In April, I returned to the Mayo Clinic for a checkup and to see if my esophageal ulcer had healed — an ulcer I had painfully lived with for 12 months. Their endoscopy revealed the ulcer was gone (a huge relief), but also lots of scar tissue remained within the esophageal wall and the appendage had begun curving again.
The report was fairly good news except for the scar tissue issue and I was encouraged that the damage inside my esophagus was not progressing too quickly.
I sat down with my Mayo doctor and told him about my moonshot and how it had all started eight months earlier with our conversation about the prospect of a feeding tube in my future. I also told him I was now working with Dr. Jay Pasricha and I was due in Baltimore in two weeks to meet with him and get a different type of endoscopy performed.
My Mayo doctor did a double take when I mentioned Dr. Pasricha’s name — totally unrelated to my situation, he had met Dr. Pasricha a few weeks earlier at this very same Mayo Clinic. He praised Dr. Pasricha’s reputation in Achalasia research and was very interested in where this moonshot was going…