 | Let’s acknowledge the elephant in my room (and maybe yours). |
Hot flashes.
I’ve always been a cold person. I wear scarves in the summer, bring sweaters to restaurants in case it’s chilly, drape an afghan over my legs while watching TV. I’d joked that I couldn’t wait for menopause so that I could finally warm up.
Now, I regret taunting the goddess of menses. My smart remarks pissed her off and she does not play.
It started when I was fifty. The hot flashes started slow and picked up speed over a couple of weeks. Then they began to drop on me like bombs. It felt like I was blushing, but so hard, all over. My ears turned red, sweat ran down my back, I fought the urge to take off my shirt. The worst was the anxiety--when I got hot, I felt like I couldn’t stay where I was, so I took to bolting out of the room. I paced in hallways and on sidewalks, slightly frantic and not knowing why, breathing hard, flapping my hands to make a breeze. The panic subsided with each hot flash, thank god, and I went back to normal, just stickier.
They hit me at random moments during the day. Sometimes they came when I got frustrated, or nervous, or when I laughed, the times when you might normally blush. Sometimes they came out of the blue, when I was just sitting on my couch or in church or at the movies. They came when I was shopping, and I stood in the freezer aisle, pretending to read frozen vegetable packages until I cooled off. If I was at home, I’d strip down and stand in front of the fan, breathing deeply.
They came in the night, waking me up with clammy pajamas and tangled sheets. Dopey with sleep, I’d kick off the covers, fall back asleep, wake up shivering, pull up the covers. Rinse and repeat. I couldn’t sleep more than a few hours a night. It was like having a nursing baby, where you wake up four times a night soaked with milk, and the baby’s crying. Except, now, I was soaked with sweat and I was the one crying. My sleep cycle had gone full circle.
I’d always scorned hormone replacement regimes, too risky and too coddling. I’d never endanger my health by taking drugs that just made life easier! Who said life has to be easy? If my mother got through menopause drug-free, I could, too.
But I wasn’t sleeping. I started to get panicky if I didn’t have easy access to the door in every room. I didn’t know how to keep a conversation going, pretending like I was fine while my body raged and dripped and I stifled a scream.
I went to the doctor, and she said that the drugs weren’t all bad. She said the research was solid and the bad publicity came from some fear-inducing reports based on skewed statistics. I started with an estrogen cream, rubbed on my inner forearms every morning. The goddess of menses, however, laughed at my feeble efforts to thwart her plan, and the flashes marched on. I went back to the doctor, demanding something stronger. She gave me a hormone patch, to be adhered to my backside, and after a few weeks things began to look up. I slept better and the hot flashes downgraded to warm swells.
The goddess snarled and retreated and is probably giving herself a pep-talk about living to fight another day.
So why bring it up now? Can’t I just muddle through, and watch my reproductive system ride off into the sunset?
No, I can’t. I’ve got nothing to lose. I’m 53, and I have seen some shit.
If you’re a femme d’une certain âge, like me, raised by Carol Brady and Ma Ingalls, you’ve concealed most of your reproductive issues from people, except maybe your significant others and your kids. You didn’t want to burden people or embarrass them. You wanted to be polite. You drove carpool, smiling, with a newborn in a carseat, or pumped milk in a bathroom stall. And every month, for decades, you took your purse to the restroom and hoped no one noticed. You updated your doctor once a year, or you confided your worst events to your closest girlfriends over wine and cookies, sometimes laughing, sometimes crying.
But listen up, ladies. Things are changing.
Pantone’s Color of the Year is a shocking red called period, Michelle Obama talked about menopause on her podcast. And Chrissy Teigen told everybody what so many of us hid, that she had a miscarriage.
The days of hiding your cramps or bra straps or tears are over. I’m not saying you need to air your dirty laundry in public (what a wildly appropriate metaphor!), I’m just saying you can relax and make yourself comfortable.
If you need to fan yourself or dab your forehead or leave the room, you do it, girl, and don’t apologize. Wear a tank top under your sweater and strip down if you need to. Put a fan by your desk or open a window or go for a walk. Tell your family and friends and chosen co-workers what’s going on, and let’s put an end to this secrecy nonsense once and for all. And, really, ask your doctor what she can do for you. The drugs are pretty good.
Our reproductive systems may be done, but we are not. We’ve got things to do, pleasures to find, joys to behold.
