Archives for posts with tag: women’s health

Menopause

July 5, 2014 //
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Well… here I am. Menopause Day. According to the outstanding minds at Wikipedia, this moment is really ‘one year into post menopause’…but one can’t claim it until they’ve reached it, because how else can that precious ‘last period’ be identified as ‘last’ in the first place? I remain frustrated with the lack of scientific precision in women’s health, and laugh grimly at the statements about perimenopause being ‘6-10 years’… that’s a pretty broad range, and actually, in my own life experience of perimenopause, I found the experience, and period of my life (lol) actually lasted an emotionally brutal 14+ years. It sucked and I’m glad it’s over. Only…it isn’t, really, is it? I’m still female, and my hormones will likely be variable for many more years – hell, I may manage another period, no doubt completely unexpected, and poorly timed, at some future point.

Still. I’ll take the small comfort offered that I officially don’t have to argue with even one more doctor, ever, about whether or not I am ‘menopausal’.  I have finally passed their primitive diagnostic test. lol

A gateway on a journey, a window to another perspective.

A gateway on a journey, a window to another perspective.

I refuse to hide from this experience, or pretend it doesn’t matter to me, or to be ashamed in any way of this completely natural bit of biological change of purpose in life. Today I celebrate with a handful of the women who are my friends who could make it down to the Chinese Garden for tea today; we’ll share a moment and celebrate being women.

A lovely spot for a cup of tea.

A lovely spot for a cup of tea.

It would be so nice if this afternoon out for tea was the last stop ever on the train through Hormone Hell, but that seems a lot to ask of a cup of tea.

Today is a good day to celebrate being a woman. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Healthy Living, Hormone Hell, Menopause, Mindfulness, Perspective, The Big 5, women

So…No.

June 11, 2014 //
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Wow. Not a very positive start to a post, at all. Is it a difficult morning? Did I wake in pain, or feeling poorly? Am I sad, hurt, or angry? No, not really any of those things, and it is a lovely, simple morning.  I am thinking, almost happily, about yesterday’s challenges – well met, and behind me. What remains is mostly the recollection of a mostly lovely day.

A lovely summer afternoon in this city I love.

A lovely summer afternoon in this city I love.

It isn’t a perfect picture; life itself isn’t about ‘perfect’ unless we choose to make it so. That’s rarely a good choice, in my experience.  I knew as I headed downtown for appointments at the VA that it was likely to be, like many experiences, less than perfect. It’s the VA. The news articles do not greatly exaggerate the issues, and may in fact present a rosier picture than exists in fact. Just saying.

First things first – any possible calm in the waiting room was entirely disrupted by loud administrators and ‘auditors’ of a variety of sorts. Business is business, work has to be done, and it isn’t all medicine…but when a disruptive crowd of noisy people fill up the waiting room of the Women’s Health Center, and some significant portion are rather disrespectful dudes with no apparent sense that people are waiting, and possibly not feeling well, its super annoying. Distracting, too, and as a veteran with a TBI, I’d like to be able to calmly focus on my appointment and my care needs. Yep – all about me, and every other patient there. Keep the freakin’ noise down!

It only gets better. Somehow, by mistake, although I specifically phoned and specifically scheduled an appointment with my primary care provider at her specific request, I was scheduled to see an entirely different doctor, who doesn’t know me, and has not had (or taken) an opportunity to actually review the entirety of my 20+ years of medical care for service connected injuries. She was personable enough, and educated, even fairly skilled on the VA computer system – a nice change of pace in recent years, to see doctors who can also navigate a windows OS – and I figured I’d relax and value what her perspective may have to offer. Seems fair.  My hopeful curiosity quickly fell behind my irritation.  She was quick to hand me the usual commonplace saccharine reassurances about menopause, not a glance at my records. I quickly and firmly objected to her suggestion that I may want to consider antidepressants for some of my menopause symptoms, and pointed her to the portion of my records that documents what a miserable failure that was – years ago.  She started to bring up atypical antipsychotics. I pointed her to that section of my records. Again. Again. Again. We finally get to a recommendation I hadn’t had offered before. She had piqued my interest – something that might ease the hot flashes? (They’re on/off nearly continuously these last few weeks, it’s very uncomfortable.)  No, I had no interest in spending even one moment in hospital purgatory (the pharmacy), yes mail the Rx to my home… and I made my escape.  While I waited for the bus to return me to downtown to connect with light rail, I read up on her suggestion… Um… wait, what? It’s associated with an increased risk of suicide. Not ‘a rare side effect’, nope, it has a white box warning label. Oh. Hell. No. Seriously? Why would a doctor recommend a drug with a high risk of suicide to a veteran with PTSD, and MST – who is also over 50? (Are the VA doctors unaware that veterans over 50 are, themselves, at increased risk of suicide?)

