#pituitary gland tumor

[tf2heritageposts]

also over the past few weeks i've been having a lot of symptoms we had when we were first starting t, and i'm kind of wondering if all of my kind of abnormal for me darker joke/topics ive been posting about lately are because of that

[beautifullychaoticworld-blog]

I find it astonishing that researchers haven't found what causes pituitary tumors, prolactinomas in particular... would be amazing if they did more research on this... they told me it's from too much stress but our whole lives are full of stress unless you decide to do nothing with your life at all...

[fromkenari]

I feel this today. I just got a phone call, and they're finally going to MRI my brain. I realized something was wrong when I had dizziness (they said it was vertigo, but it was unlike any vertigo I've ever experienced), headaches (they said it was sinus pressure), vision changes (they said my astigmatism increased), and all that has been happening for over a year but it wasn't until the hot flashes started that they decided that I'm too young for perimenopause (I'm not actually, I'm in my late 30s) to do all the tests they should have already done and now "Oh, we should MRI your brain, like you asked us to do a year ago because you could have a tumor on your pituitary gland." Doctors are useless, actually. And now I have to wait to get the MRI because it has to be pre-authorized by the insurance company. 🙃

I’m going to be so mad if I just problem solved a health issue I got a billed 3k for last year to have doctors shrug and ask me if I’m hydrating.

[draarongomez]

The Role Of Genetics In Pituitary Tumor Development

The impact of genetics on the development of pituitary tumours and specialised treatments. To learn more, call Dallas Back Clinics. The role of genetics in pituitary tumor development.

Website - https://dallasbackclinics.com/blog/the-role-of-genetics-in-pituitary-tumor-development/

Phone: (469) 206-4518

Address - 2700 W Pleasant Run Road (Suite 370) Lancaster, TX 75146

[riding-with-the-wild-hunt]

hi! i want to take a moment today to spotlight the campaign of another friend who's been so gracious as to share his story with me.

Hazem Tannera (@hazemfromgaza) was able to evacuate to Egypt several months ago, but in a heartbreaking decision prompted by lack of funds, he was forced to leave his beloved family of ten behind in devastated Gaza. facing constant danger and deprivation, they are now struggling to survive, as well as provide for three young children.

Hazem is doing all he can to collect enough money (£80,000) for them to join him in Egypt, but his campaign is progressing slowly, and he has only managed to raise a little over £6,000. this is barely enough to evacuate one adult, and he is responsible for seven, plus three children. The crossing fees alone for the whole group amount to ~£43,500, and it's likely that this estimate is on the lower side, given that it was made before the border closed and prices have almost certainly increased since then.

on top of all this, Hazem recently found out that he is suffering from a tumor on his pituitary gland and will have to undergo treatment to remove it. he is afraid that if anything goes wrong, his family will be left stranded without a lifeline or hope of escape from the genocide.

"I do not want my life to end without my family's help," Hazem said to me over messages the other day. during this difficult time, he should be able to focus on recovering and not fear that his family will be killed, once again face displacement, or be left alone without support.

if you have the means, please donate to help Hazem save his family. if this isn't something you can do (or even if it is), then please share this post or one of Hazem's instead and encourage others to do the same. let's get Hazem and the rest of the Tannera family to their goal as quickly as possible!

(Hazem's fundraiser has been verified by @/90-ghost)

[potter-solomons]

hello hello. these new interviews with tom have been a balm for the soul and a feast for the eyes.

i did find out the results from my MRI and it isn't great but it is all treatable, they think. there's a small tumor to worry about on my pituitary gland but more images are needed. just keep me in your prayers & thoughts.

i will check back in now and again, but the break is helping with some of the stress. please continue to tag me and message me. I will read stories and posts and messages when I log back in.

have this delicious gif of daddy Tom I made. 🖤💙

[suratan-zir]

Tsapa didn't want to be in this ASMR video and run out of the frame. (yeah, his snout and under his chin needs to be cleaned more frequently. It's because his supplementary food gets kinda sticky.)

