Nationary Pituitary Awareness Month Pituitary Awareness Quiz

Even the most ardent readers of my blog will probably have forgotten that October is National Pituitary Awareness Month. Oh yes, ladies and gentlemen - that happy time is here again! Try to contain your excitement, please.

Last year, I looked at some of the other National Months that are held in October; this year, I felt like doing something different. But pituitary glands are tricky things to raise awareness for, especially considering that approximately eighty percent of Britons can't even spell the word "pituitary", let alone point to its location in the body.*

And then it hit me.

Fortunately, I wasn't seriously injured.

Dear readers, it's been over a year since I started this blog. Some of you have been here from the start, some of you have joined me along the way, and some of you typed "piglets in a teacup" into Google and arewondering how the hell you ended up here.** Believe me, I'm wondering too. But I feel quite strongly that all of you should have increased, improved and frankly incredible knowledge of the pituitary gland as a result of reading this blog, and now you will finally have the chance to prove it. And so, I present: The National Pituitary Awareness Month Pituitary Awareness Quiz! It's not sanctioned by any healthcare professionals, and it's not recognised as a professional medical qualification anywhere, ever - but the winner will gain both bragging points, a delightful poem about how wise they are, and my eternal respect.

Here's how it's going to work: For the remainder of the month, I will post one (probably multiple-choice) question about the pituitary gland every day.*** To be in with a chance of winning, simply post your answer in the comments section. Correct answers gain you one point. At the end of the month, I will leave a day or so for anyone who wants to join in to answer all the questions, then I'll tot up the points and announce the winner and write a short praise poem about how awesome they are.

Here's the twist: correct answers gain one point. Answers (however wildly incorrect) which include something that amuses me - a pun, rhyming couplet, accompanying picture or just shameless flattery - will get two points. Because life's not fair, and neither is my pituitary gland.

If I get more than five comments before the end of the month, I will count this quiz as a wild success, so please join in!

National Pituitary Awareness Month Pituitary Awareness Quiz

Day 1 - Question 1

Q.1:  Acromegaly is a rare disease caused by a growth-hormone-secreting pituitary tumour, which can lead to gigantism and excessive growth of the body's tissues. But what language is the word "acromegaly" derived from, and what does it literally mean?

Is it:

a) from the Latin acro "extremity; member of the body" and magnus "large"

b) from the Greek arka "repository; hidden place" and megaras "growth".

c) from the Greek akros "highest; extremity" and megalos "large".

It's an easy-to-Google one to start you off. Fly, my pretties, fly!


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* Warning: spurious fact alert.

** This is actually a genuine search that somehow resulted in my blog
coming up. I have no idea why

***In theory.

I Need More Surgery

I just had a phone call from the hospital and it's official: I'm going to be having more pituitary surgery. The results of the tests I had at the beginning of the month show that I'm still "thyrotoxic" as they call it (my thyroid hormone levels are too high) - which to be honest I could have told them myself, as I'm still having symptoms aplenty. The sad news though is that they think the pituitary tumour has grown since my previous MRI scan. My last scan was in March. For it to have noticeably grown in just three months is kind of worrying to me (and also makes me slightly more pissed off that they stopped my injections for four months when I was told it would be half that time - the tumour had been stable while I was on the injections...).

So, that sucks. I am reeeeeally not looking forward to more surgery. Last time I didn't know what to expect; this time I know exactly how many blood tests and needles and rubbish things will be involved, plus oh god when they take out the bandages from your nose! I believe it's slightly more risky the second time around, plus I'm going up against the same odds of ending up with diabetes inspidus/hypothyroidism/addisons disease/other pituitary fail.

I am also slightly concerned because I have had a slight sinus infection since last August thanks to the surgery and it just occurred to me that I don't know if they will even be able to operate unless they get rid of that first?

Here are the bright sides:
- Surgery at least carries with it the possibility of cure.
- I am marginally more in shape than I was last time around, so you never know - my crappy muscles might recover a little faster
- More time off work? (Admittedly, it's just time off to lie on the sofa complaining, but still)
- This time I will remember to ask about painkillers that I am not allergic to and am able to take.
- This time I will take photos in hospital and show them to YOU, dear reader.

So, here we go. Brain Surgery, Round 2!

Terminal Stupidity

So the endocrinologist managed to send all the information on the metabolic testing I'm due to have on Tuesday-Wednesday to the wrong address. Realising her error she called me and agreed to drop off the information today. When I arrived home an envelope was waiting, but sadly while it does contain some info about the tests I will be undergoing, it does not contain any details of where this testing will take place or indeed at what time on Tuesday I should arrive at this undisclosed location...

I Want Acromegaly

As many of you are no doubt aware, I'm the kind of sad and tragic person who has enough time in her life to trawl the internet for other blogs about pituitary adenomas. Due to a weird and extremely irritating Blogger glitch, I'm unable to follow anyone anymore, but I still seek them out.

And two separate sites I found today, both about acromegaly, got me thinking. They got me thinking so much that I suspect I'll have to split my thoughts out across a couple of posts, or risk literally boring my readers to death.

The first was this: a conversation on a forum begun by a guy who claims to want to have acromegaly.

Quick recap: Acromegaly is a serious illness caused by a rare brain tumour on the pituitary gland which releases growth hormone into the blood. It can cause uncontrolled growth throughout the body, especially the hands, feet, chin, nose, tongue and forehead. It can also cause impotence, congestive heart failure, kidney failure, diabetes, loss of vision, and death. It is a devastating diagnosis for those unlucky enough to have it.

