Betsie is a 2 year old Boston Terrier who was surrendered to the beaver county humane society for non-medical reasons (so we were told). Since coming to the shelter she immediately regurgitates after eating. Our amazing veterinarians did the best that they could with shelter resources but medication wasn’t helping so she was sent to get radiographs. The radiographs showed very bad news, she had a mass in her chest. The veterinarians beloved that with her symptoms and age, she possibly had Mysthenia Gravis and the mass in her chest was a thymoma that was causing mega esophagus. This is a condition that requires life long treatment and very expensive testing. The veterinarians and shelter decided it was best for Betsie to seek a Braciocephalic breed rescue that would pull Betsie so she had the best outcome. She requires special feeding multiple times a day so I took her home on the 4th of July (just for an overnight trip) so she could get her evening feedings. Betsie immediately fit into our house and instantly fell in love with the dogs. She showed so much joy that unfortunately we didn’t see in the shelter setting. It took Tanner and I about 2 hours to realize that Betsie had found her forever home and we were going to give her the best life as it was expected to be very short. So I adopted Betsie and scheduled her for an internal medicine consult to confirm the suspected diagnosis and get her started on the medications she needs to keep her comfortable. At her internal medicine consult we did an abdominal ultrasound and she placed the probe on her chest to examine the mass. We found very bad things on the ultrasound, something in her stomach was causing her a great amount of pain and the mass in her chest appeared fluid like. She reccomended we do an endoscope procedure to see what is going on. We placed her under general anesthesia and immediately received answers! Betsie does indeed have Mega esophagus but it is caused by a Persistent right aortic arch! The mass in her chest… was just her esophagus pocketing and it was full of food, we also found peices of plastic that we covering her lower esophageal sphincter! So the sphincter between her stomach and esophagus is much smaller than in a normal dog due to the aortic arch pushing on the sphincter. This caused her esophagus to expand/pocket and fill with food. The peices of plastic were acting as a flap over the sphincter. So she would have great days and keep food down when the plastic flap was open and when the plastic was covering the opening she was having her bad days. The best news… With surgical transection of the anomalous structure, long-term prognosis is good to excellent!!! Dr Peterson told me that she’s surprised she has done so well the past two years with this anomalous structure! I am now trying to raise funds to help offset some of the cost of her surgery. The rough estimate at this time is $4,000-$6,000. We are waiting to hear from OSU to schedule her initial surgical consult! I cannot thank Dr Peterson at Safe Haven Vet, all the veterinarians that have had to listen to my vet student brain in overdrive as I brainstorm ideas about her diagnosis, and the Beaver County Humane Society for allowing me to bring Betsie into my home!
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