Weeks of tests produced a diagnosis: Cushing’s syndrome, a curable but potentially deadly disorder caused by an overabundance of cortisol, a steroid hormone. Finally, in late March, after an ambulance took her to the hospital for a bout of severe abdominal pain, doctors detected a mass on one of her adrenal glands. She blamed herself, ascribing her weight gain to overeating. The illness left her in pain, nauseated and unable to stand for more than 15 minutes at a time.Ĭasey Dills-Dailey talking about her health issues on March 26, 2016.Ĭasey would scour books and the internet to help others solve medical or legal problems - Wayne, 39, called her a doctor without a degree - but the cause of her own health issues had eluded her. Her face became chubby, and her full-but-shapely figure ballooned to nearly 250 pounds, fattening in odd places, including the space between her shoulders.

She had hot flashes and eventually stopped menstruating.

The operation came after years of mysterious symptoms that began when Casey was in her early 30s. Still, Wayne wondered, would the surgery do what it was supposed to do? Was the doctor as skilled as he said he was? It was hard to grasp that the life of his 38-year-old wife could be endangered. The surgeon predicted an uncomplicated operation, conducted through tiny incisions. Casey Dills-Dailey was undergoing surgery to remove the adrenal gland above her left kidney. But coastal storms were a part of life that he had prepared for, and they did not concern him. “It’s going to get us,” he told his sister. Wayne, who as a child in Galveston County spent hours watching the cloudscapes drift over the Gulf of Mexico, kept multiple weather apps on his phone and had already been tracking the storm. 23, 2017, and broadcasters described a large storm moving off the Yucatán Peninsula with Texas in its sights, potentially bringing historic flooding to Houston that weekend. He and his sister stared at the television to distract themselves. Wayne Dailey sat in a waiting area at a Houston hospital, anxious for word about his wife.

Lost in the storm