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For a Happy, Fun Time Gloria, Just Add Steroids

By Gloria Diaz

Check out Gloria's Blog — Edge of Gloria!

Fort Wayne Reader

2012-06-22

Because I’ve adjusted my working schedule to where I’m not working all the time, I’m slowly regaining motivation to do things that haven’t been done in years, such as attack the jungles known as my front and back yards.

One of my current neighbors is tailor-made for my specifications. Quiet, nice, and has the tools and lawn equipment that I can’t afford to buy. He generously said I can borrow his stuff, and when he saw me working out in my front yard, came over with his weed whacker to help me out. Together, we filled about three of those lawn yard bags. The front lawn looks way better than it has in years.

So during the inferno of Memorial Day weekend, I felt like hacking away at the vegetation in the back yard. Armed with an electric trimmer, I slashed my way through a few bushes like Faye Dunaway in Mommy Dearest. It was oddly satisfying. I filled two more bags and decided to call it a night. I felt a little itchy, but figured it was just the heat.

The next morning the blotches started. And I was even more itchy. I still figured it was heat rash…but could it possibly be poison ivy? I looked online for pictures of the plants and people who’d been nailed by the vine. My blisters didn’t look nearly as bad (I saw baseball-sized blisters) but I was starting to become miserable. I slogged through my class on Wednesday, and apologized for the way I looked. I felt like I could balance a glass on my forehead, it was so swollen. My right eye had retreated into the puffy flesh, giving my head a weird feeling and my face a stranger look than normal. And I felt very blah. I went to a local medical clinic for some help. Because I had neglected to put my insurance card in my purse, they treated me as if I were a self-pay. And the physician’s assistant offered me a cheap fix: prednisone. Steroids. The drug of my childhood, taken to relieve my arthritis pain. As an adult, I wondered if my hair-trigger temper and generally pessimistic moods were the result of taking this at a young age. At a mere $7.17, these were well affordable. And they did the trick. The swelling and itching gradually went away.

But something else happened. Something MIRACULOUS. The steroids righted almost everything wrong in my world. I felt happy, energetic, relaxed. I was amazed at how good I felt. I’d grown used to feeling achy, even after just sitting for 20 minutes. I’d get up, and hobble for a few feet, before the ache went away. Now, with the steroids, I’d get up without a second thought. No pain at all. I could move easier, faster. I was cleaning the kitchen and giggling like a little girl. A crazy chorus of a song was running through my head, of what it was like to take this stuff. “Steroids, you make me so happy, when I’m on you life’s not crappy…” over and over and over again at warp speed.

The only other time as an adult I felt this good was when I was on a mega dose of steroids in 2003. This was no ordinary thing. I had to go to the hospital four times a day to have liquid steroids forced into me. Talk about WHEEEEEEEEEE! I was outrunning Daphne on our walks. I started a business (which has since been dissolved). I couldn’t sleep. For an entire month in 2003, I was super-charged. The three days of steroids stopped, but the thing about steroids is that you can’t just stop them cold. You need to wean yourself off of them. So the “wean off” period lasted for a few weeks. I noticed that nearly everything in my life was better and I was smiling without someone ordering me to. Life was just so damn good. I asked my doctor if I could stay on them, but he said no, that would amount to medical malpractice.

Okay, fine. I know that steroids aren’t really good for you and the illegal ones even less so. But you can bet I’m going to do some research to find out if there’s something out there that does the same thing, but isn’t as dangerous. Because I’m liking the Happy Fun Time Gloria. And if I can’t win the lottery (which would give me the same feeling, I’m sure) I can’t see how a few steroids every couple of months would cause any harm. Especially if they put the WHEEEEEEE back in my life.