Hello,

My name is Alex Erickson

This is my sweet boy Ghost. We adopted Ghost and he came to live with us on August 26th 2023 all the way from Texas! (We are in Minnesota). Ghost is 2 years old and already has been through so much in his short life. Ghost was severely abused as a puppy. Some kids he was living with broke his tail, tried to break his neck, spray painted him and who knows what else. Due to the trauma, he was diagnosed with masticatory muscle myositis, an immune disorder that attacks his own muscle, specifically the muscles used for chewing. He also has a thickened neck due to them trying to break it. Ghost is not able to open his mouth all the way and has significant muscle wasting in his face. But he is still the cutest most handsome boy there is. Ghost is currently on steriod treatment for the MMM to prevent the jaw from locking and other complications that come with this disease.

As well as the MMM, Ghost was also diagnosed with pulmonic stenosis which he's had since birth. Pulmonic stenosis means the pumonic valve has a malformation which causes obstruction to the flow of blood from the heart into the lungs. When we first adopted Ghostie his condition was considered "moderate" but recently that has changed and he has been put into the "severe" category. Because of this Ghost will need to have a Balloon Valvuloplasty procedure done. A cardiologist will insert a balloon into the narrowed heart valve and when the balloon is in position, the cardiologist inflates it to widen the valve and increase blood flow. Without the surgery Ghostie's life span will most likley be shortened significantly.

You'll also notice in the pictures Ghost only has one eye. A couple months after adopting Ghost, he was also diagnosed with Glaucoma in his right eye that progressed very rapidly. We tried treating the eye to get his eye pressure down but unfortunately the pressure just would not go down. He went almost completely blind in the eye in just a couple days and was in tremendous pain. We made the difficult decision to remove the eye so he would not be in any pain anymore. Being half blind does not slow him down at all! And his other eye is looking great right now. :)

Needless to say, our Ghost has not had the best of luck so far.

Although he has some scary sounding diagnoses, the great news is if we continue to manage his MMM and he gets the balloon procedure for his heart he can still live a long and happy life!

We want to do everything we can to help give our little Ghostie the best life possible. Despite everything he's been through, he is the sweetest boy you will ever meet. He has such a silly, quirky personality that everyone falls in love with. He has brought so much joy to our lives and we love him more than anything. ❤️

We have seen 2 different specialists and they have all agreed that Ghost would be a great candidate for balloon surgery and would benefit tremendously. There are risks, as all procedures have but we've have told by his doctors that the success and the outcome by far outweigh any potential risks.

His heart surgery will cost 7,000 to 8,000 dollars. Ghost has had many vet expenses in just the short time we've had him, including eye removal surgery, specialist costs, regular vet appointments and an overnight ER stay. Financially, we are struggling for his surgery right now. We knew that Ghostie had these diagnoses before we adopted him (minus the glaucoma) and there would be expensives but we didn't expect that everything would hit so soon and all at once.

The U of M has graciously donated 3,000 dollars for Ghost to help with his surgery because they believe he can have a very positive outcome! We are still needing a little more to cover the rest of surgery.

If anyone can make a donation or share his story we would appreciate it so much. Anything helps. We just want Ghost to live the best life he possibly can because he deserves the world. ❤️

All money will go directly to his surgery cost. I've posted a picture of the estimate. If you have any questions and or need more validation please reach out to me and I will get whatever you need.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this.