Oh wait, yes it is! (Part 1)
A few months have passed since I've found out about this thing growing in my head and with up coming surgery I've decided to write down everything that's happened leading to this point. There is a thread on the PWOT forums that I've been updating, but it started off with me asking for advice because I thought I was pregnant. I've gotten countless replies and Personal Messages with feedback and support that's helped me more than anyone can know. I just want everyone to know how much I appreciate that. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
I've had awful migraines since I was around 14 years old. Last summer they started getting worse and worse until I was having them every day. To anyone who's had any form of migraine, you know how awful they feel and how much pain they cause. All the doctors I saw, every time I was in the emergency room always told me I wasn't drinking enough water, I was drinking too much caffeine, I was eating certain foods that triggered them, I was sleeping too much or not enough. They would give me something for the pain or something that would make me sleep. One doctor gave me ice cold IV fluids for hours while I was crying in pain until when that didn't work, she relented and gave me something for the pain. I ran into her a few months later at a clinic and was promptly treated as some opiate seeking junkie.
The run around treatment was getting me nowhere. I was given countless pills to help "prevent" migraines but nothing for the pain once they started. I was in the emergency room almost every week, crying and puking, just wanting to die. They had me on heart medication, anti seizure medication, anti depressants all to try and prevent these mind crippling headaches. Nothing helped. I hated the looks at the hospital; they thought I was a junkie trying to get a fix. They would pull out John from the room and ask him if I was trying to get pain meds. They would tell me that this wasn't normal, then give me a shot in the ass and make me leave. They stopped giving me Morphine and started giving me shots of Benedryl to knock me out and Phenergin to keep me from puking from the pain. It got to the point where I stopped going in because the treatment wasn't working and they would promptly tell me to leave even if I was still in pain.
A few months passed and I was able to get insurance through something called "Six Month Domestic Partnership" pledge. I set up an appointment with a doctor in the hospital group I was in. I told her my symptoms, how often I get headaches and all the medication I had been on and that nothing had helped. She examined me, listened to me and scheduled me an MRI for later that week. It finally seemed as if someone was listening, not just fiddling with my prescriptions and ushering me out of their office as fast as possible.
I want to stop right here and say something. It may seem as I'm coming off hard on medical professionals. I know how hard they work, starting from before Med school and continuing throughout their entire lives. I'm not trying to belittle that in anyway. A hand full of doctors have helped me through this in ways that go above and beyond. More than a hand full did not and it's something that will stay with me for a long time because of the way I was treated. I'm not saying that it's not possible for people to make mistakes. But I was seeing the same doctors for months and not one thought to look beyond the young woman who dressed kind of weird and always seemed to be wearing slippers (shut up) and take a look at what was causing this pain. The woman who pumped me full of IV fluids and told me when I left to "Drink some vitamin water" treated me at a low income clinic a few months after our run in at the hospital and upon walking in the room stated "We don't carry opiates in the clinic." She didn't even prescribe me anything stronger than an Advil and told me to "Go home and try to sleep." It's experiences like those that left me feeling jaded with the health care system.
Before I had my MRI, I had an unexpected event occur. I was over a month late getting my monthly friend and was sure I was pregnant. I had many symptoms and was extremely happy with this news. I had a home test come back positive. John had never wanted kids, but relented to the idea seeing how fucking exuberant I was. Then I had three pregnancy tests done from different doctors and got the news that I was not, in fact pregnant. Each time that news hit me I didn't want to believe it. I was (at that point) three months late. I had foolishly stared telling family and friends that I was pregnant and then I had to tell them that I wasn't. I stayed home the day of the last test and cried. I made the mistake of watching Juno for the first time and cried even more. I fell asleep on the couch sometime that day with the Kittymonster as my comfort.
That week was my MRI. John and I had started looking at mobile homes and had put in an offer for one we found through work. He dropped me off at the hospital and went to drop off the application for the park we were trying to move into. I filled out some paperwork and waited for them to call me in. A tech came out and explained what they were doing and asked if I had a music preferance. They gave me headphones while I was in the machine. MRI's look much bigger on TV then they really are. When you lay down you are slid in to a round hollow cylender. Your shoulders touch both sides and the top is about five inches away from your face. The MRI scan, depending on what they're looking for takes about 40 minutes. If you move, they pretty much have to start all over again. It's really fucking loud and just plain not pleasant. When I looked straight up, I saw what looked like flecks of dried blood. About half way through, they injected me with a contrast dye. It was nice for a break, but they didn't pull me all the way out. Just enough to get at my arms. I have a problem with people finding my veins. It runs in the family and it's a pain in the ass. Most people drawing blood stab one arm ten times, then move to the other and repeat. I always tell anyone doing blood work to just go for the one in my hand. Most take it as a challenge or something and I sit there and get poked (bladow!) for about ten minutes before they relent. It's exactly what happened this time, only I couldn't move or bend my neck to see what was going on. They finally got it sorted, going though my hand (imagine that!) and slid my back into the tube of death. I closed my eyes and let the music wash over me, thinking of being somewhere nice. The lake, on a boat rocking gently. It worked pretty well but I was still damned happy to get the hell away from the machine. I was told I would be called later in the week after someone had looked over the images. John and I went home and I put it out of my mind.
That Friday I got a call from my doctor's assistant. She's been awesome to me. She called me and said they had found a lesion on my Pituitary Gland. It didn't look like cancer, but they weren't sure and they'd call me on Monday. I sat staring at the phone for a few minutes, then called my mom. I held it together until halfway through explaining what I was told. I just started crying. John wasn't there and I didn't know what to do with myself. I hung up with my mom and paced until it was time to pick him up from work. I actually left about thirty minutes early because I couldn't stand being there alone. When John came out of work, I ran to meet him and told him what little I knew. We got in the car to drive home. I was numb. I kept replaying the conversation over and over trying to think of anything I missed. I couldn't think of anything. I don't remember much about that weekend. I tried sleeping through most of it. I looked up what a Pituitary Adenoma was. I talked to my family about what I knew.
On Sunday I had another killer headache. I went to the hospital but they wouldn't give me anything for the pain, they just gave me Benedryl to make me sleep. That Monday, still with a migraine I went to see my doctor. She was pretty upset that the ER hadn't done anything. She gave me a shot of Morphine and explained to me a bit about what she knew- It was a tumor about 1.5 CM in diameter, not huge sounding, but bigger than most of these kinds of tumors are. She said most of them aren't cancerous and that she was referring me to a Neurosurgeon in the area and that I'd get a call to set up an appointment sometime that week.
