Irregular Heather

WARNING: Colourful language in this post.

Fact: My internal thermostat is fucked. I've dealt with hot flashes since the age of 36. But the night sweats? The truly disgusting, sleep-annihilating, life-altering, make-you-feel-like-you-have-malaria... 

Wait. 

Maybe it's not night sweats. Maybe it's malaria.

It's January. In Canada. There are no mosquitos.

Maybe it's COVID... again. 

Cue rapid test.

Not COVID.

I haven't slept through the night - in a really, really... REALLY long time. What's the part of your brain that's responsible for logic? The frontal lobe? My frontal lobe is fucking exhausted.

Seven years ago, I thought I'd kicked them - the night sweats. I exercise regularly. I cut out caffeine. I don't have more than one drink at a time. Or, if I do, at least I KNOW to expect the night sweats and I weigh the pleasure from a second spiced whiskey against the waking multiple times during the night drowning in my own secretions. 

But I have NOT been enjoying extra spiced whiskeys. Number 1, because of the night sweats, but also because, Number 2, Health Canada has now told us that we can only have 2 drinks a week or we will all die of cancer.

What kind of cancer? How much of it? How long will it take to get here? And when it's here, how much shorter will I live because of it? What are we talking? Will it take weeks off my life? Years? How many years?

Cue breathing into a paper bag.

Suffice to say that I haven't been drinking a lot. Which is why I'm so confused as to why now, after years of having thought I'd figured this shit out, havoc has been wreaked upon my body... yet again. Or is this what's supposed to be happening? Maybe seven years ago, when the night sweats got bad, and I figured out how to put them on the back burner (HAH!), that was just the dress rehearsal and at the age of 54 and a half, I have reached opening night for EGG-FREE AND INSANE: THE SCREAMOPERA.

With my mis-firing hormones, I get chilled in the evening, lips almost blue, so I throw on a sweater and woolen work socks. But I know, I know, that when I go to bed that I will be too hot if I wear all that shit, and yet...? I can't go naked. Because if I go naked - like I used to be able to do...

Cue montage of Heather basking in her naked sleeping glory...

Cut back to:

I'll wake up in the middle of the night, having thrown off the blankets because I am the temperature of the sun and all that night sweat... SWEAT... will then dry on my body at which point hypothermia kicks in and my teeth literally begin to chatter, and I have woken David up with all the noise. 

So, every night before bed, I strip down to a t-shirt and panties.  But then my feet are blocks of fucking ice and I pull the woolen work socks back on. And I burrow under our flannel sheets, down-alternative duvet and woven blanket topper. My feet, now encased in woolen work socks, are deliciously toasty. Our cats, Steve and Lola immediately bookend my feet, adding supplementary warmth. All is well with the world.

Until 1:37 a.m. when my feet are on fire and my sternum and scalp are soaked and I want to vomit from the heat. I don't, because cleaning up vomit at 1:37 a.m. is not a thing anyone wants to be doing. So I tear off the woolen work socks and jettison the covers, panic-panting as my heart races and both cats,  look at me like I've completely lost it.

Within three minutes, I'm no longer hysterical as my body temperature plummets. I wring out my t-shirt and crawl back under the covers. Except my feet are cold again. So I grab the socks and put them back on.  And go back to sleep. Until 3:53 a.m. when the cycle repeats itself.

This morning, while I research HRT and cancer risks, I'm enjoying a spiced whiskey. 

Ill-timed Aphasia

warning: BIG time bad words in this post.

Aphasia noun
apha·​sia | \ ə-ˈfā-zh(ē-)ə 

    medical : loss or impairment of the power to use or comprehend words

    etymology:  mid 19th century: from Greek, from aphatos ‘speechless’

***

Rissa and I stand in the checkout line at a Craft/Antiques Barn. Neither crafts nor antiques will be purchased. Today it's all about fudge. For David. On account of the fact that it's his first day teaching at a new school.

"I'm going to come back in November," I say.

"Oh?" asks Rissa.

"Yeah, they'll have lots of Christmas merch out then."

Around the expansive perimeter of the main floor there are high shelves showcasing a crap-tonne of Christmas inventory. All of it just waiting for Halloween to pass so that the entire barn can get its Christmas glow-up.

"Although," I say, wrinkling my nose at a 2-foot Santa in Buffalo plaid. "A lot of their stuff is cunt... cunt... cunt... cunnnnnnnt... cunnnnnnnnnnnt..."

Rissa's eyes widen at the first 'cunt.' By the fifth, she's holding her sides and almost falling over.

I'm not sure whether this is a migraine-induced bout of aphasia or if I can now add Tourette's Syndrome to my list of disabilities.

I take a breath. And another. No need to panic. 

"I... was... trying..." I close my mouth and take a breath in through my nose and release it slowly from my mouth. "To say... COUNTRY... Christmas," I explain.

"Ahhhhhh... that checks out."

I glance around. There are a few senior women in line, but none super close to us.

"Did I get louder with each one?"

"You didn't NOT get louder..."

"Can I help you?" asks the cashier.

"I'd like some fu... fu... fu..."

"We'd like some fudge, please," says Rissa.

I am patenting this RIGHT now...

WARNING: SO MUCH FEMALE STUFF

In the summer of 1997, David held my hand as I sat at the triage desk of the local hospital. He looked concerned. I looked like I was going to pass out. The nurse looked wiser than Nicodemus from the Secret of NIMH.

"Are you a new couple?" she asked, after hearing my symptoms.

"Relatively," I replied in a haze of fever and abdominal agony.

"Pee after sex."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I am 99.9% sure that you have a UTI."

"I have a, what now?"

"A urinary tract infection. Sometimes ejaculate can get into the urethra and you get a UTI. Pee after sex."

"Like right after?"

"Right after."

