Miss Diagnosis: We have an appointment

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

We have an appointment

I reached the surgeons office yesterday and managed to get on their calendar. I hope this means he is willing to actually do the surgery. Personally I'd like to skip this step; his record speaks for itself. I'd prefer to make an appointment for surgery and just meet him the day before at the pre-op. No such luck. We have an appointment on April 17th, five more weeks of waiting. Until then I will be praying that he doesn't meet with us simply to tell us he won't do the surgery.

Of course the scheduled the appointment for 9:00am. That means we will need to spend the night in San Francisco. Alex and I both love the city, but a bargain room and parking is $200.00. The drive from here is only about 2 hours during non-rush, but at that time of day it would take us 4. There's no way I could get Alex in the car at 5:00am, she usually can't get out of bed till noon.

2 comments:

judycolbyMarch 10, 2009 at 5:04 PM
And the wait will seem forever, won't it? Let's pray he just says "let's get you scheduled."
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Hi, I'm ReneMarch 11, 2009 at 8:00 AM
Exactly! I do a lot of praying these days.
Rene
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Transphenoidal Pituitary Surgery- From the UCSF web site

What happens during surgery?
The surgical removal of the pituitary adenoma is performed by a technique called a transsphenoidal operation. The word 'transsphenoidal' describes the path the surgeon follows to reach the pituitary gland. The word comes from 'trans', meaning 'to cross or pass through', and 'sphenoid', the name of the cavity (the sphenoid sinus) that is passed through to reach the pituitary gland. Newer techniques and improvements in technology now allow removal of these tumors without the need for an incision under the lip or within the nostril. The surgeon begins the approach by entering through the nostril on one side. The surgeon uses a brilliant fiber optic light to illuminate the internal anatomy, a microscope to magnify the area of surgery to 12 times the actual size, and very tiny microsurgical instruments especially designed for this particular operation. The surgeon guides the surgical instrument into the nasal cavity and an opening is made in the sphenoid bone. The sphenoid sinus is entered, and then an opening is made in the wall of the sella turcica to expose the pituitary gland. The adenoma can be readily distinguished from the normal pituitary gland tissue and is removed without removing the normal gland. After the surgeon removes all the tumor tissue, the small cavity that is left is treated with alcohol to destroy any tumor cells that may remain. This cavity is then sealed, sometimes with a piece of fat that the surgeon removes from the patient's abdomen. The surgeon then applies a biological 'glue' that helps seal the pituitary area from the nose and promotes natural healing. No nasal packs are used with this approach.