Life with Chronic Illness

My BLA is scheduled for September 2nd.  It's real now!  I will finally be trading up - getting rid of Cushing's Disease in exchange for Addison's Disease.  Nothing else too exciting to say about that.  It seems so far away but too soon all at the same time.

Recently I've been wanting to steal every single one of Melissa's blog posts :)  Go check out her blog at Cushing's Moxie - Fighting the Worst Disease You've Never Heard Of

This article made me really sad - the emotional and cognitive symptoms of Cushing's have definitely been some of the hardest for me to deal with.  Academics came easily to me throughout middle and high school, but once I got to college I started having trouble focusing and couldn't seem to wrap my head around complex concepts.  I couldn't study for tests, I felt like I had no memory.  It didn't help that my messed up sleeping pattern made me too tired to go to class some days.  Everyone (myself included) assumed that t…

I had my consults today with the adrenal surgeon and the radiation oncologist.  Both went well, I was preparing myself to have a hard choice with lots to think about, but instead my mind was almost made up for me.  I have been leaning towards having an adrenalectomy but everyone keeps trying to scare me out of it (doctors, family, friends).  I was prepared to give radiation a fair chance but the radiation oncologist basically made a case to have a BLA instead.

He thought it was a very obvious choice given my age and how long I've had to deal with this.  Waiting 3 years for something to MAYBE work while it probably damages the rest of my pituitary seemed like a stupid idea.

I haven't really processed any of this too much yet.  It's overwhelming to think I'm going to FINALLY be done with Cushing's, but at the same time trading it for another lifelong disease.