Now, the last thing this woman wanted to do after she'd had a wham-bam-thank-you-man session with her new live-in boyfriend was leave the bed to go pee. When my mind had been blown - along with other parts of my body - I wanted to snuggle. I didn't want to swing my legs over the edge of the bed and totter in the bathroom and then pee away misplaced ejaculate. 

Twenty-five years later? I still don't want to. Nothing wipes the blush of satisfaction away more than having to prophylactically (not be confused with practically) pee. 

But I do it, because my urethra is a prissy little... princess, and I've had enough UTIs over the years to know not to gamble with these particular odds. 

Still though. The post-coital-paranoia that now has me leaping out of bed to flush out my lady bits continues to put a damper on snuggle time.

That's why I will patent the VAGI-VAC. A mini vacuum that one can use while still in bed and just apply to the... area... to eliminate any evasive ejaculate from the UT area. Possibly a keyboard vacuum they're meant to suck up crumbs and dust - maybe they could have a stronger motor... Or... is there such a thing as a Mini Wet-Vac? And instead of sounding like a vacuum, it will sound like wind in the autumn trees, or maybe there can be some sort of musical accompaniment - perhaps Floyd's Comfortably Numb? Oooh, maybe I can just retrofit one of the vaginal sex pumps - there won't be a soundtrack, but then you wouldn't have to worry about cords or batteries!  Lower tech.

I am excited to share this idea with David.

"But then won't you have to leave the bed to clean the vacuum?" he asks. "And how would you even clean it?"

"Both good questions. One - yes, of course you would have to leave the bed to eventually clean the vacuum, but after snuggling. Long after snuggling. And two - the VAGI-VAC would have a special easy-to-clean suction repository that you could just clean it in the bathroom sink."

He looks skeptical and a little grossed out. Note to self: I definitely have to find a new word for "repository."

"Dude, you are not the only one who becomes nearly comatose after a good orgasm. I too, should be able to melt into the bed and be all blissed out. And you know there have been more than a few times when you've had to half walk/half carry me to the bathroom after sex thereby ruining your own bliss time."

He can't help but nod his head. 

I have several shopping tabs open now, I'm sure that I can MacGyver something by the end of the week.

Pardon me while I SHE-HULK out

This week (and it's only Monday - it's only MONDAY?!?), I find myself wondering what caused She-Hulk's transformation from regular woman-about-town, to big green rage monster. 

'Cause I've had three instances today where I found myself fighting to maintain my equilibrium between rationality and absolutely losing my shit.

This morning, I'm moving from the bathroom to the master bedroom, the vacuum's power cord got trapped under the bathroom door, and I find myself lifting the vacuum into the air, prepping to throw it down the stairs. 

I don't. 

But for a good 10 seconds I am sure as shit contemplating it.

Later, I am typing and my fingers are nowhere close to the 'asdf' or 'jkl;' home keys. I have to try nine times to finish a single sentence. I am milliseconds from launching the keyboard through the back window.

And just now, as we begin prepping dinner? I find a rogue hair - my rogue hair - trapped between the fingers on my vegetable-holding-hand as I'm chopping cucumbers for our salad. I visualize myself heaving the chef's knife across the room.

David hears me growling.

"You okay?"

"How old was She-Hulk when she started transforming?"

"I'm not sure."

"By any chance was she in menopause?!?"

His eyes widen slightly.

"Uhhhhh..."

"Never mind," I say. The rage has ebbed. I reach into the refrigerator to take the cherry tomatoes out of the crisper drawer. They fall out of their container. I wonder how heavy the refrigerator is and what the repairs to the second floor will cost when I propel it through the ceiling. I count to 10. Twice. Then I rinse off the tomatoes in the sink.

"I think it might have been menopause," I say, drying off the tomatoes.

"Why do you think that?"

"Because I'm seriously considering heaving appliances because of dropped cherry fucking tomatoes and there was a fucking hair on my hand when I was cutting the fucking cucumber and I wanted to throw the fucking cucumber and the fucking knife..."

David bites his lip.

"What?!?"

"I probably shouldn't even go there. But right now it seems like you might be suffering from a hair trigger..."

"Now?" I ask. "You're choosing to make bad puns... NOW!?!"

"Right, right," he says, glancing around to make sure that the chef's knife is out of my range. 

"I've been so good," I say. "This kind of shit hasn't happened in years." 

When I was younger, maybe 14 years ago, and the rage monster came to visit, I took some herbal pills to keep me from committing felonies. But lately, even during night sweats and hot flashes, I have been way less ragey, and more just... frustrated and apt to burst into heart-wrenching sobs over the injustices of the hormonal impact on the female form. I haven't been this mood-swingy over next-to-nothing in more than a decade.

Inspiration strikes. "What if this is a side effect of COVID?" I ask. 

"Runh?"

"What if there are other middle-aged women who have..." (I make air quotes) "Recovered from COVID, but are now no longer rational beings? Could that be a thing?"

"Possibly?" David responds, obviously trying to keep me calm.

"How do I find all the menopausal women who have Long COVID? The ones who now, weeks or even  months later, are still getting headaches and chills and are as exhausted as fuck, but who are also suffering from bouts of violent mood swings?"

"Ummmm..."

"Why are you backing away from me?"

"I'm not." 

Pizza, popcorn and falling up the stairs

I clutch the handrail, lifting one foot in front of the other. David follows me, really close - my personal border collie - ensuring that I don't fall. 

"I'm good," I say. I'd give a sloshy thumbs-up, but my left hand is presently holding the other wall. My feet mostly feel the stair treads beneath them. I'm only a little pukey.

I'm not generally a moron, but I overdid it. Again. 53 frickin' years old, I should know better.

I had pepperoni pizza for dinner, and then, I had popcorn with butter salt on it.

NOT drunk. Disabled.

