MenoMania

Don't Take Sleep for Granted

2008-03-04T11:44:00.001-05:00

Today I went back to the rheumatologist, where I found out I don't have an inflammatory disease. No Lupus, no rheumatoid arthritis, sjogrens, etc.

So that's good.

What it all seems to boil down to is sleep-deprivation. All the 3 or more months of "not good" sleep took its toll. The sleep problems were probably caused by pain I was having from a couple of injuries. Since I'm not much for taking over-the-counter pain relievers, I was just "gutting it out." The problem with that is the body is on alert all the time, stressed by the pain. This keeps you from sleeping deeply, which accumulates to exhaustion and then of course, you still have the pain.

I've been taking Tylenol or Advil at night before going to bed if I have any pain at all, no matter how slight. I've been doing that for about a month. I've been waking in the morning refreshed and the pain and fatigue has gradually disappeared as I've gotten more rest. At Adam's suggestion, I've also been taking some mega-doses of vitamins...D, Flax Oil (I'm changing that to Fish oil now because it has DHA & EPA, which have been shown to assist with inflammation), Magnesium and a multi-vitamin. All of those have done a lot to reduce inflammation in my body. I have what is called a "strongly positive ANA," which means I have positive anti-nuclear antibodies. Those antibodies go into overdrive and attack the body's own tissues. According to what I'm just beginning to learn (the hard way), when the body is not rested adequately, not fed properly, not assisted with injuries, not exercised regularly, then it goes into an "alert" mode. The body's immune system kicks in to help deal with whatever is wrong. But it can also go too far working on the bad stuff and start in on healthy tissues and systems, causing chronic pain and fatigue.

That's apparently what happened to me.

And I apparently accidentally fixed it. I corrected my sleep position by changing to a different pillow(Many, many thanks to Sarah for giving me her very expensive Tempur-pedic pillow! Only cost me a couple bottles of wine!). I calmed the body down by further decreasing my already fairly low intake of refined sugar and grains, fed it mega-doses of multi-vitamins, laid down when the body said to, and took anti-inflammatory medication at night for any pain, no matter how slight. I stuck with jazzercise, doing low-impact as much as needed, and added yoga and Qigong, as well as casual strolling walks with the dog.

So there you have it. It's all good!

Now. Learn from this. I’ve done all the hard learning for you!

Sucking up the Pain

2008-02-07T07:25:00.001-05:00

I had an epiphany a few days ago. About pain. I read somewhere...and then right around the same time a friend told me...that I should not just suck up and deal with pain. It needs to be treated. The body is under stress when there is pain. Not just the mental stress, but also physical stress. If you let the body continue in pain it pretty much just wears it down.

I really should try to figure out where I read that.

I have never been one for popping pain medications like ibuprofen or Tylenol or anything else. It's not that I have any particular resistance to them, but I guess I think our society overuses them and I never want to be average! I've always held the belief that one should correct whatever it is that is causing the pain and then the pain will go away. And one should just deal with it until the correction is made.

But in the case of inflammatory pain, you really should take some medication for that.

Here's something I just figured out a couple of nights ago. I was telling my chiropractor that I like my new pillow with the sunken spot in the middle (it's for sleeping on your back, which I'm trying to teach myself to do), but I can only use it some of the times because I have this pain from the pressure on my spine from lying on my back. We both just went 'hmm...'

So Monday night I lay down on my back, a pillow under my knees, like I do every night and immediately the back pain just got too distracting. Instead of just swapping the pillows back out and turning to my side, I got up and took two Tylenol tablets.

Slept like a baby! And woke up refreshed, which I haven't in many months now. Apparently the pain in my body, while it hasn't been severe at night, has been enough to keep me from sleeping deeply enough to awake refreshed.

So last night I just popped two ibuprofen when I went to bed and here I am, feeling pretty good again this morning!

DUH!

Not Nuts

2008-02-01T11:25:00.000-05:00

Call from internist's office. They are referring me to Rheumatology.
I had two very slight abnormalities on the blood work, which they might not have necessarily been concerned about, but with the symptoms I’m experiencing it’s wise to have a visit with a specialist. The two tests are for Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate(ESR) and Antinuclear Antibody Test (ANA).

Elevated ESR is an indicator that there is inflammation present. They put blood in a test tube, add something to keep it from clotting, and then wait to see how long it takes the red blood cells to separate from the plasma and fall to the bottom of the tube. If certain proteins cover red cells, these will stick to each other and cause the red cells to fall more quickly. So, a high ESR indicates that you have some inflammation, somewhere in the body.

ANA- First off, antibodies are proteins, produced by white blood cells, which normally circulate in the blood to defend against foreign invaders such as bacteria, viruses, and toxins. Autoantibodies, instead of acting against foreign invaders as normal antibodies do, attack the body's own cells. Antinuclear antibodies are a unique group of autoantibodies that have the ability to attack structures in the nucleus of cells. The nucleus of a cell contains genetic material referred to as DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). An ANA (antinuclear antibody) test can be used as part of the diagnostic process to detect certain autoimmune diseases.

Now, what does this mean? Not a lot at this point, except to say that if the ANA test were negative, we’d be very very sure I didn’t have Systemic Lupus Erythematosis (SLE). That’s because pretty much NO ONE with SLE has a negative ANA test. But about 95% of SLE patients have positive ANA tests

With positives on these, and with the symptoms, there is a POSSIBILITY of an inflammatory illness such as rheumatoid arthritis, SLE, or other autoimmune disorders. But it’s NOT ABSOLUTE. False positives can be caused by medications, although he did not ask me to change any of mine.

So. There you have it. I think I’m just relieved I’m not nuts. Or lazy.

Sucking my Blood

2008-01-24T07:31:00.000-05:00

The visit to my internist yesterday went so fast my head almost spun. I described the pain, listing the various adjectives for different parts of the body. He manipulated a couple of my joints and sprung into action.

This morning I go in for blood work. He'll test for vitamin deficiencies, check my lipid profile, C-reactive protein (this tells about inflammation), and also look for any signs that the pain might be caused by my medications. We should have results next week.

If all of that checks out, then we'll explore the possibility of an inflammatory condition such as arthritis.

Fibromyalgia? "That's just a word used to describe anyone that has a lot of pain all over."

Vitamins

2008-01-22T21:50:00.000-05:00

Today, with the chiropractor's advice, I am starting the following vitamins and these dosages:

Multivitamin-2/day
Vitamin D-4000 mg/day
Magnesium-400-1000 mg/day
Flax Oil-3000 mg/day

I'll write more about this tomorrow. Or the next day. Or whenever. (That's how this blog works) There's an expert and a theory behind it all.

Could There Be Something Else?

2008-01-22T16:08:00.001-05:00

I'm hoping that by this time tomorrow I'll be writing here what a silly person I am. I'm hoping that in 24 hours I will have some questions answered and some concerns addressed.

I've been in nearly constant pain of some sort or other for several months now. It seems to have begun when I strained a muscle in my shoulder in October. Since then it's been pretty much one thing after another. But right now it doesn't seem like anything is strained or sprained or broken. Instead everything feels inflamed and ache-y. A deep, bone ache. An all-over inflammatory feeling in my joints and muscles. Waxing and waning. Mild and then severe. In more than a couple of areas.

I'm beginning to wonder if we should explore the idea that I might have an inflammatory condition like fibromyalgia or rheumatoid arthritis or lupus or something.

When I look back, I've even wondered if all that muscle tension I complained about last spring might have been the beginning.

So I've made an appointment with my internist again. I'll go in there and say, "I'm here to ask this question. It's a question I'm asking, but also my friends and family. Should we consider that I might have something other than menopause going on? Something in addition to menopause?"

And then we'll talk.

More thinking...

2008-01-10T11:49:00.000-05:00

So. I've been thinking that I need to start being aware of depression stuff. Like the sleeping too much. During the day. Since I doubled the dose on the 3rd, the nighttime sleeping has improved. If I wake up in the night I drop right back off. I'm going to go back to half a dose of the Trazadone now because I suspect that I was so sleepy all day yesterday because I've been taking the full 50 mg each day since Christmas. I started out with half a dose when he first gave me the scrip, and only increased it to the full dose whenever the cyclic fatigue was coming on. But because I never seemed to snap out of the fatigue, I just kept taking the full dose. Now I'm starting to wonder if that full dose is contributing to my daytime fatigue. I took half last night and slept well and do feel less dopey today. But my body is tired.

I talked to a friend about the depression some more. And how worried I am about all the daytime napping I'm doing. Depression people do that. I've been doing that. But she reminded me that I was bonking around Christmas, then at New Year's I had this gastro-intestinal virus, and then last Thursday I doubled the anti-depressant. "Remember you were pretty tired and sleeping all the time when you first started taking that medication last March," she said. "Maybe you are reacting to the higher dose."

AHA! That's a lightbulb moment! And besides, my stomach is a little queasy too. So hey...I've decided to give myself until next Friday, Jan. 18 to sleep and rest and lay around all I want. If I'm still kind of out of it, I'll call for an appt with the doc.

It's good to have a plan. And friends whose brains you can borrow.

But! I don't want to be a "Depression Person!"

2008-01-08T06:45:00.001-05:00

I've been angry these last several days. I guess I didn't realize that until I was talking to my best friend last night on the phone. As almost every conversation does, she began with asking me how I was.

It's not the typical "how are you?" question. It's a "Are you tired...sad...sleeping...getting work done" question. I told her I don't want to talk about it anymore. I'm either tired or I'm not. Most of the time I'm tired. And tired of telling people that. I don't have a good answer to the question without drawing people more into my personal life than I'd like. And I am really bad at saying I'm good when it's obvious by looking at me that I'm not. I wear my heart on sleeve...I don't have a poker face at all.

As we talked about it a little more, I began to realize that, actually? I'm pretty angry. I don't want to be a person who suffers from depression. I've always felt helpless around people who do. And I've never really understood before how big a problem it is, and how hard it is to overcome.
I told my friend "I just want the fatigue fixed. If I have energy, I don't care about the depression."

