The bad, the good and the embarrassing

The bad:
I woke up at 3 am again. I can’t sleep from the medication. I am so wired all the time, like a meth-junkie. The signals that tell my body to go to sleep are screwed up. I usually fall a sleep after a while at night, but I only get four hours before I wake up and can’t go back to sleep. I read feel-good books about Mma Ramotswe (In the company of cheerful ladies by Alex Mc Call-Smith) and try to relax. At 6 I get up and eat and take my medications. An hour later I am sweating and riding the cortisone high for a new 24 hour period. This has to get better. I must be able to sleep to be able to heal.

The good:
I called my doctor and told him about all the side-effects I was having. He said that we can cut the cortisone with one 5 mg pill making it 35 mg/day instead of 40 mg/day. We will also cut out one pill every 5 days instead of every 7 days. It is still a lot of cortisone for a long time, but at least it is better than before. Hopefully we will have all the results from the tests soon and then we can start some other, more specific immunosuppressant too. He also prescribed sleeping pills to help me get some rest. I have never taken anything like that before, except OTC stuff and melatonin when jet-lagged. But at this time I know I need it. I surrender and try to be grateful for the magic of chemistry.

The embarrassing:
I went to the pharmacy to pick up my new medications in the afternoon. As my number is called I realize that I know the girl behind the counter. Hr name is Caroline and she was two years below my class at Uni. Although we don’t know each other all that well we share a lot of close friends. Although I like her, she is not someone I planned on telling first hand about my experience. Except she is already studying my prescriptions for rectal cortisone foam “for rectal inflammation”, one eyebrow raised. What can I do? I want to douse myself in gasoline and set fire to myself. Or shuffle my feet rapidly until I have dug a hole through the polished hardwood floor big enough to hide in. Instead I try to act like I don’t care. She asks how I am doing and if the doctors showed me how to use the foam and not to take the antibiotics with alcohol and only one sleeping pill/24 hours... I try to be relaxed and honest and I might even have thrown in the word “rectoscopy” jokingly in there at one point. She is kind and sweet but as I leave the store I know that soon all my friends and acquaintances will know. I will be The Face of the Rectum. The Spokesperson for Bleeding Bowels. Umm, yeah.

You gotta try to laugh at life sometimes. The absurdity of it all.