Not your typical winter in Kansas City, MO

Not your typical winter in Kansas City, MO, a photo by ~TerrazaByte~ on Flickr.

It's been so mild here that the grass is still green.

Via Flickr:
Taken at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art - www.nelson-atkins.org/index.cfm

Go See Doctor Specialist For That Doohickey!

Go See Doctor Specialist For That Doohickey

The Brain Bio & Update of Vincent Terrazas

(Skip to bottom if you know the story and just want the January 2012 update)

PROLOGUE

Every now and then a true story comes along and sounds so far fetched that it teeters on the edge of fiction, this Brain Bio is one of these stories. Within this diatribe I will attempt to explain the eccentric and demented mind of yours truly, Vincent M. Terrazas, as I step through the process of my brain surgery. Beyond these collections of letters grouped in to words, sentences and silly gibberish, the story continues and evolves with each days passing as I learn more about who I am and who I will be. 

My aim is to inform you of my condition, update you on the progress and bring awareness to the internal changes I experience. Also, depending on the hour of the night of which I am writing in, I will attempt to make you giggle once or twice with my distorted view of this humorous situation. Hey, I might even reach someone out there that has encountered something similar and provide a valuable tidbit of information about the Brain and Pituitary Tumors.

NARRATIVE

Throughout 2008, I noticed slight changes to my vision and began experiencing more intense migraines then I’ve had before. I’ve had migraines off and on for years as I have a rare form of Glaucoma in my left eye only, called Glaucomatocyclitic Crisis. A few migraines and vision changes are nothing new since I’ve been taking eye drops and a really nasty medicine called Diamox since I was in my early twenties for this. Slight changes in vision and a few headaches are par for the course in my life and unfortunately, I let these symptoms ride for some time before it really started to bother me.

By the time December rolled around, I was spending one night a week in a dark and soundless room trying to hide from the pain. These were some of the worse migraines I’ve ever had. Trust me, if you think you’ve had a bad headache to the point of wanting to drill a hole in your head or eye just to get some relief, then you might just begin to understand the “starting” level of pain in these migraines.

One day in January 2009, I pulled out of the driveway and was about to go on a short trip to somewhere-ville and noticed I couldn’t see fully out of my left eye. The entire left side of that eye was dim and faded into black. That was the moment this crazy ride started down the “Go See Doctor Specialist For That Doohickey” highway.

In order to keep this wordy adventure to under my 50K limit, let me quickly step you through the the next few months chronologically. (And all the readers rejoiced)

JANUARY- APRIL 2009

• January- Wrote down a reminder note to make an appointment to Go See Doctor Specialist For That Doohickey, my Glaucoma Eye Doctor and have this looked at.
• February- Lost reminder note to make an appointment to Go See Doctor Specialist For That Doohickey. Wrote another one.
• Later on in February- Made an appointment to Go See Doctor Specialist For That Doohickey. #WINNING
• March- Met with my Glaucoma Eye Doc and after an extensive evaluation, he says: “I see no problem whatsoever with your eye Vince. I think you may need to Go See Doctor Specialist For That Doohickey because you may have had some sort of Stroke or Aneurysm.” I was speechless.. umm, errr, umm...
• Later in the day - Called my Primary Care Physician and was able to get in since this was no minor common cold. She was a bit floored as to why I had not called in to be seen before.  I was speechless.. umm, errr, umm...  She said “Go See Doctor Specialist For That Doohickey”
• 24 hours later - I was stuck in an MRI tube, pumped up with some cool chemicals that make your brain glow in the dark (not really, it’s called contrast). After 2 hours of GRRRR BrMMMM GRR BrMUMMM, I was told to wake up and that I would have to Go See Doctor Specialist For That Doohickey to get the results. 
• Another 24 hours later - I became the proud father of a bouncing baby 2.3 centimeter tumor on my pituitary gland. After being told that, I was speechless again umm, errr, umm... That Doc said that I would have to Go See Doctor Specialist For That Doohickey” , a Neurosurgeon! 
• April- I met with the best Neurosurgeon around and we discussed the scenario. He looked over and over at the brain scans as he made muffled grumbly noises. A few more looks to be sure and then asked me to sit down... and stop staring over his shoulder. Then he said this “I wouldn’t make plans this summer. You’re in need of an escalated Brain Surgery. All your scans, the level of vision you have lost and the amount of discomfort you’re in, say that that puppy needs to come out soon or your going to go blind in that eye or both. (yes, I used “that that” in a sentence and it worked)

Apparently, the scans showed exactly why I was losing my vision and why my headaches became a full blown KISS concert in my head. The upper part of the mass was pushing up into my brain at the point that is called the Optic Chiasm; thus the headaches. This is also the area where your optic nerves crisscross and go into the brain. Part of this tumorous mass was also wrapped around the optic nerve connected to my left eye; thus, the vision loss. 

