Cushie Crusader, that’s me…and many others. I think we all have an opportunity to be Cushie Crusaders every time we tell others about our illness, share our story on or offline, post about our struggles – and triumphs – on the message boards, write blog posts in this Cushing’s Awareness Challenge…
When we have prayer time in my handbell practice or choir rehearsals I try to mention issues that are going on in the community. People are slowly but steadily learning about Cushing’s week by week.
A piano student mentioned that a person in a group she is in has Cushing’s, a non-Cushie friend mentioned last week that she had gone with a friend of hers to an endo appointment to discuss Cushing’s.
Get out there and talk about Cushing’s. Let people know that it’s not just for dogs and horses (and sometimes ferrets)!
Here’s something I had made for Sue with SuperSue on the back. Picture your name instead:
In case you haven’t guessed it, my cause seems to be Cushing’s Awareness. I never really decided to devote a good portion of my life to Cushing’s, it just fell into my lap, so to speak – or my laptop.
I had been going along, raising my son, keeping the home-fires burning, trying to forget all about Cushing’s. My surgery had been a success, I was in remission, some of the symptoms were still with me but they were more of an annoyance than anything.
I started being a little active online, especially on AOL. At this time, I started going through real-menopause, not the fake one I had gone through with Cushing’s. Surprisingly, AOL had a group for Cushing’s people but it wasn’t very active.
What was active, though, was a group called Power Surge (as in I’m not having a hot flash, I’m having a Power Surge). I became more and more active in that group, helping out where I could, posting a few links here and there.
Around this time I decided to go back to college to get a degree in computer programming but I also wanted a basic website for my piano studio. I filled out a form on Power Surge to request a quote for building one. I was very surprised when Power Surge founder/webmaster Alice AKA Dearest called me. I was so nervous. I’m not a good phone person under the best of circumstances and here she was, calling me!
I had to go to my computer class but I said I’d call when I got back. Alice showed me how to do some basic web stuff and I was off. As these things go, the O’Connor Music Studio page grew and grew… And so did the friendship between Alice and me. Alice turned out to be the sister I never had, most likely better than any sister I could have had.
In July of 2000, Alice and I were wondering why there weren’t many support groups online (OR off!) for Cushing’s. This thought percolated through my mind for a few hours and I realized that maybe this was my calling. Maybe I should be the one to start a network of support for other “Cushies” to help them empower themselves.
I wanted to educate others about the awful disease that took doctors years of my life to diagnose and treat – even after I gave them the information to diagnose me. I didn’t want anyone else to suffer for years like I did. I wanted doctors to pay more attention to Cushing’s disease.
The first website (http://www.cushings-help.com) went “live” July 21, 2000. It was just a single page of information. The message boards began September 30, 2000 with a simple message board which then led to a larger one, and a larger. Today, in 2012, we have over 8 thousand members. Some “rare disease”!
This is on the intro page of Cushing’s Help…
I would like to give abundant thanks Alice Lotto Stamm, founder of Power Surge, premier site for midlife women, for giving me the idea to start this site, encouraging me to learn HTML and web design, giving us the use of our first spiffy chatroom, as well as giving me the confidence that I could do this. Alice has helped so many women with Power Surge. I hope that I can emulate her to a smaller degree with this site.
Thanks so much for all your help and support, Alice!
I first saw a similar image to this one with the saying Life. Be in it at a recreation center when my son was little. At the time, it was “Duh, of course I’m in it”.
The original image was one a couple males, a couple females and a dog walking/running. No folks in wheelchairs, no older folks and certainly no zebras.
It would be nice to have everyone out there walking or running but that’s not real life, at least in the Cushie world. It’s been a long time since I’ve really been In My Life – maybe it’s time to get back.
A dear friend who has not one, but two forms of cancer is travelling throughout Europe for the first time after her husband’s death wrote:
Some final words before I turn in for the night. If there is a spark of desire within you to do something which is not contrary to God’s Holy Law, find a way to make it happen. All things are possible and blessings abound for those who love Him. Life is such an adventure. Don’t be a spectator – live every single moment for Him and with Him.
Somedays, it’s hard even getting up in the morning but I’m trying. I’ve signed up for Water Aerobics for people with Arthritis and I’m actually going to class twice a week, I’ve applied for a new part-time job, bought plane tickets for a trip.
This is the one and only life I’ll ever have and I want to make the most of it!
So often during the diagnosis phase of Cushing’s I felt like this picture – I was walking alone to an unknown place with an unknown future.
My diagnosis was pre-Internet which meant that any information had to be gotten from libraries, bookstores, magazines…or doctors. In 1983 to 1986 I knew something was terribly wrong but there was no backup from doctors, family or friends. My first hope was from a magazine (see Day Six)
After I got that first glimmer of hope, it was off to the library to try to understand medical texts. I would pick out words I did understand – and it was more words each trip. All my research led me to Cushing’s.
