The Prednisone Monster

In a past blog post, I compared prednisone to a badass boyfriend that I just keep going back to.  When I am not on prednisone, I do whatever it takes to not get back on it, but then eventually, I have to give in.  Starting prednisone again feels amazing in so many ways.  It starts working within hours and eases the inflammation and a surge of energy wakes up the rest of the body that has been so drained.

Though prednisone is still very much part of my life, the badass boyfriend, fortunately is not.  Instead I have a wonderful, supportive husband who is a positive force in my life.  While he is happy to see my health improve on prednisone, he is not happy with the "new me".  Natalie on prednisone is argumentative, super-sensitive and highly emotional.  He hates it but puts up with it.

At times, I feel very disturbed by the fact that others notice a difference in my personality.  I can remember an old boyfriend being very turned off by me and saying, "you're like an animal!".  Or when I do get upset about something, and my husband points out that I am reacting this way because of the prednisone.  This bothers me because I feel like my words and feelings are given less importance.  It's comparable to an emotional woman being referred to as "on the rag" or PMSing.

Emotion is real and it comes from somewhere.  It is not swallowed within those little white pills.  I like to think that prednisone gives me the opportunity to stand up for myself a little more and address issues rather than ignore them.

It's very strange to think that a medication can alter your personality so much, or that we are so controlled by our hormones.  Prednisone is a steroid drug which, from what I understand, causes more testosterone in your system which accounts for many of the physical and emotional changes in your body.  I like to think the prednisone just makes me a little more macho.  It's still me, just me with balls!

Laughing My Way Through "P"ooster Park

I've had a bad week.  I started to describe my distress in a post but I just got grumpy and introverted and it reflected in my writing.  What I really need now is a good laugh so I thought I would write about my  adventure last month in Oosterpark, Amsterdam.

I don't have an easy time laughing about Crohn's Disease.  I applaud and admire people who use humour to deal with adversity in their lives and I do find shit humour pretty funny when done in a original way.  Unfortunately, when it comes to my embarrassing and disgusting situations, I am more likely to feel shame and victimized by my disease.  But when something embarrassing happens when you're with a seven-year-old, there's not much you can do but laugh!

As many people with chronic conditions will say, traveling can cause distress in your body and symptoms that had not been there before your departure will be there to meet you upon your arrival.  The symptom that met me in Amsterdam last month was URGENCY!  Though some people complain that Europe is terrible for public washrooms, I fortunately have a sixth sense when it comes to finding the best and/or FREE of charge bathroom within a block range.  For most of the week I was doing well  and avoided any disasters.  Until one night, after an evening with friends dining on lamb curry, drinking red wine and licking the plate of my rich chocolate cake, it was time to go home.  It was a beautiful night when I walked with my family through Ooster Park heading toward our apartment.  I got that feeling in my gut that said, "you don't have much time...", I thought at first that I could make it out of the park but then the feeling got a lot stronger, a lot sooner than usual... I knew I wasn't going to make it out of the park.  As I crossed the bridge, I made a rash decision... I jumped in the bushes and let it go!  Within seconds, I popped right back up and instead of being humiliated, I walked the rest of the way through the park laughing hysterically about the whole ordeal with my son and husband.

The next day, we were still laughing about it with my friend, our host from the night before.  I said it was a sign of a really good meal. She joked that my husband should have picked it up in a plastic bag and disposed of it in the dog poop bins.

We decided that from now on, the park will be known to us as "P"Ooster Park, the park where I marked my territory.