pregnancy and H&N cancer

CherriBlossom
CherriBlossom Member Posts: 44 Member
in Head and Neck Cancer #1
It was around this time a year ago my blood test showed my prolactin level was 3 times higher than normal. I was referred to an endocrinologist who ordered me MRI scan to confirm pituritary tumor was the cause of my prolactin levels to elevate. Indeed, I was diagnosed with a small benign pituritary tumor which I was prescripted with Bromocriptine to control/shrink the tumor but due to the side effect I got really sick, vomitting and headach for about 3 weeks then my endo doctor switched me to Cabergoline supposedly with less side effect. Sickness continues for another 3 weeks despite switching to another drug. Then suddenly I noticed I lost hearing on my right ear. I went to family doc to have it checked out and he sent me to the emergency room to get more testings. The CT shows a mass in my nasopharynx. I was shocked and in disbelief not knowing what it was and realized the hearing lost had nothing to do with my pituritary tumor. That was not the end of bad news, apparently the hospital did a pregancy test when I was in the emergency room and was told there was high level of HCG detected. Ultrasound confirmed I was 12 weeks pregnant! Lots of questions came to my mind. My sickness (vomitting and headach) may have had something to do with my pregnancy, or was it the Bromocriptine/Cabergoline, or was it the mass, or was it all these things contributed to my sickness? How come the pregnancy tests I did at home showed negetive? How come the first MRI ordered to look for the pituritary tumor did not see the mass? The hospital doctors couldnt answer my questions. They just ordered another MRI which confirmed the mass. ENT doctors scoped me and again confirmed the mass. Biopsy was done and again it confirmed the mass was nasopharyngeal carcinoma stage IV with EBV detected. I was adviced to terminate the pragnancy so I can immediately begin the harsh radiation and chemo treatments. My husband and I do not have any children so it was a very tough decision we had to make to terminate the pregnancy. I was told it's not even a choice since my health was degrading fast. For someone who never had any health issues before, never touched cigarettes and alcohol and never had to take any aspirin before was just devastated with the diagnosis. As of today, I still don't know what contributed to my cancer, the pregancy, pituritary tumor, the drugs I was taking for the pituritary tumor? Nobody seems to know and it will haunt me forever.

Comments

  • Skiffin16
    Skiffin16 Member Posts: 8,305 Member
    #2
    So Sorry
    For the situation you find yourself in these days....

    HPV is a high risk factor these days or contributor of H&N Cancer is more appropriate term I suppose, not sure if they tested any tissue or not.

    The cause doesn't reallyt matter.

    The main thing is to stay positive, surround yourself with positive people. Pull up the combat boots and get ready for battle.

    Survival is very doable these days, so keep that in mind.

    Faith, Family and Friends,
    John
  • longtermsurvivor
    longtermsurvivor Member Posts: 1,842 Member
    #3
    you truly won the trifecta
    Geez, you could have this made into a movie. there will never be a way to sort all this stuff out. All you can do is prioritize and tackle the problems in order. The pituitary adenoma will never kill you. It can be dealt with any time. The NPC is clearly the highest priority, and it would have been foolish to throw your life away just because that would have been a choice you could have made. It is also a choice you can make, whether to be haunted by all this or not. We all have to do what we have to do. Your situation was just more complicated than most.

    Glad you're here.

    Pat
  • Kyle Gilmore
    Kyle Gilmore Member Posts: 55
    #4
    Wow...thats a tough way to
    Wow...thats a tough way to come about figuring things out. I am sorry and hope you are doing well with your loss.

    I am a NPC case to...I and my GP thought it was allergys for such a long time then i started losing my hearing and couldnt write it off anymore because I am a sound guy sometimes for a living and the ENT found my mass...couldnt believe it either but here we are.

    Has your treatments cleared the mass yet? I was stage 3 and according to my docs I am clear and good to go. So hard to really believe. You know...Its cancer, it will never go away. At least thats what my head likes to tell me all the time.