A while after we hung up, I realized what I was really saying. I'd rather be treated for a physical condition than a mental one. It'd be easier for me to live with a physical problem than this one. Then it won't have such stigma. It would seem a lot less like a problem I could solve myself. People figure depression is just an attitude problem. If the sufferer fixes their attitude, they won't be depressed. But a physical problem? That's another story. "She can't help that. She's got a broken whatever. She'll just have to do a course of treatment to get that fixed."

So here I am, a person with depression. And I still have attitudes about it. I myself, even though I know first hand how helpless I am to overcome it without medication, still harbor this feeling that it's a weakness. That I should be stronger than this. That I should just be able to put a positive spin on everything. Train myself to be happy all that time. And then everything will be okay.

Adjustments are a Way of Life

2008-01-03T21:26:00.000-05:00

Today we did a medication adjustment. I knew we would, but I was surprised by which one. I know my doctor saw my surprise and skepticism. "Just give me 60 days with this," he said. "We'll try something else if this doesn't work."

And so he doubled my anti-depressant.

I've had a firmly held belief from the beginning that my depression has been caused by my fatigue. That the insomnia is caused by the depression over the fatigue.

Today we discussed increasing my estrogen dose. "If we do that," I said, "I don't want to increase the testosterone component because of the muscle tension I experienced."

We also discussed decreasing my cholesterol-lowering medication. My cholesterol numbers are perfect now. There is actually wiggle room. And the sore, tired muscles could be a side effect of that. But I have been taking it for some years now with no effects before.

So here is the theory we are working on now.

1. I'm depressed.
2. I'm stressed.
3. I'm not sleeping all the way through the night uninterrupted, even with sleep medication.
4. I've been exercising more to chase away the blues and stress.
5. The more I exercise, the more damage I sustain physically. And the more worn out I get.

Which depresses me.

So. We are doubling the Celexa for 60 days. And I will slow down on the hard-core exercise and do more easy stuff like yoga and walking. And I need to rest.

What was especially interesting was when he said, "I don't want you to think you are wearing out early. That you are fragile and going downhill, getting too old. You feel like that now, but this will pass. Unfortunately, no one knows how long it will take. Could be years. But you will come out of all of this."

And so I will!

It's a New Year

2008-01-01T09:13:00.000-05:00

First: Happy New Year!

I slept my way into the New Year. Really the first good night's sleep I've gotten for more than a week. There was the bonking thing for a week around Christmas, and then some virus hit over the weekend that pretty much wacked me out.

One thing I've discovered is that when you experience a sudden attack of extreme fatigue, headache and body aches, you pretty much automatically assume it's menopause related. After a day went by, I came to the conclusion that I might have the flu. I spent a couple of days in bed and now feel myself slowly rising from the near-dead.

I'm not much of a resolution-maker, but this year's resolutions will be pretty much the same as the last: take care of myself, try not to drive everyone around me crazy, and have a good time!

Doctor's appointment on January 3. I'm anxious to talk to him about Estrogen levels. I am hopeful that an adjustment in meds will help.

Calling in Sick

2007-12-27T06:50:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I sent an email to my editor telling her I was going to be a little late with my filing this week because I've been sick for the past week.

But I haven't really been "sick." Sick and tired maybe. But not textbook-sick. I feel badly, telling her I've been sick when really I've been perfectly healthy. Just depressed, tired, unmotivated.

Should I just call in "not normal?"

Not CRAZY

2007-12-25T08:22:00.000-05:00

I am not CRAZY!

I have had these periods of debilitating fatigue for some months now. Actually, more like 18 months. When I started hormone replacement therapy they seemed to get better. At least shorter in duration. These are days when I can barely move. Literally. It's a struggle to tie my shoes. A struggle to get a glass of water. And yet the household and the jobs still require my attention. I wake up just as tired as when I went to bed the night the before. The fatigue is so bad that I'm nauseated. No appetite.

But it was better for some months this summer. Drugs. Plenty of drugs have kept me functioning. Three, actually. An estrogen/testosterone mix, an anti-depressant, and a sleep drug.

But the episodes have come back and some have lasted 5 or 6 days. I'm in one right now.

My doctor believes me. Always has. He's tested me for adrenal problems, thyroid problems, Vitamin D deficiency. He's checked for so many things that I can't even remember them all. The cyclic nature of this is undeniable, so we've always come back to menopause. With no uterus, it's tough for me to know where I am in a cycle, but these episodes do tend to come on about every 4 weeks. At about the mid-way point I experience a milder form of many menomania symptoms...a little blue, a little snappish, maybe a headache.

What I have discovered about myself in the past few weeks is that my thinking has been changing. In a way that both scares me and disgusts me.

I've begun to have recurring thoughts of what I CAN'T or SHOULDN'T do. I've never been that person. I've had feelings of fragility. Feelings that I should avoid some activities because they are too strenuous, I might get hurt, I won't have enough energy to do them. Activities as hard as lifting weights and as easy as going to the mall shopping. I've had fears that I'm going to turn into one of those fragile little old ladies who look like they might blow away at the next strong wind. And of course, I am small. I only weigh about 128 pounds. My bones are very tiny...bird bones, really. And I've had injuries lately...a twisted ankle, another ankle sprained, a strained shoulder muscle.

But today. Today I found a website about Menopause that talks about "Crashing Fatigue Syndrome." It could have been written by me about me! Amazing!

I see from the site that I am already doing many of the things suggested: Dietary, alternative medicine (massage and chiropractic...note to self: look in acupuncture), and I am already on HRT. But I think at my appointment on January 3 I'm going to ask about changing the estrogen level.

Anyhoo...I AM NOT CRAZY!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Accepting Limitations

2007-11-20T08:20:00.000-05:00

This past week as been all about realizing some of my physical limitations and then trying to get myself to accept them.

I'm a rabid Jazzerciser. I do it not just for fitness, but also for the social aspects. It's more like a hobby than a fitness regimen for me. I like to go whenever I have time. Every day if I can.

But that, it appears, is too much. My body is starting to feel beat up. Like I've been in car accident. Nagging little injuries, small but still needing attention, are taking me out of class, or forcing me to reduce my level of activity. And then there are big, overall aches that put me down and out at times.

I struggle with this. I've never been an athlete. Never really been terribly active before about four years ago. So there has always been a "I can do more" mentality. But now it seems that I am having to change that thinking to "I need to do less."

Some friends tell me to accept and move on. One said "this could just be a temporary thing." I just don't know. So I will need to take this one day at a time.

Meno Humor

2007-11-08T16:56:00.000-05:00

How many MENOPAUSAL women does it take to change a light bulb?

One!

ONLY ONE!!!!

And do you know WHY?

Because no one else in this house knows HOW to change a light bulb!

They don't even know that the bulb is BURNED OUT!! They would sit in the dark for THREE DAYS before they figured it out.

And, once they figured it out, they wouldn't be able to find the light bulbs anyway despite the fact that they've been in the SAME CABINET for the past 17 YEARS!

But if they did, by some miracle of God, actually find them, 2 DAYS LATER, the chair they dragged to stand on to change the STUPID light bulb would STILL! BE IN THE SAME SPOT!!!!! AND UNDERNEATH IT WOULD BE THE WRAPPER THAT THE LIGHT BULBS CAME IN!!! BECAUSE NO ONE EVER PICKS UP OR CARRIES OUT THE GARBAGE!!!! IT'S A WONDER WE HAVEN'T ALL SUFFOCATED FROM THE PILES OF GARBAGE THAT ARE A FOOT DEEP THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE HOUSE!! IT WOULD TAKE AN ARMY TO CLEAN THIS PLACE! AND DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON WHO CHANGES THE TOILET PAPER ROLL !!!!!

Wait. I'm sorry. What was the question?

I Talked to the Boy/Man. This is what I said.

2007-11-02T21:43:00.000-04:00

I wanted to tell you about a conversation I had with my 17-year-old yesterday afternoon. Report cards came home and he had an A, 2 B’s, 2 C’s. The C’s were in classes he should be ace-ing. Science and math. He’s supposed to be a genius with those subjects.

I read the report card, gave it to him and went about my work. I stopped lecturing him about his grades more than a year ago. I’ve given him advice, I’ve yelled at him, I’ve asked him questions. I take him to a psychologist, I get him to work with teachers after school, I’ve gotten him ADD meds. I don’t have anything else in my arsenal as a parent.

About an hour later I came into the office and said, “I’d like to just mention something. By way of observation. I’m not going to yell, I’m not going to beg, I’m not going to do anything but tell you what I think.”

“I think you get these kinds of grades because you don’t study.” He looked at me warily. Like he was expecting me to lecture him on that. I plowed on.

“I didn’t get C’s when I was in school. But I also didn’t get the A’s I should have. I was a solid B student. I did all my homework, even did a little extra-credit. But I never sat down and studied. I never reviewed the materials from the class. I didn’t spend time studying for tests. I thought it was boring and pointless. Every time I would sit down to review the stuff, I’d be saying to myself, ‘I know this, yeah yeah yeah.’

I wanted to be a veterinarian. From the time I was 7 I did. In 1978 when I graduated from high school, I was accepted to a very good, expensive private undergraduate school that had a pre-vet program. There were about 15 Vet schools around the country, and people needed 4.0 GPAs to even apply. That meant that, after going 4 years to this undergrad program, I would have to emerge with a perfect A average to even be invited to complete an application. I didn’t know if I could make those grades.

So I decided to try a one-year Bible program at a Bible college. I wanted to see if I could do college-level work and get A’s.

But I didn’t study any more in college than I had in high school. By the middle of the first semester I realized that I didn’t WANT to compete that much. I didn’t WANT to spend all my free time reviewing materials and staying up all night studying. I was happy with B’s. So I changed my major to History and decided to drop the competitive Vet School idea.”

So Nate was looking at me while I was talking and not saying anything. But I think he was listening pretty well.

I told him that he would have to decide what he was going to do. If he really wants to go into a competitive thing like medical school, he’s going to have to slog through the boring stuff. He’s going to have to memorize and study and put all his time into it. But if he just doesn’t want to do that, he will need to find something else that suits his lifestyle more. And I’m fine with either way. He just needs to figure out which way he’s going to go.

I’ve always felt like an under-achiever. I’ve always known that I had the brains to go to medical school or vet school or into science or technology. But I’ve never wanted to have it completely consume my life. I’m just not that driven about it. And because I never did any of those things, I’ve always had this nagging, “I should have done more” thing going on.

