He's BAAAACCCCKKKKKK!!!!!
Well, not really. Not as bad as before surely (and don't call me Shirley...). But Shrek is definitely on the rise.
Let me back up a bit. My left hip is doing FANTASTIC! Couldn't ask for anything better. Couldn't expect better results. It's only been a little over two weeks since being filleted like your favorite fish, having a large bone shaved down, a new part pounded in and glued into it, and everything around it kind of put back in place and then sewed (stapled actually) closed. I'm motoring around without my fabulous pink cane for the most part and returning to my usual activities and chores. I do still have some mobility issues - I can't bend much past 90 degrees on the left leg at the hip. So that means things like painting baseboard trim will have to wait. But for the most part I can kind of work around it by throwing my left leg out behind me when I bend over. Again, being able to work out and stay active right up to the surgery is serving me well right now. It wasn't fun, but in the long run I'm so much better off. My incision is still healing and my hip is still a bit swollen. But I don't have nearly the same level of bruising and swelling that I had two years ago. But without those nasty staples in there I'll be healed up in no time.
With that being said, now we're whiplashing back to Cushing's. It's taken a back seat to the hip issues over the past couple of months because my cortisol level took a dump for some mysterious reason and my pain level in the left hip was hitting Mount Everest highs. Now that Muffy is well out of my system, my cortisol level is back off the charts high. This means I have been waking up every day looking for even the smallest symptom to have appeared overnight. Ready to enter the bathroom and find Shrek staring back at me in the mirror. No, in reality it doesn't work like that. But once you lived through the Cushing's transformation into Jabba the Hut once, it's hard not to expect to see it again behind every turn and in every mirror. The bright side is that I can look back to a little over two years ago when my initial Cushing's symptoms started to appear. I didn't realize what was happening at the time, but now I see how gradual and insidious the onset was. But still, I expect to see Shrek every morning. Go figure...
The only symptoms that I see coming back now is a large belly and disrupted sleep patterns. Nothing that anyone but me would notice. And Keith. When I'm playing spider solitaire at 3am on my phone it's kind of noticeable to the person with whom I share a bed. My pants still fit so the belly thing is more of an annoyance than a problem.
My gaggle has decided to start me on a different medication. It's called metyrapone. We're calling it Metty. This drug works completely differently than Muffy. Metty should work on reducing my cortisol production where Muffy just blocked the reception of all the excess cortisol I was producing. I say should because, well, this is ME we're talking about and nothing ever really works exactly the way it's supposed to. I will be doing weekly blood tests here in Kansas City at my local gaggle member's office (Dr. Laney) to document what my cortisol is doing and that my other bodily functions are not totally flipping out in response. Dr. Nieman (head Gaggle member and all around world wide Cushing's Queen) at the NIH has already petitioned the drug company for a supply of Metty for my use and it has been granted. Fed-x is in possession of it as we speak and I'll be starting to take it as soon as they deliver it to my front doorstep.
So there you have it my dear readers. My life continues to spin in the most obtuse of ways. But life is good, my ass is free of staples, and our 18th wedding anniversary is coming up in a couple of weeks. Who could really ask for anything more than that??? Go forth and smile. Appreciate everything.
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