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-confi
dence, 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!!!
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Most of you know that I am NOT a runner. Every year I was in elementary school we had Little Olympics. Everyone had to participate and I always had a great time...until I had to run the 100 yard dash. I placed 5th every year. And no, that's not 5th out of my class of 74. That's 5th out of the 4 other people that I had to run against. Sad. I am NO Michael Johnson. In fact he could probably run a mile before I even finished 100 yards.I have loved sports all my life, but was always the slowest girl on the basketball court...well almost. In college, I did run 3 miles a day at 6 am, but I still wasn't great at it. We also played softball in college with the greatest team ever called the Black Sox...I was on 3rd base, my friend Kyle hit a home run and we will say that he almost lapped me by the time I got to home. You get the point. I may like to run...it's a good stress reliever for me, but I am definitely the turtle, not the hare. You might ask why I placed running in a marathon on my bucket list. Well, I honestly still cannot answer that question. But I am. This weekend I will be running in the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon...the shortest distance of the relay I might add. But I am doing it, even if I'm not fast, even if I don't have perfect form, even if I want to quit while I'm running it. I'm going to run the entire distance. I am ready and I am ready to mark it off my bucket list. You can do anything that you put your mind to, even if you aren't good at it. And while I am running I will remember the people that I have lost that have been so important in my life and I will remember the 168 people that lost their lives 15 years ago in a terrible tragedy. They live on in our hearts and that is why we run...
