#it was a pituitary gland tumor and apparently a lot of people potentially could have one and never know

[pepis-benis]

is it tasteless for my tinder bio to say “ask me about my brother’s tumor”?

[take-my-revolution]

yeah so there’s this thing

where i’ve gotten older but definitely no wiser.

how to sum up the year?  it started ok.  i really think it did, but it could just be the brain fog.

then increased anxiety.

then lowered energy

then i couldn’t lose weight no matter how well i ate and i was walking 7+ miles a day

then i got the dry mouth.

then i got even less energy

then i couldn’t sleep

shortly thereafter i didn’t want to eat any more

it’s all been downhill from there, man.  oh, the doctors whose time i have wasted.  oh, the doctors who have wasted mine.  the hoops i have jumped through! to be taken seriously.  heaven forbid that a fat woman with depression have any sort of actual medical issue.

and now it’s the day before thanksgiving, and i’m impatiently waiting for blood work results that should have come in on friday.  they’ll either say: congrats, babe, you’ve got cushings syndome! or they’ll say: this test was inconclusive and we need to...do more tests.  well, that is what the results will say TO ME, because i know how to research stuff.  my doctor does not.  he says that if i suppress AT ALL on a low dose overnight dexamethasone test, that means definitively, i don’t have cushings.  i did send him the article from some journal of endocrinology that points out that some cushings patients can still suppress.

my life is kind of crappy these days, you could say.  you could say really crappy, actually, and you’d be totally right.  i wouldn’t correct you if you said it was ultra-crappy.

maybe i should do some schadenfreude research into other sorts of brain tumors.  make myself feel better about my potential brain tumor.  because, i mean, really, except for the part where it destroys your pituitary gland’s ability to function, it’s not so bad, right? it’s small.  it’s not malignant.  they generally don’t have to crack your skull open to get it out.  best brain tumor ever, right?

except where the part where it destroys your pituitary gland’s ability to function.  i mean, i’m thinking most people with brain tumors have what, like, terrible headaches, and maybe nosebleeds, and maybe seizures and poor vision...okay that does sound unpleasant, right, but what i’m saying is at least their endocrine system can still function, right?  like there’s a zillion hormones that run your body and maybe three of mine are working right. 

i mean, i take a ton of pills.  i did before, and now i take more, because i have to take a pill 4 times a day to make my mouth salivate properly.  i have to take a pill to keep my heart from beating 120 bpm at rest and my blood pressure being through the roof.  i have to take a pill to pathetically try to convince my insulin/glucagon balance to be anywhere near normal.  i have to take a pill to sleep at night, because otherwise i will lie awake--not obsessing or anything, just awake, until 4:30 am whereupon i go to sleep for...two hours.  i may need more pills because i’m crying most of the time and when i’m not i’m super irritated by everything.  they can’t give me anything to boost my energy because that would make my heart beat even faster, and apparently no one cares that i’m never hungry because they’re like, she’s fat anyway, whatever, not like she’ll die of starvation if she doesn’t eat for a few days.  (or two months because that’s how long it’s been since i felt hungry) wait don’t forget i also have to take pills to make me poop because my digestion doesn’t work, AND pills to lower my stomach acid because that’s out of whack too.

kinda makes you wonder how many different pills they were going to prescribe me before somebody put two and two (more like ten and ten) together and said, hmm i wonder if this person doesn’t actually have a broader issue?  do you think all these symptoms that appeared at roughly the same time could possibly be related?

crazy talk.

anyhoo, i’m sure i’ll have lots to say soon about the goddamn struggle that is trying to get a diagnosis.  i may have to keep book on how long it’ll take to see an endocrinologist.  hey, i gotta make money somehow.  what do you think?  a month? two? that’s peachy, i’ll just be chilling over here, trying not to die.  that’s what i do most of the time. 

my first estimate was that i’d get scheduled for surgery in january, but i think that’s overly optimistic.  november’s pretty much over.  still gotta do some other tests, and get an mri, and pray that it shows something, and THEN get scheduled for surgery.  and if i have to wait a month to talk to an endocrinologist, well, yeah.

nobody treats brain tumors any more with the seriousness they deserve, amirite?

ooh also guess what i’m probably immunosuppressed which means if i get covid i could die!  yay!