What Started It All?

I have read a few medical journal articles pointing to the fact that thousands walk around with pituitary tumors with no effects on their daily lives and that a severe trauma can "kick" them in to being active.

A couple of months before I went to the doctor I was starting to have symptoms, ones I didn't even know I had...like high blood pressure. These caused me to lose my disability benefits through work because no one told me about them and attributed them to the accident and related stress.

Anyway, in May 2004 I had been in a head-on car accident where I had some head trauma and neck pain and began to suffer from Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy. RSD is a life-long disease and causes weakness and nerve pain on one side or specific areas of the body; wherever there is trauma caused by an accident or abuse. I still have that weakness as noted in February by my physical therpaist who orginally treated my condition. She noted I would have to have therapy for periods of time for the rest of my life. But that is not where it began...the therapy that is...

Regardless, tomorrow I go to a physician because of the car accident who may be able to tell me if it caused my Cushing's to start being active. Which means, I could have went my entire life without issue and the threat of losing everything I have worked toward? I guess it would make a good case and help me get more money in that case but I will never regain what I have lost to Cushing's.

Tomorrow I may find out what started it all and that scares me but it supports medical evidence and that of my friends that have Cushing's. Many of us have had some sort of head accident or abuse that caused us to go into severe stress and kick our pituitary and adrenal glands into overdrive where they stayed and gave us Cushing's. Part of me wants to believe it was the accident that caused me to suffer such pain and loss but the other part knows it would cause others to go undiagnosed who have high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity around the middle. I would hate for that to be the case and be responsible for so many to go untreated. Granted my life is not the same and I have problems that will last a life time but the good thing is I have my life and a second chance at doing it right, or for the right reasons.

Cushing's has given me some things I would have never gotten if had not experienced this disease and its life long effects. I would never have met a wonderful man, realized that I had gotten caught up in my career and was missing out on life, a spirituality that does not have to be based on religion and a new appreciation for who I am. I always knew who I was but when you come close to losing your life you really know who you are...

Do I want to think it all happened because of a car accident? I'm not sure but maybe tomorrow I will get closer to an answer as to why this disease came to me and changed my life and the lives of others...