In the last couple of years, though, I’ve come to realize that my calling is different from that. To communicate with people on a personal level, and to tell others through reporting and photography what is going on…that’s a good thing to do. To be able to help my friends, make life a little easier for my family…those are good things to accomplish.

I don’t want Nate to go through half his adulthood with “I should have been this…” hanging over his head. And, while I know he will try and fail at some stuff, and learn some hard lessons, I’m hoping it won’t take him as long or cost him as much as it did me.

Self Image

2007-10-23T07:32:00.000-04:00

Self image. I've never had much of a positive one. At least, not in terms of my appearance. I have a lot of physically beautiful friends. I've always pretty much just been plain. I've got a fairly decent, albeit boyish, physique. So I do get positive comments on my size. At least the ones I choose to hear are positive. The rest tend to be somewhat snarky. But in terms of my facial features? I'm just ... here:

Anyway. A couple of weeks ago, in an attempt to teach myself more about photography, I joined a group on flickr called "threesixtyfive." The idea is to do a self-portrait every day for a year. So far I've done fairly well. I've only missed one day. (I solved the guilt problem yesterday by saying to myself 'I'll do 365 portraits. Not necessarily in a year.' That's me: bend the rules slightly, but only if it doesn't bother others.)

So where am I going with this? Well, I've spent a lot of time looking at myself on my computer screen these days. That's quite a leap for someone who avoided mirrors for 47 years. And I'm starting to realize there are things about my appearance that I don't mind at all. In fact, I kind of like them. I'm happy with my hair these days. And I kind of think I have pretty good ears. I'll never get over the nose thing. But there are sides and angles where I actually kind of like what I see. Photographically I'm learning a lot.

But I'm also exploring a lot more about myself. In the process of coming to terms with my physical appearance, and dealing with what I perceive to be physical flaws and strengths, I'm getting to like myself a little more. And that's a good thing.

Here's a shot I took yesterday.

Companionship

2007-10-16T06:51:00.000-04:00

So I have this little dog now, see? And it turns out to be a good thing to do at this stage in life. A companion animal really is a great stress-reducer. Well, the house training is a little stressful, but I'm amazingly philosophical about it. I went into this with my eyes wide open. I knew it would be hard on the carpets. But I'm hoping to replace them next year anyway.

This is Bear. He's about 4 1/2 months old. A terrier mix. I picked him up at the local pound. Actually, a pound volunteer had taken him home and fostered him. He's about 10 pounds and probably will get just a few pounds bigger. He's lively, but not too. And the kids and husband like him, so that's a bonus. And he likes napping.

Kicking Some Cancer Booty

2007-10-09T06:44:00.000-04:00

Race2007
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic

Here's our own Gang of Four, just before the start of Komen Charlotte. We brought our own survivor with us. That's Nannette on the left. 4 years cancer-free! Good on ye, girlfriend.

That's Cassie next to Nannette, then me, then Rena. I'm wearing a tag that says I'm walking in honor of my friend Pam Gonnella.

But there were really quite a few people that I thought of that day:

My Grandmother, Pearl E. White, who passed away from breast cancer in 1986.

Pam Gonnella, who is still suffering from the ramifications of her mastectomy and reconstruction.

Linda McCorkle, who just in the last few weeks stopped taking the toxic drug Remedex, which is sometimes given to hopefully stop the recurrence of breast cancer.

Leslie Hoffman, who is also a survivor.

Edith Buss, who does not have breast cancer, but instead has mantle cell lymphoma.

Elaine Lidke, currently battling this disease.

Kathy Paulson, who had breast cancer metastasize to her bones and still has survived. I don't recall how long ago it was, but I'm certain it was a least 10 years. The medical community has come a long way in this battle.

Marcy Valenty, who was just diagnosed last year.

Obviously, my dear friend Nannette. It was a privilege to walk along beside her.

As my friend Dave Dougherty says, we kicked some cancer booty Saturday!

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the race. I gathered $610 in contributions this year!

Product Review: Natural Greens

2007-10-02T08:44:00.000-04:00

I'm up to $345 raised for the Komen Foundation! Thank you for your support! There is still time to pledge. The race is Saturday.

naturalgreens
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic

I've never been a big fan of vitamins and supplements before. I've always eaten a well-balanced diet and never really felt the need to get my daily A B C's from pills. But in the past year I've had suggestions from both my doctor and chiropractor to try a few. My doctor suggested D, Calcium, E, and C. And so I've been taking those off and on for a while. Now I'm committing to taking them every day. My chiropractor suggested an Omega 3, and so I've added Flax Oil. Many people take Fish Oil, and that's fine. But I like Flax.

I can't really say I've had an overwhelming epiphany with any of those that tells me "Wow! MY entire life is better because I take these!" But they are good to do and I'll just keep it up. I do have to say my hair and nails are growing quickly now and also are strong and don't split.

Last week I agreed to try this Chiropractor's Blend Natural Greens supplement. The chiropractor suggested it to help with my sometimes flagging energy levels. Actually, my daily flagging energy levels. Just some days more flagging than others. He knows I won't use any sugar substitutes, and that I am careful about my sugar intake altogether. He suggested this supplement after hearing from a colleague in his office that it's the one supplement his colleague really likes and feels great about.

So, $35 later I went home with this canister of green powder. 1 tablespoon is a dose and there are 30 servings. A little over a buck a day. I add it to my smoothie. It adds a slight sweetness to it, but has no "green" taste to it all.

I've noticed an ENORMOUS difference in my energy levels. This past weekend was an exhausting one, with the culmination of the big festival I've been working on for months. I ran around all day for close to a week in preparation for it, and I can honestly say I felt pretty good all the time. Never even felt the need to nap! The body got a little sored, but my brain was going right along and the body just kept chugging along.

Here is my smoothie recipe. I've been having this for breakfast most days. Note the calories. This is not a snack. It is a meal replacement.

Green Banana Peanut Butter Smoothie
447 calories

1 frozen banana
2 Tablespoons All Natural, no sugar added peanut butter (I use Smucker's)
1 Tablespoon Natural Greens powder
8 ounces vanilla-flavored Soy Milk

Break up the banana into 3 or 4 pieces. Drop in the peanut butter. Sprinkle with greens powder. Pour the milk over top. Allow it to sit for 5 or 10 minutes to soften the banana slightly.

Blend with an immersion blender (I call it the boat motor) until smooth.

This makes a smoothie that is cold and thick...the consistency of an ice cream shake. Drink in right away or pour it into a chilled stainless steel insulated coffee cup that you've reserved for non-coffee drinks. It will stay cold and creamy for an hour or so.

Everyone is Hormonal

2007-09-26T08:14:00.001-04:00

I'm feeling the blues coming on this morning...that creeping melancholy that seems to slip over like a cloud. (Interesting I'd think of clouds...there are no actual real clouds outside today.)

A lot of this funk today is over another hormonal member of our family, our older son. He is 17.

Yesterday I received a call from his math teacher telling me that he started out great in his class and now has missed two assignments. My son's grade is now a point or two shy of a B and the teacher feels he would have been in solid B territory if he hadn't missed these assignments.

I think my son is suffering right now from low self-esteem. He's spending hours each day in an online gaming community, has no job, and now is allowing his schoolwork to suffer. I talked to him quietly and calmly about this last night.

And then talked to my husband, who is out of the country right now on business, about helping me with this message: get a job, cut the computer time to 90 minutes a day or less, and get the homework turned in.

My husband is a dear, wonderful person who hates confrontation. Well, of course so do I. But it's fallen to me over and over to hit these issues dead on because, while I hate it, I will do it if it needs to be done. I told hubby last night that he has to make our son his number one priority for a few weeks until they can find him a job. I sincerely believe that once he has one, a lot of things will fall into place.

Another person who is suffering right now is our younger son, who will be 13 in two weeks. He says everything is hard right now, and cites 7th grade, the new puppy responsibilities, and some back and stomach issues. I need to be more available for him right now.

And so we will need to do some family re-alignment in the coming weeks so that all three of us hormonal people can get what we need: a lot of TLC and the occasional kick in the butt.

Coming to Terms

2007-09-23T21:13:00.000-04:00

Remember how I wrote a few weeks ago about Chris coming to terms with the fact that her fertile days were coming to an end? Never able to have a biological child, Chris struggled with being told that she is probably on the downward trend out of menopause. While most of us will see this as the summit of our journey, a gliding into the wonderful years of post-menopause, Chris saw it as the end of her youth.

A few other things have ended for Chris since then. She lost her job after that that and now will be relocating to another state. Her husband has landed a better position in a neighboring state and we will be losing her companionship.

And so in some small way we are all suffering with Chris about the end of something. Oh yes, the four of us close friends will remain in touch as much as we can, but we all know the relationships will change. Chris and I have always had more of an email/phone call relationship, and no doubt that will continue. But her connection with her best friend, whom she worked with side-by-side for 5 years, will change. And neither of them are very optimistic about it.

One of the things Chris and I talked about the other day was that, since the four of us have developed this close bond in the past year or so, we have learned a lot about deep, meaningful friendships. More than we ever knew before. And she can take that knowledge with her when she moves and it will help her to find the connections in her new place that she needs.

To end on a hormone note: I expected another attack of the crazies this week. It was 4 weeks ago that my cyclical hormone dip dropped me into a deep depression...scaring the wits out of me. 2 weeks after that I had a day or two of fatigue and general malaise. And so I expected another bonk to happen late last week. I did have a terrible week, body-wise, but it was because of a nasty virus I caught. A sinus-y thing that is plaguing everyone around here. It culminated in a migraine that ran away from me and nearly slayed me Friday night. But 2 days later and 3 doses of Relpax under my gut, I think I feel now like about $900,000.

I plan to feel like a million bucks tomorrow.

It's Time

2007-09-14T21:17:00.001-04:00

It's time for the Susan G. Komen Race in Charlotte. Last year, thanks to your generous contributions, I was able to raise more than $600 for the Susan G. Komen Foundation as a member of the Jazzercise team.

The foundation was formed in 1982 by Nancy G. Brinker, who promised her dying sister, Susan G. Komen, that she would do everything in her power to end breast cancer forever.