The times, they are a-changing, and we don’t have to be invisible anymore.
I’ve always been a cold person. I wear scarves in the summer, bring sweaters to restaurants in case it’s chilly, drape an afghan over my legs while watching TV. I’d joked that I couldn’t wait for menopause so that I could finally warm up.
Now, I regret taunting the goddess of menses. My smart remarks pissed her off and she does not play.
It started when I was fifty. The hot flashes started slow and picked up speed over a couple of weeks. Then they began to drop on me like bombs. It felt like I was blushing, but so hard, all over. My ears turned red, sweat ran down my back, I fought the urge to take off my shirt. The worst was the anxiety--when I got hot, I felt like I couldn’t stay where I was, so I took to bolting out of the room. I paced in hallways and on sidewalks, slightly frantic and not knowing why, breathing hard, flapping my hands to make a breeze. The panic subsided with each hot flash, thank god, and I went back to normal, just stickier.
They hit me at random moments during the day. Sometimes they came when I got frustrated, or nervous, or when I laughed, the times when you might normally blush. Sometimes they came out of the blue, when I was just sitting on my couch or in church or at the movies. They came when I was shopping, and I stood in the freezer aisle, pretending to read frozen vegetable packages until I cooled off. If I was at home, I’d strip down and stand in front of the fan, breathing deeply.
They came in the night, waking me up with clammy pajamas and tangled sheets. Dopey with sleep, I’d kick off the covers, fall back asleep, wake up shivering, pull up the covers. Rinse and repeat. I couldn’t sleep more than a few hours a night. It was like having a nursing baby, where you wake up four times a night soaked with milk, and the baby’s crying. Except, now, I was soaked with sweat and I was the one crying. My sleep cycle had gone full circle.
I’d always scorned hormone replacement regimes, too risky and too coddling. I’d never endanger my health by taking drugs that just made life easier! Who said life has to be easy? If my mother got through menopause drug-free, I could, too.
But I wasn’t sleeping. I started to get panicky if I didn’t have easy access to the door in every room. I didn’t know how to keep a conversation going, pretending like I was fine while my body raged and dripped and I stifled a scream.
I went to the doctor, and she said that the drugs weren’t all bad. She said the research was solid and the bad publicity came from some fear-inducing reports based on skewed statistics. I started with an estrogen cream, rubbed on my inner forearms every morning. The goddess of menses, however, laughed at my feeble efforts to thwart her plan, and the flashes marched on. I went back to the doctor, demanding something stronger. She gave me a hormone patch, to be adhered to my backside, and after a few weeks things began to look up. I slept better and the hot flashes downgraded to warm swells.
The goddess snarled and retreated and is probably giving herself a pep-talk about living to fight another day.
So why bring it up now? Can’t I just muddle through, and watch my reproductive system ride off into the sunset?
No, I can’t. I’ve got nothing to lose. I’m 53, and I have seen some shit.
If you’re a femme d’une certain âge, like me, raised by Carol Brady and Ma Ingalls, you’ve concealed most of your reproductive issues from people, except maybe your significant others and your kids. You didn’t want to burden people or embarrass them. You wanted to be polite. You drove carpool, smiling, with a newborn in a carseat, or pumped milk in a bathroom stall. And every month, for decades, you took your purse to the restroom and hoped no one noticed. You updated your doctor once a year, or you confided your worst events to your closest girlfriends over wine and cookies, sometimes laughing, sometimes crying.
But listen up, ladies. Things are changing.
Pantone’s Color of the Year is a shocking red called period, Michelle Obama talked about menopause on her podcast. And Chrissy Teigen told everybody what so many of us hid, that she had a miscarriage.
The days of hiding your cramps or bra straps or tears are over. I’m not saying you need to air your dirty laundry in public (what a wildly appropriate metaphor!), I’m just saying you can relax and make yourself comfortable.
If you need to fan yourself or dab your forehead or leave the room, you do it, girl, and don’t apologize. Wear a tank top under your sweater and strip down if you need to. Put a fan by your desk or open a window or go for a walk. Tell your family and friends and chosen co-workers what’s going on, and let’s put an end to this secrecy nonsense once and for all. And, really, ask your doctor what she can do for you. The drugs are pretty good.
Our reproductive systems may be done, but we are not. We’ve got things to do, pleasures to find, joys to behold.
The times, they are a-changing, and we don’t have to be invisible anymore.