It's almost four years since my diagnosis with Secondary Endolymphatic Hydrops... which is kinda sorta Meniere's Disease affecting your ear's vestibular system, though technically it's not Meniere's Disease because that is Primary Endolymph... and I can already see your eyes glazing over. Medical, medical medical... blah, blah, blah...

I tip over. I'm on medication to stop me from tipping over. 

Most of the time it works, but every now and again, like if I have pepperoni pizza and popcorn on the same night, my ears are in the middle of the North Atlantic and my extremities either stop working or I look like I'm having mini seizures. Salt is my Kryptonite.

But... Popcorn.

So it is no shock to find myself staggering into the bathroom with David and Rissa close behind. I plunk down on the toilet, desperately needing to pee because we've discovered the protocol for an attack is getting me to drink three or four glasses of water along with an extra pill to equalize the fluid in my... medical blah, blah, blah. Eye roll.

"Oh man, I'm so sorry," I say. "Really stinky pee." 

"Thank you!" says Rissa, brushing her teeth.

"Noted," says David, around his own toothbrush.

They've both turned their heads away.

"So stinky," I say, flushing the toilet as I'm sitting. "Must be the vitamins. Vitamin B can really mess with urine." 

A side effect of looking like you're drunk is that your body also thinks you're drunk. My brain is foggy. It's going to be at least a half hour before I'm fully coherent. 

I have a horrible thought. What's if it's not the vitamins making my pee smell like that? What if it's not the pee? What if it's just me? What if this is what I smell like now? What if this emanates from ME?

"David," I yell. He's already left the bathroom.

"Yes?" he yells back.

"David you may have to smell my vagina."

"No," he says. "I don't think that I do. I promised a lot of things when I married you, but that was not one of them."

"What if this were less smelling and more just breathing near it?"

"Nope."

He may not have my front, but he always has my back.

The brain, she don't work like she used to...

As I'm writing, I know exactly the word I want to use. It means getting up, but in a sexy, Regency romance kind of way. Sort of like unbending, something akin to having a sexy lap. The word itself? Not a fucking clue.

Any of you know what the word is? Wordhippo did not immediately find it for me. And now, I'm on the cusp of a brain aneurysm trying to find the word as it hides in my hippocampus. Yes, I can make a pun, referencing the thesaurus site that I use, but I can't remember the fucking word.

I used to have a brain that held onto the minutiae of almost every topic. Who was the female lead in Arrival? Amy Adams! Have I seen the movie? NO! But I remember her face from the movie trailers. 

UNFOLDED! I think the word might be unfolded. "Sebastian unfolded his legs and rose." Maybe. Maybe not. It's on the tip of my brain and I can neither confirm nor deny that that is the word I've been searching for.

I have incorrectly purchased shampoo. Three times. THREE. With my crazy-ass curly, brittle hair, I infrequently use shampoo. I'm a big proponent of rinsing the crap out of my scalp and then slathering on the conditioner. As a result, I go through conditioner like... hotcakes? (That phrase isn't even appropriate for this particularly analogy. If my brain was working properly, I would know the exact analogy for my conditioner usage.) 

I recently began to slather on my conditioner and I realized that it was NOT conditioner, but rather shampoo. I went to look at my XL bottle of conditioner and it wasn't conditioner, it was, in fact, shampoo. I'd just purchased the wrong bottle when I went to Shoppers. So I went back and bought the correct bottle of conditioner, except that when I got home, I had purchased the large bottle of shampoo - AGAIN. So I got a refund for the bottle and went to get the proper bottle and, turns out, I purchased ANOTHER bottle of shampoo, which I then had to immediately exchange for conditioner. This means two things: not only is my brain collapsing like a black hole, I have apparently lost my ability to read.

I was searching for my red Pixie pants a while back. The new red pixie pants that I had bought from Old Navy to replace the red Pixie pants that were old enough to look a little faded and worn at the seams. I remember wearing the new pants. I knew I had bought them, but had no clue what had happened to them. The only thing I could think of was that the new red Pixie pants had wound up in a batch of to-be-donated clothes that had gone to charity. So I ordered another pair of red Pixie pants. 

On the day that the new red Pixie pants arrived, I was looking for something in the bathroom closet, and, lo and behold! At the back of the bathroom closet - which is deep, like we-have-pull-out-drawers into-the-eaves-to-utilize-all-the-space-in-the-closet deep - I find my original red Pixie pants. Not in the front. Behind baskets. In the back, back, back of the frickin' bathroom closet! How did they get there? Did I put them there? And if so, WHY?!? Are my family members trying to gaslight me?

There was another thing that makes me certain that I'm descending into early Alzheimer's and I. CAN'T. REMEMBER. WHAT. IT. IS!! But I do know that earlier today I had identified that other thing! Because I remember thinking, HOLY CRAP! Four things are a whole fucking lot! And yeah, I joke, and many other people joke about this, but when I've lost the plot... of my own existence? It scares the crap out of me. 

Also, I just started watching Young Wallander which has a Swedish actor (Adam Gustav Justus Pålsson) who looks remarkably like a taller version of another actor, a musical theatre actor, who also does TV and film. He played King George in the original cast of Hamilton. He's in Mindhunter. He was in the original cast of Spring Awakening and had guest spots on Glee - as Lea Michelle's potential boyfriend, I think?? He's in the new Matrix movie?!? All of which... I KNOW!! I remember all of these things! But I cannot remember the dude's name. And it has me balancing on the edge of madness.

So I just looked him up. It's Jonathan frickin' Groff. Sweet merciful Moses. 

Well, at least I'll be able to sleep tonight. And who knows? Tomorrow may well come and I might have forgotten all of this. Bright side!!

Kev? Buddy. What did you do?