We all know of at least one person that has had breast cancer, died from it, been treated and cured of it, or is currently dealing with it. But most of us are not aware that we directly benefit from the efforts of this foundation whenever we have a breast cancer screening, such as breast exams, mammography, ultrasound, and breast MRI. The Komen Foundation is a grassroots organization dedicated to raising awareness of this disease, as well as offering grants and fellowships to further research. In 1982, the U.S. Government funded $30M in breast cancer research. Now funding is in the $900M range. The five-year survival rate for breast cancer, when caught early before it spreads beyond the breast, is now 98 percent (compared to 74 percent in 1982).

This past spring I found myself personally grateful for the work of this foundation. I have very severe fibrocystic breast tissue. The situation is so complicated that routine mammograms really cannot adequately screen me for suspicious lumps. Digital mammography was discussed and rejected as being not much better for my situation. I was referred to the Blumenthal Cancer Center. Dr. Richard White, who is a surgeon ("that tries not to do surgery!"), recommended twice-yearly breast exams, once-yearly mammograms, and a breast MRI every other year. He arranged for my insurance company to pay for this costly test. I thought of organizations like the Komen Foundation and how they have not only funded the research that went into the design and implementation of all these preventive screenings, but also how awareness of the importance of this screening is such that my insurance company instantly saw the value and approved the expense.

All is well.

I am participating in the 5k walk this year to honor and remember these breast cancer victims and survivors that I know: In memory of my grandmother, Pearl Edith White, who died in the mid-80s. And in honor of these survivors: Pam Gonnella, Nannette Carnes, Leslie Hoffman, Kathy Paulson, Linda McCorkle, and Marcy Valenty.

I invite you to support me in my walk this year. Click on this link to donate and, if you have a breast cancer survivor or victim that you would like honored or remembered, please send me an email to let me know. Thank you so much for your time and commitment to fighting this disease.

Lots of it Is Good!

2007-09-04T20:08:00.001-04:00

This part of life has a lot of good stuff to it.

One thing I've noticed is an increased awareness of my value in other people's lives. As I value others, there becomes a lot of reciprocation...a sort of "mutual admiration society" develops.

I appreciate the things my friends know that I don't. I used to be mildly disturbed or intimidated if a friend was so much more knowledgeable about something than I was. I guess it might have been a competitive thing. Anyway, I actually enjoy learning from my friends. And they seem to enjoy learning from me.

It's cool.

It's a Moving Target

2007-08-26T17:44:00.001-04:00

Really? About the time you get things figured? It all changes.

Since March I've fallen into a fairly easy rhythm of understanding my cycle. Remember, it's hard for me because I have no uterus. A "low energy day" could mean a hormone dip, or it could mean that I'm actually getting sick. A day when I'm emotional and feeling paranoid could be a hormone dip, or it could be that I'm not paranoid because everyone really IS out to get me!

I've been lucky because my close friend tends to cycle along about the same time as me. She has migraines. When I have a couple migraines, she'll say "Well, it's about that time." Or when some other thing comes up, like a day of fuzzy thinking and sadness, she can say the same thing. And since she's not in the same stage I am with all this, her mind is clearer, so she can do the thinking and analyzing for me.

What has been interesting is noting that the length of time, number of symptoms, and their severity varies from month to month. And the amount of time between these dips varies a little too, although not as much as folks who go without a period for 8 weeks and then suddenly have 2 within 2 weeks of each other.

There are times when the low comes and lasts only half a day. Maybe just some fatigue. And then there are times like last week when the emotional stuff just gets so overwhelming and you feel like you are just absolutely useless...and it lasts several days.

This time I had all the terrible, overwhelming sadness and stress for about 5 days. Then it lifted, like someone coming along and yanking a black hood off my head. After a few hours of feeling pretty good, the migraine started to creep in. And some of the breast cysts started to fill fast and hard and get quite painful.

And so I'm moving through this hormone dip at a very slow pace, and seem to be racking up all the symptoms one right after the other.

I can say, however, that it helps that they aren't all here at once. If I had the 'graine, cyst pain, fatigue, depression...all at once? I'd probably be in a fetal position in my room right now instead of writing impassively about the whole mess.

There's a bright spot somewhere. You just gotta find it!

the sucky stuff sort of soaks into every damn part of it

2007-08-24T20:47:00.001-04:00

I just spent a few minutes googling around to find the origin of "it's always darkest before the dawn." Can't find it. But in many cases, particularly with my menomania episodes, that does seem to be the case.

This has to have been the worst case of bonking I've experienced since starting the Celexa. I did not have the paranoia so much, or even the fatigue so much, as I had just overwhelming depression, anger spells, feelings of hopelessness, loss...it all came crashing down.

I also have injured my shoulder, which is hampering my abilities to completely immerse myself in Jazzercise, so it has removed somewhat my primary way to blow off steam and forget my worries.

I've been dragged kicking and screaming into a very large project. I have no control, am forced to handle a lot of correspondence for it, work with a lot of people, make a lot of decisions, and I am planning an event that is so hideous to me that I wouldn't even attend if I didn't have to.

I've exploded at a couple of unsuspecting people, and found myself sobbing over simple sentences in emails.

I thought, in a nutshell, that I was going around the bend. I was worried that this might not be just another cycle dip...another hormone anomaly, but perhaps could be a permanent condition for which I would have to take drastic action to mitigate.

But. It appears to be subsiding. After a good meeting with my doctor, a couple of good, thought-provoking conversations with some significant people in my life, and some prayer, I think I'm coming back out.

This menopause thing? It really really really is not fun.

BrainBlank

2007-08-24T13:39:00.000-04:00

It's been a bad, bad week here in the meno-universe. All the paranoia, crying jags, stress, fatigue, fuzzy thinking has crash-landed here particularly hard. I'm working on a huge project that I did not volunteer for and it's not going well and I'm quite angry.

There is a nagging feeling in the back of my head that this might not just be a bad cycle. That I could be looking at needing a medication adjustment. As it happens, I saw my G.P. today for a med check and we decided to see how things are in two weeks. If I'm still overwhelmed and not coping well in 2 weeks, we'll consider adjusting the Celexa.

Ah. I have funny story:

I stopped at Harris Teeter today to get a couple of quarts of chicken stock for this soup. I had the boxes in my hand and headed toward the checkout.

I aimed for what I thought was an open lane and ended up at one of those freakin' self-checkout things. As I was standing there, contemplating the origins of the universe and why the lane signs seemed to give an optical illusion as to their actual location, the helper chick came up. "Do you need help?" She asked.

"Well, I intended to be over there, but now I'm over here," I said.

"No problem," she said. "I'll help you."

"Well, I KNOW how to do it, it's just that I'm not feeling like doing it myself," I said by way of apology.

"I do this all day," she assured me. "I'll do it."

And so she took my two boxes from me and proceeded to do all the work, reaching past me to punch the right buttons and I was secretly glad she was because, even though I know how to do it, it all seemed quite confusing and LOUD to me and I just stood there and kept mumbling that I was tired and sorry... tired, lazy and sorry. And she kept smiling and took my $20 bill and gave me change and gingerly handed me my bag.

B.I. (Bloomin' Idjut as my friend likes to call me. Affectionately. I assume)

The Back Side of the Curve

2007-07-28T06:49:00.000-04:00

In Jazzercise, we frequently refer to an "Exertion Chart" to discuss where we are in our workout. During the beginning of the class, our bodies are heating up, our hearts are pumping a little faster and a little faster, as we work to reach and then sustain our maximum heart rate. After we are up there for a bit, we say we are "coming down the back side of the curve" as we begin to slow and our heart rate returns to normal.

I think our reproductive lives are like that. When we are young, our bodies are developing and maturing to enable us to have children and care for them...to build a family. And then at menopause we drop down over the curve as our bodies go into rest.

Many people see the back side of that reporductive curve as a scary thing. Chris and I talked about this yesterday.

I see it as the big reward. To me, I'm entering the phase of life that I have always looked forward to. I've got the kids, the great husband, a fairly decent home, a retirement nest egg building, and now I'm ready to start playing. Let those kids go off and have some of their own (or not), and I'll happily play with my food and my camera and read all the books I can get my hands on.

It's Your Own Journey

2007-07-27T19:31:00.000-04:00

This "menopause shit," as Chris referred to it today while we were talking and crying, is definitely an individual experience. We can read all the books, and talk to each other as we go through it, but I doubt we'll ever find another person who is having the exact same experience that we are.

That is cool because it points out again how "fearfully and wonderfully made" we are. We're as individual as the snowflakes...no two are alike. Maybe identical twins, but I bet even in that situation there are emotional differences...different ways of dealing with it all.

But the individuality also sucks because it's in our nature to seek out someone with similar experiences. Especially when we are struggling with something we don't understand:

"In every human being is the need to understand and to experience a sense of belonging. A sense of belonging is to feel, in the depths of your being, intimately loved and regarded with honor and dignity."

Today the differences became Chris and me became crystal clear. And I'm celebrating those differences, and yet a little heartbroken for her because of them. Because I am not in the same place that she is, I worry that I may not be able to support her in the way that she needs. But, I'll do my best. I'll love her and pray for her and listen as well as I can. I'll ask her questions that I hope will cause her to ask herself a lot of questions and and hopefully she will make some revelations about herself as a result of them.

We were talking about children. We were talking about the end of the functioning life of those reproductive organs.

I have two children. They are my biological children, which were conceived very easily and carried through two fairly uneventful pregnancies. In 2005 I had a hysterectomy and one ovary removed. I was glad to be done with it. I never looked back. I think I had one moment where I thought, "Well, for sure no more kids now!"

Chris has one child. A child that God provided to her and her husband through adoption. This little girl, who came to them through a conversation between a relative and a friend, is a miracle.

Chris and her husband struggled with infertility and underwent many treatments to try to conceive. It just was not meant to be. Her system would simply not play by the book. She recounted for me how she felt when she went for a pregnancy test, knowing full well that it would be negative. She felt useless. Less of a woman. Worried that her husband might wish he'd married someone else that didn't have these problems.

Today the emotions of uselessness, "used-up," "worn-out," "less of a woman," came flooding back when she went to her doctor and was told that they would begin reducing the estrogen she is taking, and increasing the Prozac.

