The Sick Days – Part 4

Getting the scoop of my life The rheumatologist increases the dose of prednisone to 80 mg, enough to medicate an asthmatic elephant, but fails to mention the life-expectancy side of a lupus diagnosis By Shelley Page This is how the cover-up began. I showed up for my summer newspaper internship, signed some papers, found a desk, took an assignment, only cried in the bathroom. And after writing 1,000 words for a sidebar on a school board matter that should have been just 400—the Province is a tabloid–I slipped out to await my mother, driving up Granville Street in her Ford Pinto. That first week, and many after, my mom spent three hours each day as a chauffeur driving to and from the Province. She deserved a medal for driving; me, for acting. I didn’t tell anybody, editor or the veteran journalists sitting on either side of me, that I’d just been tentatively diagnosed with a serious autoimmune disease. Operating instructions, please The truth is, I had ...