My beautiful boy has a pituitary gland tumor. But this is not a sad post, at least not intended that way. This is a success story. And an encouragement to potential rat owners to always try everything before giving up.

So. In December, after Tsapa's brother, Plyam, had to be put to sleep due to a spinal cord tumor, Tsapa became very passive and depressed. Or so I thought. I attributed his depression to the fact that he misses his closest friend (rats do get depressed sometimes when they lose cagemates).

But then he started developing hind leg degeneration, which was quite early for his age and also was the first symptom his late brother had, so I got really worried. Long story short, after a couple of days it became difficult for him to drink from the water bottle and lick liquid food, it was obvious that he has a pituitary gland tumor.

We started treatment, almost too late. He had seizures in my hands and I thought I'm going to lose him that day.

…

It's been nearly three months. Tsapa has no seizures, no difficulty eating or drinking, no symptoms other than mild hind leg degeneration. All thanks to Cabergoline. He's on combination of three meds, the best scheme for treating pituitary tumors in rats. Cabergoline every 72 hours, prednisone and antibiotics daily. Prednisone to control inflammation in his skull and antibiotics to prevent infections due to the immunodeficiency from prednisone. But Cabergoline does the heavy lifting, without it Tsapa would've been dead within days or weeks at most after his symptoms started.

He still has a very short life expectancy, yes. And in my experience, rats on Cabergoline do just fine until they die suddenly and unexpectedly. But these are still months of life, treats and scritches, of time together with him. Cabergoline is very pricey. Also, it only works on prolactinomas, it won't do anything for any other type of pituitary tumor. But when it does work, it works like a charm, so it's always worth a try.

Thank you for coming to my RAT talk.

[brightmoontrigon]

good news: I got both of the MRIs I needed in one appointment after all!

bad news: tumor :(

its a benign sort (meningioma?) by my pituitary gland but its pressing on my optic nerve and causing problems. hopefully removing it will restore my vision quality but that's not a guarantee

[matoroblogs]

LEGO Almost Went Bankrupt. These Heroes Saved Our Bricks.

How a brain tumor inspired Bionicle, one of the most popular toys of a generation.

BY DAVID LUMB PUBLISHED: JUN 21, 2020

The Platinum Avohkii mask, a rare one- of-a-kind piece made of solid platinum purchased by Andre Hurley, who has The Bionicle Archives collection

Courtesy Andre Hurley/The Bionicle Archives

In 2003, LEGO seemed to be riding high after shrewd licensing deals brought Star Wars and Harry Potter sets to the masses. But unbeknownst to many—even those inside the company—sales were plummeting, and there were only guesses as to why.

Some blamed poor strategic choices in the 1990s���Legoland theme parks, forays into digital products—for LEGO’s hemorrhaging. All that misguided development time slashed profitability, and even Star Wars and Harry Potter sales shriveled between movie releases. It’s hard to conceive of now, but at the turn of the millennium, beloved LEGO might have been headed toward a pitiful end.

During this fallow period, one product line stood apart with startling, consistent success: Bionicle, a series of buildable action figures backed by rich worldbuilding and cross-platform promotion. Inspired by co-creator Christian Faber’s battle with a tumor at the base of his brain, the toy warriors of Bionicle wouldn’t just conquer their fictional enemies. They’d pioneer innovations that would transform LEGO and rescue the company from possible doom.

Courtesy Andre Hurley/The Bionicle Archives

Today, Christian Faber looks a bit like a Danish Paul McCartney. His youthful smile pairs well with his genial nature, which one might mistake for meekness until he starts talking about his creative projects. The 54-year-old embodies the unchecked enthusiasm you’d expect from a 28-year veteran of LEGO projects. If Faber’s long-time illness dimmed his appetite for play, you wouldn’t know it.

