Upon returning home I started my labs like it was my full-time job!  My local hospital was very cooperative in helping me set-up the midnight lab draw.  I would coordinate with the day-shift on which days I was coming and then simply show up to the ER who would call the lab for me.  The only downside to this was I was to test when I felt ‘high’ and I fluctuated so much that mid-afternoon I had no way of predicting what I would feel at midnight.  So I decided to take the ‘marathon testing’ approach and just test..test...test.  I did 17 midnights, one was lost by the big lab who processed it,  2 were in the diagnostic range, one in the suggestive range, and the remaining 13 were levels too low to confirm Cushings.  There was no pattern, rhyme or reason.  I was ever so thankful to finally have a doctor that would recognize the abnormals for what they said, not dismiss them because of the many normals intermingled. 

I tried salivas again with only normal results.  Ironically, on the same days I did those salivas I also did urine collections and they were sky high!  Even the gold-standard 24 hr collections were almost 3 times the normal limit.  I was getting highs in both the 24 hrs and the specialized overnight collection test. 

I asked my PCP to please request a copy of my MRI report.  Imagine my shock when I found out that only the last page of the report was faxed, the summary, as the entire report was 39 pages long!!  Oh my!  And to think that no doctor before would order an MRI for me.  The bottom line was a I had an ‘abnormal’ area suspicious for microadenoma, a very small tumor on a very small gland but wreaking havoc on my endocrine system!

Then came the awaited email from Dr Freidman’s office to please schedule a phone appointment.  My initial appointment with Dr Friedman had to be in person so that he could appropriately evaluate me.  After that appointments can be done either by phone or email.  The day came…and so did my clearance for pituitary surgery!