This non-cancerous benign tumor has been in my head for years and normally are very slow growing tumors. For some reason this one thought that this was to slow and began to speed things up a bit. I have my own non-medical reasons for this growth spurt but we’ll get into that later.

THE SURGERY

In early May 2009 I underwent a Transsphenoidal Adenomectomy. This is a type of brain surgery to remove an Adenoma (tumor) from the pituitary gland. I won’t go into the details on this type of surgery, since the method of how they reach the tumor is by making a 3 to 4 inch incision inside your mouth, right where your upper lip meets your upper gums. (The Superior Labial Frenulum) Then they lift up your face and…. umm, I said I wasn’t going to go into any details didn’t I? OK, moving on.

During this procedure, they found that I actually had 2 masses on my pituitary gland, one on top of the other. The tumor underneath had a fully functional blood vessel that could have easily ruptured if not protected by the other overlying tumor. This wasn’t a mere little coincidence and I firmly believe that the power of God's grace was flowing over me, within me and protecting me just as this tumor was protecting the other one underneath. It’s strange to know that something of such potential destruction was actually protecting my life at the same time another one was slowly destroying part of my pituitary gland.

Remember how I had my own opinion of why this tumor decided to grow rapidly over the past 16 months? Well maybe, just maybe our creator’s grace, power and abundant love used this overlying tumor to grow and therefore protect me from the other one that could have ruptured and things would have ended much differently. Who really knows, but maybe part of my life’s journey and path was going through this process. I have been givin the opportunity to learn from these times of trouble, learn to be positive and share what has kept me going - my Friends, my Family and my trust in the Creator above.

Since the Optic Chiasm is located at the bottom of the brain and immediately below that is the Hypothalamus and Pituitary gland, they only removed as much of the mass as they could to ease the pressure on the brain without causing any additional damage to the hypothalamus and pituitary gland. Additionally, full removal of the mass that was wrapped around my left optic nerve could not be 100% since doing so would cause complete blindness in my left eye. They did however loosen the tumors grip it had on the nerve. After putting the piece of my skull back where it belongs with a bit of Elmer's glue and wall spackling, they stitched me up and let me rest for 5 days at their fine establishment. :)

Am I getting to any type of point in all this gibberish? Yes, it’s coming soon, please be patient.

Needless to say (but here I am saying it anyway) the last couple of years have been a challenge as I encountered various side affects from the damage to the hypothalamus, to the pituitary gland and all the little things that the pituitary gland does for the rest of your body. My surgery wasn’t the typical removal of a pituitary tumor and I have been asked to Go See Doctor Specialist For That Doohickey tumor a few more times since I continue to have problems arise. 

A full understanding of this battle would be difficult to explain without you being in my shoes to fully comprehend what all transpires when your pituitary gland, the master gland of your entire endocrine system, doesn’t produce what your body needs daily.  I know that many of you can understand and relate to this, especially if you have or had health issues that limit your quality of life, but even I don’t fully understand everything that is happening to me right now. I just know that I’m blessed beyond what I can see in-front of me. Blessings are all around me and at every hour of the day, I’m reminded that this too shall pass. Others are worse off then I, others count far fewer blessings each day then I. I’m truly blessed by my friends, my family and my God. 

DAILY ROUTINE

Manual replacement of hormones that my pituitary gland no longer produces. This means thyroid hormones, testosterone, injections for diabetes (side affect from not getting the right hormones to the pancreas), amphetamine stimulants, polyneuropathy medications, more eye drops and the occasional pain meds. ugh!  Seriously, I’m not making all this up... there’s more to list here but that would be just silly and sad.  (The rest of this paragraph has been omitted to keep things upbeat and slightly humorous.)

Even with everything that has ensued from day one, I tend to be extremely positive and normally have a smile on my face 90% of the time. (maybe 80%) The remaining amount time is my Hulk Time. What is Hulk Time you ask? Let’s just say you don’t want to make me go into my Hulk Time. You wouldn’t like me in my Hulk Time.

“Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.” ~ Dr. David Banner

I find that dwelling on the negatives of this situation will only make things worse, not to mention bring those around me down. My life is one that wants to share a smile with everyone, not a frown. 