In 1986, Faber began working for Advance, a Copenhagen- based marketing firm that partners with LEGO. But shortly after his career began, Faber’s vision began to falter. A doctor found a benign tumor inside Faber’s pituitary gland that was impeding his sight, a condition called prolactinoma. Doctors said the tumor was maybe in the least accessible spot in the body for surgery, so they prescribed Faber daily medication to keep the tumor from growing. Among the drugs’ side effects, however, were severe nausea and dehydration, effectively sidelining Faber from social activities.

Courtesy Christian Faber

“It was the strangest mix of feelings,” Faber says. “I was happy at the job, but faced the physical and mental strain of the medicine and a long-term illness.”

Faber’s side effects attacked him hardest in the mornings, so he found most of his energy for work at night. Early in his career, Faber designed brochures for LEGO toy lines. Exposure to the different products, including the undersea-based Aquazone and the sophisticated Technic series, gave him experience with LEGO’s standards and practices—a moving target in the mid- 90s, when the rise of computers and video games pressured LEGO to move from their traditional years-long R&D cycle toward what Faber calls ‘craze products,’ toys tuned to current market tastes with a planned one-year shelf life.

The craze-products movement was rife with experimentation for LEGO, and it materialized soon after a medical breakthrough for Faber. After 10 years of daily medication, Faber’s physicians moved him on to a new treatment which, in Faber’s own words, gave him his life back. The new treatment was a regular injection scheduled just once every two weeks, allowing Faber to engage with the world relatively free from side effects. He could chase higher ambitions than brochures, and he had an idea for a new kind of LEGO toy: a sort of Bionicle precursor called Cybots.

Courtesy The LEGO Group

“I was sitting with LEGO Technic and thought I would love to build a character instead of a car,” Faber says. “I thought of this biological thing: The human body is built from small parts into a functional body just like a model. What if you got a box full of spare parts and built a living thing?”

With his assistant graphic designer Jan Kjær, Faber pitched Cybots, a line of humanoid action figures with attachable limbs and ball-and-socket joints. LEGO didn’t furbish Cybots, but they would implement Faber’s concepts in craze products like Throwbots in 1999 and RoboRiders in 2000. By 2001, LEGO was testing a line called Bone Heads of Voodoo Island—masked robots with heads that could shoot off their bodies like Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots. Most of Bionicle’s look had been seeded: masks, buildable bodies, articulate limbs.

Courtesy Andre Hurley/The Bionicle Archives

Bone Heads of Voodoo Island was a bust—focus groups demonstrated kids didn’t respond well to detachable heads—so that same year, LEGO pivoted to focus on Bionicle. The plan was to take a more holistic design approach with these new toys than with craze products, but LEGO extended that comprehensiveness to the worldbuilding around the toys, too, a new strategy for the company. Faber and LEGO design manager Martin Riber Andersen were joined by former BBC film and TV executive Bob Thompson and writer Alastair Swinnerton to refine the Voodoo Island concept and pitch a new story. Faber, fresh from working on Star Wars LEGO sets, imagined something massive.

“After being on Star Wars, I was thinking that the only thing to do from here is our own stuff, but it should be as big as Star Wars,” Faber says. “It should be a big, full universe.”

For the storyline, Faber drew on his experience with prolactinoma. To him, his every-other-week injections seemed like sending in a new wave of protectors to battle his tumor with every dose. Faber imagined this group of disease-fighters arriving on an unknown beach with no memory. The story of these warriors would be called Bionicle, a portmanteau of ‘biological chronicle.’

Courtesy The LEGO Group/Christian Faber

Courtesy The LEGO Group/Christian Faber

Courtesy The LEGO Group/Christian Faber

“We took an episodic story line but chose not to play it out in any single medium,” Thompson told Kidscreen in 2003. “We would take that story and scatter it like a paper trail through different types of media.”

Bionicle’s in-world story evolved through comics and chapter books, written in large part by Greg Farshtey of LEGO’s promotional periodical LEGO MANIA Magazine (also known as LEGO Club Magazine, but now called LEGO Life Magazine). Farshtey followed Bionicle’s story bible from the original team, but as he began accounting for character changes correlating with new toy sets, he added his own takes. By the end of Bionicle’s run in 2010, he had interwoven the story with three feature films and shepherded the comic series that, at its peak, reached almost 2 million readers per month, making it the most widely circulated monthly comic on the planet.

