Yesterday afternoon, within ours of our Zoom meeting, the Mayo Clinic professional messaged Jack saying:

I reviewed your case with Dr. Stephen Cassivi, one of my thorasic surgeons. Essentially he agrees with what we discussed, that the [thymoma] is a red herring (not of importance necessarily at this time). It seems like we are missing something as to the causes of all your symptoms. Given the complexity, I think the most appropriate place to start, honestly, is with my internal medicine team, so I have place orders for that to happen. In addition, I have placed orders for you to visit with Dr. Cassvi when the internal medicine evaluation is complete.

Translation: the Mayo medical team still agree’s that Jack’s thymoma needs to be removed, but that it’s not the cause of his current symptoms (e.g., fatigue, some dizziness, some hearing loss, reduced appetite and inability to eat a whole slice of lemon merengue pie). Jack’s ability to grow stronger will help him recover more quickly from his thyoma-ectomy. So Mayo is putting other specialists on his case.

This is welcome news to the Millers. Somebody is going to look at Jack’s healthy journey in May and see if they can find a cause or causes for his hospital visits. The thymoma didn’t put him in the hospital; it was discovered by accident. What put him there? A mini-stroke? Memingitis? West Nile virus?

The Mayo Clinic is moving fast! It looks like Jack will have a face-to-face meeting with a doctor of general internal medicine on 9 June in Rochester, and a meeting with the surgeon (Dr. Cassivi) on 11 June via Zoom. In the meantime, we’ll continue to update these posts as we can.

Remember that you can send Jack a personal message by emailing him at jack@scroungers.me. He’d love to hear from you.

Updated to reflect the locations of the two meetings with Mayo Clinic doctors.