    Its funny...They say we have such a rare cancer but there is so many of us here with NPC we could probably start our own board.lol

    I remember thinking well what is it? my great grandfathers donation of his chinese genes? All the hard living i did when i was young? It dawned on me...It dont matter.You got what you got.Thats when a lot of the anxiety started to go away for me.

    well... see you around and welcome to csn!
  • CherriBlossom
    CherriBlossom Member Posts: 44 Member
    #5
    longtermsurvivor said:

    you truly won the trifecta
    Geez, you could have this made into a movie. there will never be a way to sort all this stuff out. All you can do is prioritize and tackle the problems in order. The pituitary adenoma will never kill you. It can be dealt with any time. The NPC is clearly the highest priority, and it would have been foolish to throw your life away just because that would have been a choice you could have made. It is also a choice you can make, whether to be haunted by all this or not. We all have to do what we have to do. Your situation was just more complicated than most.

    Glad you're here.

    Pat

    you are right about the
    you are right about the pituitary adenoma Pat, you seem like you are very knowledgeable of medicine; perhaps you a nurse or doctor? There seem to be lots of nurses on this discussion board. I was advised to focus on the NPC as you said the pituitary tumor will not kill me so I basically ignored it for almost a year now. My health is getting better after the NPC treatment ended and soon I will go see my endocrinolgist again. She may prescribe the same drugs (Bromocriptine or Cabergoline) I took last year. These are the only drugs in the market to treat pituitary tumor. This makes me very nervous not knowing what these drugs can do to me.
  • CherriBlossom
    CherriBlossom Member Posts: 44 Member
    #6
    Kyle Gilmore said:

    Wow...thats a tough way to
    Wow...thats a tough way to come about figuring things out. I am sorry and hope you are doing well with your loss.

    I am a NPC case to...I and my GP thought it was allergys for such a long time then i started losing my hearing and couldnt write it off anymore because I am a sound guy sometimes for a living and the ENT found my mass...couldnt believe it either but here we are.

    Has your treatments cleared the mass yet? I was stage 3 and according to my docs I am clear and good to go. So hard to really believe. You know...Its cancer, it will never go away. At least thats what my head likes to tell me all the time.

    Its funny...They say we have such a rare cancer but there is so many of us here with NPC we could probably start our own board.lol

    I remember thinking well what is it? my great grandfathers donation of his chinese genes? All the hard living i did when i was young? It dawned on me...It dont matter.You got what you got.Thats when a lot of the anxiety started to go away for me.

    well... see you around and welcome to csn!

    thanks Kyle, the treatment
    thanks Kyle, the treatment did clear the mass and I was declared NED. Just like everyone else, I am constantly worry about recurrence. BTW, I have chinese genes too. I am curious how many NPC survivors here are Asian. My doctors told me NPC is very common in south China, Singapore, Taiwan, and Vietnam.
  • CherriBlossom
    CherriBlossom Member Posts: 44 Member
    #7
    Skiffin16 said:

    So Sorry
    For the situation you find yourself in these days....

    HPV is a high risk factor these days or contributor of H&N Cancer is more appropriate term I suppose, not sure if they tested any tissue or not.

    The cause doesn't reallyt matter.

    The main thing is to stay positive, surround yourself with positive people. Pull up the combat boots and get ready for battle.

    Survival is very doable these days, so keep that in mind.

    Faith, Family and Friends,
    John

    doc said it's EBV not HPV in
    doc said it's EBV not HPV in my case. Both are very responsive to radiation and chemo. dont make any differences since the gold standard for NPC treatment is pretty much the same everywhere.
  • sumarah8
    sumarah8 Member Posts: 32
    #8
    CherriBlossom said:

    thanks Kyle, the treatment
    thanks Kyle, the treatment did clear the mass and I was declared NED. Just like everyone else, I am constantly worry about recurrence. BTW, I have chinese genes too. I am curious how many NPC survivors here are Asian. My doctors told me NPC is very common in south China, Singapore, Taiwan, and Vietnam.

