October 21st - the physical changes

Sunday. Emil is at work and I am home alone. It is time to take a look at the physical. For the past few days I have been going about this in a very roundabout way. I have seen the way my jeans hang off me. I have heard everyone telling me how frail I look. I have heard the way my wedding rings makes a sound like Spanish castanets when I move my hand. I have felt my body in the shower. It felt like somebody else’s body. Not mine. It can’t be.

I take a shower and then I stand naked in front of our mirror. I can’t believe what I see. My hands start sweating and I feel light-headed. It is so different. I used to be so muscular. And it has just wasted away. I have lost so much bodymass. I’d estimate that I have lost close to 20 pounds of muscle. My legs and arms look completely different. I am retaining a lot of water from the high doses of cortisone, so the scale is not telling me much. I am down about 6 pounds but I know the loss of muscle, fat and bone mass is way more than that. The water sits around my body in a smooth layer, about half-an-inch to an inch thick. It is a bit like being covered in a layer of jelly, as it sits under my translucent skin. I look skinny-fat. I look unhealthy. Ugly. I raise my head and look into my own eyes in the mirror and I say out loud in a shaky voice: “I am so sorry, Body. You look like you have had a rough couple of weeks.”

Even with my degree in medicine and pharmacology I honestly didn’t think it would be possible for a body to change so much in just ten days. What I am seeing are the typical effects of high doses of cortisone. I lose muscle mass, body fat and bone tissue. I collect water instead. I will collect the weight back as fat, mostly in the stomach area and on the back. My face is swollen and round, known as “moon face”. The skin is thin and paper like, with purple vessels and a red flush to the cheeks and chest area. My bones, muscles and tendons will be weaker. My immunity will go down and I will be susceptible to all kinds of colds and infections. I am taking high doses of the medication and it is affecting my entire body. I will be on the medication for more than eight weeks, slowly lowering the doses. That is the sad truth. I need to accept that and learn to love my body again. I need to help it though this.