Solving the Medical Mystery But to be able to understand the joys of recovery, she had to first diagnose the illness. After a lifetime of frustrating health issues physicians were unable to pinpoint, Peters was finally diagnosed with Acromegaly. The disorder causes the pituitary gland to produce too much hormone, resulting in bones—including those of the hands, feet and face—to continually grow. Acromegaly can also overgrow organs and produce joint disease, which caused Peters to require several surgeries, including a double mastectomy when a tumor produced too much prolactin, causing chronic infection. The scars, both emotional and physical, are all hidden under a show coat. Sometimes the greatest tests we face are never seen by a judge. “My life for two years became a blur of appointments, tests and operations,” Peters explains. “I got lost in this horrible reality of illness and the person I always knew—rider, friend, traveler—was put on hold.” Struggling with the diagnosis put Peters in a situation unlike any before. No amount of hard work could fix it. While she battled against something she couldn’t control, she felt the shame of living in an unruly body. “I felt so ashamed that dieting and exercising couldn’t control this disease that I didn’t even know I had,” she says. Without her knowing, Acromegaly caused rapid weight changes, dramatic spikes and drops in blood sugar levels, and many bad days of malaise that kept Peters away from the horse show. “Most of the time I would push through and stay strong in the midst of all the struggles,” she says, “but it was very difficult to fight something I didn’t even know I had.”
88 ┃ THE PLAID HORSE ┃ May/June 2020