I MADE IT TO MENOPAUSE

My favorite blogger, Mrs. G mentioned in a recent post that her doc suggested she was embarking on the long hormonal jag journey called perimenopause. My fervent best wishes. As of this very month, I have graduated to full menopause. The end of the journey - or is it?

By some serendipitous quirk of the universe, I started having symptom at the same time my younger sister had breast cancer treatment which put her into early perimenopause. So we have had years of sisterly sharing.

Actually it has been amazing how in step we have been. We tended to very frequent, but short periods, rather than longer time between them, we had the same type of hot flashes, which varied over time from the all over flush of heat lasting 5 minutes to the quick flash heat lasting less than a minute but came one after another all day. she woke up during the night, I couldn't go to sleep'till the wee hours.

I didn't think I was having mood swings until my husband was setting up a new computer and logged my name as "Moody" with a little storm cloud icon. I tried to pay more attention after that, but when you are having PMS and periods twice a month, there is not much time for rational thought.

Last year I was in the waiting room at Kaiser and saw a magazine article called "Why Menopause Starts with Me". It was by the author of "The Female Brain", Dr. Louann Brizendine. I recognised myself immediately. I knew my interest in housekeeping and menu planning, cooking and, heaven help me, shopping had noticeably waned. She explained that my brain had shifted to a place where child rearing and all things domestic had diminished in importance. Just knowng that was a relief. I cut myself a break about those things, realizing that I hadn't become lazy, just interested in other things.

I must say that after 9 years of symptoms, realizing I had not had a period in a year was really nice. However, I am still having hot flashes. Everyday. Some nights. Is this one of those things they don't tell women? Like those details of childbirth and what it is like to share a bathroom with a man?

After all that my body has been through, all that my mind has had to cope with, you'd think reaching the end of the childbearing portion of my life would be rewarded with some sort of golden glow or gift certificate or something. I know! I'm going out to buy all new undies!