    I'm Asian, living here in
    I'm Asian, living here in the US for about 6 years now, I'm 10 weeks pregnant when I got diagnosed for Npc, so they terminate my pregnancy, its really hard because I always want to have at least 2 to 3 kids, I only have one kid right now. I'm stage 2 npc, and I'm doing fine, ready to go back to work.
  • Cathelen72
    Cathelen72 Member Posts: 33 Member
    #9
    CherriBlossom said:

    thanks Kyle, the treatment
    thanks Kyle, the treatment did clear the mass and I was declared NED. Just like everyone else, I am constantly worry about recurrence. BTW, I have chinese genes too. I am curious how many NPC survivors here are Asian. My doctors told me NPC is very common in south China, Singapore, Taiwan, and Vietnam.

    1/4 Chinese 1/4 Vietnamese and 1/2 Irish
    I was born in Vietnam but came to the us when I was 1. I too was EBV positive but it's hard to tell if it was the EBV or my Asian genes. I am so sorry for your loss and your struggle. My husband and I were trying to get pregnant when I found the tumor in my lymph node and then confirmation that I had NPC. For the last two years I thought I was dealing with severe allergies as my nose was always congested. I am happy to hear your treatment did what it was suppose to do. I too worry about reoccurrence but have accepted that I am Ned now and am trying to live my life as full **** possible.
  • CherriBlossom
    CherriBlossom Member Posts: 44 Member
    #10
    sumarah8 said:

    I'm Asian, living here in
    I'm Asian, living here in the US for about 6 years now, I'm 10 weeks pregnant when I got diagnosed for Npc, so they terminate my pregnancy, its really hard because I always want to have at least 2 to 3 kids, I only have one kid right now. I'm stage 2 npc, and I'm doing fine, ready to go back to work.

    very sorry that you were in
    very sorry that you were in similar situation as me. You can find lots of articles in the web on breast and gynecological cancer during pregnancy but I could not find anyting on pregnant with NPC so I am assuming it's very rare. I dont have any kids and would love to have at least one but the Cisplatin is known to cause early menopause and infertility. Fortunately I am not experiencing symptoms of menopause yet. There is my hope right?
  • longtermsurvivor
    longtermsurvivor Member Posts: 1,842 Member
    #11
    CherriBlossom said:

    you are right about the
    you are right about the pituitary adenoma Pat, you seem like you are very knowledgeable of medicine; perhaps you a nurse or doctor? There seem to be lots of nurses on this discussion board. I was advised to focus on the NPC as you said the pituitary tumor will not kill me so I basically ignored it for almost a year now. My health is getting better after the NPC treatment ended and soon I will go see my endocrinolgist again. She may prescribe the same drugs (Bromocriptine or Cabergoline) I took last year. These are the only drugs in the market to treat pituitary tumor. This makes me very nervous not knowing what these drugs can do to me.

    There is another option
    that sometimes doesn't get thought about. that option is expectant observation. Not everything needs treated. It might serve your short/medium term needs better to just watch this tumor, rather than putting you back on the drugs. Most of these are microadenomas. They are small enough that there are no symptoms, except for period disorders and galactorrhea. Some of them are exceptions to this rule, being mixed adenomas or otherwise large enough to produce visual problems.

    If yours is a microadenoma, and there are no dangers to your vision, you could consider folloing size with MRI, and delay intervention until a later date. Later, because that gets you past your first few years of recurrance risk for your cancer.

    The only options to treat your pituitary adenoma are with medication, like the brergocriptine, or transphenoidal surgery. The bromergocriptine has nausea as a very common side-effect, and you kind of know about the surgery. There are two schools of thought about this treatment. Endocrinologists always want to treat with medicine, while neurosurgeons want to operate. imagine that.

    This is just food for thought. Were i in your situation, that's kind of how i'd talk it over with them.

    Best to you.

    Pat
  • Hondo
    Hondo Member Posts: 6,636 Member
    #12
    Hi Blossom
    There are somethings that none of us will ever understand, I had to go through treatment for NPC twice and when it came back a thrid time I did nothing but some ACT treatment and it has not been back for 6 almost 7 years now. Something we will never know but I am thankful that God has been with me through it all and I am still here today.

    PS: I am always willing to talk to others, so if you need contact me on my e-mail or PM me. I will forward you my contact info, You can also click on my name Hondo and it will bring you to my profile where some of my contact info is stored.

    God bless and keep you in his care
    Tim Hondo

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