More Stuff...

     Thought I'd write about some more stuff that I left out of my original entry since it was so long already. From time to time I would try to find other diagnoses that I might have. Since no migraine medication ever worked I thought what I had must have been something worse. I would watch the discovery heath channel, and specifically the show "Mystery Diagnosis" looking for ideas of what I might have. At different times I thought I might have chiari malformation, orthostatic intolerance, pseudotumor cerebri, and even brain cancer but all of those were ruled out by mri's or other tests. I didn't mention in my story that after I gave birth and the headaches got really bad I was actually told I had a small mass on my pituitary gland. When I was a teenager they had told me that my pituitary gland was kind of an odd shape and my optic nerve was draped over it which should have caused me to have tunnel vision but for some reason didn't. Since they weren't worried about it when I was a kid I forgot about it. But when they told me that they found a small mass on it when I was so desperate for a diagnosis and a cure, I got really excited. I wanted it to be cancer so that they could remove it, or give me radiation or something. I figured that mass was causing my pituitary gland to release excess hormones which were causing my migraines. I was willing to have the whole glad removed if possible and was going to be willing to have hormone injections for the rest of my life if I could just get rid of the headaches! But they had an expert on pituitary masses look at it and he said it was too small to cause a problem. Around that time is when I almost died and finally got the right diagnosis. Looking back it's sad that I was so desperate to be diagnosed with a treatable condition that I actually hoped for cancer. And it's not like I don't know how bad cancer can be because I watched my mother suffer and die from it. I just wanted something that could be dealt with because if the headaches were migraines and no migraine med worked, then that meant that I would never find relief. At least if it was cancer, I knew I had a chance of getting rid of the headaches! I know enough about medical stuff to realize how lucky I am that I got a diagnosis and that it could be treated. I don't know how others live their whole lives in pain. Those people are truly the brave ones because they keep pushing on no matter what and I admire them!