As I'm writing at the kitchen table, I intermittently glance out the window - enjoying flashes of flora and fauna in our backyard. The Engleman's Ivy lushly embraces the pergola, the grass is green, there are birds and squirrels, and... a... fox? As I lean to the side of my computer screen, desperate to catch a glimpse of the suspected fox, I almost fall off my chair. I see a fluffy orangey tail disappear around the bushes at the bottom of our yard.

Two thoughts immediately dance around my frontal lobe:

DID I JUST SEE A FOX?!?

HOW CAN I MAKE FRIENDS WITH IT?!?

I'm up on my feet and out the back door. Taking a calm breath, I nonchalantly make my way towards the bushes. I pause at the edge of greenery. I do not want to startle the fox. Our friendship should be predicated on trust and respect. Plus, if a fox is comfortable in our backyard, who's to say that there won't also be a deer, a family of racoons and maybe a couple of porcupines? All living together, like a John Lewis Christmas advert!!

THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER!!!

I peer around the bushes.

There, not 20 feet away from me, in my very own backyard... huddling against the shed is... a... dog. A mixed-breed-tail-like-a-fox-probably-a-longhaired-chihuahua-crossed-with-a-corgi kinda dog. I register a moment of slight disappointment before bright-siding that I'm still pretty frickin' psyched to have the opportunity to befriend a new dog.

"Hey buddy! How are you?" I make no sudden movements. 

Now that I'm close enough to look at it properly, I'm pretty sure the wee beastie belongs to the alleged "Pharmaceutical Rep" from across the street. When I've seen it in the past, it's usually tied to the front stoop. It softly growls at me.

"It's okay buddy. You're okay." I take a slow step towards him. More growls.

I reverse my step. "No worries, bud. You are O-KAY." I hunker down and make the typical "tch-tch-tch-tch" noises that one uses when one is desperate to attract an animal. The dog neither growls, nor does it scamper over to leap into my arms.

"Dude," I say. "Hold on a sec!" I run to the house where I have emergency dog biscuits. 

I grab a large-breed biscuit and snap it into three smaller pieces as I make my way down the yard once more.

"Hey bud," I say, holding out a piece of biscuit 10 feet away from the dog. "Do you want a cookie?"

It cocks an eyebrow at me.

"Cookie?"

The dog take two small steps towards me, wagging its tail. I take a step towards the dog and it backs up and growls.

"No worries. No worries." I step back and toss a cookie. The dog grabs it in mid-air, a canine pro. "Good dog!!"

I start moving towards the front yard. "Okay, bud, come with me. I'll walk you home." I toss another cookie, which is immediately scarfed up. "Good dog!" I hunker down and offer another cookie. The dog moves towards me, tail wagging and takes the cookie from my hand. "Good dog!! What a good dog!!"

I walk to the driveway. "Let's get you home." The dog refuses to set foot on the driveway. It looks at the driveway - past the gravel to the road - and then back to me with sad, frightened eyes before booting it to the back yard where it hides behind the bushes again.

Well, now it really seems like the dog doesn't want to go home. Which means that the alleged 'Pharmaceutical Rep' is probably a terrible owner. So I'm going to have to adopt the dog. OBVIOUSLY. Which might be a little awkward for walking the dog, on account of the fact that we share the street with the alleged "Pharmaceutical Rep." So that means that I will either have to spray paint the dog with Just for Men hair colour to disguise it... or dye its fur. Dying the fur will probably be a better long-term solution. First, though, I need to look at its dog tags so that I can use its proper name. For that I will need more cookies. I grab supplies from the house and head to the back yard.

"Hey bud," I say, crouching down to offer a cookie. The dog comes right up to me. We are now friends. I hold the cookie in my left hand and reach very slowly with my right hand to take a gander at the dog's tags. And that is when the dog takes umbrage at my forwardness and bites me. Twice. Because it didn't have the right angle the first time. 

"It's okay buddy." The dog  has retreated several feet away. "You're okay. You're okay. I'm so sorry, I should have not tried to look at that tag. I shouldn't have done that. I recognize that now." I glance down, happy that my hand doesn't really seem... to be... bleeding... that much.   I begin to suspect that the dog and I may not be destined for a long-standing friendship. I heave a heartfelt sigh. I probably need to head over to the alleged "Pharmaceutical Rep's" house and bring him back over here to get his dog. 

I cross the street. I'm about to knock on the door when I hear voices in the backyard. 

"Oh, hey! Hi," I say, giving a jaunty wave with my non-wounded hand. There are two men in the backyard. One is standing and looks like he's visiting his alleged "Pharmaceutical Rep." The other is sitting and looks like he is the alleged "Pharmaceutical Rep." Not that I should be making any assumptions about anyone.

"Is anyone here missing a dog?"

"I am!" says the seated gent. "Where is he?"

"He's uh..." I glance down at my hand, which I am keeping surreptitiously down at my side. There is now a fairly steady stream of blood coming from the bite. "He's in my backyard. Does he have his..." I look at my hand again. "Shots?"

"Yeah! Yeah, he does! Did he bite you?"

"Oh, just a wee nip," I say.

"I'm so sorry! He ran away last night during the thunder storm and he wouldn't come back."

"Awwwww, poor guy! No worries, no worries. Yeah, he's uh... he's in my backyard - he didn't want to cross the road with me."

We walk over to my house and head back towards the shed. There's the dog, looking very apologetic for having bitten me.

"Kev," the alleged "Pharmaceutical Rep" says. "Kev. Buddy. What did you do?"

Okay. The dog's name is Kevin. Can we just marvel at that for a moment?

The guy scoops up Kevin, who lolls in his arms, looking like a fox-tailed, teddy bear now.  My new neighbour thanks me profusely for my help.

"Any time!" I say. I then walk into the house to deal with the fallout from my morning adventures.

