Appreciate what you have!

Today I finally handed in the report I've been working on for the last 3 months.

I graduated from uni this summer and got myself a freelance job at a charity I had interned with in the past. They hired me to conduct research into families who have a child or children affected by undiagnosed conditions. I basically had to design, administer and analyse a questionnaire, conduct interviews and collate all this data, analyse it and write a report with notes and recommendations. 149 questionnaires, 15 interviews, 17 161 words later, I must admit I'm glad it's done now...

But the reason I wanted to blog about this is because doing this research and speaking to these families really made me appreciate certain things again. My Cushing's ordeal has been very difficult but it hardly compares to the hardship that some families face. Getting a diagnosis is tough to handle, but not getting one? Well that's sometimes worse.

My first ever post!

So here it is, my first post!

Some of you probably got here from the link on my justgiving webpage which I created because I am taking part in the Adidas Women's Challenge in Hyde Park, London this Sunday, to raise money for the Pituitary Foundation. If you found this blog through a search or by chance, then WELCOME and thanks for checking it out.

I decided to start a blog to "document" my life/struggle/story. Not that I think that my life is so interesting that millions will want to read it, but mainly so that I have an outlet to express myself. I also found that when I first found out I had Cushing's, reading other people's stories and realising that I wasn't alone really helped me cope! So I guess I'm also hoping that maybe I could do the same for someone else. Either way, the internet is an open forum so I'm gonna keep posting whether anyone reads or not! :)

I've written a "short" version of my story so far in the About Me page. You will also see that there is a French page and I will sometimes be posting in French. This is because French is in fact my first language, all of my family on my mother's side is french and the majority of them don't read english! As I suspect that the majority of those following my blog will be family and friends, I have to try and cater for both!

I intend to write some more pages about my disease progression: when I first started noticing symptoms, how they began to affect me, how I "self diagnosed" and how I finally came to be officially diagnosed.

But I will also be posting a lot about how things are progressing now. I am scheduled for neurosurgery to remove my pituitary tumour on the 20th of September so I will probably have a lot to write about so keep checking back!!

Thanks again for checking out my blog and feel free to leave any comments!