Waiting for Guffman, My Version

About 7 years ago I broke up with He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named and decided that a good insurance policy for unnecessary painful rebound relationships would be to get off of birth control. No need to add any more hormones to the mix when I didn't need them. My doc thought this was a great plan since I had been on them since I was 15. Yup, it was time to see what my system would do. My system did nothing.

Most females (and males) would rejoice in this news and so I didn't seek any treatment for about 4 months. I suppose I wrote it off as a side benefit/self-regulation issue, etc. That is until I began to have tons of swelling at my ankles, gained 40 pounds, and had insomnia. At that time, I finally went back to the doc who put me through a bunch of progesterone withdrawal tests without any success. Essentially this meant that I had little to no estrogen in my system. My internal medicine doc referred me to a gynecologist.

The gynecologist ran me through more tests and ordered a CT scan of my head. Nothing showed and he referred me to an endocrinologist. By now it is 2002. The endocrinologist decided to test my hypothalamus (mission control for the pituitary) which rendered as non-functioning. He then ordered a MRI of my brain. The scan showed that a small mass less than a centimeter thick was causing the problem: I had a pituitary microadenoma.

I will admit I went completely around HIPAA and wrote a release for my own radiology report for them to fax to the hospital as I wasn't going to wait a week while he finished his vacation. I discovered I had the tumor on my own, which sucked by the way and I wouldn't advocate for anyone else to do what I did. Eventually, that doc wasn't really certain what to do so he referred me back to the gynecologist who suggested I went back on hormone replacement therapy of birth control. I fired them both and found an amazing endocrinologist, Dr. Grua.

Dr. Grua is a great guy who drew diagrams to help explain what the body did and how mine was malfunctioning. He said my thyroid was borderline low and tried me out on some Levoxil. Wouldn't you know, I dropped my weight, the edema went away, and my reproductive cycle became as functional and predictable as clockwork. What was even better is that my husband was one of my best friends through the whole deal and we weren't even dating yet.

Here we are 5 years later and everything has been going along quite snazzy in my life. I have a great life. I'm married, I have an amazing dog, 2 great houses (with mortgage payments to prove them), a nice car, great jobs, etc. Then, I began to wrestle with headaches last Monday. The kind of stabbing pain behind your eyes where the thought of your eyeballs popping out of your skull sounds more pleasant than keeping them in your head. I dosed myself with Advil up the wazoo until my husband pointed out that headaches should not last a week. Huh. Ok, he had a point. By Friday I managed to go to the doctor for his sake and for my own piece of mind to get through the weekend. After all, the pain was a bit worse and I hate the emergency room.

My internal med doc, who is also fantastic, thought she might start out by treating it as a migraine gone BAD. She gave me scripts for two narcotics and a migraine formulary. Over the weekend I noticed a few things: 1) My pain control sucked, 2) Reading made it worse, 3) Cold compresses helped, 4) Nausea had the chicken or the egg problem (pain or meds causing it?) By Sunday night I knew I had bought myself another co-pay for yet another office visit and a trip to radiology to get my head spun in the MRI.

I showed up today in the docs office and promptly barfed all over the room. This was preceded by her stating, "It seems that I always see you when you look so miserable." I answered her with retching. Nice. That was followed by me apologizing. The office staff was more than accommodating, but still I was horrified. You will remember that my last office visit I passed out and won a week of heart monitoring and a whole lot of drama. I drove myself and didn't have anyone to come pick me up, but they gave me an injection of anti nausea meds, put the trash can near the exam table and let me rest for an hour before waking me to let me know I had an emergent appointment for the head scan.

If you have never had a head scan: Don't. First they give you ear plugs, then they put you in a claustrophobic Hannibal Lecter mask, then they put you in a small tube with loud noises for over an hour. I managed to make it to the pharmacy for yet stronger pain meds, steroids, and another formulary for migraine headaches. I'm finally home.

My doc just called:

"Hello?"

"Oh, thank God you are home! This is Dr. So and So. I got home and just remembered that I never checked on you and realized you could still be sleeping in room 4! But you did make it home!"

"Yup. I even made it to the pharmacy."

"Good! Good! Oh, thank God! I actually thought about admitting you with your husband being out of town or else driving you home myself after I had picked up my kids and then I forgot all about you! I'm so sorry! Ok, well, I'm off tomorrow, but we'll have your results Wednesday. If you need anything, have my office page me! I'm certain you want to take some pain meds. You sound like you need to take some pain meds. Ok, well, hang in there!"

Now I wait. Its like deja vu all over again with this waiting stuff. I'll keep you posted on how things go.