so worth it - we are going forward with the surgery as soon as this Friday. We know he's a risk for aspiration pneumonia and we're scared, but we also know he's at risk for that (and other co-morbidities) without the surgery too as the thymoma grows and MG worsens. So, for us, the surgery is worth the risks and we hope and pray it will be a huge success and he'll get steadily better as he heals!

Prayers are welcome... and I do have some questions. I'll pose these on the ME yahoogroup list, too:

-Does anyone have experience with the MG med Mestinon? Is it as awful as it seems (side effects wise)? The vets insisted we start him on it but I am dreading making him feel worse :(

-Does anyone have experience with thoracotomy surgery in dogs for thymoma? Any success stories, hopefully??

-Anyone else have this tripe-whammy diagnosis, and if so, any advice or tips for Jack and us?

Thanks in advance! Hoping and praying...

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Comment by Lara Kretler on May 9, 2009 at 9:54am: Got some great, reassuring responses from the ME Yahoogroups list folks. If you ever post a question here and it doesn't get answered right away, be sure to post it over there too!