Why I Celebrate Today!!

Today is a day that I love to CELEBRATE!! I almost bet that anyone I ask, besides close friends and family, wouldn't even know what I am celebrating today. Today I am spreading awareness for Cushing's Disease Awareness Day. What is Cushing's Disease you ask? Well, you will have to look it up. I won't go into details because it took 3 very long years for me to tell anyone all of my symptoms, but I had Cushing's Disease and I lived with it for years not knowing that I had it. I can't say that I didn't know anything was wrong, because I definitely knew something was wrong with me. However, doctors didn't believe me and thought that I was lying (literally!) when I said that a ran 3 miles EVERY SINGLE DAY, ATE NOTHING and still GAINED 10 pounds in a month. Not just one month...but month after month, after month. It was a time when I would look in the mirror and not even see myself because I looked so different from what I had in recent years...even months. I had a moon face...not just the cute chubby face that I've always had. My face was gigantic and my whole body was completely swollen. It was a time when I didn't believe in myself, didn't have any self-confidence, didn't believe that I was worth anything. It destroyed a lot of myself that I am working so hard to get back and I can't explain how it even left, but it did. I didn't understand it then and I don't understand it now, but I do know that I survived after having brain surgery on January 3rd, 2008 to remove a pituitary tumor in my brain. How it got there I will never know, but I know that it would have never been found had it not been for Dr. Harvey Cushing who discovered this rare and deadly disease in 1912. Dr. Cushing is widely regarded as the greatest neurosurgeon of the 20th century and often called the "father of modern neurosurgery". Just a few of Dr. Cushing's accomplishments include: considerably improving the survival of patients after difficult brain operations for intracranial tumors, using x-rays to diagnose brain tumors, using electrical stimuli for study of the human sensory cortex and he played a pivotal role in development of the Bovie electrocautery tool with W.T. Bovie, a physicist. He was the world's leading teacher of neurosurgeons in the first decades of the 20th century. He was one SMART man! Although he passed away on October 7, 1939 he made a huge difference in my life without ever knowing it - someone else may have discovered Cushing's Disease before now, but it may have not been as advanced and there may not have been a solution to this disease. My story may have ended very differently, but it didn't. Today is Dr. Harvey Cushing's birthday and that is why we celebrate Cushing's Disease Awareness on this day. They say that Cushing's Disease is a rare disease and only happens to 10 in every one million people...however, it happened to me and I have found that it is not as rare as everyone might think. There is a group of Cushing's Disease fighters in this world and we are spreading the awareness. My prayer is that one day, the response of people won't be - What is that?!? It will be - you can beat Cushing's Disease! I am thankful that I had God to lead me through this time. I am thankful that I had wonderful friends and family to help me fight Cushing's Disease. I am thankful that today I can celebrate instead of my body fighting against Cushing's Disease. I am thankful that today I am living and I am thankful that I can say I survived Cushing's Disease. Celebrate Cushing's Disease Awareness with me and tell everyone to celebrate with us!!

(To the left are some pictures to show you what Cushing Disease does on the outside...not to mention inside your body! The first picture of me is before I was sick, the second is when I was sick...and the third picture is NOW!! I have to this point lost 35 pounds after my surgery. Still have a ways to go, but I am getting there slowly - the healthy way with diet and exercise and I feel so much better already!!!)