Finally Some Real Answers

Two weeks have passed. The initial shock of "everything" has passed. It has become more of an anticipation to see just what it is I have and what will be next. It is November 20th, one week until we have 24 people at the house for Thanksgiving. Lori was sick so I did the trip to the endocrinologist on my own.

I sign in and wait. I call Lori to let her know I am there and to talk to her a bit. Gotta go... nurse is coming for me. 5 minutes later I'm sitting in the office anxiously awaiting the doctor... and here he is.

Good news Mr. Lyons. Your prolcatin level is elevated. That means the type of tumor you have should be treatable with a pill. If the pill works it should shrink your tumor he tells me. I remember thinking to myself yay! He also tells me my testosterone level is basically non existent, but that is to be expected with the elevated prolactin level. We review a few other results and he says we will recheck everything in 60 days then do another MRI in 90 days. I make my follow up appointment, grab a copy of my labs and prescription and head out to the car to call Lori and let her knoweverything.

It looks like it's a prolactinoma I tell Lori, that's the kind that you can treat with medicine and not have to do surgery (yay again). I take the lab results out of the little black book we bring with us to Dr. appointments and look at the actual numbers:

Prolactin (which is the hormone pregnant women have an abundance of to help create breast milk) Reference range = 2.0 to 18.0o ng/ml My level = 119.5

Testosterone(I think we all have a pretty good idea what that one is) Reference range = 250 to 1,100 ng/dl My level = 21

There were some other things messed up as well but those two were the biggie.

Wow... OK. So basically I had the prolactin of a pregnant woman and the testosterone of a little girl. AWESOME! It is what it is though and at least I'm not going to have to have surgery anytime soon.

Overt the next 24 hours I received my share of ribbing from friends and family, including one friend who had to "call me back later cause there were too many jokes going through his head" when I told him. I joked about it when I told them so they all knew it was OK to have a laugh at my expense. What else can you do.

I fill my prescription but decide to wait till after Thanksgiving to start actually taking my pill. I had no idea what (if any) side effects there would be so both Lori and I thought it would be better to wait a week. We were both just relieved it is just a pill, and such a tiny one at that. Hope it works. It's now Sunday. Everyone is gone and it's time to take "the pill". Here goes...