3 words that should never be used in the same sentence

Those 3 words are aggressive, surgery, and non-curable. Luckily enough for me, I heard all of those today while I spent 1 1/2 hours talking with my neurosurgeon. Surgery has been scheduled, and in less than four weeks I will be going through yet another endoscopic transsphenoidal surgery for the removal of a pituitary tumor. I think that I should be able to get some kind of a discount seeing how this surgery is most likely going to be something that will be happening often.

I don't even know where to begin in venting my anger and frustrations. Part of me wants to just pretend like this isn't really going to happen and continue being in denial, then part of me is the tough Trisha side that just tells me to be strong and that I will be able to kick this tumor's butt. Oh how I don't know what side to be on. Right now I just want to cry. Knowing what is coming my way is almost harder than not knowing. For instance with the last surgery, I experienced a lot of complications. I had a spinal fluid leak, and had to have a skin graft taken from my right thigh to patch the leak. I threw up several litters of blood following the surgery, and just had some other things happen that you probably don't want to hear about. Am I scared to go through this again? The answer is YES.

This time around I even get to experience the joys of having 3 screws in my skull while my surgery takes place. These are called skin markers and will be used so that the doctor's can do an MRI while I am actually having my surgery, and will help them navigate through the proper tumor areas. Does this sound painful to anyone else because it sure does to me. Oh, and I have to be awake while they put these screws in place. They do numb up the skull the day before surgery. Oh my gosh, I can't possibly do this. Not to mention that they are going to clip off some of my hair in these three spots. I am not going to think about this part. Moving on.

This tumor is aggressive and is not responding to medication at this time. We are going to try to remove the largest portion of the tumor, and then the neurosurgeonwill have me follow-up with radiation. What? Are you kidding me? Radiation. I can't possibly think of radiation. Luckily, it will just be done with a laser beam and not with radioactive dye. It seems like there are more risks with the radioactive dye. Let's just skip talking about radiation, I can't think about that either.

I found this really good website that talks about pituitary surgery in language that I can even understand. Here are some pictures if you feel so as inclined to look at them. People are kind of curious as to how they do this surgery, so here it is.

The surgeon uses an image-guidance system to help navigate through the nose. Skull landmarks and infrared cameras correlate the “real patient” to the 3D computer model generated from the patient’s CT or MRI scans. It functions as a global positioning system to help locate the lesion. Instrument positions are detected by the cameras and displayed on the computer model. Next, the endoscope is inserted through one nostril. A bony opening is made in the nasal septum (dotted line) and sphenoid sinus (green) to access the sella. Last but not least, the surgeon passes instruments through the other nostril to remove the tumor.

That my friends, is pituitary surgery at its finest.

Just tell me that I can do this. I need encouragement more than anything and maybe a few babysitters so that I can get to a few more appointments before my surgery.

My Mom will be flying out for a few weeks when I have the surgery, and it will be so good to have her help with the girls.