Appearances

I never considered myself to be vain. Heck, I've been one of those obviously-low-self-esteem-girls for as long as I remember. For a brief period in undergrad, (thanks to a well-developed gym habit and a trainer to help me get fit before Kristin's wedding) I was nearly as fit as I was in high school, but then, back in high school I thought I was hideous, so I guess that's entirely beside the point.

But well, it's harder to look at myself in the mirror these days. I definitely have the prednisone moon-face, which my excessive research informs me will disappear within months of discontinuing the drug. Allison and I laughed over the term "buffalo-hump" used to describe movement of fat deposits to the upper back. Her med-school books showed a very pronounced, Igor-like hump, but even my small increase in new inches is disconcerting. Stretch marks are one thing when you've produced a small human being over the course of 9 months, but another thing entirely when you gained the weight in 6 days and have nothing to show for it but, um, I'll get back to you on that. The weight gain stemming from the excessive appetite side-effect is annoying, but I weight-gain I can handle.

All those things are annoying and upsetting, but there's one thing that shows me just how vain I really was. My hair is falling out.

There. I said it. I've been joking about wigs ever since I got sick, claiming that I would buy a curly red Texas-Beauty-Queen style wig, but never really believing it would happen. When clumps started falling out and my hair brush filled up daily, I kept up the pretense, laughing when my sister offered me her mother-in-law's cancer-survivor wig. I smiled and said I was glad that thinner hair dried faster, and that I had such thick hair to start.

Don't get me wrong, I still have a good portion of my hair. It's only noticeably thinner when I put it up. As the hair continues to fall out, I lose a little bit more of my vanity, recognizing that this side-effect is almost as hard to deal with as the sleeplessness and joint pain, but also recognizing that my lack of sleep and constant pain make me considerably more vulnerable to feeling sorry for myself.

Hair loss is a relatively rare side effect of steroids---I was bracing myself for hair loss with the backup drugs of Cytoxan or Cyclophosphamide I want so badly for nothing to go wrong with my taper, so I can be rid of this drug that seems to be slowly poisoning my entire body. I reacted badly to my parked car being slammed into---the extra adrenaline made my entire hands shake and had Erin not rescued me, I probably would have screwed up the police report or tow truck stuff by my frenetic energy. That's not me. Or not the me I remember. This medication, this disease, have changed me into someone I don't recognize anymore.