The usual pattern for a war is you fight many battles and eventually win the war. With Cushing’s Disease, it doesn’t work like that. On July 29, 2013, I won the war. I defeated a tiny tumor, smaller than a grain of rice that had wrecked my life. The surgeon, my hired soldier, cut off the head of my enemy. The war is definitely won, but the battles have just begun.

Diabetes attacks me every day, but I hold him at arms length. Visceral fat is in the midst of my camp. This one I have made very little progress with. It may be my last major battle. Muscle weakness sneaks up behind me again and again and again and bites me in the rump. Pain taunts me day and night.

But like all wars, prior battle victories urge me on to deal with the ongoing battles. Nausea that met me every morning with a blinding tenacity is almost totally defeated. My great opening fight with cortisol crash fatigue finally just ended by enemy surrender. Insomnia finally relented after a prolonged trench war.

I have some partial victories as well. Achiness still hangs around the camp, but he isn’t everywhere I look anymore. Face rash is still in my every reflection, but it’s numbers have been slashed. Extra weight is still ever present, but has been pushed back considerably.

There are more battles than I can document, some won, some in the heat of battle, some battles to come, but in all of this I know I’ve won the war.

I must go back to the front now, but knowing the war is won makes all the weariness, doubt, suffering and impatience worth it.