I walked away from the VA the way I often do – angry. To be fair, the state of women’s medicine isn’t fantastic, even in the civilian community.  Currently, the best medical test for menopause is… wait for it… No, seriously, that’s the test. Wait. 365 days, to be exact. Once one successfully completes 365 days of her adult life without bleeding from her vagina, it’s menopause! Very scientific, guys, very reliable… oh…what? You mean I might still have a period, or some spotting, or obvious hormone fluctuations after that? So… um… go medical precision? I think my irritation is understandable. The VA just pours salt in that wound by being more interested in Rx solutions than in practicing medicine and healing people, by rushing patient care in a very industrial and profit-oriented way (and still failing to actually be profitable), and being grossly understaffed in all roles just makes it very unlikely that anything will change – regardless who is at the top. The bottom line is still about the bottom line; no one really wants to pay the bill on all those broken people.  That shit is expensive.

It wasn’t unexpected. I headed for home, hopeful that I could just let it go and enjoy the evening.

Sometimes I have to take care of me.

Sometimes I have to take care of me.

The train was crowded. That’s a simple enough sentence. It doesn’t go nearly far enough. Wedged between a very large man who was drenched in sweat and smelled strongly of eau de unwashed humanity, and a very thin angular woman with children, strollers, and shopping bags, unable to move, pressed in on all sides to the point of being in very close contact – actually touching – I only managed one stop. I forced my way off the crowded train, gasping for breath, near tears, heart pounding – and still that residual anger. I was having a panic attack. Shit. I backed up against the building at the stop, in the shade, and closed my eyes. I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, and another. The rush of commuters dissipated between trains. A handful of people were milling around, panhandling, chatting. My pounding heart and the rushing in my ears began to ease. A man approached me slowly, cautiously. “You okay, Sister?” He eyed me with wary sympathy. “Yes, thanks,” I replied. I made eye-contact. A homeless veteran? A veteran. Sometimes it is obvious. “I just couldn’t handle the crowd on the train, today.” He looked me over appraisingly, but without hostility or resentment, just that continued calm sympathy. “Yeah… you’re okay, though?” “Yes, thanks.” As he moved away, I contemplated his kindness. I wonder what he would have said or done if I hadn’t said I was okay? I wondered if his simple human kindness, consideration, and sympathy actually have more value than all the pills the VA has ever offered me. I sure felt better… I got on the next train and headed home.

Taking care of me still feels new.  A simple decision in favor of self-compassion, getting off an over-crowded train and waiting for the next one, really matters.  I ended up enjoying a lovely evening at home, as a byproduct of self-care.  Small changes. Good choices. So worth it.

Today is a new day, a fresh start, a different adventure. Today is a good day to be kind to strangers, and a good day to be kind to myself. Today is a good day to appreciate that we are each having our own experience, and we’re all in this together. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Menopause, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Big 5, women

Menopause 101

October 14, 2013 //
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I’ll just give you the TMI warning now, okay? If you are squeamish about the biology of women, I understand; please stop now and read something else. 😉  If you choose to stick around, welcome – we’ll resume after this lovely metaphor about women and medicine…

Mushrooms

Mushrooms

It says something about the state of medicine, where women are concerned at least, that the medical industry has yet to develop a simple, reliable, accurate test to determine whether or not a woman is ‘menopausal’, heading toward menopause, or dealing with some other variety of hormonal weirdness.  Seriously. Women have existed alongside men as medicine developed and progressed, and as far as I know the experience of our reproductive life-cycle hasn’t really evolved much… so what’s the hold up? Currently, the most reliable criteria for determining whether a woman has ‘gone through menopause’ is – and this is not the punch line of a cruel joke, it’s quite literally what we’re told – “once you’ve gone a year without having a period, you have gone through menopause”.  Um…what? Yep. That’s it. “Wait and see” is the best we’re offered.  0_o

I am counting down the days. Again. So far, 101 of them – and that beats my last count down, earlier this year, when I got to 92 days, then faced the ‘joy’ of disastrously and unpredictably heavy (and irregular) periods and the associated random opportunities to spot clean, or do extra laundry at a moment’s notice for a handful of months.  Now I am counting again.

