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!

__________________________________________________________________
* 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"

So what the hell is actually wrong with you, anyway?

I have long since realised that different people have different levels of interest in what the hell is actually wrong with me anyway, but unfortunately everyone is forced to ask the question in the same way, because Victorian standards of etiquette insist that adding the phrase "Seriously, though, I don't want some really long explanation" after the phrase "So what is your illness?" is rude. Those crazy Victorians! It's political correctness gone mad.

But I am totally fine with that and equally well aware that, whilst phrases such as "cystic degeneration" and "scooping the tumour out through your nose like in Ancient Egypt" undoubtedly have their place, they may result in queasiness among the populace. Especially when sprung on people unexpectedly.

To this end, I have decided to create a variety of possible explanations for what's wrong with me, and you can select the one that appears most suited to your needs.

The Short Explanation:
There's a gland in your head called the pituitary gland. Mine has a tumour on it.

The Long Explanation:
There's a gland just under your brain called the pituitary gland (see above for a quick explanation) which makes a whole bunch of hormones. My pituitary has developed a tumour known as a pituitary adenoma (see the About section for more details). Fortunately the tumour is benign, but it makes a hormone called Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH), which results in me having too much thyroid hormone; that creates all kinds of exciting symptoms like a superfast heartrate and the shakes.*

The Explanation In German:
Die Hypophyse ist eine endokrine Drüse, die unter dem Hirn liegt. Ich habe einen hypophysären Tumor, der Schilddrüsenhormon macht; also habe ich Symptome von Hyperthyreoidismus.

Leider ist mein Deutsch sehr schlecht, also vielleicht ergibt die vorhergehenden Absätze keinen Sinn...

The Explanation In Rhyme:
The pituitary gland
is like a small grain of sand
(except it's the size of a pea).
It sits in your head,
well-behaved (or, instead,
it might swell up exponentially).

My pituitary gland
is a meanie; he's banned
from attending well-thought-of events.
So now he just chooses
to sulk, and he oozes
hormones, with the worst of intents.


I am happy to create further explanations to suit your explanatory needs, although they may not all be entirely explicatory or, indeed, explicable.


* Incidentally, if I've ever been mean/stupid/lazy/exhibited any other undesirable character traits in your presence, it's probably also because of the tumour. I'm actually a really great person.**

** This may or may not be entirely or indeed at all true >.>