Some quick thoughts on my condition

So I had a quick thought (and it has to be quick since I need to start studying for a midterm that's happening in three hours). My pineal cyst is fairly large. What if it isn't a "cyst" and something happened...the thing that showed up in my CT scan in my pons (they claim it's an artifact but they weren't sure--neither the junior nor the senior radiologists reading my file). I found a brief mention of this in a medical article online:
"Drop metastases from tumors in the pineal region are not rare [3], but if they involved the pons, they would more likely result in defects of cranial nerves V–VIII." (http://www.ajronline.org/cgi/content/full/186/3_Supplement/S224)

Please note that the sensory nerves involved in swallowing are:

    * Trigeminal (cranial nerve V)
    * Facial (cranial nerve VII)
    * Glossopharyngeal (cranial nerve IX)
    * Vagus (cranial nerve X)

(http://stroke.about.com/od/supportgroups/qt/CNSwallowing.htm)

I hope having a TIA (if it was ever a TIA) didn't cause damage to my swallowing abilities. But this is just getting ridiculous. I'm tired of having a feeling of a lump in my throat...and difficulty swallowing and breathing normally. Sometimes, I even forget to breathe.

By the way, my dentist said he felt a swollen lymph node under my chin on the left side. I KNEW there were some swollen ones there!!!!! My stupid GP wouldn't listen to me, though. Argh!!!

Interesting. I'm becoming ever-more suspicious of my pineal cyst since my pupils are now pretty dilated (cranial nerve III) in normal lighting (it hurts to walk outside more so than it ever has before...and I used to consider myself to be photosensitive before!), and I still have problems with balance. Not to mention headaches that just never seem to go away...they definitely aren't migraines, and they aren't daily headaches because I feel a lot of pressure with them and sometimes sharp pains. Pressure is a big problem for me, though.

Some other good articles I'm reading through about pineal "cysts" (they aren't all about cysts, oh well) and the problems they cause:

--http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16791430

--http://books.google.com/books?id=c3I-PFkMN2YC&pg=PA900&lpg=PA900&dq=cranial+nerve+pineal&source=bl&ots=o2CCCG5AmA&sig=0TiZmVhOAtfctT6ijrY-Ee-Nn_Y&hl=en&ei=SPkSSpPqCuHgtgehgumWBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4 (says that pineal tumors cause problems with upward gaze...which I have...and absence of pupillary light reflection, which I am only now noticing)

As much as I want this thing out of my head, this phrase makes my blood run cold: "Removal of pineal region tumors is associated with high mortality and morbidity." =(
(http://neurosurgery.dergisi.org/pdf/pdf_JTN_102.pdf)