I’m also wearing pajamas. Well, ‘sleepwear’ of some sort…  I’ve always preferred to sleep nude, as an adult. I find it more comfortable.  I like the feeling of sleeping nude… but I dislike the experience of waking abruptly in the night to find that linens need to be changed, the mattress needs spot cleaning, and a shower has become an urgent necessity; so, sleepwear has become practical beyond the sensuous preference for nudity. lol.  I find myself considering how nice it will feel to return to sleeping nude once I’m past the ‘pause… but I’m also sort of growing to enjoy the fun of sleepwear… is it an age thing? Is it vanity? Is it a good excuse to think of lingerie as ‘practical’? My taste is a bit toward soft and pretty, although in the dark…? lol.  I definitely don’t prefer long pajama pants for sleeping, though – I love the feel of smooth legs on clean sheets. 😀

I miss the clockwork regularity of my cycle in younger years… I do not miss the threat of fertility, though.  I’ve had a good cry or two over ‘I’ll never…’, that’s a pretty human experience, isn’t it?  Motherhood hasn’t been an aspiration for me, though. I’m not that woman; I have walked a very different path all along.  A brief period in my life – between about 27 and 32 – I had an undefeatable urge to reproduce.  It was an experience that felt very biological, and rather beyond my control or understanding.  At 50 I remain satisfied with a childless life, with choices other than parenting.   I’ve only ever met one man who moved me so, heart and soul, that I grieved openly in his arms that I would not ever bear his child – and although neither of us wanted children at that point in our lives, he understood me so well.  He held me while I cried, and said the soft tender things that lovers know to say, and the moment passed.  No doubt that will be one nagging regret I will have… one moment of poignant longing… one missed experience that will hold a tiny bright flame of wistfulness and sorrow that I feel now and again; to have been a mother, to have born his child, to have loved and shared and built someone new together to carry who we are in their heart and in their memory, would have been remarkable indeed.

Motherhood is not my path; I chose differently very early on, and I do not regret that, even a little bit.

That’s one promise menopause holds for me that means a lot; no more stress about unplanned pregnancy.  Sex without anxiety about reproduction is a very big deal in a very good way.  😀  Like it or not, most of the available options for birth control are actually pretty awful; powerful drugs with nasty side effects (including ruining a woman’s sex drive!), condoms (and the associated loss of sensation, inconvenience, and loss of powerful biological effect on mood from contact with flesh and bodily fluids), an assortment of grim options that involve inserting bits of metal, plastic, or other foreign objects (many of which can be felt by a partner, and not in a good way), or the last worst option – going without sex.  Medicine really hasn’t done women any favors with the crappy options we have for birth control – and society doesn’t do us any favors by playing head games with us about the ‘moral’ consequences before, during, or after.  It has gotten very tedious over 50 years being bombarded with constant reminders that sex isn’t okay (when it is) that my decision-making isn’t my own (when it is), or that I have some obligation to bear life in my body (when I don’t).   Yep – I’m more than ready to reach a point in my life when my ability to reproduce is behind me, and ‘babies!’ is not longer any element of a discussion about me, or my sexual decision-making. lol.

Menopause. There’s astonishingly little real research – or support – for this element of female experience.  It still surprises me. I mean – this affects all my partners, too, not just me. My emotional reactivity, my unpredictable hormones, my everyday health and well-being don’t exist in a vacuum! I keep expecting more from the medical industry… but in a culture where it’s okay to call a scientist who won’t work for free a whore, because she is a woman, why would I be surprised?

Anyway… the count down continues, and only 264 days to go to get my final test results back determining whether I’ve reached the ‘pause.  Most accurate test available!

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50, women