Always look on the bright side of life (or your adrenals)

‘What?’ I hear you say, ‘You mean to tell me that there is a funny side to this horrible disease?’  Well let me tell you now, if I don’t see my own funny side; I shall be driven to curling up in a ball and chatting to my own adrenal glands to beg them for mercy – whoever ‘Mercy’ may be.

This blog is to try and find some humour out of what is happening to me and who knows, if it helps you find some humour for yourself then it won’t have been in vain.  All of the following stories are true and have been said to me but descriptions have been changed to protect the innocent and in some cases – daft.

Are you drunk Samantha?

I am not a big drinker, don’t get me wrong I used to be a party girl but now one glass of wine and I am tipsy so one glass is where I tend to stop.

However, when I get low on cortisol one of the most noticeable symptoms is slow speech and an inability to ‘problem solve’ or string a coherent sentence together.  The lower my cortisol gets, the more confused I get and the slower my speech gets.

‘Oh my god, you sound drunk, have you been drinking?’ someone asked me the other week.

Was there any point in saying no that I had not been drinking?  Probably not but I tried anyway and stumbled and fumbled around in my own mind to sort out the words I would need to in order to form that sentence.

The trouble is with low cortisol, you can’t find the right words when you need them so you have to improvise without sounding more confused than you already do.  It’s a bit like Scrabble really, only it’s ‘Scrabble inside your head’ and you rarely win the game.

‘Are you? are you drunk?’ the person repeated.

‘No I am not’ I replied, at least that is what I think I said but it may well have come out as ‘No drunk not, I am’ or some equal pile of mixed up words.  But never mind, the right words were probably there, just in the wrong order so who’s arguing? Not me that’s for sure.

Phoning the health direct line for medical advice

Now that is a laugh a minute let me tell you.  I had to call them the other week as I was very unwell after my synacthen test and could barely get off the sofa.  I do need to emphasize that it was not a 000 call to go to ED but I did need sound medical advice and quickly.  I had started off with the number to call a doctor out who then referred me to the health direct number.

I was put through to a very nice nurse who took all of my details down and decided what to do from there.

I gave her the run down and what happened and told her that I felt weak, shaky, dizzy, tummy cramps and had not pulled myself together since my synacthen test the other day and did I need to take extra steroids as I wasn’t quite sure what to do (Endo didn’t want me just stress dosing for anything which is fair enough).

‘Do you have a droopy face?’ the nurse asked on the other end (she was following protocol and going through the check list so I am in no way berating her for it as she was very nice).

I pondered for a moment, did I have a droopy face?  I don’t know, some days I wake up looking like a well bred boxer but wasn’t sure about droopy.  Grabbing my jowls and trying to tug them down, I tried to work out if I was droopy – I wasn’t.

‘No I haven’t got a droopy face’ I replied, ‘I have adrenal insufficiency and all I need to know is do I stress dose?’

‘Do you have chest pain?’ the nurse asked.

‘No, I don’t have chest pain’ I replied patiently – with my slow speech that probably made her want to ask me about my (non) droopy face again.

‘Have you been drinking?’ the nurse asked.

Resisting the urge to tell her that I had quaffed a cup of Yorkshire Tea in the morning but secretly pretended that it was brandy, I sighed ‘No, I have not been drinking’.

‘Please, can you just advise me what to do and if I need to stress dose as I feel very weak and shaky and I can’t really go far from the sofa, that is all I need to know’ I said to her.

‘Do you have left sided weakness?’ the nurse persisted as she went through the check list.

‘No, I am weak all over’ I said fretfully.

‘Do you have any pains in your head?’ she asked.

Now I had pains in many places but thought it best not to go there.

Anyway, the questions continued and I answered as best as I could and once the nurse had finished she entered the information on the computer for a few seconds while I patiently waited.

‘Right, the results say that you should consult your doctor within 12 hours’ she said firmly, ‘Can you make an appointment tomorrow morning?’

‘It is Sunday tomorrow, my GP is closed’ I sighed.  Sweet mother of god I was going to cry, except that I didn’t have the energy and I don’t produce tears as I have Sjogrens syndrome.

‘There might be an emergency doctor open near you now’ the nurse suggested.

‘I can’t drive, it’s 10pm at night and I seriously can’t get off the sofa, can you check with someone if I need to stress dose?’ I pleaded.

‘I am sorry I can’t answer that but the computer said you need to see a doctor within 12 hours so you could try the surgeries near you tomorrow, I can give you a list if you like’ the nurse suggested in a hopeful voice.

Having visions of the UK comedy program ‘Little Britain’, I could imagine her saying ‘Computer says no’.  I stopped myself from laughing and just replied that yes I would go to the doctor tomorrow and then secretly wondered if it would be safer to take a steroid now or just become all religious and pray that my adrenal glands would behave and hold out for my morning dose.

Anyway, I could not leave the sofa and that was where I remained until my husband got home and I was able to go to bed to ponder on if I had a droopy face or not and whether I should make a suggestion to Health Direct to include adrenal insufficiency on their check list.

