Ugh, steroids.

It has been a long time, Folks.  Sorry for that.  Remember the old post I made a while back about side effects?  Well I am glad to report that my side effects are not what they used to be, but I guess I was really enjoying one of the side effects that I no longer experience and miss dearly. 

My lack of appetite.

I have spent the last three years losing weight so fast that it was alarming people around me.  And I am not going to lie, as a naturally slightly overweight woman I loved being skinny.  Maybe I loved it too much.  I bottomed out at 110 pounds at my sickest.  I didn't try to lose most of the weight.  I truly wasn't hungry and experienced so much nausea that eating wasn't ever a good idea. 

Now I am on Prednisone, and I feel like a monster has been unleashed.  Prednisone and I go way back.  I have been off and on high dosages of it for the past 15 years.  I hate and love it.  And right now I loathe it.  I have gained 15 pounds in six weeks.  That comes out to over two pounds a week.  At first, I was just happy to be hungry again and happily ate whenever and whatever I wanted.  But now I have this horrible sense of anxiety attached to eating, which is also a side effect of prednisone: mania. 

My clothes don't really fit anymore and I get stressed whenever I want to go out that I don't have things to wear because I got rid of my "fat" clothes.  Now I need my "fat" clothes.  And so my mind tells me that I must be fat.  I know I am still in a healthy BMI for my height, but man I just loved being small.  I emotionally thrived at that size. 

Yes, I am happy to be healthy.  I don't want anyone to think I would rather trade dialysis and skinny jeans for perfect creatinine and clothes that don't fit.  I am truly grateful.  But my hate for prednisone burns with the fiery hot burning passion of a thousand suns right now.  And I think it might be driving me a little crazy. 

And I am only on 10 milligrams!!  Jeez!  It's such a low dose!  I can't believe it is affecting me this much! 

I had more boudoir pictures taken of me last week to remind me of my outer beauty, like I did pre-transplant.  I hope they help me gain some confidence.  I just don't recognize this body.

No.  That's not it.  I do recognize this body.  It's the one I was glad to get rid of two years ago. 

Now this blog has been mostly about surviving the bad and putting things into perspective.  I am trying really hard to do that now.  I didn't even want to post this blog because it feels so out of character for me to complain about something so trivial as weight gain.  But I feel I need to continue to document this process truthfully in the case that someone might learn from my experiences in the future.

So I feel great, and I hate gaining weight.  That is the update for now.