Chris said called me and cried out, "I'm just old now. I feel like my youth is slipping away from me."

The anguish and pain in her voice struck me to the very core. I wanted to wrap my arms around her and rock her and whisper "sshh sshh sshh" into her hair.

And so I met her at a coffee shop. We sat outside and talked. She told me her daughter's birth story. Her tale was full of wonder and joy and anticipation. I could imagine her and her husband in the birthing room with this young teenager that they had cared for, at 2:30 in the morning. Kevin so flustered about the goings-on that he unwittingly wandered out to get coffee. Chris trying to respect this young woman's privacy while barely containing her excitement over the crowning of Samantha's head. Kevin cutting the cord. Chris holding the baby for the first time.

And that long drive home from the hospital. For us it was 15 minutes. For them it spanned several states as they drove from Kansas to South Carolina, a puking, crying, wetting, sleeping baby in the car with them.

Chris is mourning the final chapter of her life as an infertile woman. There will be no more glimmers of hope that modern technology will advance to the point where it figures out how she can have a biological child.

It's hard for me to understand the depth of her emotion here. But it's very real. And very, very painful. I can only hope that she understands how much I cherish the fact that we shared this intimate moment. And that I do honor and respect her

A Fainting Couch

2007-07-24T21:49:00.001-04:00

Remember reading about Victorian ladies, or basically ladies from any bygone era, having a fainting couch? Going to a fainting room? Here is a Wikipedia article about it:

"A fainting room was a room, used during the Victorian era, where women could go to rest when feeling faint. Fainting rooms often included couches where users could faint or recline without fearing bodily harm. Such couches or sofas typically had an arm on one side only to permit easy access to a reclining position, although the sofa style most typically featured a back at one end so that the resulting position was not purely supine.
It was fashionable for Victorian women to have a perfect hourglass figure; moreover, to achieve this outcome, many wore corsets that would push in their stomachs. This would lead to many health problems, the most common being dizziness and fainting."

So the explanation was that the corsets made them dizzy. But you know I can certainly see the advantage of having fainting couches now. There are days when the menopause symptoms just seem overwhelming. When, in fact, I do struggle for air. Like today.

When these "spells" come on, they start in different ways, but mostly with an emotional upset. In the case of today, it was mostly irritation. I began the day irritated with folks around me. I was excited about a dream I've had for a couple of years about to come to fruition. My excitement was met with "ho-hum" from those around me.

As the day went on, the irritation went on too, until by around 3 I was ready to explode. I did kind of explode at my older son. About the mess he left in the kitchen, all the tasks I had to do in a short period of time while he played on his computer...the usual mom stuff.

Finally when I was stomping around about that, the lightbulb came on. "It's a bonk," I said to myself. And so I shot an email to my bonk buddy, Chris. She made some light-hearted comments and then I went to my room for a while to cool off and have a snack and read a book. Then she called and we laughed.

The bonk is still here. It's a bad one. I've got the pre-migraine, blues, hot-poker-between-the-shoulder-blades, tired but wound up, irritation thing all going on. Fortunately no paranoia. That's the worst.

I hope things are better by morning. Because I have to spend the day with a very dear couple from church and I want to be on my best behavior.

So as I was resting in my room for a bit, I remember thinking, "this is like having a fainting couch."

How am I ever going to have time to have a job and work if it takes all this energy to keep on top of the meno symptoms?

Prayer Changes People

2007-07-20T19:52:00.000-04:00

It's been awhile. I've been busy. That's what I'm saying to cyberspace right now as I come back to it after an absence.

And it reminds me of what we, as people, often say to God when we pray. "Dear God. Hi. I'm sorry I haven't kept in touch."

The subject of prayer, and its uses, has been much on my mind lately. I wrote in my last entry, over 10 days ago, that I had a final break in a friendship. I was the one that said I needed to step back.

And I've been grieving the loss of that relationship all these days. It's gotten better each day. But there are moments where I am nearly overwhelmed with remorse for breaking it off. Absolutely overtaken with anger and sadness about the entire situation.

During a few of those periods, I've called a friend. Or a friend has called me at just the right time to see how I am. In one of those calls last week I said to my friend Chris, "How long does this have to last? What can I do to just get over this?"

And she said, "The only thing I know to say is to pray. Tell it all to God. Just the telling of it will make it seem better."

Of course! And it does. It did. And it will again.

Why is it that we need to be reminded to pray? It's free. It's easy. It's always there. It's a tool we rarely remember to pick up. It's like being a millionaire and forgetting we can afford the better brand of peanut butter. We don't have to scrimp and save, and cast about for alternatives. We have the most powerful method of problem-resolution right there in front of us.

Last year, I was agonizing over another relationship and I told my friend Lis that I was concerned about the fact that it was taking over my thoughts. It was obsessive. I could think of little else. I cried out to her, "What can I do?"

And she also pointed me to God. "Substitute the thoughts with a prayer. If you can't think of what to pray for, pray this: "This is what I am, except Thou aid me."

It became a mantra. And it opened up for me a whole new prayer life...a continual conversation with God that I had not had before.

And of course it faded away. As life got easier to deal with, I said the prayer less.

And this time it was Chris that pointed me back to God. It's a good thing that God has all these guides here with us to get us back onto the right path.

Endings & Beginnings

2007-07-09T07:42:00.000-04:00

On my other blog, "No Food Left Behind," I wrote an entry on March 28 about my experience at the doctor's office that day. I re-wrote it later, deleting some personal details.

One of the phrases I used in that entry was "no good, very bad day." Of course it was a reference to Judith Viorst's book, "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day."

There were many parallels to that story on March 28, the largest of which (to me) is when Alexander says that his friend Paul told him he wasn't his best friend anymore. Paul says that Philip Parker is his best friend and that Albert Moyo was his next best friend and that Alexander has now dropped to third.

I had this conversation with a friend on the phone that day on the way to the appointment. A conversation during which I mis-spoke a sentence that broke the relationship in two. I related this story in an entry on this blog last week. I said that steps have been made to repair the relationship, but in actuality, this past weekend I saw a final break. This one was intentional on my part this time.

What does this have to do with my menomania story? I'm not completely sure, except that it is occurring during this menomania period of my life.

I'm finding out who my real friends are. My real friends are ones that accept me for me, not for what I say or do, not for what I don't say or don't do. They build me up when I need it, and give me a gentle chiding when I need that. There are no hidden agenda, no hidden feelings kept back. A mis-spoken (if that actually occurred at all) sentence does not break a real, lasting friendship.

I've got some pretty powerful friends. They have the ability to withstand my ravings, crying, laughing and shouting. They celebrate and commiserate with me and give a tug on my anchor rope, pinning me back down to earth when it's needed.

All that said, I have noticed that I'm unwilling to accept unacceptance anymore. I'm not willing to allow myself to be treated with disrespect. I'm not willing to let others prod at the soft underbelly of my psyche, pushing buttons (that they know I have) to knock me down a notch. I'm simply not willing to be criticized in front of others, and I'm not willing to see my close friends placed into situations where they end up witnessing that.

And so I'm finding in myself the desire to step back from what I perceive to be toxic relationships. I will rejoice in the relationships I have that are good for me and the other person. Relationships that enable me to see God in them.

Another Belief: Massage

2007-07-04T08:14:00.000-04:00

A while ago, I wrote about my muscle tension.

I think I've resolved it. And come to believe in something else I've always dismissed out of hand: massage therapy.

I've had three massages in my life, all since November. The first was nice. Noisy environment, though. And the therapist just didn't seem that great. Ok, but not great. The second one was my best friend's therapist. Excellent environment, good massage for the most part. Only "for the most part" because she actually hurt me. She was just a little too rough. She kept apologizing and changing her strategy, but she said she usually has to work smaller, in-shape people a lot harder. And I didn't care much for the lotion she used. We came out of there feeling sticky all day.

But my chiropractor kept saying that massage is good for you. He thinks a regular, monthly massage goes a long way toward total body health. So I decided not to give up...to keep looking around. And I'm glad I did.

The therapist I went to a couple of weeks ago is the friend of a friend. I went asking for a 30-minute massage and ended up asking for an hour before we even got started. She has a nice, new, quiet office. She's a very "normal" person...not all woo woo or new age-y. She played nice music.

I explained about the muscle tension. She asked what I was tense about. I told her I didn't know. That I thought maybe I just had too much to do and think about. Or it could be the medications. As she started the massage we talked a little. Mostly by way of introducing ourselves to each other. A little joking. And then about halfway through, all conversation stopped and I just relaxed and let her go.

She did dig a little deep a couple of times at the beginning. But right away caught my signal and changed her approach. By about 20 minutes into it, she had a good idea for my tolerance.

And the muscle tension was gone. It has not come back. It's been 2 weeks.

The next day I did feel like I'd been hit by a truck. I went to jazzercise, but I was sore from head to toe. The second day I skipped jazzercise, but really could have gone. I was all back to normal, except for the tension being gone. I think the beat-up feeling I had was just from all the muscle and knot work she had done.

And I think I drank about 80 ounces of water after the massage. As they break up the lactic acid knots and work those muscles, it releases toxins in the body and the water will help you flush them out.

I sent my husband to her last Monday. He really enjoyed it too. It was worth the money and I plan to go back in about 2 weeks. I'll do that for a few months and see how it goes.

I'm coming to the conclusion that one just needs to do more body-care when going through this stage of life. It's expensive, but feeling good can be a fleeting thing these days. Whatever I can do to feel good makes it worthwhile.

On the Way Up From the Abyss

2007-07-03T07:11:00.000-04:00

Continuing the saga. I left off here.

Without a doubt what kept me from going completely around the bend when I started the Celexa was the fact that my doctor told me to take my Ambien prescription every single night, no matter what, for two weeks. He said, "Arguing with yourself about whether to take it only makes you feel worse. Take it every night for two weeks and then try going without. If you still can't sleep, we'll re-evaluate."

I was so sick. And flu symptoms are so much like many side effects for anti-depressants. I managed, in the course of 6 weeks, to run through just about every side effect.

Diarrhea
Tiredness
Nausea
Dry mouth
Weight loss
Change in taste
Change in sexual function

And of course the "washing" effect I'd experience. Like waves of electricity coursing across the top of my brain from back to front. Particularly noticeable in the morning when I'd first wake up and be lying in bed. My best friend would say, "How's the brainwashing going?"