"David? Can you help me upstairs for a second ?" Upstairs is where all the First Aid supplies live.

"Sure! What's up?"

"I just have a minor dog bite," I say.

I'm in the bathroom rinsing my wound when David appears Kramer-esque in the doorway. "You have a what?"

"A very small dog bite," I say, gently applying soap to the wound. Now that the adrenaline of having saved Kevin has worn off, I recognize that I am feeling a wee bit of pain.

"Jesus! Heather that's a  BITE." He peers closer. "That's actually two bites."

"Two relatively small bites." I give him the scoop on the action he's missed. Once I finish recounting my Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, I proudly exclaim, "This is the first time that I've ever been bitten by a dog."

"Which, given how often you approach animals, is a fucking miracle," says David, grabbing antibiotic ointment and some gauze. He looks at the expiry date. "November 2012? Seriously?"

"The good thing is that we don't need antibiotic ointment that often," I say. 

David is now in full-on trauma physician mode. He finds another tube of non-expired antibiotic ointment, then pulls my hand from under the water to generously apply it to Kevin's love bite. It immediately starts bleeding again. He cuts off 6 feet of gauze and wraps my hand. I now have a club for a hand. David looks manic.

"Did Kevin have his shots?" he asks.

"Yep. That's what his owner said."

"The drug dealer from across the street? That owner?"

"Alleged!" I say. "We don't know for sure why he has so many visitors come to his door at all hours who only stay for 2 minutes at a time."

After I'm bandaged up, I call my doctor's office and confirm that I've had a tetanus shot recently.  (You know, just in case the bites get infected by all those Kevin mouth germs.) BOO YEAH! 2019 BABY!! Then, Dr. Google tells me that I should  keep an eye on the wound and look out for signs of infection. Check. Doing that right now.

When I tell my friend Meaghan about the incident, she stops me when I get to the part about going to find the dog's owner.

"Excuse me? Instead of going inside to give yourself much needed First Aid for dog bites..."

"Just two small ones!"

She rolls her eyes at me. "Instead of taking care of your BLEEDING DOG BITES, you cross the street to the DRUG DEALER'S..."

"Alleged!"

She snorts. "You go to the ALLEGED drug dealer's house, whom you have NEVER met and you make sure that the DOG'S okay??"

"Kevin was really traumatized. I scared him."

"Did it ever occur to you that you should go inside and get David to go to the drug dealer and you should have gone to do First Aid?"

"No." 

"You're out of your fucking mind."

***

One month later... it strikes me that I never did have proof of Kevin's rabies vaccine. It also strikes me that I haven't seen Kevin out on his front stoop in the last month. There is a small part of me wondering if Kevin has perished from rabies.

I walk across the road and knock on the door. No answer. I knock again. Maybe they're out back. I walk up the driveway. The alleged "Pharmaceutical Rep" is talking on his phone with his back to me. 

"Excuse me?" I say. He doesn't hear me. "Excuse me?" Still nothing.

Then, I see Kevin. He is neither foaming at the mouth, nor staggering wildly. He's just walking by the deck, looking pretty unconcerned with the world at large. He doesn't see me. I don't want to stress him out, so I back down the driveway. Very pleased that I won't have rabies.

***

20 minutes later... You know how sometimes a thought just gets stuck in your head? I suspect that I'll be wanting to catch a glimpse of Kevin in another month's time.

***

2 weeks later... I've seen Kevin outside again  - pleased to report that he is still not foaming at the mouth. 

 

And that's why you don't become a gymnast

Today, I popped a rib by NOT making the bed. I calmly moved towards the bed to begin making it, but then figured, Nah, I'll do this AFTER I exercise. And then, I calmly walked away from the bed. No sudden movements, no being startled, no overly dramatic sneezing - I simply walked away. And then I was stabbed in the back. Repeatedly. By knives. Or ice picks. Or axes. Or by a gang of small pixies wielding knives or ice picks or axes. (I'm now imagining Terry Pratchett's Nac Mac Feegles beating the shit out of my back.)

Rob Anybody, a Nac Mac Feegle 
(art Paul Kidby)

The first time I popped a rib was when Rissa was still in a stroller and I was carting that stroller up and down our front steps in East York. So that means that this shit has been going on for the last 19.5 years. 

At my inaugural chiropractor appt. almost 2 decades ago, the doctor asked, "By any chance were you a gymnast?" as she gave me a sad, the-damage-is-done smile. Apparently I am now TOO flexible. Who knew that my eight years as a recreational gymnast would completely fuck me over in middle-age? Most physio therapists and chiropractors. 

Like most girls who saw Nadia Comaneci in the '76 Olympics, I fell in love with the idea of being a gymnast, but after nearly a decade in recreational gymnastics, my top skills amounted to a back walkover on the balance beam and a back handspring on floor. I couldn't kip on the bars for shit. I was by no means an elite athlete. I can't even imagine the chronic issues that Olympic level athletes deal with, if my hypermobility pulls this kinda crap. 

I pop ribs maybe 3 (or 4 or 5... the most is 6) times a year. By doing such taxing things as bending over to dry my hair, reaching for the shower gel, sneezing. My friend thinks that the gravitational pull of my breasts is the cause. According to her, I might not be moving quickly, but, because my breasts are in their own orbit, other intra-corporeal bodies (ie ribs and ligaments) are pulled out of alignment by my innate breastal gravity. I think that this sounds like a perfectly reasonable justification.

Because this delightful little trait has been kicking in more frequently over the past couple of years, I decided to be proactive and strengthen my back with yoga - you know, so that I can avoid this shit in the future. Apparently, my one month's worth of strength yoga hasn't afforded me its full benefits yet. This may be compounded by the fact that I haven't actually talked to any sort of medical professional about this issue, because... pandemic.  So I don't know whether my version of strengthening my back jibes with what someone who actually knows how bodies work, might think. 

