Understanding (or how work has saved my life)

So, my mom was terribly ill a number of years ago. So ill that the doctors told us she wouldn't live. My mom is a tough lady and proved them wrong. My relationship with my mom has been a bit difficult. We both love each other, but she's an alcoholic, and like most alcoholics, drinking is usually very high up on her priority list.

So, anyway, mom hasn't been the same since that bout of illness. Since she was ill, she barely leaves her room. She says everything makes her too tired. Now, she doesn't work, she has no real obligations, and most days sleeps until noon (or later) gets up to her chair and watches tv. One of the reasons this frustrates me is that she's too old for her life to be that small.

So, anyway, since January, and I've noticed it more recently, I've had noticable muscle weakness, which I'm pretty certain is due to 6 months on prednisone. Steroid induced myopathy or something. Like... I have a hard time hauling my laptop around because it feels impossibly heavy. Like I dropped my laptop on the ground because my hands weren't strong enough to hold it. Like my legs get tired walking up a few stairs (before I actually get out of breath). It's actually quite annoying. It's also exhausting. I think that having reasonable muscle strength seves as a buffer against the fatigue that is part of my job. I think that having reasonable muscle strength is a buffer against a lot of fatigue. Mostly, all I want to do is rest. Not that I'm not interested in stuff. I'm enjoying the martial arts classes. Work has been interesting. I'm just exhausted all the time.

Well, I think that the combination of deconditioning and steroid myopathy is probably nothing compared to what people recovering from serious illness suffer. My mother, for example, I think never recovered from her deconditioning. Her illness occurred just after her separation from my dad, she was grieving and depressed, and couldn't find the energy to make the extra effort it takes to build muscles back. So, her body only reconditioned itself to her daily activities (sitting in a chair), and because of that, she's never had the energy to do more. And since then, her health has been worse.

One of the things that will save me is my job. My body will recondition to at least my daily activities, which include running up and down stairs (or trudging as I am today), carrying things, exercising, etc. I worry that I may not have the strength to pull a baby out, but there are chief residents and attendings (at least privates) in the hospital, so I could get help if I needed it.

But if I didn't have a job, I can see how it would be so easy just to do what I felt like doing, and that is, nothing. So, in that way, my job is a bit of a buffer against my illness. If I didn't have a job (especially if you were to throw in some depression at an inopportune time), I could easily end up like my mom, living between my chair and my bed, and having to plan a trip to the mall weeks in advance. It sort of has given me just a tiny glimpse (because I wasn't very sick) of what it is really like to recover from a serious illness with a long hospital stay, or even for our patients who need to recover from a really long time on bedrest during their pregnancies for various complications.

As it is, I'm doing ok. I'm tired, and I feel weak, but I can do what I need to do and a lot of what I want to do, although I am a little annoyed at being too tired to go to martial arts on Thursday. My internist tells me this should begin to get better once I'm off the steroids for 3-4 weeks, and to avoid a negative nitrogen (i.e. protein) balance (my carb-lust while on the prednisone may have contributed to this because I think that there were many times I didn't eat protein because I was eating carbs).