Courtesy Andre Hurley/The Bionicle Archives

By all accounts, Bionicle was the hit LEGO needed. In 2001, its first year on the market, the line brought in over $160 million in sales, it was declared “Most Innovative Toy of the Year” by the Toy Association.

"Flat sales and profit decline made LEGO believe the brick was passé and it needed to move to digital and virtual toys to remain relevant,” David Robertson, author of LEGO history book Brick by Brick, told Popular Mechanics. “But as Bionicle became a success, LEGO learned the difference between sufficient and necessary. It wasn't sufficient to just offer customers another box of bricks, but it was necessary. If a LEGO toy didn't have interlocking plastic pieces, consumers didn't want it. But to succeed and grow, it was necessary to embed a story in that box of pieces and tell that story through comics, books, video games, movies, and events at the LEGO Stores."

Courtesy The LEGO Group

In other words, Bionicle had all the ingredients of a fun LEGO toy, but Faber’s inspiration was key to making it a smash. “[My condition] had a direct effect on my career, and especially on the creation of Bionicle,” he says, ticking off the allegories. “A biological robot attacked by ‘illness,’ waiting for the right ‘medicine’ to arrive. Even the canisters the Toa warriors arrived in resembled the medicine capsules I had to eat every day.”

Bionicle hit its stride just as LEGO’s financials were bottoming out. While LEGO flirted with bankruptcy in 2003, Bionicle accounted for 25 percent of the company’s total revenue and 100 percent of its profits. As LEGO slashed its workforce, reduced the number of pieces it produced, and increased its range of licensing deals, Bionicle continued to diversify. Partnerships spawned. There were Bionicle-branded Nike shoes, McDonald’s Happy Meal toys, even Colgate toothbrushes. The cross-promotion paid off: By the end of Bionicle’s initial run in 2010, it sold over 190 million toys.

All the newness shook up LEGO’s tried-and-true project structure. Bionicle’s multifaceted development process blended design, marketing and engineering teams to hash out new sets, ingest market feedback, receive directives from LEGO executives, and issue their own directives to subsequent narrative and design teams. Under the new dynamic structure, development time for a new toy line at LEGO accelerated from three years to less than one. The rapidity created an exciting energy.

“We broke a lot of new ground experimenting and pushing boundaries,” Bionicle co-founder and design manager Martin Riber Andersen says. “One of the key ethos of the core team was this is a shared collaboration: We stand together. We all believed it was so in contrast to ‘the normal LEGO company’ that we might as well direct our energy to the team instead of our individual career objectives.”

Courtesy The LEGO Group

Courtesy The LEGO Group/Christian Faber

From 2003 to 2005, Bionicle was the reported top-performing LEGO toy line, but after that, sales dipped below expectations. The decline continued to 2009, when LEGO handed down word it was time to end Bionicle. The creators wrapped up the narrative in 2010, but it was hard to let go. Farshtey wrote Bionicle stories on the now-defunct BIONICLEStory.com until 2011, fans dissected the line’s mythology on BZPower forums, and custom Bionicles continued to appear. In 2016, Faber wrote to series fans: “The stories we hear and the stories we tell shape who we are and what we do ... through almost 30 years [of my career in storytelling], no story has proved this stronger than Bionicle. The fans were, are, and will be the true heroes of this ... great adventure.”

These days, you still see Bionicle at toy conventions, and the r/bioniclelego subreddit is alive and well. In fact, the front page of Reddit was graced in November 2019 with an essential, timeless question: “What is the appropriate amount of time to wait before showing your new significant other your Bionicle collection?”

The toys’ invigorating combination of articulate LEGO figures and intricate, multimedia story resonated with the LEGO company as well as fans. The brickmakers use the business strategy they honed on Bionicle with lines like Ninjago today, to great success.

