Miss Diagnosis: June 2009

Thursday, June 11, 2009

This and That

I guess I've been busy: I sure haven't been blogging. Nick graduates from high school tomorrow and I'm finally done with work on the Sober Grad Committee. We turned in Alex's text books as well, so we are on break for now.
The cardiologist did an EKG last week and we are set up for an echocardiagram on Monday. So far he said the good news is he doesn't think there is anything wrong with her heart, the bad news is he can't fix the pain. If everything still looks okay on Monday we need to call the GI doc again and set up an appointment for upper and lower scopes.
Counting down... surgery is 5 weeks from today.

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.