I ended up having four follow-up appointments in the span of a week back in early May (I have been busy adjusting to going back to real life so my update is delayed). The first one was with the ENT. I didn't really know what to expect from this appointment. I assumed they would shove a camera up my nose again to see what was going on in my sinuses. I was not expecting what really happened. I was taken into a room where I sat in a chair and suddenly a woman who barely took the time to introduce herself as a resident had me inverted in this chair with a scope and suction tube up my nose to deal with the crusting going on up there. She did the majority of the work, but there was a section that I guess was being particularly difficult so she went to get Dr. Meen to deal with it. All the while I was laying there with tears pouring down my face (mostly an involuntary reaction to having all of this happening up my nose).
After Dr. Meen completed his work - which included clipping and cauterizing on top of suctioning - he looked down at me and realized I was not doing so well. Keep in mind that I hadn't eaten solid food in almost a week at this point due to my esophagitis and gastritis issues. Apparently I was very white. After they wrapped my neck and face with cold cloths, he asked if I was okay. Anybody who knows me would know that this is the worst thing you can ask when I am upset/hurt/traumatized. All I could do was start sobbing. At that point, Dr. Meen asked if the work they had done was really that bad and my mom had to explain to him that I had been having GI issues and hadn't eaten much all week. After I calmed down, we had a discussion about this and he suggested I mention it to my endocrinologist in case it was something related to my hormones and he hoped I felt better soon.
The next week, I saw the neuro-ophthalmogist (Dr. Mansouri), the endocrinologist (Dr. Ludwig), and the neuro-surgeon (Dr. Beiko) in one day. My appointments with Dr. Mansouri and Dr. Ludwig were pretty uneventful (Summed up as: Have I seen you before? Why did you decide to go ahead with the surgery? You're having some issues? Well your vision/hormones are fine so I guess we will see you again in a couple months). It is a relief that I am doing okay in those regards, however I felt quickly dismissed in both of those appointments.
My appointment with Dr. Beiko was the one where I received the most information. The pathology came back for the tumour and it is definitely a pituitary adenoma (aka benign) which had a small cluster of prolactinoma cells (which explained my slightly elevated prolactin levels). Apparently my adenoma was slightly more aggressive than a typical adenoma (damn-it Priscilla!). Dr. Beiko said that if a normal adenoma had a proliferation rate - or rate of cell division - of 8% then mine would have been 10% so there's a slightly greater chance of it coming back one day. Due to this, he recommended that if I want to have children, I should probably do that within the next couple of years because high prolactin levels can affect fertility and also because each time surgery/radiation is done (which will be my treatment options in the future), there's a chance my hormones will be affected.
Dr. Beiko also said that I never have to see him again unless Priscilla comes back. So fingers crossed that I'm done with her forever.
My next scheduled MRI is August 8 so we will have a better idea after that of how successful the surgery was. This will be the last update that I share on Facebook for awhile, so thank you so much to everyone who has continued to follow my story and wish me well. I appreciate it all.
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