Relection & new testing.

I can't believe I actually posted a picture of my current self on the internet that wasn't from far away or some angle that made me look about 40 pounds lighter. But I'm tired of hiding. I'm sick, I don't feel good and it doesn't have to be a secret. It's hard to believe that the picture on the left was on a hike I took because I felt like I had started to gain weight. Little did I know that five years later I'd be that picture on the right. I am ashamed. I feel like I am a failure. Yes, it may sound vain. But it's true. I never felt the need to be a size 2, but I did always want to look like I took pride in my appearance. I wanted to look and feel happy. Now I feel like I look bloated and uncomfortable all the time. Which makes sense, since I am.

I admit, I had just sort of given up. The last two years were so trying that it was too hard to fight and to keep going to doctors and having them sigh at me. The weight gain didn't help. Instead of just telling me, "you have IBS, you need to stress less." Now I also get, "You have IBS, you need to stress less, and diet & exercise." No, I am not a saint when it comes to perfect eating, but I'm not downing a Big Mac for all my meals or something. Not enough to warrant a fifty to sixty pound weight gain.

So this all came to the surface again on a doctor's visit last week. Dr. S, was a new doctor that I had decided I need to see to try to get my periods regulated. I only have one to two periods a year, and I knew it was funky. I also knew, that sometime in the next two to three years I'd like to possibly have a little Colin/Allison running around, so I better get started looking into it now. She did a full physical and asked me a myriad of questions, and then put on a concerned face and said, "Allison, have you ever been tested for Cushing's?" I was somewhat familiar with it, from back in the early days of feeling sick and doing an intense amount of internet reading. And thus, the journey to figure out what was wrong was reopened.

So next week, I have two new tests I have to do:
24-hour urinary free cortisol level. In this test, a person’s urine is collected several times over a 24-hour period and tested for cortisol. Levels higher than 50 to 100 micrograms a day for an adult suggest Cushing’s syndrome. The normal upper limit varies in different laboratories, depending on which measurement technique is used.
Low-dose overnight method -- you will get 1 mg of dexamethasone at 11 p.m., and a health care provider will draw your blood at 8 a.m. for a cortisol measurement (ie: more blood work)

I am more than a little nervous. The symptoms lined up eerily close when I looked into it. I am also terrified because the #1 treatment seems to be surgery. Me, the kid who has successfully avoided getting her wisdom teeth out for ten years because she is afraid of going under!  Also intimidating is that although surgery works for a fair number of people, it's a long slow battle. The reoccurance of a tumor is unsettingly high.

I went on some forums and everyone talks about hearing the symptoms and feeling like it's them. It's also scary because so many of them got false negatives, they write about insisting to retest, and they eventually do get diagnosed. How do you know how pushy to be? I hate being pushy with doctors, I feel like the crazy patient. But I guess all of this just depends on the results next week.