A Bump In The Road

Sometimes, you have so much built up inside you that you just might burst.

That’s kind of where I’m at.

I’ll open this with the statement that it’s ok. Then I’ll acknowledge that, on some levels, that’s a lie, because it’s not “ok” but it could be so much worse, and I’ve seen so much worse, and had people I care about live through so much worse, that this? It’s pretty ok.

See, my kid? He has a thing inside his head that isn’t supposed to be there. A Pituitary Microadenoma. (Micro! See – that’s good!) Technically, an active Prolactinoma.
All of which are big-ish words that mean that my son has a mass in his pituitary gland that is causing an overproduction of prolactin, a hormone present in all of us, but typically elevated in pregnant and nursing women. It’s small – thus the micro, which clinically means that the MRI shows that it is less than 10mm in size. I don’t have an actual measurement because we haven’t seen the Dr. who can clarify that part for me yet, but micro is better than macro in this scenario.

That doctor visit is still more than a month out, which is both frustrating (A MONTH!? And that is actually TWO MONTHS out from when we got MRI results!?) and comforting (A month + out just reaffirms that this is not life-threatening, this didn’t immediately turn into a next-day surgery and weeks of inpatient care and who knows what else). We will be headed to Indy to meet with a pediatric neurosurgeon first of June, and hopefully that will be the appointment, in what has felt like a flurry of appointments, where we will walk away with a plan. Surgery currently feels like the most likely option, but research (because you know I’ve googled the heck out of this thing, sticking to quality search results like the Mayo Clinic) says that there are options like medication, radiation and even chemo.

The chemo phrase brings me around to another quick, but really important thought. The odds that this mass is cancerous are VERY small. Of these types of masses, only 0.2% are actually cancerous. Those are good odds, and I’ll take them.


So. There it is. A little brain vomit that gives a quick outline on our bump. His bump. This bump in the road.