Warning: This post may be too honest for you.

Just letting you know right up front that I am going to be way too honest in this post.  If I’m not, I’m going to scream.  And then I’m going to pass a kidney stone. Which is going to cause an adrenal crisis.  Which is going to be put me in the hospital. Which is going to piss off Vanderbilt because I didn’t choose them to do my second surgery.  Which is going to piss off the doctors in Seattle because they don’t like Vanderbilt.  Let’s all just take out our M.D. penises and piss all over the patients.  Because this is what this has become – one big fat pissing contest.

*breathe*

See?  Honest.

This is going to be a ranty, ragey, throw my middle fingers up in the air kind of post.   I am not happy right now.  But you’ve all been warned time and time again, so if you’re still reading, you asked for it.  Actually, on second thought, I’m turning this into a “Things They Don’t Tell You on Google about Cushing’s” blog post.  I’ve learned a lot about my body and how it works the past few weeks, believe you me.   Disgusting horrible things that I thought I’d never learn until I was 80.

But when you’re 30 going on 80, shit happens.  Literally.

When you’re in your pre-surgery meeting, these are some of the things they don’t tell you will happen.  Thank you to my Cushie buddy Maya for helping me list these out and making me laugh when all I really want to do is break down and cry. We’ve determined they should do a Cushing’s reality show on TV since reality shows are all the rage.  They should pay us to go through this.  The things we’ve witnessed and experienced would gross out any participant on Fear Factor.  We’d be millionaires, and then we wouldn’t have to worry about crap like FMLA, and oh, I don’t know, health insurance. You know, things you shouldn’t have to worry about but have to because you’re Amurican.  That’s a whole ‘nother blog.  UGH.

Anyway.   On with the things Google/WebMD/Wikipedia/MayoClinic/WhateverSiteYouGoogle does not tell you about recovery from Cushing’s.

1.  Your options for Halloween costumes will be limited to the following:  Oompa Loompa, Marshmellow Man, a Twinkie, a whale, an M&M, Humpty Dumpty, the Hanes Apple from the underwear commercials, or something very round, like the Earth.  Because you are as big as it.

2.  You will take bathroom acrobatics to a whole new level since your body expands and you can no longer perform functions you once did as a normal-sized person.  You will amaze yourself – and yoga instructors – with the amount of flexibility you can somehow conjure up.  Have you ever tried to use the bathroom while holding yourself up with one arm while reaching around the whole universe (read: your very wide ass) just so a tiny corner of toilet paper can reach the target?  No?  It’s fun. You should try it sometime.  *rolls eyes*

3.  You have to behave in the drug store and not rip open the sitz bath that you desperately want to purchase and sit in in the middle of aisle three.  Plus, you leave one hell of a wake.   *tap tap into microphone* Clean up on aisle three, clean up on aisle three . . .

4.  You cannot take your clothes off in the grocery frozen food section when you have a menopausal hot flash.  It’s frowned upon in the U.S. and it is a misdemeanor.  Sorry.

5.  If you’re lucky enough to get a CSF leak post-surgery, you get the luxury of swallowing fluid down your throat – or shooting it out of your nose 24/7.  I won’t describe what it tastes like.   Let your mind wander.

6.  You will be hairy and hungry on steroids, but not horny.  Need a pituitary gland for that.  But in the meantime, enjoy tweezing and plucking and waxing and shaving while eating a hot dog.  Multi-tasking is key.

7.  Cushing’s will open you up to an entirely new level of bodily humiliation.  You know that dream where you are standing in front of a crowd naked?  Yeah, we live it.

8.  Yes, I’m fat.   No, I did not eat the entire McDonald’s last night for dinner, you asshole.

9.  When you see a skinny girl eating a cheeseburger, you will want to punch her in the face.  At least you can blame the steroids.

10.  You will drink protein shakes formulated for 80 year olds and pop more pills than a geriatric patient.  In other words, you’re starring in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button except you’re nowhere as rich or as good-looking as Brad Pitt.  You’re not even 40, and you’re a geriatric patient. Grunting, groaning, popping pills, and downing Ensure like it’s a jager bomb.  Thumbs up!   At least we don’t have dementia?  (Yet.)

