Rare versus rarely diagnosed

How rare is a rare disease really? Just because you've never heard of it doesn't mean it isn't prevalent. I'm looking at my gene pool in a whole new light. I decided to do a little advocating around campus and the main street. As a one woman show, I can only accomplish so much but with what little I have done, I had at least one interesting conversation today. I asked the lady in the health food store if she'd ever heard of it. She said no and then told me her nephew had a weird disease called Henoch-Schonlein purpura. Just one question was all it took for me to realize "rare" diseases are everywhere! We both agreed to learn about the other's. It was also a sobering day between my post about my sister and then the topic of death in class; suicide to be exact. I'm just going to be honest, my grandfather went that route. I don't think my mother ever recovered from it. She didn't tell me when I was 5 of course and I resented him for taking that relationship away from me when she first let it slip. People with Cushing's are often marked as depressed but not sick. I thought about jumping into the river before, I honestly did. I've always said I would never want to hurt the people around me though. It doesn't matter what you think, somebody will miss you terribly. I've watched what it does to those left behind. That's why I was so scared for myself in retrospect- to feel so horrible that I imagined breaking such a conviction. Anyway, I suppose I'm getting a little off track. Whenever I pass someone who looks overweight, I can't help but wonder, "Does that person possibly have something like Cushing's and not even know it exists?" The picture above is my mom, me, and Victoria after my surgery. Look at the size of my poor sister in comparison to the photo below! It doesn't seem so rare to me. It's just another metabollic disease like Diabetes I. It can be the cause of II in fact! Being "fat" carries an unfair stigma. It's the same as when I had severe acne in high school even though I showered EVERY DAY more than once. Nobody wants to believe you're working hard to look nice. They assume you are unhygienic or lazy. I ended up taking Accutane and it probably messed up my digestive track for life...