Hello! Thanks for visiting.

My name is Hannah, im 26, and from Manchester in the UK..

About me:

I love marine fish and my aim is to have a reef aquarium one day! (just in my house i might add! though anyone who fanices paying to see it would be very welcome!)

I play the flute and the piano. I also have an unfortunately operatic voice which attracts alot of attention- i hate it personally but others dont seem to care about that- They want to hear anyway!

I am gay and have a beutiful girl friend. We have been together for over 2 years, and lived together for one of those years, before i had to go live at home because i was ill.

Also, for four years of my life i lived as a man, despite being born genetically and physically female Actually, i went through the gender identity disorder treatment system in the UK, and was prescribed male hormones (the start of what is commonly understood as a sex change). In the end.. and its a long story, i never took the hormones, and now live full time as a woman. Yes, i am confusing!

I am an accademic by trade. I won a scholership to do a Masters degree at York University.. which i got three quarters of the way through and then got ill. By this time i had also won a scholership to do a PhD at Kings College London which was supposed to start in October. Obviously that hasnt happened

CUSHINGS:

For me it all started about two years ago, although ofcourse i didnt realise that then! In fact i was happily going along with daily life untill one day.. i got neurovirus. I threw up for about a week. It was lovely- not. Then about a month later i got inflamation of the muscle between my rib cage. After this i started getting tiard.

Over the next two years i got increasingly tiard. Untill five months ago my body just seems to have given up At first i had bad bowl infection and was bleeding. Then i got fluid on my lungs. I couldnt walk anymore. I was in pain from my joints and muscles. I got wierd rashes..

So, undertandably my docters at first thought i might have lupus and chronic fatigue disorder (lupus is an autoimmune disorder which can effect any/ all parts of the body, chronic fatigue disorder is tiardness which cant be explained physically)

I was sent to a rheumatologist (Which takes ages on the NHS). And in the exam for lupus he looked at my tummy. He saw my stretch marks. He asked me about my weight... I had put on 6+ stone in the two years since i started getting tiard. He noticed my hirtuism (im hairy literally everywhere), id been like this ever since 17 so i hadent linked it to my new illness. He took my blood pressure, it was high (175/90). He sent me off with a mahoooosive bottle to do a 24 hour wee test.

I week later i rang for the wee results. I had been refered to an endo with suspected Cushings.. After five months off work and being ill with no treatment, i finally had an idea what might be wrong with me!!