SICK OF BEING SICK

I'm not exactly sick but it does seem like I have a lot of things wrong with me. I rarely write about medical issues on this blog. Mostly because I'm sick of thinking about them. Its giving me a low grade depressed feeling. Today I am in the mood for writing a summary of my problems. I'm not sure why but I've decided to go with my flow.

About 15 years ago I wanted to have children but was not getting my period at all. A work-up by my ob-gyn revealed that I had a pituitary tumor (the pituitary gland is in the center of your head). The tumor was releasing a hormone called prolactin. This is the hormone that makes a woman produce breast milk. We all know that when a woman breastfeeds, sometimes she doesn't get her period. I was told that I could manage it by taking medication for the rest of my life. This was supposed to shrink the tumor and regulate the hormones that it (the tumor) was giving off. I immediately (within a month of starting medication) got pregnant and during the pregnancy could not stay on the medication. Two kids later, the medicine was not shrinking the tumor, instead the tumor started to grow. Since it had already filled all the available space and I would be in danger of losing my vision, I needed to have it surgically removed. So 12 years ago my very talented neurosurgeon removed the tumor and I haven't been bothered by it for since. Well, until now.

Last spring I started having migraines and my period started coming every three weeks. My first thought was of the tumor. Last time it had made my period stop, but could it have the reverse effect and make it come more often? I've always gotten migraines but very rarely. Was the tumor back and causing these headaches? When I had it removed I was told that 50% of the tumors come back. By the end of the summer I realized that I would have to find out what was wrong.

My first appointment was with my gynocologist who gave me an exam. He found a fibroid tumor in my uterus but told me to see an endocrinologist about my pituitary. The ultrasound I had done of the fibroid tumor showed it is not super large. It is not serious and unless it causes me a lot of pain we leave it alone.

I saw the endocrinologist who ordered an MRI to check for the pituitary tumor. Since she is an endocrinologist she was unable to keep her hands off my thyroid! She felt my neck and said "you have a thyroid nodule" and we need to check it using an ultrasound. She ran blood work to check thyroid hormone levels as well as some other levels which would indicate the pituitary tumor was back and giving off more hormones.

My follow-up visit was loaded with bad news. A soft tissue mass had shown up on the MRI of my pituitary. The hormone associated with the pituitary tumor was also high. The thyroid hormone levels indicated that I had an underactive thyroid and would need to be on medication for the rest of my life. The ultrasound of the thyroid nodule showed that it was large enough to warrant a needle biopsy to check for cancer. I scheduled the biopsy and an appointment with my neurosurgeon to have him check out this "soft tissue mass" on my pituitary MRI.

Finally some good news, when I went to see my neurosurgeon he felt that it was "unlikely the the soft tissue mass is a new tumor". Maybe its scar tissue but he ordered another MRI be done in six months to check it again.

Not long after that I had the needle biopsy done. She told me it would hurt some and I would feel pressure. Well, I think she hit a nerve because it hurt so bad that my teeth were throbbing. She had to take four seperate samples (going in four times). She sent them off to be analyzed and the results came back "unable to diagnose" because there were not enough cells. Apparently there was too much blood and not enough nodule cells. So as painful as it was, we will have to do the needle biopsy again.

In the meantime I have gone on thyroid replacement hormone for the underactive thyroid. That has not been very smooth. I started them in August 2006 and still am trying to get the right dosage. It seemed to be the right level after the first blood test check. Then a couple months later it was making me go OVER active so we lowered the dose. Then it ended up back to underactive (even worse then before) so we increased the dose. I will have another blood test next month to see how its going. All these up and down hormones are affecting my mood.

So on April 23rd I had my follow-up MRI and should find out soon what the neurosurgeon thinks. On May 1st I am scheduled for my second needle biopsy. The endocrinologist feels confident that this time she will get a better sample.

Some where along the way I saw an opthamologist to check my vision since the pituitary is very close to the optic nerve there's a chance that a tumor can cause vision problems. I was not worried very much about the tumor causing me vision problems, but the way things have been going for me, I was a bit worried he would find some unrelated problem. Fortunately, I am still visually normal!

I have really horrible veins for giving blood and for the injections they need to give me for the MRIs. I have plenty of bad stories about mess-ups and the pain involved. I am not a wimp when it comes to enduring pain, but at this point I am getting a bit down about dealing with it. Like I said in the title - I am sick of being sick. I don't want to make another appointment, I don't want to be poked with a needle again, I don't want to hear any more bad news. I know this sounds like a pity party and usually when I get low like this, something or someone comes along who is much worse off and snaps me out of it. I realize that on the grand scale of things, my problems are minute, but that fact will not make that needle biopsy feel any better.