Anybody who has been fortunate enough to have come face to face with me over the last five weeks, would have had the pleasure of discussing my current love of the steroids. I say ‘love’, but what I actually mean is sheer and utter loathing of a drug so vile, it is essentially a reincarnation of phlegm.
It would be fair assessment then, to say that I hate them. I hate steroids. Hate them. The timetable I was on VDT/VTD was a weekly obstruction on my life. Steroids for two days, followed by a two day crash, followed by insomnia and accompanied by constant mood swings and a winning desire to overeat. I discussed this issue with the Medically Trained People. I did not want to get my hopes up a fortnight ago when it was proposed that I took my month’s supply of the ‘roids in a week, so I sat on it, held my breath and was incredibly relieved last Thursday when a Medically Trained Person with a lot of training said I was allowed to take my 80 pills over four days. That would be 80 pills over four days, instead of 20 pills weekly.
In my mind, this option was and is, most definitely, the lesser of two evils. And steroids are evil.
The problem with evil things, even if they are less evil, they are still evil. I knew that top ending my steroids into a week was going to be horrible, but my thinking is that it will give me one horrible week, and the payback is then three weeks of near normality, before it starts all over again. The other option is constant interruptions and constant steroids. I don’t want that. I don’t want any of it, but I am no martyr. I have to find a way to make my treatment work for me. And I guess that erasing nearly a week from my life once a month, is the best option for me. Thanks myeloma.
I have experienced a high dose steroid crash before. I have experienced it five times before in fact, so when I decided to spend my weekend taking pills that make my mouth taste like tin, I knew what I was getting myself in to. I knew that it was going to make me so poorly that I could not get out of my bed and do the fandango. Knowing what is coming however, doesn’t make the crash any less disgusting, or any easier.
I know that there is nothing I can do to change the current feeling inside my body. I know that me not being able to get out of bed or get dressed for two days is not me being idle. I know that my inability to wash is not a strange fetish of mine for musk. I know that sleeping for 18 hours yesterday was completely out of my control. I went into this week knowing that these were the likely side effects. One bad week, for three good, remember?
I may know all of this, but it does not make me feel any less ashamed. I want to be able to get dressed and get out of bed. I am embarrassed that I cannot. I am embarrassed by the fact that for these few days, the steroids effect me in such a way that I cannot look after myself. I wish I could find the dignity in it, but what Housemate was greeted with when he got home from work yesterday was not dignity defined. I know that I have not given in to my drugs, and they are ruling me right now, but I wish that mind could beat matter in this instance. It cannot. I like to think that next month, I will be happy to let people see me when I look like I have been dragged through a hedge backwards after 13 pints of Kronenberg and some pork scratchings, but for this week, I am just working on getting through the week.
The fact that I am able to write a blog right now makes me think I am over the hump, and that gives me a little hope that I may have a weekend. I just have to keep reminding myself that every hour down is an hour closer to me feeling normal again. It’s an hour closer to me being able to go to the shop to buy myself a pint of milk. It’s an hour closer for me remembering what two plus two equals. Who knows? Next week, I will be one crazy party animal who washes.
There is a reason I feel like this and it is the lesser of two evils.
For now, I will just rest easy in my bed knowing that I just changed my knickers.
EJB x
