Columns

Barriers are obstacles that get in our way as we pursue a goal. These barriers sometimes are out of our control, but sometimes we allow them to stop our progress. My journey with Cushing’s disease had a few self-inflicted barriers I needed to overcome to achieve my goals. Until…

Cushing’s disease has many ways of lowering our self-esteem, and self-care is crucial for building our confidence back up. I experienced symptoms such as weight gain, purple striae, moon face, a buffalo hump, and even acne. All of these issues combined meant I just wasn’t feeling beautiful…

A quote that has circulated online notes, “Healing takes time, and you walk that path in your own way.” While most of us probably would agree that this is true, it’s easy to forget that the process doesn’t always look pretty, and it takes much longer than anticipated.

After having transsphenoidal pituitary surgery to remove a pituitary tumor in November 2015, followed by a gamma knife procedure a month later to remove the residual part of the tumor, I was closely monitored by my neurosurgeon. For the next three years, I would routinely meet with…

I always find myself in nightmares I struggle to wake from. Sometimes I’m running away from the make-believe shadows I create in my subconscious, and other times I’m hiding from a maleficent being that somehow finds me in every corner of my mind. These dreams always end with iPhone alarms…

In 2018, I decided to stop using testosterone replacement therapy due to the side effects I was experiencing, most notably, increasingly aggressive behavior. One concern I had at the time, though, was that ending the treatment would cause an increase in Cushing’s-related symptoms, because other hormones might be…

Recently, I saw a tweet that responded to the old saying “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” by urging people to “stop glorifying trauma as a life lesson we’ve been blessed with.” This challenged me. If you’ve been reading my columns, you know I often talk about how…

In the Cushing’s disease and pituitary tumor community, families, friends, and significant others sometimes provide limited support, if any, to patients. There are many reasons for this, such as a patient’s lack of physical symptoms or even a misdiagnosis. But the main issue, I believe, is…

Diagnosing Cushing’s disease is a tough task, and I’m sure anyone who has gone through the diagnostic process can attest to that. Cushing’s can be cunning because its symptoms can appear as though they’re separate issues, rather than part of a bigger problem. Unfortunately, many social media…

My grandma always said there were two things that mattered in life: God, and finding a rich husband. While I don’t necessarily agree with the latter, religion certainly was a core element of my life — until I was diagnosed with Cushing’s disease. I grew up in a…