Some of the symptons subsided right away. Some lasted for several weeks until finally the last one resolved right at about 6 weeks. I was carrying around the prescription info sheet with me, checking the symptom list periodically. Because I was so dizzy and faint at the same time (I actually blacked out at the chiro's office and nearly fell over when I went for my mammogram that week), my friends and I had conversation after conversation about whether we thought all the sickness was the flu or the drug. Constant questioning whether I should go back to the doctor or wait it out a while. Speculating about how I could have caught the flu (very very likely, as I hang around the schools in the course of my work)

But. I did notice an immediate change in my thought pattern. The obsessive, ruminative thinking I had been plagued by for months and months, started to subside within 12 hours of the first dose of medication. I started to look more outside myself almost immediately, and began enjoying what was going on around me. The trees were blooming, the people around me were cool. It was just great!

The sleep issues did not go away. So at 6 weeks, when I went back for a med check, we made a change.

Bonky Bonk da-Bonk-a-Bonk

2007-06-27T11:58:00.000-04:00

One of the things I've learned (and I learned it faster than normal because Chris told me), is that the drugs and therapies and diet changes and exercise and all that will HELP the meno symptoms, but not completely erase them.

That is no more apparent than on a day like today.

It began last night when I walked into a Bible study at 7:30, sat in a big rocking chair and started rocking. After 20 minutes went by I was struggling to stay awake. My mind started to wander. I fought to keep things from fogging over.

When I went to bed last night, I broke my Trazadone pill in half (that's an anti-depressant I take for sleep. I'll explain that later) and it didn't break evenly. "Should I take the big part or the small part tonight?" I thought. I decided on the small part because I was already so tired.

And so I woke at 3:30 a.m. And tossed and turned for an hour. Finally I went back to sleep when I moved to the guest room. For some reason, just a different bed will help me go back to sleep.

But I woke tired and sad and as the morning has gone on I've been listless, sad, the fatigue is almost nauseating. Absolutely no concentration. And a nagging headache that is asking me, "Should I become a migraine, or not?" Of course I'd rather it not.

I'm a little worried because I have two stories to write for the paper this week and they really should be done by end of day tomorrow. And I have follow-up interviews to conduct. But I can tell I will be spinning my wheels this afternoon. And so I'm gambling this afternoon. On the advice of one of my many nurturing friends, I'm going to go lay down in my dark room and rest. Try to read, maybe watch some mindless TV.

And hope that the bonk lasts a very short period of time so that I can hit the ground running tomorrow. I will go to Jazzercise tonight, no matter what. All that dancing and sweating always improves my outlook!

It’s a Timing Thing

2007-06-26T07:48:00.000-04:00

I have often said since I entered this phase of my life that we, my husband and I, kind of messed things up by not having kids right off the bat.

We married in 1982(yep…25 years!) and did not have our first child until 1990. It was a planned thing. Actually, when we got married we didn’t know if we’d have kids at all. We decided not to decide until we neared age 30. I was very clear, however, that we’d have to decide in time for me to have the first one before I reached age 30. We had our older son when I was 29. A second one came along when I was 34.

That was all well and good for us. We were established, had a house to bring the baby home to, we were, for the most part, “turning a profit” as a family, as my mom likes to say. That means we were not mired in debt and making reasonable money. We could afford the stuff the kids needed.

And we knew each other really well. We spent the first 8 years riding our bikes and camping and taking little vacations to cabins and just in general enjoying ourselves and our work.

When the kids came along we were ready.

“So what’s the problem with that?” You may ask.

Well. Now we are 46. I’m menopausal. My husband has a demanding job as a middle manager. He travels. I keep the home, shuttle the kids, make sure there’s food on the table, and work part time at two different home-based jobs.

Still sounds pretty good, huh?

Well, if you throw in the fatigue, night sweats, hot flashes (yeah, they finally started a couple of months ago), and depression…that’s a lot more stuff to take care of. There are many days when I’d rather just scrounge for peanut butter on waffles for supper than make a meal for the rest of them.

I’ve got one kid in middle school entering puberty and needing some shepherding through homework and stuff. The other is exiting puberty and will, by the grace of God, graduate high school next year and go on to college or maybe just to some street corner as a roving trombonist. Either way he needs some help getting “launched.” Because he sure isn’t staying here much longer!

I told my husband today that I am struggling to find the energy to help the kids when I feel like it’s a fulltime job just managing my own physical, mental and occupational life. I really feel like we could use a nanny more now than ever before. Maybe a nanny for me, not the kids.

In her book, “The Wisdom of Menopause,” Dr. Christiane Northrup talks about how our focus changes as we transition from the childbearing years to the menopausal and post-menopausal years. During the childbearing years we throw all our energy into the house and home and as we move into and through menopause, we are ready to concentrate on how the last half of our lives are going to go. We need to spend some time figuring out what we’re all about. And what I’m noticing is that I need to spend some time taking care of my changing physical and emotional needs.

There have been times in the last few months when I’ve felt really badly for my friend Chris. Chris is the same age as me, and has a child. But hers is only 3 years old. Chris is about where I am in this menopause process too, although she started through it when her daughter was about a year old, so she’s had a longer period in it than I have. There are times when Chris’ fatigue and emotional lows cause her to really struggle with being patient with her daughter. Three-year-olds are demanding little people, and Chris has the added bonus of having what we all affectionately call a “spirited-child.” Chris can’t turn her attention away for very long at all, as her daughter will inevitably find something to do that she shouldn’t. Consequently, Chris doesn’t get much down-time. Hardly any at all, actually. She also was married a very long time before her daughter came, so she and her husband are busy trying to change a long marriage (more than 10 years…maybe 13?) of two people into a family of three. It’s tough and not everyone is too crazy all the changes.

And so Chris, who is blossoming into a different (and I might add beautiful-er) person than she was when younger, is hampered a bit by home and family. Even more than I am. With my boys being 12 and 17, they pretty much don’t care what I do or where I go. They take care of themselves quite a bit, too. My own new interests don’t have much of an impact on them. My husband is very supportive, too. He seems to enjoy watching me gain new interest in new things. He is a big cheerleader for me and I am very lucky. Luckier than most, it appears. I’ve heard from several women about how upset their husbands are that they are spending more time on new pursuits. They’ve been home, or at work and then home, with the same schedule for all these years. It’s worked so far, why change it? “If it ain’t broke….”

I think one advantage my friend Chris will have is that when her daughter reaches puberty in around 10 years, she will have leveled out into her post-menopausal life. She’ll once again “know herself.” It may be a different self than she discovered when she was in her 20s, and yet another different self than the one from her late 30s and early 40s, but she’ll be settled again. And her biochemical make-up will have calmed down considerably. She’ll be better-equipped for the typical stormy-teenager years.

And I imagine I’ll have grandchildren by then. Hmmm.

Karen and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

2007-06-26T06:31:00.000-04:00

It's time to talk about March 28.

On March 28 I had an appointment for 9:15 with my G.P. The plan was for me to go in there and describe my symptoms of depression. I would tell him that I was ready for the "happy pretty me pill," as my friend Chris describes it. My doctor told me last summer that anti-depressants might become something to consider. I'd reacted strongly to that suggestion then, but my life was spiraling out of my grasp. I was overwhelmed with all my cares and too listless to do anything about them. My friends were growing more and more concerned and finally one told me to just go to the doctor before she killed me!

I arrived at my appointment and found they did not have me on the schedule. I stood there in stunned disbelief. The receptionist could obviously see that I was more sad than angry and she listened as I said, "Is there anything at all you can do to get me in?"

She searched around and could find nothing. "What are you coming in for?" she asked.

"Depression and lack of sleep," I replied.

And then the receptionist, a scheduler and my doctor's concierge stepped into action. After some consultation, the found a spot where I could be worked in. At 2:30 that afternoon.

I went home and washed windows. In great detail. With lots of loud music.

On the way to the new appointment I talked on the phone with a friend. I told her about the appointment and my hopes that I would get some answers, or at least a plan. And the conversation morphed into a brief discussion of our relationship. In the process of trying to explain that I felt stupid a lot of the time, she interpreted what I said to be "you make me feel stupid sometimes." This is something I've never thought about her, and I still to this day can't believe I ever said that, but she took it that way and our relationship snapped right in two at that very moment. (Since then there has been distance, hurt, and a step toward repair. But the relationship has been changed and will probably never go back to what it was before.)

As I was apologizing to her and trying to explain what I had meant, I got out of the car.

And locked my keys inside.

I walked into the office and checked in for my appointment. Then I called my husband and told him about the keys. He said he would get them out for me while I was at the appointment. Of course he and his staff were overwhelmed with a deadline at the time...these things never happen when it's convenient. And he works across the city from where I was. A staff member ended up coming to the doctor's office, retrieving them and leaving them with the concierge for me to get when I came out.

I listed my symptoms for my doctor and he asked me several questions about how I was. Things I had not thought of before. Loss of appetite (yes), not looking forward to future events (yes...not), etc.

And so he suggested Celexa. He gave me assurances that it was a very low dose. I would probably not take it the rest of my life. Maybe for just a year or more. And he encouraged me to take the sleep medication (still Ambien) every night for 2 weeks. The hope was that, as the depression lifted, my sleeping would get better and I wouldn't need chemical assistance.

He warned me about the side effects and at one point he held his hand over his head and waggled the fingers. "You may get some 'washing' feelings in your head," he said. He told me I might feel weird for a few days.

And then we made an appointment for a 6 week follow up.

I went home feeling better already. I had a plan! And I had given my trouble to someone else. I would stop analyzing myself and just turn everything over to this doctor that I trusted very much.

I took the first dose of Celexa that afternoon when I got home. I didn't want to take it and go straight to bed that night. A medication that messes with the chemicals in your brain just seemed scary to me. I wanted to be awake the first few hours.

And it definitely was weird. Within an hour I could feel electricity-like sensations in my skull.

By the next day I was already noticing a subsiding in the circular, obsessive thinking.

By day three, a Friday, I was sick as sick could be. And I ended up virtually homebound for the 10 days.

I had contracted the flu.

