Skip to main content

Before IPSS

Tomorrow morning I go in for my IPSS. So much is riding on this one procedure! An Inferior Petrosal Sinus Sampling (IPSS) is when they take two catheters, run them up each femoral vein, through your heart, to your pituitary gland to collect blood. At the same time, they collect blood from your arm and use the ratio of ACTH to determine that it is in fact the tumor that is causing Cushing's syndrome. The tricky thing is, is if the tumor is not "active" when they go in, the test is useless.

I am very anxious to get this part over with. It is allegedly more uncomfortable than the surgery process, so once I get through this it should be all downhill. More news tomorrow night :)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2 Years Since my Adrenalectomy...would I do it again?

On September 2nd, 2010, I spent the day in one of the many operating rooms at MGH.  I had spent the night before talking and texting to friends and family, after seeing Wicked and going back to the hotel across the street from the hospital.  I cried a lot, because of the scary and fairly dangerous surgery ahead, because of the hope that this disease would FINALLY be behind me, and because of the long recovery ahead.  I woke up early and walked across the street with my mom, and my dad met us there.

The wait that morning was incredibly long, my 2 other surgeries in the 9 months prior had been very early and a pretty short wait.  I cried some more (no one should be surprised by this), and finally headed into the prep room.  I met with my surgeon one last time, and kissed my parents one last time.  As I waited in the cold, dark, cement hallway outside the numerous operating suites, a surgical resident marked the incision sites.  I knew there would be many small incisions, but having the…
4 comments
Read more

Cushing's Awareness Day

Over the past 8 years, I have spent a few Aprils blogging every day for Cushing's awareness.  I will not be blogging daily this year, but don't want to let the month go by without spreading some awareness!


April 8th is Cushing's Awareness Day because it is Harvey Cushing's Birthday.  Harvey Cushing is the father of modern neurosurgery, and he also was the first to discover Cushing's Disease in one of his patients.  You can see a drawing of his patient (Minnie G) in many text book articles about Cushing's.

Post a Comment
Read more

Cushing's Awareness Challenge - Day 29

Post a Comment
Read more