part one: a little saga with TMI

i wasn't going to post about my health, but today was a bad day emotionally and i just have a need to put everything down in writing to relieve some stress.

my dh and i have always wanted to have children. we started trying ( or really, we weren't doing anything to not get pregnant ) as soon as we knew we were right for each other. we got married, and still, nothing. i was working at the airport prior to TSA taking over ( post 9/11 ), and prior to us getting married. i had no health insurance ( they didn't offer it ), so knowing that TSA was coming, i waited after we got married so we could compare insurance options through both our workplaces. dh's ins. was cheaper, so we went with that. on our merry way we went, and i went to a women's clinic to have my annual exam. she informed me that i had no insurance coverage. huh???? umm okay. so i call dh, dh calls boss and boss calls ins. they ( ins comp. ) says, oh sorry, you tried to add her outside of our open season. what?!??

as far as i understand, when two people get married, it is considered a life altering event ( as is birth, death, adoption, divorce ... ) and therefor, an insurance company ( at least all the ones i have had the pleasure of doing business with up to that point ) gives you a year from the event date to alter you insurance coverage to add new persons or remove them.

i go ahead with my exam, and based on some symptoms i was having ( no menstrual cycle, able to produce 'milk', weight gain ) it was possible that i had a pituitary tumor. dread. so we decided to wait to add me to his insurance during open season. because, we are young, and dumb.
almost a year passes. i am supposedly added to dh's insurance. i say supposedly, because of what happened previously. i get a bad sinus infection. we make an appointment. we check to see if i am actually on insurance...... i am not. why???? because TSA offers insurance, so they will not cover me. huh? mind you, TSA's open season just ended. so again, one more year with no insurance. ( remember that tumor? still no cycle at this point )

zoom forward. i have insurance! i have an appointment at a medical center! i get an annual exam. same response "possible pituitary tumor."
so i have to go north to seattle to have MRIs done as well as appointment with an endocrinologist. and lots of blood work. my prolactin levels were registering at 190 ( 190 of what i have no clue, except that a normal level is 3-22, with the higher end being a woman who is nursing a baby ). i went home after this appointment, and searched the internet for information. it looked good. not deadly, and usually treatable with parlodel ( bromocriptine ), with surgery for larger tumors. mine is little, and i started on parlodel in april '05.

in june '05, i had my first full menstrual cycle. i started charting my basal temperature so we would know as early as possible when i was pregnant. sometime in the midst of all of this, my lovely head decided it needed a hemangioma. this is also benign, but it can bleed profusely ( it is on my scalp ). i did nothing about it, because in july '05, i got pregnant. it took a back seat.