And, as I've been reading today, in between popping muscle relaxants, it sounds like I probably have "Slipping Rib Syndrome." WAIT! WAIT!!! If I add this to my four other health idiosyncrasies (Hashimodo's Disease, Meniere's Disease, Hypoglycemia and Migraines),  I think I've got the Weird-Ass Medical Disorder Bingo!! Boo-freaking-yeah baby!  Bright side!

MOLES? We don't need no stinking MOLES!

Is mole DNA similar to rabbit DNA? And by "mole" I mean a mole on your face or body, and by rabbit I mean literal fucking rabbits. If you have two moles on your face, do their melanocytes then multiply exponentially like the proverbial rabbit? Is my face now a Ponzi Scheme?

Last year I had one small mole on my forehead, which I totally thought was a zit, but it wasn't, because no matter how hard I tried to pop it, nothing happened. Then another one showed up on my forehead and another, then one on my cheek and then two more on the opposite cheek. And now there are two others that have developed beside my mouth. 

If, over the past year, my one benign mole (because, yeah, I checked that shit out with a dermatologist) has become eight, I'm fairly certain that within a decade I will become the Mole-Faced Woman. The upside of this eventuality is that it can, and should, be monetized. 

Today? My skin melts. I go upstairs to pluck my chin, neck and face hairs (because THAT'S a daily thing now) and my skin has slumped like melted wax. My thought process goes like this:

"WHAT THE FUCK HAS HAPPENED TO MY FACE?!?"

I try to recall all the things that I've done so far over the course of the morning that might contribute to a House of Wax moment upon my person, but it takes me a full 90 seconds of panicked thought before I calm down enough to realize that they are just slinkles (sleep wrinkles). That calm is lost when I realize that those slinkles remain embedded in my skin four fucking hours after I have stopped sleeping on my face AND and I have no recollection of even seeing my face this morning, even though logic says that that shit had to have been there earlier, like WHEN I WOKE UP.   

Do you know that they make pillows for this? To avoid slinkles. They look like the kind of pillow you might wind up on if you have cervical trauma. For $174.00 + tax you can sleep the sleep of the uncomfortable so that your face at least slumps backward while you sleep.

Whenever I mention any of these things to David or Rissa they look at me like I'm nuts.

"Nobody notices this stuff but you."

"Uhhhhhh.... not true. Every other menopausal woman out there notices this shit."

"On themselves maybe, but not on other people. You have to be VERY close to other people like REALLY close to notice what YOU see in a mirror with 5X magnification."

I can't fault this chain of thought. No one other than David and Rissa gets that close to me - especially now, with all the physical distancing and mask wearing. In spite of laser eye surgery, David's eyes don't even really work that well up close and personal and Rissa repeatedly tells me that I am crazy and that I'm beautiful the way I am and I should just accept that fact.   Plus, with me already starting to forget shit? I'm not going to remember what my original face looked like. So the next time I gaze into my 5X magnification mirror, I can just be happy that I own one that helps me locate that mother-fucking white hair on my neck that I've been playing with for the last hour as I've been watching The Crown.

My delicate frickin' flower

"I'm telling you Rissa, when you're middle-aged, your vulva gets sassy."

Rissa pauses brushing her teeth. "I'm sorry?"

"Your vulva - well at least your labia - they get..."

"What is happening right now?"

"I was wearing those pants without underwear..."

"Ma!"

"I am passing on information that will be useful when YOU are 52 years old."

"About my vulva?"

"Or it might just be your labia. I'm never sure of the distinction. I mean, I know that the labia are the lip bits. Help me out here. You're the nursing student."

Rissa looks like she wants to bang her head on the vanity. "The vulva is the whole crotch area."

"Crotch is the vulva. Got it." I think for a sec. "Crulva."

"Please don't ever say THAT again."

"What? If I make a new word it will forever be clear in my mind."

"Other people's mothers don't share like this."

"But they should! Seriously. You're going to want to know that lace underwear will become the enemy in your 40s and then, when you're 52, you go commando in a pair of 95% polyester / 5% spandex/elastane wide cut pants and your... labia - really it's just the labia - will not be happy with you."

Rissa just looks at me.

"And I used to be able to wear the pretty lacy panties, but now, unless there's a cotton gusset in there with some good acreage, by the end of the day (or night - depending when I wear them) my crulval area is not pleased."

David pokes his head into the bathroom. "Crulval?"

Rissa shudders. "Please DO NOT encourage her."

"Crotch and vulva. The crotch area is the vulva," I say as I brush my teeth.

"Ahhhhhh, I see."

"I'm trying to impart my knowledge of what the female body does..."

"I don't think all female bodies do this," says Rissa.

"Oh, I think they do. You get older and your body gets overly sensitive."

"YOUR body Ma. YOUR body is WAY sensitive."

"I'm going to poll my friends."

"OH. MY. GOD."

"And then you'll know....  Wait! I am going to ask Mor Mor and I will bet you anything that she'll confirm it." 

"I can't see Mor Mor wearing lacy panties."

"Because now she CAN'T."

"Seriously?"

"I'm sure that Mor Mor would still wear lacy panties if she could. She might want to spice it up now and again..."

"ARGH!"

CUT TO: THE NEXT MORNING

"Mor? Can you still wear lacy panties?'

There is a pause on the other end of the phone. "Can I what?"

"If you wear lacy panties or non-cotton panties, do they irritate your lady bits?'

"Well... no, I don't think so."

"No?"

"I've never noticed that."

"I'm talking about a pair of LACY panties - with a very small gusset?"

David snorts from the other room.

"I can't say that it's ever been an issue for me. I mean, I don't wear a lot of lacy panties now, but I do have polyester panties and they don't seem to bother me."

