Gee, I’m an underachiever. LOL I only had one IPSS and one pituitary surgery.
While I was at NIH, my MRIs still showed nothing, so they did an Inferior Petrosal Sinus Sampling Test. That scared me more than the prospect of surgery. (This test carries the risk of stroke and uncontrollable bleeding from the incision points.) Catheters were fed from my groin area to my pituitary gland and dye was injected. I could watch the whole procedure on monitors.
I could not move during this test or for several hours afterwards to prevent uncontrollable bleeding from a major artery. The test did show where the tumor probably was located.
Also done were more sophisticated dexamethasone suppression tests where drugs were administered by IV and blood was drawn every hour (they put a heplock in my arm so they didn’t have to keep sticking me). I got to go home for a weekend and then went back for the surgery – the Transsphenoidal Resection. I fully expected to die during surgery (and didn’t care if I did) so I signed my will and wrote last letters to those I wanted to say goodbye to.
During the time I was home just before surgery, a college classmate of mine (I didn’t know her) did die at NIH of a Cushing’s-related problem. I’m so glad I didn’t find out until a couple months later!
Filed under: Cushing's, Cushing's Awareness Challenge 2014, pituitary | Tagged: bleeding, dexamethasone suppression test, heplock, IV, MRI, NIH, Petrosal Sinus Sampling, Pituitary gland, pituitary surgery, stroke, transsphenoidal, tumor, will | 4 Comments »
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