Katie Dahill Needs Our Help Rare Cushing’s Disease

Katie Dahill Needs Our Help In Her Ongoing Struggle With The Rare Cushing's Disease.

Katie‘s disease has unfortunately progressed and now we are reaching out for any and all help. Will you consider making a donation for Katie? Thank you for any amount you can give to financially help offset the mounting bills and the next level of care Katie will need after her upcoming and risky surgery. Prayers are welcome too.

My name is Mary Ellen and I am Katie’s cousin.

Those of you who know Katie know her to be an incredibly kindhearted, fun-loving and generous person. She shows tremendous care and love for the people and the animals in her life. Not to mention her wit and charm! We can go on about Katie, but time is of the essence.

Now Katie needs our support. She has been battling resurgent Cushing’s disease for the past 14 years. The disease has drastically affected her ability to work, and subsequently her ability to support herself. It is also, increasingly, created many limitations and hardships for her physically-

now reaching a point of crisis. Her treatments have included brain surgery, hospitalizations, multiple doctor and specialist appointments to try to manage her condition. She has now reached a point of crisis, prompting an adrenalectomy, a risky surgery to remove her adrenal glands. This is usually done when running out of options.

We are asking for support from friends family and anyone moved to help Katie financially or by volunteering, to meet her needs. Prayers and positive thoughts are welcome as well.

Please scroll to the bottom to read the full story. Directly below, you will find insights on how she needs help.

• Home aid/living assistance : Due to her Cushing’s disease symptoms, the expected recovery time, following her risky surgery and her diminished mobility along with a new comorbidity of diagnosed lymphedema and atrial fibrillation Katie will need help, paid and/or volunteer in her home for several months to a year.

• Transportation: Katie can’t drive for the foreseeable future. She needs volunteer help and/or financial support to pay for rides, etc..

• Ongoing medical expenses: Katie has extremely painful lymphedema from the Cushing’s disease. Most additional lymphedema treatments are not covered by insurance. Her monthly prescription costs are also not covered.

• Veterinary: Katie has three elderly animals: two dogs and a cat. Her pets are her life and her best companions. However, they are not without their own cost.

• Long – Neglected home repairs: following her loss of income due to her disability from Cushing’s disease, Katie has not been able to keep up with home repairs, some of which now threatened her already precarious health.

Katie Dahill’s Cushing’s Disease Story

We hope by sharing Katie story we can raise awareness of Cushing’s disease, and also just maybe someone else can be helped by Katie’s story.

2010: Katie began having odd health symptoms, which, at the time were undiagnosed. Physically, she experienced significant swelling and weakness in her legs with a reduction of mobility. Mentally, she suffered disordered thinking symptoms, and this resulted in the termination from her job as the volunteer coordinator of a nationally recognized nonprofit organization. Sadly this ultimately ended her decades-long career.

Fortunately, when seeking care, her physician immediately sent her to an endocrinologist, and Katie was diagnosed with Cushing’s disease. Because it is a rare disease.(10 to 15 cases per million people are diagnosed in the U.S. each year) We were thankful that Katie’s doctors got the root of it when they did. The initial treatment following her diagnosis was brain surgery to remove Cushing’s adenoma from her pituitary gland. Katie recovered and remained symptom-free for five years. She was able to return to the workforce with part-time employment, but with a drastic reduction in salary. She eventually, found full-time work, but was never able to approach the salary she had earned prior to Cushing’s disease.

2015: Cushing disease, with all the symptoms, returned. Her original brain surgeon, deemed the second surgery too risky. Katie sought a second opinion, and found a doctor willing to perform a second surgery, this time, removing half of her pituitary gland in order to capture all of the Cushing cells. Following the surgery, the swelling and weakness in her legs, never fully resolved. The slow pace of her recovery and ongoing symptoms prevented her from returning to work, and she was placed on Social Security disability.

2022: in July, Katie suffered an abdominal arterial aneurysm. This was scary and life-threatening. A quick diagnosis and new technology saved her life. But the ordeal took its toll. An array of Cushing’s like symptoms (profound, swelling and weakness of her legs, etc.) were attributed to the after effects and complications of the aneurysm. In August, the swelling was officially diagnosis as lymphedema – a chronic disease that occurred as a result of the repeated episodes of Cushing’s disease. It can be treated, but not cured. In the course of the lymphedema treatment, Katie received another medical blow and was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation. Katie added a cardiologist to her team. In September, Katie‘s annual endocrinology appointment revealed the third return of Cushing’s disease and a medical rather than surgical management began.

2023: The year was spent exploring the medical management of Cushing’s disease with regular check ups and adjustments to Katie’s dosage of medicine. But then the medication began to fail. In December, a final decision was made to remove Katie‘s adrenal glands surgically, an adrenectomy , which is now scheduled for late January. This will result in no cortisol production, and Katie‘s hormonal system will need to be medically managed for the rest of her life. We are hopeful the outcome will be successful and have minimal complications for our dear Katie

Looking ahead: after Katie‘s adenectomy, recovery may take up to a year. We hope her pain, swelling, and the burden of treatments for lymphedema will improve, but we do not know what to expect.

In short, she will need our love and support for the foreseeable future.

Thank you for your donations of any amount. And for all help financially and the volunteering, and for your prayers and positive thoughts.

We hope seeing Katie‘s story may help someone else and raise awareness of the rare Cushing’s disease.

Thank You.