"It's hard to overstate how important the Bionicle line was for LEGO,” Brick by Brick author Robertson notes. “Without the sales and profits of Bionicle in 2003 and 2004, the company would not have survived. Bionicle taught LEGO that success depended on the ability to hook kids on characters and story, and LEGO was smart enough to spread those practices throughout the company."

Courtesy Andre Hurley/The Bionicle Archives

After Bionicle, Swinnerton moved on to write children’s books and TV scripts, Andersen took on a senior position

at a European consulting agency, and Thompson founded a media production and consultancy firm. Farshtey, meanwhile, still edits LEGO’s free fan magazine. All cite Bionicle as high points in their careers.

“We should all be proud of what we achieved individually,” Thompson says. “But in my view, more important is what we did collaboratively. After all, LEGO fans are still talking about what we did with Bionicle—after two decades.”

Faber moved on from his design job at Advance in 2014 after 28 years working on LEGO. His medical journey continues to inspire his creative work, including a post-apocalyptic world he’s designing filled with adventure, danger, and a pro- environmental bent. Looking back, Faber sees the impact his illness and treatment had on the stories and projects he’s touched. Almost 20 years after co-creating the action figures that sustained LEGO through one of the darkest times in its history, talking about Bionicle still makes him reflective.

“Biology is a balance more than a battle between good and bad,” he says. “Ever since Bionicle, balance has been my goal in the stories and pictures I create.”

Courtesy The LEGO Group/Christian Faber

article graphics faber bs01

[khizuo]

Text ID:

Why Bree and their family needs your support to survive

First, l'd like to thank you for being here today and very grateful that you're interested in in helping Bree and their family survive.

Early November Bree was unfortunately diagnosed with idiopathic intracranial hypertension, causing them to have debilitating tumor like symptoms.

So it's just as if they have a brain tumor in the spot where the extra cerebrum/spinal fluid and pressure is built up but without the physical tumor.

Not to mention before this diagnosis, Bree was already battling over 10 chronic illnesses hat all have no cure, including their new diagnosis. And they are more than exhausted and need chronic support from the community to continue living.

With the additional pressure being pressed on their pituitary gland, as well as their left optic nerve, they have already been showing signs of their health declining due to worsening vision and developing PCOS fibroids, uterine polyps, and ovarian cysts. They have learned that the cause of this is due to their birth control. They've been taking named 'Provera' as well as a combination of the marina IUD.

Bree is aware of the class action that's going on with Depo-Provera injection shot. Bree did not get the shot. They were taking the oral medication and doctors believe with the combination of that with of their IUD is why they are having the extra pressure built up.

Bree needs help regularly seeing their specialist as well as saving up for a surgery they'll be having in January 2025 to continue treatment of their chronic illnesses and hopefully alleviate some chronic pain they've been having daily

Their surgery could cause anywhere between 10,000 and 20,000. Where of course hoping for the least amount possible, but Bree can't go any longer without this procedure.

💚CA- beautygoddess147

🩵V- bigdaddybri47

💙PP- beautygoddess47

If you aren't able to contribute in any way, that's perfectly OK there are plenty of free ways to support Bree just by simply sharing their videos to friends and loved ones reposting them to your followers, duetting their videos and or content when you come across it, wishing them luck on theirmedical journey, and of course, avoid using spam words like comment, commenting, boosting boost interacting as those words suppresses Bree in the algorithm

Medical needs for the rest of 2024

Nov 16-23 $150 is needed

Nov 24-30 $250 is needed for food

Ko-Fi for Bree and Cee's Emergency needs https://ko-fi.com/brattygoddess111

GofundMe for Bree and Cee's emergency needs

https://gofund.me/781173e9

Dec 1-7 $50 is needed for follow up ER visit

Dec 8-14 $100 is needed

Bree's full life story

https://www.projectwhy.biz/post/_bree

Dec 15-31 saving $10,000 for surgery in January

*the pricing on Bree's medical needs are always subject to change due to possible unforeseen emergencies. 3 does an excellent job keeping everyone updated as far as what's needed emergently. As always, any help is appreciated towards any goals.

