Cashmere and Yoga Pants

Isn't that what every girl wants to wear...fat chance. It's been about a month and a half now since all my normal clothes have ceased to fit and while all my friends and family say it must be great to sit around all day in clothes of comfort I beg to differ. The operative words here are sit and comfort. While there were days in my past I would have begged to also have such days of leisure these clothes of comfort are not necessarily providing that for which they were designed.

Let's first address the comfort factor. These clothes are stretching to fit around a body that is no longer mine and is one of some woman who has been impregnated by an alien. In the past month my waist has grown such that I look as though I am five months pregnant. Kind of funny for a girl who swore she never wanted children - now I know that if this is what I look and feel like I want nothing to do with it. Now even though I only look five months I have the stomach pains and problems positioning myself as that of a woman who is about a month overdue. Yes, my belly has no room for food and often it would like to return upon the trail that it has traveled; there is little to no room for my lungs to expand and I often find myself having to catch my breath after stating a sentence or two taking away any pleasure I had of talking on the phone.

As with most Cushing's patients, I thought I was going insane and had possessed the body of a real, live couch potato. Yes, a living, breathing potato. That could be the only reason I no longer had the muscles of a runner and avid athlete to pull myself off the toilet and out of bed. And did I mention that I now walk like a 90-year-old woman. The only difference is that I still know I have to urinate and attempt to get up and go the six or seven times a night as a result of the cortisol running through my body. No worries though, I don't sleep more than 3 hours a day anyway.

So on Friday as a sanity check I went to a fabulous rheumatologist to check my various joint, muscle and bone aches and pains. Let me just say that I thought when pain got to a certain point you were supposed to pass out - yeah right! I say fabulous because she spent an hour with me and even went out of the room to call my Internal Med doc to make sure I had all my marbles. I do have them just in case you were wondering. Well the good news is I have no disease that she would treat but after speaking with my IM she agrees that I have Cushing's disease and can't understand why the endocrinologists aren't seeing it. She did "pad" it by saying she'd only see people like me in a textbook but it was very clear I had a lot of pain and no comfort despite the cashmere and yoga pants.

Okay the second point of this is the sitting around. I've been sitting here since December officially and I'm bored! I guess that's part of why I'm doing this to entertain myself and maybe someone in the vast internet world will find me entertaining as well - who knows as a good friend told me. Anyway, I started being robbed of my life and started sitting here technically in September when I could no longer workout since I began have very bad muscle tremors and spasms that would send me flying off the treadmills - gyms don't like that very much. And then I got my first kidney infection and docs don't like it much when you exercise too much with those either since you can become very dehydrated. In October I tried to go apple picking and basically passed out in the field since the activity seemed to be too much - go figure. The few blocks I walked to work in New York City also began taking their toll and my feet soon began to swell outside of their shoes in November. Damn, I just bought those shoes for my new job and they were nice! By the end of November I had passed out literally at work and told to go home and since then I have been sitting here. In the past I would pick up a book and read but these days I can barely remember the last couple of pages I read, read a recipe, write a few sentences while remembering what it is that I wanted to say...you should see the notes I need to write this...so doing a lot of the things I would do while "sitting" here in my past life are no longer enjoyable to the degree they once were and are now a struggle. I have read on several websites and medical journals that cortisol can do funny things to the mind like this. Other patient testimonials have also told me that this is true. I have added a link to a Cushing's website that I find the most useful and maybe you'll find it interesting as well.

Off to find comfort and sit here...