More Blood Tests

Had a phone call from my endocrinologist today. On the 22nd January, I had blood tests done to check out my serum osmolality, which basically looked at the sodium levels in my blood. Getting the results was not so simple; I was registered as a temporary resident at my old GP's where my parents live, and the GP was not confident about interpreting the results of the test, as he does so few of them, so he faxed the results for my endocrinologist to interpret.

I never heard back from my endocrinologist, and although I thought about calling frankly I couldn't be bothered because trying to get a hold of them is always such a ridiculous faff. So I assumed no news was good news. Then they called today, to say that when the blood tests were taken, my sodium levels were a bit low. So I need to get that checked out with another blood test. It's fairly common for sodium levels to drop a bit right after this kind of surgery and then self-correct, and I don't really have any symptoms of low sodium levels, so I guess we'll have to wait and see.

The endocrinologist asked how I was feeling and whether I was "back to normal", which kind of surprised me as it's only been three weeks and two days since the surgery. I said no, which seemed to surprise her - she asked in what way, so I explained that I get tired, I'm still kind of slow and I get worn out quite easily (I occassionally get a little headache and my nose is definitely not back to normal but the tiredness is definitely the key point!). All of which seemed perfectly normal to me shortly after a major operation, and in fact I'm considerably less tired and slow than I was after my last surgery (although that is mainly because I was super pathetic last time). But she wants to check out my thyroid levels as well, in case my tiredness is a symptom of hypothyroidism; there's always a risk that, having removed the pituitary tumour producing thyroid-stimulating hormone, they've removed some of the healthy pituitary tissue as well and that therefore I've gone in the other direction and now have low, rather than high, thyroid levels.

I was a bit worried about that immediately after the phonecall, but then my boyfriend pointed out that she could well have been mixed up as to how long ago my surgery was, or that they could just be being very cautious. Because I had an injection of lanreotide (which lowers your TSH levels) just a week and a bit before the surgery, there's also the possibility that the drug is still in my system and is now lowering them too much.

So the long and short of it is: more blood tests, wait and see!