11.  I HATE THE PEEING.  It’s like “Wtf, girl parts?”  You know when dogs fart and look at their butts like “What was that?”  That’s kind of me.  I can’t stop peeing.  I see the little caricature of the stick figure with a skirt on and my bladder is like “WHEEEE!!!! Can we? Can we? Can we?  Can we pplllleeeaaaassseee go pee?”   It’s not like I have a choice. If I don’t go running right then, we’re going to have another cleanup on aisle three.   And then, you think you’re done, and you go to clean up (because that’s one body part you may be lucky enough to actually reach) and you pee on your hand because apparently your bladder and kidneys have found more liquid they think you should pee out.   It’s a never ending fount.  How rude.   At least you get different variations of the pee pee dance when you’re standing over the toilet and trying to drop your pants in time.  I’ve found that my favorite variation is a combination between the Macarena and the Twist.  It depends on which pants I’m wearing at the time.

12.  Your only attire options are leggings and men’s sweatpants.  Don’t even try jeans, unless you have a gun and/or a tub of Ben and Jerry’s around for therapy afterward.  I’ll take some Phish Food, please.

13.  You’re so big and fluffy that you probably float like a bar of Ivory soap.  Maybe I can get a part-time job as a flotation device on an airplane.  ”Here, cling to me, passenger!  I swear I float!”   There’s always a silver lining.

14.  You grow boobs.  I won’t complain about that one.

15.  You will cry over things like warm Dr. Peppers, and the most glorious day of your life will be when a bloody booger the size of Texas comes flying out of your nose.  I’m still waiting for that day, but I’m sure you’ll get a blog about it or at least a Tweet or Facebook post.  I’ll keep the TMI coming.

16.  Things like drainage will excite you, fascinate you,  and disgust you.

17.  You’ll get scar tissue in strange places, and you’ll have to see weird doctors you never knew existed.   You’ll have to have weird subsequent surgeries to fix weird subsequent problems  you never realized were possible, like surgery to fix your sense of taste and smell because scar tissue is going to take them away from you.   I will only agree to this surgery after I’ve lost that 100 pounds I packed on.   I mean, you won’t want to eat the Krispy Kreme donut if you can’t smell or taste it, right?  #logic

18.  Two words: baby wipes.  Oh, and never leave home without Kleenex, hand sanitizer, and twenty bottles of pills.

19.  Your muscles waste away no matter what you do.  It’s not enough that you’re fat.  Let’s take your muscles away, too.  So when you sit down on the sofa, you have to get this little swinging, rolling, running start to heft yourself off of the couch.  Oh, and that’s when you groan like an 80-year old.  It’s awesome.  It really is.

20.  If you have issues with having a big vat of biscuit dough for a stomach, get a cat.  They love the extra cushion. At least mine does.  You should see his eyes cross when he gets to make biscuits on my gut.

In all seriousness, and as Maya said, if we can’t laugh at ourselves we’ll go insane.  We are all we have.  So this is mainly what this is.  I’ve had a very bad, emotional day and I am pissed off as all hell at each and every one of my doctors, and I have to laugh in order to not cry my way straight into an adrenal crisis.  I’m trying to remember they mean well, but I’m also trying not to strangle them, too.

I know as a taper off the steroids, and live my life right, as I’ve always tried to do, that the weight will come off.  And that things will correct. But it’s so hard to see the forest for the trees.  I just see this big triple number staring me in the face, and it’s a hell of a lot of weight to lose, but I know I can do it.  I’m going to do it.

Thanks to Maya for the Facebook chat and for making me laugh my butt off.  I really needed it.   She helped me come up with this TMI list, so blame her.   In a year, I’ll be heading to Colorado to hike up a mountain and scream “#$(#)$* all” at the top of my lungs, perhaps even naked if I’m 100 pounds lighter.   She’s looking forward to it.

Thanks also to Cherish for talking me out of the coconut tree again, meeting me for coffee, and reminding me that life is good, despite all of the crap that it seems to throw our away.   Trinity, too.  BBM was a bad invention and she’s cursing its existence at this point.