rockover

For those of you not in the know, I was diagnosed with acromegaly earlier this month.  Some famous people who have had acromegaly include Andres the giant, both new and old Lurch from the Addams Family and the guy with the gold teeth in James Bond.  Acromegaly is also known as gigantism, but you only get to be a giant if you get it when your bones are still growing.
 
Basically, I had a small (about 1 cm) benign tumor on my pituitary gland.  One of my pituitary cells just got fruitful and multiplied. The tumor then excretes insulin like growth factor driving the body nuts. It seems that I had the growth hormone levels of a teenager coursing through my body.  It's not a super rare condition, but it's definitely not common. When folks get it at my age, the most visible symptoms are larger hands, feet, facial features.  Your tongue can get larger. Your nasal tissue can grow leading to sleep apnea. More importantly you can get an enlarged heart. Because it looks like insulin, you can also get diabetes. 
 
Because it's not real common, it's usually diagnosed when someone starts to have headaches or visual impairment because of pressure on the optic nerve.  Because of the position of my tumor, I had neither one of these symptoms. I am just really lucky that I had an observant and smart endocrinologist (Dr Stephanie Shaw) who had a hunch after seeing me for the first time in January.  The nurses here were even surprised that she caught it since I didn't have the headaches or visual problems.  Dr Shaw says that there's a chance that my diabetes might go away, but I won't be devastated if it doesn't.  I'm hoping it should make it more manageable. 
 
Anyway, I had the surgery yesterday morning.  Amazingly I was not nervous but that's probably because I had the heavens stormed with prayers from all my wonderful friends, including the most powerful prayers of all, the little old ladies in the nursing homes. 
 
We showed up at 5AM.  Did the changing, getting an IV in (after 3 tries), my veins must have been unusually shy.  They wheeled me into the operating room which was huge. I transferred over to the operating table, still no worries.  I remember putting my arms down on arm rests and them starting to attach electrodes to me and then nothing.  The surgery started at 7:30 am and finished around 8:30 AM.  I remember waking up with a slightly sore throat and nose and a headache.  The sore throat and slight cough was because they had a tube down my throat, which luckily I don't remember.  The doc had warned me that it would feel like someone had punched me in the nose.  The headache, well, that should be obvious, because they scraped a tumor out of my head.  I did get a small dose of morphine at 10:15 AM and I've been pain free without meds since then and its a beautiful thing. I was in a euphoric disbelief that I felt so good. I actually updated my facebook that morning using my mobile.
 
Dr. Webb did an excellent job and I strongly recommend him if anyone else needs a similar procedure. I've also been waited on hand and foot by the nurses in the ICU unit.  One of the anestheology nurses came to check on me this morning and said that I did not look like I had been through surgery.  It does help that they were really tiny holes, but I get the impression I did much better than most for even this procedure. 
 
All in all, my first surgery turned out much better than I expected and I was already expecting it to go well.  Just for my own notes, my wonderful nurses were Harriet, Jason, Linda and now Shayne from Ontario.  I should be going home in the morning.  Dr. Webb said that I probably won't be up to full speed and will get tired more quickly than expected, so we'll see. 
 
Also thank you to everyone for your calls, e-mails, visits and your prayers.  I feel very blessed.  And my hubby, Randy, did an excellent job of spending a lot of time at my side and doting on me.  I think I'll have to keep him.