Bree's linktree

https://linktr.ee/brattygoddess

*Any contributions made to any of these links is always appreciated for Bree and their family. Thank you so much.

#15- Medical Accommodation wishlist for Bree (top of linktree)

#7- Wishlist for Commander Shepherd's / needs or to send her a gift

#9- Bree's ART SHOP!

#1 - Bree's autistic niece and nephews wishlist for school and home needs

#8- SUPPORT CEE (Bree's bestfriend and roommate)

@bigceethecowboyl Linktree

#10- Bree - Overcoming Lifelong Truama

(full life story)

#11- NEW HOME WISHLIST for Bree and their family

#12- Bree's Cashapp

#13- Bree's Venmo

#14- Bree's PayPal

#16- GofundMe for Bree and Cee

#18- Send food directly to Bree's family!

#20- Tip Bree for art

#17- Kofi for Bree and Cee

#22- Daily Vitamins wishlist for Bree's family

#19- Help Bree sell and ship their art!

#21- Toiletries for Bree's Family wishlist

Please share and contribute and do what you can for Bree. They have been fighting and trying for so long. Whether it is reposting, sending or sharing flyers. 🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼

[yourlocalunc]

I regret to inform you that you’ve just been diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, Acute Myeloid leukemia, Kaposi Sarcoma, Primary CNS Lymphoma, Anal Cancer, Appendix Cancer, Astrocytomas Brain Cancer, Atypical Teratoid Brain Cancer, Bile Duct Cancer, Bladder Cancer, Bone Cancer, Brain Tumors, Bronchial Tumors, Lung Cancer, Burkitt Lymphoma, Carcinoma, Germ Cell Tumor, CNS Lymphoma, Cervical Cancer, Cholangiocarcinoma, Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia, Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia, Colorectal Cancer, Craniopharyngioma, Cutaneous T-Cell Lymphoma, Endometrial Cancer, Introcular Melanoma, Retinoblastoma, Gallbladder Cancer, Gastric Cancer, Gastrointestinal Neuroendocrine Tumors, Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors, Head and Neck Cancer, Heart Tumors, Hepatocellular Cancer, Hodgkin Lymphoma, Kidney Cancer, Leukemia, Lung Cancer, Liver Cancer, Lip and Oral Cavity Cancer, Laryngeal Cancer, Melanoma, Mycosis Fungoides, Myelogenous Leukemia, Myloproliferative Neoplasms, Mesothelioma Malignant, Nasal Cavity and Paranasal Sinus Cancer, Neuroblastoma, Nasopharyngeal Cancer, Panceatic Cancer, Papillomatosis, Paraganglioma, Pheochromocytoma, Pituitary Tumor, Penile Cancer, Prostate Cancer, Rectal Cancer, Rhabdomyosarcoma, Retinoblastoma, Salivary Gland Cancer, Kaposi Sarcoma, Osteosarcoma, Skin Cancer, Vascular Tumors, Stomach Cancer, Throat Cancer, Oropharyngeal Cancer, Hypopharyngeal Cancer, Thyroid Cancer, Thracheobronchidal Cancer, Thymoma, and Thyric Carcinoma.

-Dr. Homeless

oh shit

[mjrtaurus]

Was discussing Big Mom with my partner @krzdragon and debating on her gigantism and “hunger pangs” and we came to a conclusion

Charlotte Linlin has a benign tumor on her pituitary gland, causing a textbook case of pituitary gigantism and pituitary issues just in general.

[tr85n]

Well, time for something entirely else..

My sweet rat-child Husky (not a very orginal name, I know) has been diagnosed with a pituitary gland tumor. She's treated for the time being with Prednisone, as she's still lively and not too old, but the sad truth is she will have to be put to sleep eventually. Which could be next week, or next month. Usually I never had to ask for financial aid since I have decent savings, but something extremely annoying happened last Summer which costed me a big chunk of said savings.

