In May of 2009 my business partner approached me with an idea. “Women are always coming to you and asking for help in navigating information about menopause,” she said, “you need to start blogging about menopause because you can make it approachable and even funny.”
My hysterectomy, at the age of 48, brought on surgical menopause. Over the next few years, many of the women I knew took me aside and asked me to fill them in on what they would need to know about menopause, one day. Naturally I agreed to help in any way that I could.
One of these friends, we’ll call her Julie, is about three years older than I. As the years went by, Julie kept assuring me that one day she would need to have this conversation, but not yet. Julie made it well past the average age of 52 with no sign of slowing down. I think in some ways she took it as a sign of her youthfulness.
Then, a month after her 57th birthday, Julie was diagnosed with lung cancer. She had gone to the doctor for a persistent cough in May and been given a prescription for cough syrup. In July, when the cough had become significantly worse they took an x-ray. The test confirmed that Julie had pneumonia and a mass. She had never been a smoker.
The good news was that the cancer was stage 1. The bad news was that it was rated 1B because the tumor was very large. When they went in to remove the tumor it became evident that the entire right lung had to be removed.
Over the next two years Julie became increasingly ill. She went through surgery after surgery, chemo, radiation and any other thing that they do to cancer patients. She fought like a tiger as her body betrayed her virtually every step of the way. I watched her strength as she comforted friends and family. I celebrated with her when she received news of her one and only clean MRI.
On Thursday I will attend Julie’s memorial service. I was thinking, the other day, in all of our conversations about anything and everything related to her body there was never mention of menopause. As all of her systems shut down I am certain that her menses was no exception.
Did she ever have hot flashes or night sweats? Did her emotions get out of control? I’m guessing I will never know. And maybe she never knew. With everything else happening to her did her symptoms of menopause blend so completely that there was no way of telling? Or were they so insignificant compared to all the other discomforts and pains that they went unnoticed? Whatever the answer, Julie never made it to her 60th birthday, and I miss her more than I can begin to express.
In all the myriad of topics that are bandied about regarding menopause there is never any mention of the women who don’t go through menopause. But they exist, and I wouldn’t trade my worst menopausal symptoms with them for the world.
Your doctor asks “What seems to be the problem?”
And you respond “Well doctor, over the last quarter I’ve been experiencing heat waves or hot flashes. I have observed that they are the worst after my morning shower. I have adjusted my shower temperature and my room thermostat to no avail. I have begun washing my hair at night to reduce the amount of heat applied to my head from hot water, the hair dryer and the flat iron, with no discernible improvement.
Lee’s new tv spot has a 20-something young woman uttering a vehement statement “I’ll never wear mom jeans”!
As a menopausal woman it is likely that you are no stranger to occasional bouts of insomnia. When it gets bad, insomnia leaves us exhausted and haggard looking – just what we need!
If you’re like me, you have tools and tricks to help get you back into a normal sleep rhythm – anything from natural sleep aids to meditation to breaking behavior patterns will help get you back on track.
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Diet or Sleep?
Everyone knows that menopausal women can have trouble sleeping. Everyone knows that menopausal women can have trouble with weight gain. Two separate issues – right?
Positive Aging or Punitive Ageism
Vincent Vassolo recently wrote a post entitled: The Power of Positive Aging. In it he states that baby boomers “know the destructive power of prejudice…they simply won’t tolerate ageism”.
I know my way around hormones. After all I’ve been taking some form of hormone replacement since way back in my perimenopausal days. So that’s what I thought.
After two years of sharing my challenges, triumphs, frustrations, discomforts and random thoughts about the menopausal time of life on Menologues it seems like a good idea to take a look at where this journey started and how far it has come.
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Now Menologues is being republished on Alltop in addition to Vibrant Nation. If I ever doubted that menopausal women were awesome the opportunities to meet them through these top notch commercial sites have been invaluable. I’m getting to know some wonderful, wise and funny people – who give great advice! I feel extremely fortunate!
