My friend, Janie, is on prednisone to counteract a horrible skin rash from poison ivy. The poison is slowly getting better but she’s finding the prednisone is horrible. At first she couldn’t sleep and now, slowly tapering it, she feels like she’s in a fog, is tired all the time and can’t make it through a day without naps.
But the worst part for her is how “people” are responding. She feels badly because “other people have lost patience with this” (it’s been 3 weeks) . The “other people” is her boss. Her 3 sons are doing just fine with it all.
Now, Janie runs this office, doesn’t take her vacation time and gives her life to this office. She works with all guys — and, to a guy, they would be low (actually they’d flunk if you could) on any EI (emotional intelligence) scale. So, when she goes home (5 minutes from the office) to take a 30 minute nap, they call her, sound annoyed that she’s not answering the phone and leave a message! When she told me, I wasn’t surprised. But she can’t believe it.
In fact, Janie says that she’s fed up feeling so tired because other people don’t have empathy for this. I’m wondering: “What do you expect? These guys aren’t going to respond any differently to this than they do to anything else. Since their normal operating procedure is to only think about their needs, it”s not going to change because you have health needs.”
Janie (and I know this one well) can’t stand feeling like she’s letting other people down — she’s a real “crowd pleaser” . But let’s acknowledge that it’s our own fault for expecting people to be different from who they are, just because we’re ill.
The world is full of people who just don’t get it. They’ll think (and say), so take a nap and you’ll feel better. They don’t understand it’s not the way it works. So stop worrying about it or trying to make them understand. If it’s temporary, they’ll forget about it as soon as you’re better. If it’s not, it should only matter if you’re not doing your job. But, don’t waste your time trying to get people to empathize with what they can’t see and just don’t get.
Rosalind
TW says
I personally lose patience with myself on prednisone. The brain fog, the tiredness, the inability to sleep, the lack of focus. I don’t think anyone else minds half as much as I do…though I did have an odd moment last week at work where my boss and two staff gave me the “huh?” look as I tried to find the words to ask a simple question in the midst of fog. Of course, then there is the other person I work with who told someone else that she thought I was mad at her because I didn’t respond quite right to her (in the bathroom of all places). Sigh. I really don’t want the empathy, but I was quick to say the “its the prednisone” to the person who told me that the other person thought I was mad at her.
Rosalind Joffe says
Ugh. Any of these drugs can do this to us. We need them and they can help us but they can also wreck havoc. We have to be careful how we describe it though – others can use it or misinterpret. Rosalind