Sunday, January 31, 2010

Count Rugen revisited

January 27, 2010 was the one year anniversary of my attempt to have Count Rugen murdered.

I  knew I had the right surgeon when I asked him if he was familiar with the movie The Princess Bride. He admitted to having seen it many times. He said not only would he say Inigo Monotoya's greeting for Count Rugen before starting surgery, he had the accent down pat!

The various medical residents, including one who was really from Spain, all reported to me in the days after the surgery that he really said the line before making the initial cut. With the accent. The operative report indicates that they scraped everything they found out. Not just once, but three times. And yet... it seems that he is not gone from my life completely.

Don't get me wrong; the last year has seen many improvements. But the the symptoms that persist sometimes really outweigh the improvements. And the mood swings can be awful. Yesterday I broke into tears because husband expressed a desire for a banana and I didn't have any in the house to give to him.

My next appointment with the neurosurgeon is tomorrow. I don't know what he plans to tell me. But, no matter what he says I have something that I want to try. It seems that L-lysine may have some affect on the ability of the adrenal cortex to produce cortisol in response to ACTH. I discovered this quite by accident. It seems that L-lysine has a half life of around 11 days and after 3 months of taking small amounts of it I not only was feeling better but saw some improvements in some of my lab work.

Like I've said before... I'm kinda using my pituitary gland (even if it is malfunctioning) and I'd prefer not to have half of it removed if I can avoid it.

In other news... I've been knitting gifts for family and friends. I hope to have more photos to post soon.