By the way, I have been told to Go See Doctor Specialist For That Doohickey for this as well and they also said "Go See Doctor Specialist For That Doohickey" so now I'm up to six specialists. 

TRANSITION 

For the most part, we’ve found a balance in the amount of hormones that I take as well as the amount of medications that keep the body functioning as normal as can be. The biggest issue I battle with is one that I don’t talk about much. I think I may have some silly hangups about what people will think or how I would be viewed as a technical thinker, artistic creator or even question my acquired capacity of intelligence. Oh well, I’ll get over it.

So the biggest issue that continues to bothers me is that my cognitive functions have changed after the partial removal of my tumor(s), and not for the better. It’s my thought process and my ability to multi-task that have severely diminished. I’ve gone from being extremely good at advanced technical processes, project management and theoretical analysis of problematic designs to merely trying to answer emails without it taking over hour to provide a simple one paragraph resolution plan. Yeah yeah, I’ve heard the replies to this statement of mine in the form of .. “but you can do things at this level”.. or .. you can still do things I can’t” or I hear the reply of “your simply getting older Vince, things change”. 

Yes, things do change, I’m now 44 and I know I can function technically on some level, but not at the level I am accustomed to. This thought process change is not because of age. It was and is a dramatic change in how I now think, create, work and even more. This was like a switch someone turned off in my brain that said... Section closed, no longer in use. This lingering issue about how my brain processes thoughts and channels my creative abilities is the most frustrating for me. Before, I could manage multiple projects at one time and spread my minds resources to keep them all going in the required directions. After, all I can do is one at a time and focusing on that one is a challenge at times. (see memory issues below)

It’s not just this silly need to be technically minded and valued at work, it’s simple things as well. 

The simple pleasures of playing music have changed for me. Playing the piano is a small example of some of these changes. Mind you,I’m not the greatest of players but I could at least work the keys to make some resemblance of a tune while using both hands. Now my brain seems to stutter when I attempt to use both hands. Songs that I've played for years elude me except if I play one hand at a time. Another example is I've tried to learn the guitar this past year and I could strum the rhythm and create the cords, but never could I use them at the same time. The best way to describe it is my brain stutters. Here again, I've been told... " well I can't do that either" , but I once could and now I can't. All in all, my creative thought processes are very hard to manage now and keeping them on track with my new brain drives me insane. :( 

The reaming two issues that have never been figured out are my loss of short term memory and a constant ringing in my left ear. 

The memory loss is a form of brain stuttering as well ( I don’t know any other way to explain it), since some days I can remember the previous day, but then the following day brings no recollection of what transpired. Three or four days later, I can remember what happened on that original day... but then it's gone again in 24 hours. I have also lost some memory of years 2007 - 2011. What really gets to me is that those were the years when my daughter was in High School. I look back at pictures of Volleyball games or when I would assist the Lee's Summit North Marching Band with field drills and I build a small memory from the picture itself but have nothing to support the surrounding event or time. It's like my memories are stored in various databases stored in my brain and connections to them are not always connected. 

c:\ping brain.memory.vince.com

Pinging  brain.memory.vince.com with 32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.

Request timed out.

Request timed out.

Request timed out.

Ping statistics for brain.memory.vince.com

Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 <100% loss>,

c:\

(LOL, I'm such a nerd) 

The ringing I hear in my left ear is terribly annoying at times and it's non stop, 24 x 7. Right now they are calling it Nonpulsatile Tinnitus. I've had it since shortly after the surgery but over the last 9 months it has become more comparable to someone running a high powered Particle Accelerator in the left side of my brain. This high frequency tone will just not stop and if I cover my ear, it gets louder! The sound is not auditory to anyone else and it's not even in my ear. It's coming from inside my head. And yes, I've been told to Go See Doctor Specialist For That Doohickey for this as well. Been there, done that, have the primary results. I digress.

THE LONG AWAITED UPDATE (And all the readers rejoiced)

While under the care of my latest “Go See Doctor Specialist For That Doohickey”, we've worked together over the last 18 months to get a baseline, find a hormonal balance for my body and make modifications to the other medicines I take to get the best possible mixture for my personal chemistry. With his guidance and the input from Dr. Specialist #3, #5 and and new #7, I began the next steps in figuring out why I think the way I think. (Or not think for that matter)

Those steps started on November 18, 2011 and at that time, I had sent out an update about it to a small distribution list that described the following plan.

