Community - AIU conference

A memory from January 6th, 2015 popped up on my facebook feed:

"Hooked up for my stim test, sitting in the infusion center at Swedish, IM injection in, first draw in 5 min! Only 4 more hours of this...I'm told it won't make me feel bad for an hour or two, so here's hoping for no nausea and severe gh deficiency!"
There were a great many responses.  But what struck me most was that 36 hours of nausea and headache later, and I still hadn’t realized it was adrenal insufficiency causing it until a friend shared her experience of the GH stim sending her into adrenal insufficiency (AI).  A full day later.  I knew it could in the recesses of my brain, but my doctors and the infusion center nurses didn't make mention of it at that time.  Nausea is VERY common with the test, even without AI.  So when I walked on the plane the next evening to fly home, and simply the little bounce while walking made me feel like I was going to throw up, it finally hit me "This isn't normal."  And I applied my friend's experience, stress dosed some hydrocortisone, the nausea disappeared and I had a good flight.

Community is so important. This is yet another example of patients helping keep each other safe. This is why I feel so safe at medical conventions. These are my people.  They get it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been helped, helped others, or just witnessed it. And the friendships I’ve made at a brief weekend conference like this have helped keep me sane year-round.

I'm so excited to get to see old friends and meet new ones, to again be able to be away from home and yet feel that I'm entirely safe in my own skin.  

https://aiunited.org/conference-on-adrenal-insufficiency/