Girls’ stuff – please skip this bit if you are an easily embarrassed male

Sometimes, just sometimes with adrenal insufficiency we ladies get issues ‘down there’ and require cream to make it better.

I walked into the chemist a couple of weeks ago to ask for some special cream and the chemist lady did not speak very good English.

‘Do you have this cream?’ I asked her and then said the name of the product.

The lady looked confused and then nodded firmly and led me to one section and after a few seconds of hunting around and running her finger alongside each shelf, she grabbed a box and triumphantly held it up.

‘Here you are, this should help’ she nodded and showed me a packet of mosquito repellent wipes.

Not knowing whether to laugh or cry, or call Health Direct for the suggested assault on my ‘lady-garden’, I spluttered ‘Are you serious?  that isn’t it, this is the cream I need’ and I repeated the name again.

‘This will fix it’ she repeated and tried to hand me the 90% DEET repellent wipes.

By now I was horrified and had even began to doubt myself and stared again at the wipes and wondered if there was some miracle ingredient in the wipes that could help ‘down below’.

‘I don’t get mosquito bites down there thank you, don’t worry, I shall try somewhere else’ I muttered. Thanking her for her help, I left her standing there clutching the wipes wondering where it had all gone wrong.

My ‘lady-garden’ had a lucky escape, I mean those bastards would have taken the skin off – can you imagine that, I mean CAN YOU IMAGINE!!!!!

I left with no cream and then ventured into the next pharmacy with high hopes that someone would be able to help me without trying to burn my vagina off with DEET.

The next pharmacy

‘Hello, can I help you?’ the assistant asked.

‘Yes, do you have this cream?’ I whispered to her discreetly, using my finest Queens English accent.

Set the scene – the chemist was busy, like packed busy – full of people type of busy and the word of the day was not discretion.  An old lady that was asking for everything to be repeated to her, suddenly found her hearing when she heard the word ‘thrush’.

‘Oh if it is for thrush and all that kind of stuff, then it is over there!’ she said loudly and then demonstrated to the aisle that virtually screamed ‘female embarrassment’ in a loud voice.

I found what I wanted and sloped off to the checkout and spotting some Glucogel lollies in a bag by the check out, I threw some into my basket with the cream and waited my turn to pay.

The assistant lifted up the box of cream and studied it briefly, I was almost tempted to ask her if she had tried it before but thought better of it.  Besides, I was starting to feel hypoglycemic and was staring at my back of Glucogel like a starving person because if I didn’t get some in my belly soon I would start sweating like Tony Abbott in a parliamentary debate.

And that brings me to my next issue – blood sugar.

Why don’t you have a banana……

I swear to god if anyone else suggests me eating a banana I am going to go into banana rage and smack them round the face with it and place the skin on their head like a yellow octopus.

Like many people with this disease, I suffer from blood sugar issues and without feeling any hunger or without any warning, I can go hypoglycemic very quickly.  I have to carry glucose tablets in my car and frequently have to eat a few before doing certain activities.

‘Why don’t you have a banana?’ someone asked me one day, ‘It’s far better for you’.

My answer to that is that Glucogel lollies shove my sugar levels up far quicker than a banana.

Besides, bananas tend to go brown and mouldy in the car and can’t be kept in the glove compartment for emergencies and if I am going to go hypo then you can keep your bananas, I want Glucogel and lots of them.

You do know that salt is bad for you right….

No, really?  I never knew that.

‘Oh my god, don’t you put a lot of salt on your food’ people have said to me.

Salt to me is like Danny and Sandy from the movie ‘Grease’ – we just ‘go’ together and at certain times of the day, salt is my best friend.

I have been in cafes where I have poured salt on my food and have had shocked looks from people which makes me want to pour even more salt and make a salt mountain on my food and stick a flag in the top of it saying that I have climbed it and survived to tell the tale.

So when you ask me if I know that salt is bad for me, please forgive me if I turn the entire salt dispenser up in the air and pour it directly in my mouth just to prove a point, although I may just vomit afterwards to spite myself.

Nose like a beagle dog

I am convinced that I have the scenting abilities of a beagle as my sense of smell is so hypersensitive.  I am quite surprised that HM Customs haven’t contacted me to sniff bags at Perth airport, no really they should consider me as I would be very good and would not be averse to wearing a dog harness to do it.

This smell sensitivity can pose a problem with certain types of food as I clutch my nose and try not to gag because someone at work is heating up their lunch.  It is very hard to smile and talk to people when you are holding your breath and trying to convince yourself that their food is not toxic and that chicken and broccoli is a nice healthy lunch and not the poison that your snout thinks it is.

I have been known to hold my breath for a considerable time to get away from people eating their food so that I don’t have to smell it while inwardly wishing that I could catch a bad cold so that my nose would block up and I wouldn’t find their curry/broccoli/lasagna quite so offensive.

We have gone to war, no really we have, I am sure of it

Whilst other people ignore the sound of a plane flying over the house or enjoy the loud sounds of a war movie, my body in fact thinks it is going to war and my adrenal glands yell out ‘we are all going to die – right now!’