• Request some medical leave from my company to:
1. Gain some mental stability for what procedures I may need to have.
2. Prepare for potential surgery and/or radiation. (CyberKnife Stereotactic Radiosurgery)
3. Begin taking an additional medication that would make it difficult to maintain any sort of workload based on its side affects.
• Have my brain MRI'd and mapped for possible growth/shrinkage.(The tumor, not my brain)
• Allow the specialists to review the results and determine which path to take.   

Path #1- If the results show the tumor has shrunk, I would have a few hormonal/medicine changes and begin to feel better, or shall I say I would begin to think better. (I said think, not type. My typing skills are no better than a highly trained monkey) It other words, no surgery required but the CyberKnife Stereotactic Radiosurgery could still be in order.

Path #2 -  If the results show tumor growth or new pressure on the brain or optic nerves, surgery or th CyberKnife Stereotactic Radiosurgery would be in play.

• January 9, 2012 came around and I had my brain scan to check for the position, growth or any complications that the tumor may be causing.

• January 16, 2012 came around and I met with my endocrine doctor and we went over the findings.

THE LONG AWAITED UPDATE (Seriously, I mean it this time)

GOOD NEWS! The tumor has not grown and in fact, it may have shrunk a tad. There is no need for surgery or for any form of radiation. Good news? wait a minute... if this is good news then why are my thought processes, memory issues and that %^%$$#%$%@ ringing still around?

The reason this good news is that we, the Dr.'s and I, have been given and unexpected result that wasn't even on the table before. This unexpected result may come as a shock to some but then again, it may come in the form of one of those AH HA moments. For me, it was indeed a AH HA moment as it was for my Doc also. The findings are also good news because an answer, a real answer is more than I've had so far. What's this new finding you say? I'm getting to, I'm getting to it. :)

The tumor, as it is, is not the cause of my thought disorder, delirium, memory issues or ringing. The tumor may have been the root cause and the current cause my vision and headaches, but nothing that I don’t already know of or currently taking medication for. No surgery is good news :) Yes, I have a tumor that will eventually grow to the point where additional surgery/radiation will be required, but not for now. It’s a very slow growing tumor again and I will continue to have it MRI’d yearly and my eyes evaluated every six months. The doc states that it may be 10 years or more before we visit that course of action. For the tumor part, we are going to stay the course and give my body what it needs to function properly. 

THE FINDINGS

All I've gone through and all the tests, scans and alien probing I've had, all point to one thing, a Stroke. I may have noticed changes to my thought process before and after the surgery for the tumor but the latest findings show this was not the only reason. The tests showed that a loss of blood occurred to that area of the brain. This loss could have been from the blood vessel that was in the underlying tumor during the surgery or this could have happened shortly after surgery at some point. 

A stroke is simply a loss of blood to an area of the brain and this can be as short as a few seconds. That area of the brain dies and can not come back. Just as in the game of golf, once you take a stroke, you can’t take it back. A stroke is a stroke, no medications, no surgery will bring that area back to life once a loss of blood has happened.  BUT!!  :)   The brain is a marvelous organ that can adapt and learn new ways of thinking and new ways to channel those thought processes. With the right training and learning, the brain can build a new synapse super highway to overcome these blocked areas. 

I PRESENT TO YOU - PATH #3

In conjunction with working with my Neurophysiologist, to kick start my neurons and get back to my 150 IQ, we're going to add HGH to the hormone mix because brain cells react to human growth hormone more that any other type of cell. (Other than fetal cells and I have no more of those) HGH may also provide healing to the hypothalamus as well the benefit of being in my system as I train my brain to adapt & overcome! Sempre Fi! 

When you look at the big picture, this is indeed good news. I look forward to 2012 and to my forth coming adventure with my Neurophysiologist.   

• Prayer is always answered! 
• I still have a smile!
• I love my friends, family and my creator! 
• You can’t get rid of me!  :)

**Neurophysiologist: Just a fancy way of saying Psychological Brain Acumen of the Theoretical Comprehensiveness of the Conscious Intelligence.

I provide the following for your viewing pleasure, and to be able to enter this blog post to Guinness Book Of World Records for longest post ever! I needed 10 more lines. (The video has no hidden reference to my brain's Jekyll & Hyde situation... yeah right) ;)

Music is the sound of feelings

Music can actually touch you from a thousand miles away. ~TerrazaByte

---

Stop... it's MRI Time!

• Put on my hammer pants...........................CHECK
• Prep for the Funky Cold Medina IV..........CHECK
• Bring 80's Flash back CD ........................CHECK

STOP! It's MRI Time! :)

YATXFV2FMP2A