I think there is an excellent hospital for pit problems in Michigan I beleive? Oneo f the best- As Minnie says, Dr. Black is an excellent person to see if you don't mind vacationing in Cali. I wish I didn't live so far away- as such, I went to Boston Mass General with a Doctor Swearingen. I'll give you a little of my experience here. My surgery was at 11:00 a.m on March 9'th. I was out of the hospital the next day at exactly 10:30 A.M and I was walkingh around Boston for 7 1/2 blocks (I had to fill a prescription and had to walk to a CVS pharmacy) The day was brutally cold with harsh winds which did kind of knock some of the stuffings out of me- had it been warmer, I might have been able ot go further, but when I got back to my motel room, I was ready for a short 2 hour nap. I didn't have any nasal packing, didn't suffer from DI or CSF leak. I hadn't urinated for about 14 hours in the hospital, but when I did start to, I had to go a little bit every hour for the next 5 hours or so, but it wasn't anything urgent or painful. after the five hours, everything kind of settled down without need for medications. I'll be posting a more indepth description in another thread here shortly to explain everything I felt and went through, but I must say I was very very surprised at just how well everything went. I must however say this here about Dr. Swearingen. I did not find him very informative at all. I had to pry everything out of him, which, if I hadn't learned some of the things to look for beofre hand, I wouldn't have even known what to ask about. He was a bit short temprered, as though he couldn't be bothered with 'silly questions' (Silly questions like "What are the symptoms of CSF leak that I should be looking for incase it happens?" His respo9nse was "You'll know it if it happens. Headache, stiff neck." -- Thaty was his whole answer. My question is this (Which I didn't ask because he was 'in a hurry') -- My neck always hurts, and my muscles are continually weak and a bit painful, so, with that in mind, what constitutes a 'painful neck'? I could NOT get the man to explain anything beyond the very basics to me, nor to tell me what to watch for. I got home on the 14'th with a sinus infection, woke up on the 15'th, and my nose was leaking, so I blew my nose (Which he told me was alright 'in moderation' In Moderation? How hard is 'too hard'? There's alot of gunk that is blocked up in there & I'd like to get some out, but I can't get a straight answer out of the guy as to what 'moderation' is, so I've just been very gingerly blowing my nose- so anyways, I blew my nose, and a (warning, gross description) chunk of what looked like fat/skin came out about the size of half your small fingernail. So, I'm thinking 'Great, part of the 'fat plug' has come loose'. Swearingen never explained anything about the operation to me, so I wasn't sure if this was 'normal' or not, so I call the Docs office. He says "I doubt it's fat' - Now, I've butchered alot of deer in my time, and I know fat and 'tallow' when I see it. This wasn't mucus by any stretch of the imagination. Doc tells me "There is a titanium mesh screen over hte hole where they drilled through the Sella and that the fat plug can't come through (Forget about the fact that the fella next to me in the recovery room was in because his screen had let go and fluid was leaking and it had to be repaired (I learned this by listening to his surgeon explain everything to him IN DETAIL as I lay next ot the fella in the next bed in the recovery room. His doc even took time to joke with the fella and tell some pretty funny stories) So, I learn seven days after my operation that I have a titanium screen in my head- huh ... who'da thunk it? Good thing I called I guess, otherwise I'da never known about this screen-lol- And, I'm told- over the phone by my surgeon 360 miles away, that what I have in my hand 'isn't fat' and that the screen wouldn't allow anything like that to happen. Heaven forbid the man allay my concerns by saying 'send it out to me and I'll take a quick look at it' I better stop- I'm beginning to rant. I have NEVER ever had a doctor that explained anything to me OR took my concerns serious. I went for 14 years with doctors shrugging their shoulders and sayinmg my 'weakness and exhaustion' was simply due to Crohn's which I have. It wasn't until I researched my symptoms and insisted that the doctors check into it thoroughly that they discovered I had a pit tumor 1.2 centimeters & had Acromegaly. So frustrated. Now *I got the surgeon diagnosing me over the phone without bothering to check out what the substance is & he 'assures me' that the screen couln't be loose or whatever. (How he knows this without looking, I'll never know (I wonder if he woulda told that fella next me in the recovery room the same thing over the phone if he'da been his doctor)- but at this point I don't care- just frustrated that this is the 'attitude' I'm running up against once again.) Now, this aside, I'm sure Swearingen is a VERY competent surgeon and does what he does best, the surgery. As I said, The surgery and recovery were VERY quick and painless. However, one thing that did concern me was that he said a 'finger of the tumor' had migrated toward the sinus area where he couldn't see, and he didn't know if he could get it all- he did explain that he had to 'blindly scrape' the area hoping that the tumor wall would collapse out into the area where he could get at it visually. I keep seeing these 'intraoperative 3-D MRI machines that show the whole area in 3-D. My question is "If they use that in the surgery, can't they see where the tools are and see if they are getting the whole tumor? His initial email to me said that they use intraoperative MRI 'If needed' during the surgery, but listening to him after the operation, it didn't sound to me that they used it because he was 'blindly scraping' at the 'finger of the tumor' that he couldn't see? I'm a medicaid patient- my feeling is that medicaid probaly didn't cover this intraoperative MRI perhaps? Grrr- sorry- feeling a little down today I guess- sorry for the ramble |