"But they have a BIG cotton gusset right?"

"Well I've never measured it."

"Aw crap. She's right!"

"Who's right?"

"Rissa. She said that my lady bits are just overly sensitive."

"Well that may be the case. Your body IS sensitive. You know Heather, natural fibers are always best. These new fabrics are all well and good, because they're easy to care for, but you can't beat cotton."

"Yeah, I know. These new fabrics, they bite me in the... well, not ass, but they sure as hell irritate my labia!"

"And this is why you called?"

"Yep. Thanks. Love you." I hang up the phone.

Rissa comes down the stairs. "I told you it was just YOUR..."

"Crulva?"

She rolls her eyes. "Last night something struck me. You said you were wearing pants with no underwear."

"Yeah."

"Well don't do that! If you wear underwear you won't get irritated."

"Yes, but those pants are jersey and if I wear cotton panties with them, the pants will be all bunchy and clingy..."

"WEAR cotton thongs! They MAKE cotton thongs!"

Epiphanic. "Yes. Yes, that's perfect. I can do that. Unless my perineum is irritated."

***

Please help me get to the bottom of this.

beware the pre-christmas pluck...

I just want to be at my best for Christmas Eve dinner, you know? Well-presented. Whisker-free. Having spent a great deal of time yesterday absentmindedly playing with my chin and neck hairs, I knew that this morning should really be dedicated to the pre-Christmas pluck.

I head to the bathroom with purpose. I ablute as per my regular morning routine and prep my supplies: industrial tweezers and magnifying mirror. All goes well for the first half dozen whiskers. Then, as I'm turning my neck to get to one of the really determined, nearly-invisible buggers, I feel a twinge. Have I? Have I really done this? Yes, yes I have. I have displaced a rib. By moving my neck. It's December 24th. We are travelling 3 hours in the car. This seems to be the perfect time to be really high on muscle relaxants.

I spend the next five minutes on my bedroom floor trying to get a tennis ball to adjust me. No luck.

I head downstairs to greet David. He notices that I'm grimacing a titch.

"What is it?"

"I displaced a rib."

He snorts. "Of course you have. How?"

"Tweezing."

He cocks his head to the side and raises his eyebrows in a silent question.

"I turned my head instead of turning my whole body to get more light on the bastard hairs." I plunk myself down sideways on his lap. "Could you please press really hard around my left shoulder blade?"

He uses the heel of his hand.

"A little up... To the left. Yeah! YEAH!! There!!" I lean into it.

"Whoa! Whoa! If my hand slips you're going to skewer yourself on the corner of the mantle. Use my head."

I move so that I'm now centred on his lap. He pushes the top of his skull against my shoulder blade. I lean back...

"Whoa! Whoa! Holy Crap you're strong!" Checking for whiplash, he circles his neck before pressing his elbow against my back.

"That's it!  That's it!! Right there!!" I am now desperately trying meld my body with David's as I push back into his elbow.

"Whoa! Whoa!! Too much!!" He moves his shoulder to ensure it hasn't been dislocated. "Have you tried leaning against a tennis ball?"

"Yeah. Upstairs." I breathe in and wince. "Yeesh." I breathe out carefully before tentatively adjusting my shoulders. "Okay... no problem. I can be high all day, right? You'll drive?"

Merry Christmas everyone! Here's to a very HAPPY and very HEALTHY New Year!

Welcome to 50!

Dear Heather:

"We are writing to invite you to get checked for colon (bowel) cancer." I'm sorry, you're...? reads the sentence again... You're inviting me to WHAT??  

"After age 50, your risk of getting this disease goes up."  How much?  How MUCH does it go up?? Could I get actual percentages here? Into what level of panic should I descend? And why have you BOLDED this text in your letter?!?

"The good news is that you can take steps to protect your health by doing an easy test called the fecal occult blood test (FOBT)." Fecal Occult Blood Test? OCCULT?!? Am I taking my poo and smearing it into a pentagram on the floor while I call up various demons from the Netherworld?

"The FOBT is a safe and painless cancer screening test that checks your stool (poop) for tiny drops of blood, which can be caused by colon cancer. You can do the test in the comfort and privacy of your own home, and it only takes a few minutes a day on three different days to complete." Wait? Have enough people sent in three pieces of wood from actual stools that Cancer Care Ontario had to define what "stool" is?

"Get your free FOBT from your family doctor or nurse practitioner!" 

Of course I had to Google it. There's a handy-dandy video!

Another perk of turning 50? My friend Kelly got me this great book!

I immediately open it, eager to discover new things. Its pages are completely empty. "HAH! This is amazing! It's a sex journal!"

"What? No! It's a gag book! It's empty! No sex after 50!" says Kelly.

"Gag book? You mean I'm not supposed to write all my post 50 sexcapades in here? I could invest in a fabulous sex pen!"

Tomato-Tomahto.

And that's why menopause makes you crazy...

It's come to this: I am now answering Facebook quizzes in my own head. Without the computer.  And not the normal ones like:

Which Disney Princess are you? 
Which Shakespearean character would you be?
What breed of cat are you?

Nope, this mostly Pagan gal has this one pin-balling around her cranium:

Which Bible character is your alter-ego?

We've got to go to Judges 16 for that one.  Samson.  I am Samson.  Delilah cut Samson's hair and he lost his great strength - his power.  I cut my hair and lost my mind.

It's been a swift ride to Crazy-Town for Heather.  I got my hair cut 3.5 weeks ago and in that time all rational thought has departed.  I was getting ready for a wedding with the new 'do' on Saturday and I could actually feel my sanity abandoning me.  Rissa went to get David.

"Uh, Daddy?"

"Mmmm-hmmm?"

"Mummy's, uh..."  (I can only assume Rissa made the 'she's batshit crazy' gesture beside her own head here.)

