I knew from the beginning they'd want to make me take steroids to reduce the inflammation in my bones. I researched the names I was given for the drug: Decadron and Dexamethasone. Found out it was not an anabolic steroid, which some athletes use to pump up their muscles. Read blogs and reviews; asked cancer survivors. But nothing could prepare me for how steroids affected me.I'm a pretty nice person. A "laid back" person. Not a b**** by any standard. But under the influence of steroids, I am. Actually, the change happens not during the four days that I'm taking the pills. During those days, I'm energetic, perhaps a bit hyper-vigilant...but not anything that terrible. It's the days after I stop taking the steroid when steroid hell comes to play.
I'll give you an example. Since January, I've been researching digital cameras that I planned to buy with some Christmas money I'd been given. I had zoomed in (pardon the pun) on a camera, was about to buy it when....I had to take steroids again. I was fine until the day I stopped taking them. After sleeping for nearly two days straight, I started an argument with Kirk about the camera. Here is what I wrote by e-mail to Kirk when he asked me when I planned to put in my order for the camera:
Kirk,
forget it
forget it
forget it
i don't care
i don't want it
what's the point?
i can't take it with me.
Sherry
Reading this I can tell how depressed I had become. And I was taking Ativan to help take off the edge! This is just one example. I have plenty more that are more embarrassing and sad. It took me about five days to stop feeling like everyone was against me. To stop feeling like I wanted to die. To get back to myself again.
As bad as this seems, it was much worse when I had withdrawal in December from taking three four-day cycles of steroids for two months. I was not only a b****, but an illiterate and paranoid one. For an entire week, I felt as if I was trapped in an acid trip. I wandered around the house trying to remember if I'd changed my underwear or not. I'd cook food and forget to eat it. My vision was double and my face became the shape of a full moon. I'm past that now, but I had a little reminder. A little loss of self among the many losses of self I've endured in this process, making me even more determined to move from hell to happy as often as possible.
(Happy's Restaurant in Carlsbad Caverns, NM; Summer '06)
Sherry
Reading this I can tell how depressed I had become. And I was taking Ativan to help take off the edge! This is just one example. I have plenty more that are more embarrassing and sad. It took me about five days to stop feeling like everyone was against me. To stop feeling like I wanted to die. To get back to myself again.
As bad as this seems, it was much worse when I had withdrawal in December from taking three four-day cycles of steroids for two months. I was not only a b****, but an illiterate and paranoid one. For an entire week, I felt as if I was trapped in an acid trip. I wandered around the house trying to remember if I'd changed my underwear or not. I'd cook food and forget to eat it. My vision was double and my face became the shape of a full moon. I'm past that now, but I had a little reminder. A little loss of self among the many losses of self I've endured in this process, making me even more determined to move from hell to happy as often as possible.
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