Well, the first two day of this cortisone cylce weren’t that bad. I think today the side effects were less severe than yesterday, but I’m still feeling restless, my heart is not really racing but beating way too strong and my body still feels tired. Typical bipolar reaction. I’ve still got the icky metal taste in my mouth and try to mask it with either spicy or sweet food. I don’t even want to think about how much weight that will put on me in the next couple of days. I went to bed around 11.30 PM last night and somehow the first Harry Potter Audiobook helped my restless body and mind to fall asleep rather quickly. I got 4 hours of sleep, lay awake for a long while and got another 90 minutes in the early morning. Not too bad for a patient drugged up with cortisone. But of course it took a toll on my body and mind. I wasn not just moving awfully slow in the morning but also thinking slowly. Or not at all. Instead of my facial scrub gel I took my treatment lotion with me into the shower :-(
Maybe I should have tried to get some rest/sleep this afternoon, but I was still too restless to lie down. So I used the time off from any work or political responsibilites for reading and studying a bit. Although my concentration span for complicated topics like sustainable mobility or concepts of enviromental education seems to be limited to about 20 minutes. But at least I spent 2×20 minutes studying. And I also read a bit more of the really great, informative and interesting report “Zukunftsfähiges Deutschland” (Unfortunately there is no summary available in English yet) This report was published by the Wuppertal Institute, one of the leading german research institute for sustainable development, In 1996 this institute published the first “Zukunftsfähiges Deutschland” report, which was later called the “German bible on Sustainablity”, because it helped to put these issues on the politcal and social agenda. Yes, I’m a sustainabilty nerd, I know :-)
And of course I spent some time catching up with TV shows. Last night I watched the new german legal drama “Die Anwälte” on ARD and I enjoyed it and I will definitely follow it in the next couple of weeks. If only to send a message to the commercial broadcasting station RTL, which produced that show originally but took it off the air after the first episode, because it didn’t get the expected ratings! How can anyone give their own program so little credit? Anyway the ARD (public broadcast) bought it and I really hope it will be a success on their station and will prove that sometimes quality is more important than ratings. At least it should be! Last night I also watched the new Brothers & Sisters and enjoyed that immensly too. I’m so curious how the new job offer for Kevin will turn out. What a great twist.
Just now I finished watching the newest of my favourite german crime show (two or three 90minutes every year) “Unter Verdacht”, which deals with crimes within the police and legal system. I enjoyed this one, although it bugged me, that the culprit commited the crimes, because she needed the money and she needed the money because her late husband’s medical care was so expensive. Her husband died of multiple sclerosis. ARGH! I hate the image these things in movies and tv shows create, because they are wrong. Only a very few MS patients actually die from that disease or disabilities or physical decline. But just from these two lines of dialogue part of the audience might get the impression that MS is lethal. Well, so is life in general… Ok, I should not get all riled up about that, because that’s not helping with my current state of health.
I guess I will end this crime and legal TV evening for me with another episode of “Raising The Bar”, before I’ll go to bed way earlier than I used to. Even though I will probably not be able to fall asleep anytime soon or to get enough hours of sleep. But at least my body will be resting…