Unfortunately, the research didn’t lead me to doctors who could help for over 3 years. That contributed greatly to the loneliness. If a Doctor says you’re not sick, friends and family are going to believe the doctor, not you. After all, he’s the one trained to know what’s wrong, or find out.
I was so grateful when I finally got to NIH and was so nice not to be alone with this mystery illness. I was also surprised to learn, awful as I felt, there were Cushies much worse off than I was.
I am so glad that the Internet is here now helping us all know that we’re not alone anymore.
Mary, I am delighted to see you here. Cushings – because of the persistent central obesity caused by (we know now) the lack of growth hormone plus the hypothyroidism I was diagnosed with (but for which treatment was ineffective due to my lack of cortisol) – was one of the things I considered as an explanation for my symptoms. Your site was enormously educational and helpful to me in figuring out what might be happening to me. Those other patient testimonies I referred to? Many of them were the bios you posted. Thank you so much for commenting. I am so grateful for the support and encouragement. I really hope that my experiences will help other undiagnosed hypopituitary patients find their way to a diagnosis. I often used to dream that one day I’d get to say to others what was so often said to me: don’t give up, there will be an answer. I kept believing in myself because people I hadn’t even met believed in me. Now I am finally here and I do hope my story will help others to have faith in their own instincts.
It’s Sunday again, so this is another semi-religious post so feel free to skip it 🙂
I’m sure that many would think that this is a semi-odd choice for all-time favorite hymn.
My dad was a Congregational (now United Church of Christ) minister so I was pretty regular in church attendance in my younger years.
Some Sunday evenings, he would preach on a circuit and I’d go with him to some of these tiny churches. The people there, mostly older folks, liked the old hymns best – Fanny Crosby and so on.
So, some of my “favorite hymns” are those that I sang when I was out with my Dad. Fond memories from long ago.
In 1986 I was finally diagnosed with Cushing’s after struggling with doctors and trying to get them to test for about 5 years. I was going to go into the NIH (National Institutes of Health) in Bethesda, MD for final testing and then-experimental pituitary surgery.
I was terrified and sure that I wouldn’t survive the surgery.
Somehow, I found a 3-tape set of Readers Digest Hymns and songs of Inspiration and ordered that. The set came just before I went to NIH and I had it with me.
At NIH I set up a daily “routine” of sorts and listening to these tapes was a very important part of my day and helped me get through the ordeal of more testing, surgery, post-op and more.
When I had my kidney cancer surgery, the tapes were long broken, but I had replaced all the songs – this time on my iPod.
Abide With Me was on this tape set and it remains a favorite to this day. Whenever we have an opportunity in church to pick a favorite, my hand always shoots up and I request page 700. When someone in one of my handbell groups moves away, we always sign a hymnbook and give it to them. I sign page 700.
I think that many people would probably think that this hymn is depressing. Maybe it is but to me it signifies times in my life when I thought I might die and I was so comforted by the sentiments here.
This hymn is often associated with funeral services and has given hope and comfort to so many over the years – me included.
If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.
~John 15:7
Abide With Me
Words: Henry F. Lyte, 1847.
Music: Eventide, William H. Monk, 1861. Mrs. Monk described the setting:
This tune was written at a time of great sorrow—when together we watched, as we did daily, the glories of the setting sun. As the last golden ray faded, he took some paper and penciled that tune which has gone all over the earth.
Lyte was inspired to write this hymn as he was dying of tuberculosis; he finished it the Sunday he gave his farewell sermon in the parish he served so many years. The next day, he left for Italy to regain his health. He didn’t make it, though—he died in Nice, France, three weeks after writing these words. Here is an excerpt from his farewell sermon:
O brethren, I stand here among you today, as alive from the dead, if I may hope to impress it upon you, and induce you to prepare for that solemn hour which must come to all, by a timely acquaintance with the death of Christ.
For over a century, the bells of his church at All Saints in Lower Brixham, Devonshire, have rung out “Abide with Me” daily. The hymn was sung at the wedding of King George VI, at the wedding of his daughter, the future Queen Elizabeth II, and at the funeral of Nobel peace prize winner Mother Teresa of Calcutta in1997.
Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.
Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;
Earth’s joys grow dim; its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.
Not a brief glance I beg, a passing word;
But as Thou dwell’st with Thy disciples, Lord,
Familiar, condescending, patient, free.
Come not to sojourn, but abide with me.
Come not in terrors, as the King of kings,
But kind and good, with healing in Thy wings,
Tears for all woes, a heart for every plea—
Come, Friend of sinners, and thus bide with me.
Thou on my head in early youth didst smile;
And, though rebellious and perverse meanwhile,
Thou hast not left me, oft as I left Thee,
On to the close, O Lord, abide with me.
I need Thy presence every passing hour.
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s power?
Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee;
Cushie Crusader, that’s me…and many others. I think we all have an opportunity to be Cushie Crusaders every time we tell others about our illness, share our story on or offline, post about our struggles – and triumphs – on the message boards, write blog posts in this Cushing’s Awareness Challenge…
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