Cushing’s Awareness Day – Things I Learned from Cushing’s

Today is Cushing’s Awareness Day – the birthday of Dr. Harvey Williams Cushing.  I am going to use this famous quote by Dr. Cushing as the inspiration for my post today and talk about what I learned from the experience of getting Cushing’s, in random order.

1.  Patients are smarter, more educated, and might play a bigger role in your survival than you can possibly imagine.

2.  Rare endocrine diseases, like Cushing’s, are hard to figure out.  The tumors can be hard to see and hard to catch in action.  The symptoms are vague and strange.  Diagnosis is only quick and easy for the very lucky and for the very unlucky who suffered for years before finding help.  If you are reading these kinds of blogs, you probably don’t fall into the former group.

3.  Because rare endocrine diseases are hard to figure out, if YOU suspect you have Cushing’s it is up to YOU to keep pushing until YOU are convinced you either have it or you don’t.  No one else is going to do that for you.  There are going to be a lot of sleepless nights and horrible symptoms and everyone else around you is going to doubt that there is something wrong with you.  Shut it out and keep digging until you are convinced you have the right answer, one way or the other.  NO ONE KNOWS YOUR BODY BETTER THAN YOU DO.  NO ONE IS GOING TO FIGURE THIS OUT FOR YOU.  That is not the way the world works.

4.  There is help out there.  Take advantage of it.  Start here:  http://www.cushie.info/

5.  You are so much more than your appearance.

6.  Fatigue CAN be bad enough to stop you in your tracks.

7.  ‘Roid rage is real.  Really, really real.

8.  Sick, fat, tired people can also be the warmest, funniest, kindest friends.

9.  Doctors are human beings and some doctors are better than others, just like other people, just like in any other profession.