Meds are pretty cheap, but consultation alone for a tiny rat is... eghh.. And euthanization is gonna be roughly €90,-😩 If anyone could/wants to chip in, my Ko-fi is here Thank you💜

[vhkingsink]

When All the World is Midnight

The best and worst things are forever, and nothing ever lasts. The brain tumor is gone, the damage remains, and I've started to think about my art and writing differently.

In late 2022, an MRI showed I had a brain tumor the size of a jumbo marshmallow smack in the middle of my head. The general consensus was that it had grown there slowly over the past decade—at least. Given certain diagnoses and symptoms I’d received and experienced over the years, this timeline made sense. There are still questions I doubt I’ll get answers to. Did my pituitary gland ever develop…

[potter-solomons]

hello friends.

little update: my hormone test results came back good despite the big cyst on my pituitary gland. still thankful it wasn't a tumor like they thought. i am still having excruciating migraines, dizziness, and nausea. and my fibromyalgia keeps flaring up. so i have spent my time resting, changing my diet, and drawing. spending it with my kitties. i appreciate the support and good prayers. everyone has been so kind. I can't wait to see Harry in mobland the mister detective Walker in Havoc. 💓 again, thank you everyone.

[ashleywool]

why are menstrual cycles

I began birth control meds a few years ago when my periods went from "tolerable nuisance" to "incapacitating sensory nightmare." I stopped taking BC as of June 8 so they wouldn't interfere with the cortisol testing.

Mind you: I'd had some intermittent spotting when I was on BC, but it was so brief and occasional that I was getting used to not even needing to keep maxipads around anymore, just an "emergency" bundle of pantyliners. I never bled enough to justify even attempting to use a tampon.

Yesterday, for the first time since 2021, I got my FULLLLLL period.

I was JUST beginning to come to terms with having to stay off BC at least through September to fully determine if my current health problems are a result of BC or if Otis (the cyst/tumor/both on my pituitary gland) is the real culprit. I thought, meh, it's annoying to have to wait, but I don't need this medication THAT badly anyway, it'll be a good way to see how my reproductive system calibrates itself--

Y'ALL. I forgot how AWFUL this is.

I forgot what it's like to be able to smell EVERYTHING--and in New York, there's even more of everything. Like, I can wash the dishes in the dark and know when the pot isn't entirely clean because I can smell a trace amount of olive oil. I can be awakened from sleep because I can SMELL the exact moment one of the cats uses the litterbox (the pine litter absorbs the smell almost instantly, which is amazing, but in the 0.2 seconds between the crap leaving their butt and the litter absorbing the smell, I SMELL IT).

I forgot what it's like to feel EVERY SINGLE ATOM that touches my skin and overthink every article of clothing in my closet before I get dressed for the day. Like, I can shave my legs and then FEEL my hair growing back. I put on a face mask in the doctor's office and my lip eczema is lurking right there with a taser like, "hahahaha, you say you care about public safety, but do you really? How much? *taser zap* HOW ABOUT NOW?"

I forgot the LEG CRAMPS--like, why? Yeah, the uterine liner is shedding, what does that even have to do with my legs? My back, fine. But leave my legs alone.

I forgot, most of all, what it's like to just cry at the smallest things. Like, not JUST the things that make sense to be sad/stressed/angry about, but like, I'll open a box of Scotch-Brite pads and then cry because they're all so perfectly positioned in that bag and I'm about to take one out and separate it from its brothers and sisters and they'll never see it again and now I'm so sad I want to jump off a bridge but I can't because my cats will miss me and I could never do that to my parents and--

HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KEEP DOING THIS EVERY MONTH until we figure out whether or not the meds that prevented me from having to do this every month are causing MORE harm?

And if they are, then I'll have to...I don't know, stop taking them? Try something different? And if they're not, then I need to do whatever else we need to do in order to prove that the only reasonable next step is LITERAL BRAIN SURGERY LIKE--?!

Ok. I'm gonna go cry into my iced coffee about Scotch-Brite pads. And maybe put on real clothes. Maybe.