Well.

Basically the RE said that the elevated prolactin is probably due to prolonged estrogen exposure, but he's humoring me and ordered an MRI, which I will try to have next Wednesday.

He said that he doesn't think it's something very bad, but that he is extremely worried about me, that I should've already been to see the oncologist, that this may be a very time sensitive thing, that it may be getting to be too late, and other things that would suggest that he does think it's something pretty bad.

For reference:

E2: 1,240
P4: 32.6
LH: < 0.1
FSH: < 0.1

And I'm still waiting on a test called IGF1.

Tomorrow I have to schedule my MRI and call the oncologist and get in to see her as fast as humanly possible (according to my RE).





Fuck my life.

Revisiting the RE

Tomorrow I go to see the RE again. I want to feel hopeful. I kind of do feel hopeful, but I also kind of don't.

I want to hope that he'll be totally on board with trying to get this figured out, but last time I asked to see him again, he turned me down and told me again to go to the gyn oncologist. I don't want my ovary out. I don't think it needs to come out. Not anymore. I just really hope he listens to me. It's so frustrating, discouraging, disheartening, and all of the other "ing" things that are not fun to feel that I have had to fight so hard to get anything done. A friend said that it's because I don't fit neatly into any one diagnostic box, and I think she's probably right. Still, you'd think doctors would care enough, or at least be intrigued enough to figure out what the hell is going on with me. I'm worried that he still won't want to do anything, even though there are new symptoms that could help us figure this thing out. I just want to be normal. Or even mostly normal would be great. I've dealt with this for too long.

Anyways, after my appointment, I get to go and spend the night with my sister. I'm going to bring Frozen so that she and the kids can watch it. Ok, yes, and me. I didn't want to like it, but I watched it and then I did like it. Loved it, even. Wednesday morning is Kerri's last ultrasound before Aubree is born, so I get to go with her to that. (Baby 4, if anyone is counting. 1 boy, 3 girls.)

That's pretty much it. Look for an update probably on Wednesday, when I get home from my visit.

Resurrected

For now. At least for today, anyways. I don't know if I'll keep this up or not. Probably not, because I suck. But I definitely need an outlet for some of this stress and worry.

So much has happened since the last time I posted here. I feel like a totally different person, but we'll get to that in a minute. I had that cancer blood work done, and it was all fine. I had surgery in January 2013 on my ovary and it did nothing. I took 6 weeks of continuous birth control, and that helped a little, but not enough. I took two months of Lupron 3.75mg. And that did the opposite of what it should've done. So the RE referred me to a gynecological oncologist, who charged me almost $600 to sit in her waiting room for an hour, followed by a ten minute consultation in which she immediately decided that my ovary needs to come out. We decided to wait until we had insurance to do any of that.

Fast forward to this year. Finally got insurance after dealing with the ACA website problems. But I also started lactating, so that's fun. Prolactin is super high, but thyroid function is good, and the comprehensive metabolic panel came back fine also. So probably a pituitary tumor. We thought about it, and decided not to have my ovary out yet, because it's likely that a pituitary tumor is causing a lot of issues. I get to meet with my RE again on Tuesday to see what he wants to do. Definitely MRI to check it out. Beyond that, I don't know. If it's just a prolactinoma, I can probably take meds to shrink it. If it's any other kind, probably surgery. On my brain. Which freaks me out. But that's getting ahead of ourselves.

I have to say, having endocrine problems is a real bitch. I'm always tired, like drop dead tired. All the time. I can't control my weight without going to extremes. My mood fluctuates so much, comparing it to a roller coaster doesn't do it justice. Keith says my personality is so different than it used to be. I think he's right, and that's a little scary. I went through a huge identity crisis a while back. I can't imagine treating and/or fixing this problem and having to adjust to a new me again. It's too hard. I don't know what I'll do if I have to go through that again. Endure it, I guess, but I'm so tired of having to endure and persevere or whatever.

Over the last year, I've gone through phases of wanting a baby and being ok without one. Right now I have a serious case of Baby Fever, but also some very big doubts. I feel like so much responsibility is always heaped on me, and very little on Keith. I'm scared that having a kid won't change that. I don't know how we always circle back around to "Everything is Always Krissy's Job/Responsibility/Fault," but I think it would be way too stressful to throw a baby into that mix right now. So yeah, while I am going back to the fertility doc, it's mostly to get this problem fixed so that maybe I can be healthy for a while. I don't even remember what it feels like to be truly healthy. It's been a long time.