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Hello! It’s been a while. I’m not blogging anymore, but that doesn’t mean I am disconnected with the ogtt, regular checkups, etc. world.

For the ones that are still around (thank you!), you’ll probably be happy to hear that my GH levels are low, like normal-person-low, so apparently the surgery was 100% successful

If anyone needs help/support/ask questions… I’ll be reading my email again (I actually lost my password! can you believe it!).

Take care!
Miss Magpie

Holiday post

(This is a real holiday post, you’ll see)

I’ve talked to my endo:

• The next GH and IGF-1 will be checked again in 6 months.
• A new MRI can wait until july (one year after the last one).
• The other conditions that kept me going to a lot of doctors in the past weeks and stole a lot of hours of nice sleep (PCOS and an enlarged thyroid gland that is working perfectly) are neither acromegaly related nor deserve any worrying. They will be checked up again in 6 months.

So, that’s it, if nothing else happens, I won’t be visiting any doctor until june. Sounds good, huh?

I’ll keep on reading the emails (click on the sidebar to email me!), I’ll keep on reading updates and posting comments in other acromegaly blogs… and I’ll keep on improving this one, of course! There is still a lot of information I want to post!! So don’t think I’ll disappear… this Magpie is going to be around… while on doctor-holiday.

Happy Holidays

More news, more chickpeas

Ok, guys, here I am again. I am not posting the GH values today because I don’t have them with me, but I can tell you: everything is all right. I did such a good performance in the OGTT test, that one could have thought I’ve never had acromegaly!!  Oh, besides, the running didn’t affect my last results but I’ve learned one should never trust isolated GH values.

BUT

There are a couple of things may be associated with acromegaly and may be not that are keeping me busy this week. Besides the wonderful news about GH, I got more news on monday.

One involves another hormone: cortisol. Apparently, before surgery I was slightly insuline-resistant (I didn’t know that), which could have been caused by acromegaly and the excess of GH. Now that I am healed, everything should have returned to normal, but cortisol (another hormone produced in the pituitary gland) is way too high (for the first time in my life). This could also be related to the on-the-same-day diagnosed polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), so it has to be tested. On friday.

The second piece of news involvers another gland: thyroid.  Apparently I have nodules (which is ok, my mother has also) that are growing too fast (which is not ok). Hormones produced in the thyroid gland are ok, but the fast growing could be very bad news or just acromegaly leftovers… Let’s see. That’s gonna be tested as well this week.

So, actually, I went to the endo to see what happened to my first cyst, then adenoma, a.k.a. chickpea, and if it’s gone forever and I found out that my ovaries are full of chickpeas (cysts) and so is my thyroid…

Sigh.

Next

Hi all!

I feel guilty seeing the blog statistics and seeing that you’ve been visiting my blog and I haven’t been updating lately (after the good news in my last post). It’s not that I don’t want to write, it’s just that I don’t have any news to blog about.

Next week I’ll be at the hospital for the definite check-up. It will be a three day stay, so I guess I’ll have everything thoroughly checked-up. After that, I’m going on holidays (I deserve them!) but just for a week. So, guys, in (approx) 2 weeks you’ll know how did the story end. (I’ll know in 1 week, hehe).

See you then! And thanks a million for coming! And for leaving comments! I love comments!

pre surgery

My surgery was planned for April 29th. I must say I was rather calm. I wasn’t feeling nervous at all. I knew I was in good hands, the surgeon was the best one in Europe, what should I fear?

Nevertheless, deep inside me, I was very concerned about what would happen after the surgery. My last MRI before surgery showed a 1.5 cm big adenoma, so now it was considered a macroadenoma. I had read everywhere in the internet (internet can be so bad sometimes…) that macroadenomas are more difficult to remove, the number of patients healed descends…

So, on the one hand the magpie is happy, she’s calm, she’s buying furniture for her new nest, so that keeps her busy at home. On the other hand she’s not that happy when she’s at work, and she spends a certain amount of time looking for answers on the web. What would happen after the surgery? from “what if I don’t wake up” until “will my hormone levels return to normal” questions show up all the time. Obviously, the amount of time spent looking for acromegaly, acromegalic, adenoma, pituitary adenoma, surgery hypophysis, etc. in all possible languages increased.

I took the decision not to tell anyone. Only my closest friends in Spain, my boyfriend, my parents and sister knew. No one of my friends in Germany had any idea, I had to tell my boss, sure, but I just said I needed surgery and I would be on sick leave for a while. No further explanation. Why did I make this decision? I don’t know. I guess I was scared of the outcome of the surgery. Not knowing what would happen afterwards was very scary. I couldn’t tell “I need surgery, but don’t worry, everything will be fine” because I didn’t know. I didn’t even know all possible results of the surgery! Anyway, even if it was not the first purpose, not telling most of my people helped to create around me a feeling of “normal life”. Nothing is happening, I behaved as happily as always, I’ve always been a cheerful magpie… If I’d told my circle of friends in Germany, I am sure they would have given me this concerned look whenever I had a headache. And I didn’t need that At All!!

And then the day D came.