Wherein Everything Quiets Down. Kinda.

2007-06-13T16:23:00.000-04:00

Back to my narrative, where I left off June 6.

I went through the rest of 2006 enjoying a period of relative peace and calm. The bonking episodes of fatigue and mental stuff were still coming, but the duration would be anywhere from 6 hours to 2 days. Deal-able.

But the peace was all relative. Things were better, but I still didn't feel like a million bucks. I didn't really KNOW that I didn't feel like a million bucks. I do know that now.

I was not sleeping. The hamster simply would not get off the wheel at night. My older son was struggling in school, finances were tight, I was working and thinking about working all the time and not really making much money. My fibrocystic breasts were painful and getting lumpier, seemingly by the minute. A mammogram came back questionable. We were looking at spending the first Christmas away from our family. Ever. I had a HUGE volunteer job I was involved in. My church has pretty much decided to just leave me out of all the committees and responsibilities...not asking me to serve anything in any capacity (in their defense, they thought they were trying to help by not complicating my life).

The stress was building. The sleep debt was piling up. The credit card had a recurring $1,100 on it that I kept paying off and re-accumulating. I'm not a "credit person." That $1,100 dogged my mind!

Things were getting a little overwhelming.

I called the gynecologist in November and told them about the sleep problem. They prescribed Ambien. It worked pretty well. For a while. But I didn't want to take it every day. It actually added more stress to my life, trying to analyze whether I should go without it or not. I'd decide not to, drop off to sleep, only to wake at 2 and be up for a couple of hours. Then in January my insurance company decided to only pay for 15 sleeping pills every 23 days. So even if I were willing to take it every night, I'd have to choose 8 nights every 23 to not sleep.

Emotionally I became mired. I wanted to stay home, away from everyone. But then I wanted to be with my friends because I was tired of myself.

Then I began to get paranoid. I worried I was going to wear out my closest friends. My best friend would listen to me as I spun my wheels, helping me to think out what was happening. Encouraging me. Loving me. Hugging me. And I was worried she'd get too tired of my baggage and neediness.

Finally one day in March I just broke. I knew I needed more help. I knew it was depression and I couldn't deny it any longer. My friend Lis described my situation so eloquently:

"It's just that that the sucky stuff sort of soaks into every damn part of it."

I called my doctor's office. They could not get me an appointment for 3 weeks. I called my gynecologist's office. They offered an appointment in 3 MONTHS. So I left a message for the nurse. I described for her what was happening and she referred me back to the G.P. "This is a bit out of our purview," she said.
REALLY. Depression related to menopause is out of the purview of a GYNECOLOGIST?)So I called the G.P. again and asked for an appointment as quickly as I could get. It was set for March 28. "Good," I figured. "Maybe I'll be out of this a bit and can speak clearly about what's happening."

Tension

2007-06-13T06:59:00.000-04:00

I'm going to skip ahead to the present with this entry.

I'm tense.

My mind is not. Well, except for when I stress about the tension in my body! But for the most part, I'm happy and calm and looking forward to the future. I'm productive and awake. I do realize that most of that is due to the good drugs I'm on (part of the story I've been telling on this blog that I haven't gotten to yet).

But these past few weeks I've really suffered from a lot of muscle tension. My entire body feels like I'm at the starting line of a race waiting for the gun to go off. The muscles are hard and contracted. It's interfering with my concentration on tasks.

I talked to my doctor about this a few weeks ago when I went in for a med check. I told him then that I suspected it was the testosterone. Could we reduce the dose? And so we did. And it seemed to help for about two weeks before creeping back.

I do Jazzercise. Yoga once a week. Breathing exercises. Meditation. And all those help, but the tension returns when I'm done with whatever I've been doing.

Yesterday I visited the chiro and consulted with him about this. We discussed possible dietary needs: electrolytes, Omega-3 fatty acids. I'll start measuring my water intake to be sure I'm drinking enough. I do drink more than the average bear, but maybe not quite enough for my activity level. The new rule is: Take the number of pounds you weigh. Cut that number in half. Drink that number of ounces of water each day. I'm pretty sure I'm not drinking 63 ounces of water. Maybe more like 40.

He also suggested adding Gatorade or something like that. I'll have to do some shopping around. I don't much care for flavored drinks like that. And the sugar content can't be too high. And it can't have sugar substitutes...that just rankles me....sugar subs.

The adjustment he did really helped a lot. But I sense the tension coming back on right now. I'll also look for a 30 minute massage. If that helps I may try to do that on a more regular basis.

Friend Julie suggested I cut back on the Jazz a bit. I did it 6 days per week for about 3 weeks. So I'll cut back to 4 and see if that helps. And I'll add back the little 20 minute relaxation yoga practices in the morning and evening.

Friendships

2007-06-12T09:26:00.000-04:00

When I began this journey, I had friends. Plenty of them. Some of them I was quite close to.

But none that went right to my soul like I have now.

Let me be sure to clarify here that I have a soulmate. My husband and I have been married for 25 years now and we are truly made for each other. Where I am mean, he is nice. Where I am silly he is serious, and where I am serious he is silly. It's pretty much an "us-against-the-world" kind of thing. (Some days it's "us-against-the-kids" too.)

Last spring I discovered another soul companion right under my very nose. My friend Lis, who my husband and I went to college with, connected with me in a new way via email. Lis was struggling with changes in her life and we began sharing. She came to see us here and we shared more things in a newer and deeper way. Probably the best way to describe my relationship with her is to say that she points me to God.

As I began sharing more with Lis, I found in myself a new willingness to share more and love more with my other friends. Some of those relationships blossomed into deep, life-changing experiences. Much laughter, much agonizing, much excitement, some crying. All of it good, all of it precious.

I've lost a bit too. I've had a couple of people creep into my heart, only to break it. And I've no doubt broken a heart or two myself.

But all of this is to say that this time in my life is without a doubt the best I've had in my 46 years. And there are relationships here that I know will be with me for the rest of my life. We will grow old together and support each other through good times and bad times.

Chiropractic: Why I Believe

2007-06-07T05:55:00.000-04:00

I have always been skeptical of Chiropractic medicine. I guess because I began my professional career in the medical insurance industry in the mid-80s. Chiro was the great, bad, over-used, "feel-good" medicine that sucked people in for visit after visit and was really nothing more than a good massage.

Last fall (this would have been around August or September), I began to experience a twinge in my lower back. I'd had a herniated disk on that side in 2003 and the feeling I was having was very reminiscent of that. I remembered being laid up for a few weeks with that. I had gone the drug route then...seeing an urgent care doc who prescribed pain medication and muscle relaxers, sending me home with some exercises.

My family still remembers the first dose I took of those drugs. I laughed maniacally when the pain went away and the euphoria of Oxycodone hit. I did the exercises faithfully and never took too many of the drugs. But I knew it shouldn't take that long to heal. I was in misery for about 3 weeks.

After that I got addicted to Jazzercise-style exercise, so that strengthened my "core muscles" and I never gave another thought to back stuff again.

Until one day in Jazz I felt the twinge of a bump against my sciatic nerve.

Friend and Jazz instructor Sarah suggested I try chiropractic. She'd tried it for a disk just a few months before and only lost a few days of mobility before easing her way back into exercise.

So I went to the chiropractor in my community for a consultation.

Probably the best thing I did was to tell him my entire history. Right down to the stress and the fatigue, the over-scheduling I'd done with my life, and the hormone replacement therapy and all that.

My chiro became my confidante. I saw him twice a week for 3 or 4 weeks and then began to taper off. The back situation cleared up right away after the first few visits, but what I really noticed was how the adjustments eased my menopause symptoms. And reduced my stress.

I learned to not just say "good" or "okay" when I saw him. I learned to tell him how I was feeling not only with my spine, but also my emotions, my activities, and everything. I would tell him how I was sleeping (which was not so good). I'd just give him a quick run-down. Not a long, whiny story...just a "I'm in a bonk today." or "I'm very tense" or "I'm not sleeping and I have a knot on my shoulder blade." Or "I'm very stuffed-up."

He learned to add "bonk," "oogly," and "nauseatingly fatigued" to his charts. And I learned to listen to myself. If I have a thought that an adjustment might be the ticket, then I should go in and ask for one. When I wake up in the morning thinking a lay-down on the "roly-poly table" (the stabilizer table) might be a nice thing to do, then my body is telling me to do that.

It has worked every time.

The other day I went in and said, "I'm angry and tense and clenching my jaw. I've been doing that for 3 days. And I have nothing to be angry about."

He did an adjustment and when he hit some cervical vertibrae with his little clicky thing, I immediately felt a release in my jaw.

And so I believe now in chiropractic. I'd like to think I'd believe in it no matter what chiro I saw, but I suspect probably at least a third of my belief is due to the fact that my chiro listens to me so well and is a sort of emotional minister for me.

And he's not taken! But of course I am. And I'm old enough to be his mother.

It's All About the Drugs

2007-06-06T06:52:00.001-04:00

I listened to my chiro. Then a week later I still felt terrible and went back to see my doctor. I had a lot of questions about why I was prescribed Premarin when I didn't have the three main symptoms: hot flashes, night sweats, vaginal dryness. I had fatigue, mental fuzziness, depression.

I had done a lot of reading in a book called "The Wisdom of Menopause," by Christiane Northrup. I was convinced that I needed to try some other kinds of therapies.

My doctor, bless his heart, listened to it all and then figured out a way to tell me to stop researching and just trust him. It had not been long enough. I was spinning my wheels with research. Overthinking. Over analyzing. Adding to my own stress. Do a little reading, but not so much.

And he suggested I go to see my gynecologist for more conversation. His office called and made the appointment for me, enabling me to get in there more quickly. He was careful to say that he'd be delighted to walk me through this process. He would do all he could to ensure that I had the latest and greatest treatment. But I realize now that he wanted me to just calm down, get my questions answered, and figure out how I was going to approach this...either by trusting him, my gynecologist, or going it on my own.

He was careful to warn me about holistic/herbal treatments. He has no real philosophical problems with them per se, but he didn't want me to go that route because of my slightly elevated risk for heart disease. (I have an unexplained elevated C-reactive protein count...eleveated levels of inflammation. This means that there is some inflamation happening somewhere in my body and, despite being extremely healthy, higher levels of inflammation have been shown to be a common factor in heart attack cases)

And so I went to see my gynecologist. She listened very carefully. Answered my questions. Confirmed again that I really needed to give the Premarin some more weeks to work. She said if it didn't help with the fatigue, we could consider adding some testosterone to the mix.

