Saturday, October 6, 2012

Aubrey Understands

I was reading a magazine interview with Aubrey Plaza (a young Hollywood actress) the other day, when I was stunned to find a quote from her that expressed exactly how I've been feeling ever since my acromegaly diagnosis. Aubrey had a stroke at age 20, and she's been dealing with underlying anxiety ever since:
"The most frustrating thing about it was I don't why it happened, and there's where a lot of my anxiety came from. Once you know why something happened to you, you can rationalize it like, 'If I do this, I won't get sick' but if you don't know exactly why, at all times you're thinking, At any moment I could die, because when it did happen, it was totally out of nowhere. That's the scariest part." 
There are so few people that truly understand what being diagnosed with acromegaly (or surviving a stroke at age 20) is like. I constantly wonder what might have triggered my tumor, like if there was some kind of chemical or environmental exposure. Everywhere I go, I observe potential threats to my health, which leaves me feeling vulnerable and constantly on the defensive. Sometimes people think I'm just being quirky and they'll laugh and think it's cute, and sometimes people just think I'm being a paranoid pain-in-the a**. Either way, it's a real problem for me because I get really stressed out and then I start worrying that stress is what caused my tumor- and then I really start spiraling from there. I'll get really irrational, like start wondering if having acromegaly is some kind of punishment for other mistakes I've made in my life.

I've been doing on Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), a little yoga here and there (That's what Aubrey says she does to help deal!), trying to walk and exercise more, eat well, sleep well, get massages, spend time with my dog, etc etc, and all of that has really helped me deal with the anxiety. Writing (like on this blog) has helped me too. Having a community has also been really important (see links to support groups on the sidebar to the right) too. So I have a question for you all: what are YOU doing to manage stress and anxiety?

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Tanya on Dr. Oz

Tanya continues to raise awareness about acromegaly!



I had never seen the show before, so I was quite impressed by how compassionate Dr. Oz was. He apologized on behalf of all doctors for not paying attention to their patients, and being arrogant when they don't understand what is going on with their patients.