The Wayward Medical Student

The Wayward Medical Student

 

            Taking Decadron (steroids) every Friday was a nightmare.  I started out taking ten every Friday, but was reduced to 7 ¹⁄₂ after two or three months.  Emotionally and mentally, I was not normal, and I occasionally did some crying about it.  Friday nights I would get about 4 hours of sleep, even after taking Ambien; Saturday night was about the same.  I would run around on Saturday and most of Sunday, cleaning, organizing closets, throwing out and recycling tons of stuff.    Of course, nowadays I sometimes find myself looking for something, and after tearing the house apart, remembering I was once on drugs, eventually realize I probably got rid of whatever it is I am missing.

            Each Sunday night I would try to stop working, but I couldn’t really get myself to relax.  I found myself reaching for the ironing board…and my husband’s shirts.  My thoughts went back to when I was a child, and my mother’s ironing.  She would set up the board in the living room, and there would be shirts hanging from the “floating” staircase we had in our house.  I remembered the smell of the heat on the cotton clothing and sheets; I remembered learning to iron; and I remembered my mother saying that she enjoyed pressing clothes.  So, my “cool down” exercise each Sunday night became an hour or two of ironing. 

            But after one week of drug therapy, I noticed my thinking was not orderly, and I was upset about it.  After Dr. K’s agreeing with my assessment that the effects of the steroids appeared to be intensifying a little more each weekend, he told me a story of a fellow medical student, who lived with him in the same building.  He was taking steroids for some reason, and the police brought him home one night because he was wandering around in his underwear!

            I imagine my face was a gaping, horrified indication that that story was the wrong thing to tell me at that particular moment!  “How reassuring,” I muttered.  Dr. K. quickly added that the dosage was higher in those days. 

            All I could think was:  “I have always had a niggling fear that I would walk outdoors in my sleep…and I live on The Boulevard!”