I had my six month check up with my endocrinologist recently.
It's always a pleasure, a regular reminder of being nursed back from the brink of death, of the everyday heroes working just a few miles from my house.
This time though, it was even better. In the three years since my Addison's diagnosis, we've gone through an ongoing process of reducing my dosage of steroids. At first, I was on 80mg of hydrocortisone per day, which we then cut to 40, and more recently down to 20.
For the uninitiated, the normal human body produces about 15 per day. As such, each stage of this process has represented a gradual movement towards normality, all under the careful guidance of my endocrinologist. I'm pleased to confirm that on my last visit, for the first time in three years, my dose was held at the same level as it was previously - the level at which it will be set from now on. After three years of crisis, ballooning weight followed by two years of weight loss, and coming to terms with the fact that I'll have to consult a pharmacist before buying something as innocuous as cough syrup, I've reached what passes for normality in the world of the Addison's diseased man.
It's been a process through which my endocrinologist has guided me with charm and expertise...
Priceless.