‘Can you turn the TV down?’ I plead with my husband who has the volume turned down to the point he can barely hear it.  But I can hear it and those guns and bombs are gonna kill us, my adrenals say so and they don’t lie – do they?

We had a fire drill at work the other week and my head knew it wasn’t real but once again my adrenals decided to be naughty and misbehave and convince my body that we had gone to war with the Martians, which of course took me a couple of days to recover from it.

This is a huge worry for me as my body thinks it is constantly under attack and I am wondering if I should dress up as a soldier when I go out so that I am prepared for battle.

Can you imagine that happening in a shop, a fire alarm goes off and everyone is calm as you like and I am wearing army greens while yelling ‘Save yourselves and your families!’  It’s not funny really, well I guess it could be if I ended up hiding under the ‘feminine hygiene’ section of the pharmacy taking shelter next to ‘those special creams for ladies’.

You have joined the Nana club

I have turned down or cancelled so many plans because I have used up all my spoons (The Spoon Theory) and not just used up my spoons, but probably taken some out of the cupboard in a desperate bid to make it until the end of the day.

I don’t like myself for it either and mentally tell myself off for falling asleep on the sofa while my friends are out living their life and I sleep away mine.

Plans can change on the very morning that they are mean to happen.  It starts off with a battle between my mind and my sofa and goes something like this:

‘Come on Samantha, let’s get going so we can drive to the park’ I say to myself.

The sofa is winking at me in all of its leathery goodness ‘Come on sweetie, just imagine yourself lying on me with that blanket on you.  You don’t need the park, you need me and you know it’. (if sofas could talk, that is what mine would say)

I find with adrenal insufficiency that my day technically ends when my steroid dose runs out and that I seem to metabolize it very quickly so when my sofa asks me to lie down, it is because it has cruelly collaborated with my adrenal glands and that is the decision they have come up with.

Sofa Vs a trip to the park – Sofa wins the battle and I become a Nana, those adrenal glands are so manipulative.

The trials and tribulations of Pilates and adrenal insufficiency

Yes, I said that the word ‘Pilates’ and adrenal insufficiency in the same sentence.

This poses a real trial for me because I start to get low on steroids at around 6.30pm which is when Pilates starts.

Don’t get me wrong, I manage to do some of it but after about 30 mins my ‘slow button’ comes on, my speech becomes slurred, I feel dizzy and the prospect of touching my toes usually ends up with me needing to lie down on the floor while the other girls show off in their Lycra and tie their legs in knots and bows and stuff while I try and make lying down on the ground fashionable.

I usually leave the studio with shaking legs and tremors, flushed cheeks, racing heart and hair like a lavatory brush but hey, I have Lycra on and anything is possible with Lycra because you can fool yourself into thinking that you are fit purely by wearing it.

Oh I had adrenal fatigue once and I recovered…

Did you, I am so pleased for you but I do not have adrenal fatigue, my adrenals are insufficient. They are not tired, they are not taking a break from all the hard work that they are meant to do and they are not lazy.

They are just slowly reducing in function and the end result is that I am not producing enough cortisol for survival and without my oral steroids I will eventually die and it won’t be a pretty sight either – a bit like Cliff Richard in his leather pants, that isn’t pretty either but let’s not go there.

There is no supplement that substitutes oral steroid tablets and whilst I am not being ungrateful at the suggestion, I have to emphasize that I do not have adrenal fatigue, my adrenals are in a very poor state and the word ‘fatigue’ doesn’t even come into play.

I only wish that I could have a word with them and ask them nicely if they could play the game and stop messing up my life quite so much – temperamental little devils that they are.

I have never heard of that symptom before….

And finally I feel that I have to address this issue and that is where some doctors/nurses claim that because they have never heard of a particular symptom before, you cannot possibly be suffering from it.

A nurse once said to me ‘I have never heard that steroids can cause mood swings, that is not what I learned at Uni’

Looking at her as though she had grown two brains (well one brain would be nice), I decided to not argue as there would really be no point but secretly I wanted to rock back and forth and fear for the future of all adrenal/cushings patients and anyone on steroids that might be in her care.

Some of the adrenal insufficiency symptoms that I suffer from (to name but a few)

• Salt cravings
• Vibrating in feet
• Painful feet – feels like someone is hitting them with a hammer while doing the River Dance on them.
• Dizziness
• Nausea
• Anxiety/on edge
• Sugar cravings

Some of these symptoms do appear to be recognized by the medical profession but trying to rationalize some of them to other people is like trying to polish a turd and where does that leave us as patients?

I think what scares me most about this attitude is that if the treatment, understanding and belief of our disease begins and ends with what doctors and nurses have learned at university/medical school then I believe that our future is not only uncertain, but quite terrifying.

Anyway, that is all from me for tonight, now if you will excuse me, I am going to take my slow self and go to bed like the Nana that I am with my trusty steroid bottle that I shall place beside the bed ready to greet me (and my droopy face) in the morning.

Samantha Rose (C) Copyright Sept 2015