1 in 5

I wear a wristband that says “1 in 5″ on it. It is from my support of the Pituitary Network Association and I wear it proudly all the time – even in the shower. What it means is that current findings show that one out of every five people suffers from a pituitary tumor of varying size and complexity. Mine happened to be quite large, requiring an involved and lengthy surgery to remove most of it.

I’m typically a pretty private person, but I will always talk openly when people ask me what 1 in 5 means. Without going into a lot of detail I say that I had a benign brain tumor that took away the functioning of my pituitary gland, and now I supplement all of the hormones that the pituitary gland usually produces – ranging from cortisone to testosterone to desmopressin, which controls fluid retention.

I guess that I’m open about it so that people won’t be scared of it, and that they can see that I am still a functioning person that’s capable of doing most of the things that “normal” people do. I want them to feel the strength of believing in yourself and feeling that you can overcome difficult situations. I don’t do it to brag, I just do it to pass on strength.

I also happen to have a Myers Briggs personality type of ENFP – extroverted, intuitive, feeling and perceiving. In this personality classification I am 1 in 14 people. My Goodness, I could get caught up in being so out of the norm, but in reality, I feel special. I feel like God has deliberately challenged me to use who I naturally am to overcome difficult situations and help others to see that they can do it too.

Do you have something that you consider to be special about you? Tell your story. I would love to hear it!