I quote:

"I really want to have this condition. I want it because I have a "babyish" face and my facial bones are not as developed as they should be. I'd rather not get cosmetic surgeries such as chin impants and jaw implants. When my face becomes as masculine as I want it to be I'll just get treatment for it.

Also my hands are small for a mans and I'd like to have bigger hands.

[...] How can I induce acromegaly in my body? Is it even possible?"

This guy may be a genuine idiot, or he may be a troll, but the fact is that there really are people fuckwits out there who inject themselves with growth hormone because they think it will make them better at sports/bodybuilding.* These people are effectively giving themselves mild acromegaly, despite the fact that there is really very little evidence that it could improve sporting performance, and it may actually decrease stamina despite increasing muscle mass.

Those of us cursed with epic fail bodies that go haywire at the slightest provocation tend to strongly resent it when fit and healthy people take risks with their health and fitness for the purpose of vanity. When I was having the packing removed from my nose after my brain surgery, and it was incredibly painful and there was blood everywhere,** the first thought that went through my head was: "Why would anyone ever have a nose job by choice?" (Plus, as a person who regularly has health professionals sticking needles in me, I can't get my head around someone actually volunteering for human pincushion duty).

Going around saying that you want to have acromegaly to gain a better jawline is like saying you want to get cancer so you can lose weight. Not only is it incredibly disrespectful to those people who seriously suffer with a horrible illness, it's just incredibly stupid. Injecting yourself with growth hormone so you can stand on a stage with a bunch of other people and flex your muscles impressively... words fail me. Not only are you putting your body and your health at risk, but you're cheating. All the other hard work you did to get those muscles is wiped out. You didn't win because you happen to be the muscly guy who worked the hardest and had the best muscly genetics out of all the hardworking muscly guys with muscly genes; you won because YOU'RE A DUMBASS.

Actually got surprisingly angry writing this! My next post on the topic of acromegaly, Cushing's disease, and physical appearance is coming soon...

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*I recommend clicking on that link and scrolling down to the photo of the incredibly muscular man cuddling his pillow with his giant melon-packed arms, it's hilarious.

**In fairness, apparently it's not usually as bad as that, I just have a particularly objectionable nose. If you're squeamish, don't continue reading: The first time the nurse tried to pull the packing out, I asked "How badly will it hurt?" and the nurse replied "A bit." I am fairly good at dealing with pain usually, so I braced myself. She gave the packing a firm nug and it felt like my nose had exploded. I shrieked and she gave me a slightly unsympathetic look and told me I had to "get it over with". On the second attempt, she got the packing out, along with really quite a surprising gush of blood that went all over the floor. It hurt so much I was physically shaking and the nurse was forced to admit that it wasn't usually quite so horrendous.

Hot Off The Press

I have struggled to write an introductory sentence to this post, and having tried and subsequently deleted four separate attempts, I've decided to do what I should have done in my German A Level exam and Just Get On With It.*

The Bad News

Just over a month ago I had a phone call from one of the many endocrinologists who like to talk about me behind my back (they call it having "Multi-Disciplinary Team Meetings", but I know the truth). Unfortunately, despite my surgery in April, my recent MRI has shown there's still a lot of tumour left. The tumour originally had an "area of cystic degeneration" (i.e. it was liquid inside like some kind of hideous chocolate fondant pudding) and although they managed to get rid of that, pretty much everything else (ie. the actual main bit of the adenoma) is still there. Which is obviously really rubbish. I'm not exactly surprised; although some of my symptoms have improved a bit since the operation, I am nowhere near better yet. But it's still disappointing, especially as the surgeons were optimistic that it had been a success. When you've had your skull drilled into, you expect results!

The Good News

The rather more surprising news came when I was at college a couple of weeks ago. I was sitting in a three-hour-long lecture given by a woman whose incredibly shouty teaching style implies that she may have been a sergeant major in a previous life. My phone went off; I dashed out, in the happy knowledge that midday phone calls are almost always from the hospital. It was indeed my charming endocrinologist, to inform me that the blood tests I had done a few days previously had come back completely normal. My thyroid hormone levels were all fine.

Obviously this was something of a (very welcome) shock, seeing as I've still got a lot of symptoms - my heartrate is improved but still high, I still shake and my hair is still falling out pretty badly. Apparently it can take a really long time for symptoms to clear up, even after your hormone levels are normal. Darnit!

From what my endocrinologist said, this is definitely A Good Thing. Apparently sometimes this kind of pituitary adenoma does seem to switch off-and-on in their production of hormones, so it's possible that my levels of thyroid hormone will go back up. On the other hand, it's not impossible that the tumour is finally paying attention to the Cease And Desist notices which the rest of of my body has been sending it for years. Even if it does start producing hormones again, at least my body will have had a bit of a break.

I have been trying not to get too excited about this and resign myself to the fact that, chances are, it will start up making hormones again. But it is kind of a challenge not to prance around a little bit. I was due to have a range of exciting metabolic tests plus a PET scan; those have all been cancelled. Instead of spending several hours in a tube being irradiated, I will be having blood tests every few weeks to monitor my hormone levels. The downside of this: it means that I shall spend several nervous days fretting about what the results will be.

Blood tests are on tuesday, not sure when the results will get back but I'll update this as soon as I know!

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* For those of you interested in my youthful academic failures (and let's face it, who wouldn't be?) I managed to get a D in one German A Level paper about the Nazis because I spent the first forty-five minutes of the exam endlessly trying to write the first sentence and then crossing it out in disgust. The only German phrase that kept popping into my head was "Hitler beging Selbstmord",** but as the question was about the siege of Stalingrad, this was not helpful.

**"Hitler committed suicide"