I told her that, even if the Premarin did work, I'd like to eventually switch to an estrogen that was not derived from horses. She immediately understood. "Why not just go ahead and switch now?" she asked. "It can't hurt."

And so she prescribed Estratest D.S. This was the highest dose. The testosterone might give me a little more get-up-and-go.

And it did. I noticed a difference in just a couple of weeks. The fatigue lifted and so did the depression. For the next few months, I had cyclical episodes of fatigue, and confusion, but each only lasted a day or less. I was coming back to life!

There are Always Options

2007-06-05T07:18:00.000-04:00

When I was in college I was in a singing group that traveled and sang in churches. Three of us, me and two guys, hung together a lot. One of the things we always talked about were "options...there's always options." We were at the edge of adulthood and the notion that we had options...choices we could make ourselves without parental involvement...was novel and exciting.

As a menopausal woman, I've been happy with the fact that there are options available to us now. When our mothers reached menopause, they were pretty much automatically put on hormone replacement therapy and left there. For years. Many of them are still on those pills now in their 60s, 70s and 80s. Now we know that this might not have been the best approach. Long term use of HRT elevates the risk of various cancers and other illnesses.

Today's medical establishment believes one should treat the symptoms individually as much as possible, and that periodic reviews should be made...adjustments done...to ease us through this time in our lives. I believe the ultimate goal is to exit this stage of my life drug-free. For now, though, I am currently taking 3 medications, along with my migraine and cholesterol drugs. I'm actually carrying around a LIST!

But I'm getting ahead.

After all the tests were done and I was deemed to be a healthy woman entering menopause, my GP said, "There are a couple approaches we could take here. We could consider anti-depressants to help you deal with the symptoms. Or we could consider therapies to help with the symptoms themselves."

After some discussion, we decided the symptom of fatigue was too severe to be ignored. My depression was overwhelming, but I was being dragged down mentally by the physical fatigue. And losing time. I was not productive for many days each cycle. And there was a definite cycle, by the way. The first thing I started doing after my initial visit with him was to start charting.

Also, I had feelings about our being a "prozac nation." It seems like 2 of every 3 people are on anti-depressants. I thought that was a cop-out. And too popular. I rarely will go with what is trendy. And I didn't want to contemplate the side effects. I've always dealt with my own problems. I didn't want a drug to help me think.

And so he prescribed the "gold standard" of HRT: Premarin.

I have political problems with Premarin.

But. I was too bonked out and droolin' stupid to put up a fuss. I just wanted a quick fix. I took the scrip, got it filled, and started taking it.

And my old friend Julie popped back into my life.

She read my blog entry on my old blog about what was happening. She sent me information about Premarin and the pregnant mares...all of which I already knew...but she meant well. I told her I planned to just take it for now to see if it would help and then I'd see if there was an alternative. She was cool with that.

And our relationship blossomed as a result of that email. I'll write more about that later.

The drug. I was expecting a quicker fix. I was hoping to start feeling better in just a few days. But 2 weeks later I was still dragged out and hanging by my fingernails. I'd never taken a long-term drug therapy before (except for the cholesterol med, which you can't tell anything about its effectiveness without testing), so I didn't have experience with waiting a while for stuff to kick in.

I had started seeing a chiropractor during this time as well. I went to see him when I suspected an old troublesome disk was about to cause trouble again. In the process of having him work on that, I had many conversations with him about my menopause struggles. He's not a "drug guy" at all, but he's very understanding about it. He told me to wait at least 6 weeks before expecting any noticeable improvement. THEN go back and complain.

Testing Testing Testing

2007-06-02T04:56:00.000-04:00

When I went to see my general practitioner in August, it was a pretty good day. I was not "bonking," as I'd come to call it. Bonking is a term cyclists use when they have hit the wall and feel they can not pedal one more round on the pedals. All energy is completely depleted. There is nothing left. This is how the fatigue episodes seemed to me.

But on the first day I saw my doctor, I was feeling pretty good. I told him about the fatigue episodes and the mental confusion. I speculated about menopause. He said his immediate suspicion was the same.

But testing to rule out other things was the first step. Thyroid was top on the list. And there were a host of other things he checked for. I don't even remember all of it. I have a history of high cholesterol, for which I take Zocor. And an above-average inflammation number, so that pops me into a slightly elevated risk category for heart conditions. He also checked hormone levels, but those results would only be a snapshot of where things were the day the blood was drawn.

No red flags were raised.

About the time the test results came back, I was bonking again. I was working on an enormous project, organizing a community festival to benefit our library. I was working with a friend on this project, and she and I were also running a separate committee to spearhead a capital campaign. (We were raising funds to build a branch library in our community)

The endless meetings and working with people, organizing an event of that magnitude, was absolutely exhausting and scary. I would receive long emails with so many questions and when I was in this state of fatigue I could not even comprehend what the writer was saying or asking. I had to make many decisions each day about all aspects of the event and each one was seemingly beyond my capacity. I was working with some unusual people, too. There were many days when my friend would just take stuff from me and handle them. Days when I would forward emails to her and ask her to read them and tell me what to do.

She was a life-saver. A mind-saver. A sanity-bringer.

I went back to the doctor in the middle of one of these episodes. He could see by my face and expressions and listlessness that things were not deal-able. And so we discussed options.

The Overwhelming, All-Consuming Fatigue

2007-06-01T21:16:00.000-04:00

The first time it happened I thought, "I must be coming down with something."

There were no body aches. Just excessive, nauseating, bone-crushing fatigue. "Weird virus this is," I remember thinking. "Generally there would be body aches and maybe fever. But not this time." I lay around for a day, thinking I could head off whatever the illness might be.

After 3 days of laying around, I was still just as tired as ever. And I had to work. I'm a freelancer, so my schedule is pretty flexible, but I couldn't justify any more lack of productivity. So I slogged through another couple of days before I finally felt better. That was in June, 2006.

This happened again somewhere about a month later. I came back from a very restful vacation and immediately felt dragged out the next day. I lost another several days to the fatigue.

By August, I was starting to get kind of worried. It happened a third time and I tried to just push through it. I'm a rabid Jazzerciser, and had to ditch a class because I was so tired I didn't know if I'd be able to drive home. I had several other classes where I essentially walked through the routines just to finish.

Then I started to notice the mental fuzziness. My mind would go completely blank. I would ask someone a question and then not remember to listen for the answer. I would look at them, hear them, but not retain a single bit of information. I could not solve any problems during these episodes. I could not plan meals. I had a hard time deciding between two choices...actually, I would just not decide. I didn't spend any mental energy making decisions. I just would mentally sit on the issue.

I tried increasing the protein in my diet. I tried adding some caffeine. My weight had dropped in the spring because I was doing several days of Jazzercise (another attempt to boost my energy level), and as a freelancer who writes about education, I had many days when I was just too busy following stories to eat regularly. When the fatigue episodes came on, I would get listless and the nausea I experienced made food seem like the last thing I wanted.

This is a very troubling symptom when you also write about food.

So my weight dropped a bit again. I've never been a particularly heavy person. At 5'5" my average adult weight has been around 140. By September 2006 I was jazzercising 5 days a week and my weight had dropped to 125.

My friend and Jazzercise instructor stepped up and started to sort of lead me. She encouraged me ... cajoled me ... to go to the doctor. She gave me questions to ask. She did research. She mentioned PMS--something I'd never had before. I had taken birth control pills from the time I was 21 until 2005 when I had the hysterectomy. 23 years. The hormones in the pills had always kept me "even." Before that I always sailed through menstrual cycles. Maybe minor lower back pain. Since I was essentially BORN irritable, I didn't really have periods of irritability!

Creeping on Insidiously

2007-05-31T07:04:00.001-04:00

The first sign that I was beginning to transition to menopause had to have been the return of the migraines. I think that now, but of course then the thought never occurred to me.

I was only 45. I had one ovary left. Statistically I should have had at least 5 more years before thinking about "the change." Average age for the onset of menopause is 51. And so I figured it was some other trigger. I'd always had migraines during changeable weather...quick changes in barometric pressure would bring one on. Or stress. Big, quick stress...like being late for a very important event.

I've had a prescription migraine medication for several years. Imitrex was my drug of choice at first. But the hangover I would experience after the migraine was gone sometimes seemed worse than the headache itself. There were many times I would opt for the stabbing pain of a cluster headache over the nausea and fatigue I would have from the medication.

In 2005 my doctor switched me to Relpax and that seemed better. I still have a hangover from it, but it doesn't seem to last quite as long and I seem to need fewer doses to chase away the migraine too. But I've also gotten a bit better about taking the medication earlier. I used to sit and analyze the pain my head, wondering if it was a migraine or just a regular headache. During those times of contemplation, a migraine would just get worse and worse, to the point where taking the medication really didn't help that much. Now I keep a log of my menopausal symptoms and so I can usually figure it out by checking the log to see if it's "time."

Here are some links to online info about migraines and menopause

American Council for Headache Education

Power-Surge

Menopause Online

Where did it all begin?

2007-05-30T07:44:00.000-04:00

I've wondered about when this "transition to menopause," as it's now called, began.

I first started experiencing unsettling, life-disrupting symptoms in the summer of 2006. But most likely things started happening in March, 2005 when I had my hysterectomy.

And so I'll begin there. After telling you that I am 46 years old. I am happily (actually idyllically) married to a wonderful, caring husband. We have two sons, ages 17 and 12.

Are you starting to get the "mania" part of "menomania?" Yup. Mom menopausal, older son exiting puberty, younger son entering it.

So. The hysterectomy. Fibroids. Very many, very large. One had attached to an ovary and so when they did the surgery, they removed it from there, but it would not stop bleeding. So I lost one ovary too. Leaving me with one.

The migraines I'd been experiencing for a few years disappeared immediately after the surgery, and they stayed away for several months. Then in the beginning of 2006 they began creeping back, a migraine every few weeks.

I think that's when the remaining ovary started thinking about retirement.