Senior Patrick Sabinson developed a non-cancerous tumour on his pituitary gland that led him to be 6’7”, later resulting in other injuries.
Sabinson said his problems started in 2024 when he had to get dual knee surgery.
“I had what was called ‘knock knee,’ my knees [were] crooked inwards. I got surgery and then they grew outwards and corrected themselves,” Sabinson said.
Continuing into November of 2024, Sabinson slipped and fell, causing his hip to start coming out of its socket.
“I came to school and I was limping [really] bad, and I sat down in my first hour, and I’m like ‘my leg hurts really bad.’ Then I walk down the hall, and my leg almost just gives out in the hallway. I make it to the room, and my whole leg by this point is just shut down. [When] class [was] over, I try to get up, [but] I just couldn’t get up,” Sabinson said.
Sabinson had to be driven to the hospital from his orthopedic for immediate surgery.
“I get an MRI and an X-ray [at the hospital] and [the doctors tell me I] need emergency surgery. . When I’m sitting in the bed before surgery and my surgeon came in with this piece of fabric, he had to measure me to make sure I would fit on the bed,” Sabinson said.
Later, Sabinson’s surgeon felt something wasn’t right, Sabinson said, so he met with an endocrinologist.
“My orthopedist said ‘this [hip injury] should never have happened, something’s not right here’ so he talked to an endocrinologist, a doctor who specializes in hormones and growth, and they ran a couple tests,” Sabinson said.
One of the tests they ran on Sabinson was an MRI of the brain, where they found a non-cancerous tumor on his pituitary gland. The pituitary gland is responsible for producing hormones in the body like growth and metabolism.
“What I had was called a pituitary adenoma causing my body to just grow and grow and grow. If I didn’t get it removed I would’ve been 7’6” and my hand would’ve started getting really big and deformed,” Sabinson said.
The tumor didn’t just affect his growth but other hormones.
“It was affecting all of my body hormones like testosterone and other things…My testosterone levels were that of an infant. It messed me up completely,” Patrick said.
Pituitary adenoma is not genetic and doctors are unsure of how it forms. Sabinson said that sometimes they are harmless but not in his case.
“Some people have [a pituitary adenoma] and it just doesn’t do anything, but mine was making me grow. There’s not really a way to prevent this, there’s just signs, like my hip injury. We suspected [the tumor formed] freshman year and then I just kept growing and growing,” Sabinson said.
Sabinson said the surgery is helping him stop growing as well as strengthen his bones to make his body more developed. They operated on him in February, a few months after his hip surgery.
“I was in the hospital for days and asleep on the operation table for six hours. It was probably the worst experience of my life. Don’t get brain surgery; that’s what I recommend to everybody,” Sabinson said.
Doctors of different specialties, Sabinson said, worked on his surgery.
“There were three doctors involved with everything. There was a Neurosurgeon, ENT (ears, nose, and throat doctor), and my Endocrinologist. They go through and make the incision and then they take cameras and put them in there. Then the Neurosurgeon goes in with needles and tools to scoop out the tumor,” Sabinson said.
After the surgery, Sabinson had to do different checks to make sure his brain was working properly.
“Every hour after my surgery they [had to] shine a flashlight in my eyes. They made me do different movements to make sure my brain was fine,” Sabinson said.
Recovery took six weeks. He also has continued to see a change in his weight after his surgery.
“For six weeks I basically couldn’t do anything. I’ve lost 30-40 pounds since surgery from 270 down to 235. That’s about a pound a day,” Sabinson said.
His hormone levels have slowly improved since the surgery..
“All of my [hormone] levels are evening out…we’ve already been seeing results but we’re still [going to be] seeing results over the course of a year. Every six months now I’ll see my endocrinologist [for a check up],” Sabinson said.
Sabinson is 6’10 now, he said, and will only continue to grow a few more inches.
“I think I’ll grow a little more because the growth plates in my body still have to close. I’ll probably still be like seven feet tall,” Sabinson said.