David came upstairs and found me weeping; a curling iron clenched in one hand and sweat dripping down my spine.

"Oh love, what is it?"

"This HAIR!" I wailed.

"You're beautiful.  You're always beautiful."  He stood behind me, attempting to smooth my shoulders down and press a hug against my back.

I pulled away violently.  "NO!  I'm NOT!  I look like fucking BOZO the CLOWN!!!"

I could see it then.  I could see the look of concern in David's eyes - the wondering if this was it - if this was the moment I had finally given in to insanity.

"But love, you've been fine this past week.  You liked your new hair."

"I was LYING!!  I HATE it!  I HATE this hair!  I want to shave it off and start wearing wigs until I can put it in a pony tail again!!" You know when you really lose your shit and you have an out-of-body experience watching yourself do it?  That. 

 Dozens of people have complimented me on my hair.

"It makes you look 15 years younger!" 
"You look so sassy!" 
"It's adorable!" 

They are ALL - every single one them - LYING to me.  I try to be good and politely accept the compliment.  I really do.  I smile and nod, ready to move on and behave like a normal tamped down human being, but then they ask "Do you LOVE it?" and I can't keep my irrational mouth shut. Brutally honest, I spout colourful invectives, minutes-long vituperation which, naturally, takes people aback.  That, plus my wild-eyed cuckoo-banana-ness.  Because really?  What person actually says how they're truly feeling?  We're not supposed to do that.  Most of time, I can playact when a person asks a direct question.   But for some reason this hair thing has caused me to lose the ability to deliver bland social conversational norms with any believability.  My inner truth tap switched to ON when I lost 10 inches of hair.

But I didn't fucking LOSE the hair!  I am not on chemo, I do not have alopecia!  I ASKED for something shorter.  It's not like the stylist went rogue, tied me down, gagged me and madly began chopping - I'd been toying with going shorter for years.  The problem was that pretty much as soon as she started to take it off the top, I knew I'd made the wrong choice.  I left the salon thinking "Okay, in a year I can grow 6 inches of this back."  And no matter how many people love the 'do,' no matter how much my husband smiles and says he loves kissing the back of my neck - something was lost for me.

"I look like a MOM!"

"You are a Mom."

"But I LOOK like one.  I feel MA-A-A-AAAAAA-TRON-LY!!!!!"

And that's what it really comes down to.  I had long curly auburn hair that turned heads and now I don't turn heads - unless I'm walking with my 16 year old daughter who is always turning heads - which is somehow worse because at first you think they might be turning heads to look at you and then you realize Nope - this head-turning is not for me at all.  I cut my hair and I am now an invisible, middle-aged woman.  The male gaze slides over me - it's not that they're ignoring me - it's that they don't even recognize that I exist.

I tried on a dress for this aforementioned wedding a week ago - a purple, chiffony, deep V neck that swished and was lovely.  I asked David's opinion about the dress and he was underwhelmed.  "Oh, that's nice."  He didn't look like he wanted to lick his way from my collar bone to my navel.  He blandly smiled and part of me died inside.

As we were driving home from the mall he knew that something was up.  I was quiet, desperately rationalizing my crushing sadness.  We got home and I went upstairs and laid upon the bed, taking calming breaths.

"He just didn't like the dress.  It's not you.  The dress wasn't the best colour..."

And these are basically all the same things that he told me when he followed me upstairs and sat on the bed beside me.

"I know," I said.  "I know that.  You don't have to like everything that I put on.  I don't want you to lie and say something to appease my vanity.  It's just that there are these times that you look at me and I feel like I'm the most beautiful woman on the planet and this was NOT one of those times.  Seeing myself reflected in your eyes can make me feel desirable and... sexy and... POWERFUL and you didn't look at me that way this time.  And right now it's killing me, but I'll get over it."

The look on his face when I shared that shit?  Deflated.  I made him deflate.

"I'm not saying it to guilt you.  I'm being honest. And in a few minutes I will be able to move on, but right now my coping skills are at a minimum and I need to reboot."

My regularly programmed personality has been usurped by this short-tempered, weepy, bitch - whose behaviour is psychotic attention-seeking at its finest.  I am not this person.  This is NOT me.  I want me back.  I used to be the gal with a quick off-colour joke and burlesque posturing. My 'shoulders back, tits out' coping strategy got me through the day.  Bravado was my secret weapon.

Somewhere around Victoria Day I started having night sweats.  Two months folks.  That's all it takes.  Two months of disrupted sleep patterns and I have morphed into the stereo-typically irrational and moody menopausal woman who believes she had super sexy powers in her hair length.   This is why middle-aged women seem dissatisfied and bitchy all the time.  They're not crazy - they're fucking sleep-deprived.  Night sweats create an atmosphere very similar to early parenting exhaustion, except that in your late 40s you don't have the energy stores to power through the exhaustion, and when someone touches your naked body you want to strangle them.

Tonight I'm taking a sleeping pill.  It's time to reboot.

And you shall not run...

I've got the PF.   Plantar Facsiitis.  I can no longer run.   I mean, sure I could run if something was chasing me - or if a building was on fire - but I'd pay for it later.  I'd get up the next day, attempt to stand on both feet and then collapse to the floor when the heel of my left foot gave out. Just the left foot.  MY left foot.  And unlike Christy Brown or Daniel Day Lewis, I have nothing to show for my left foot.  I sure as shit can't paint or write with it.

I haven't injured my left heel.  It's not like a car ran over my heel and my body is still processing.  This ailment is just from arriving into middle age. You run when you're a kid and you can run forever;  you laugh as you gallop, skip, sprint... You run in middle age and apparently you're pretty much fucked.  I ran to catch up in the parade last weekend and now I'm limping like hamstrung giraffe.

Do a quick poll of women of a certain age and you'll be amazed at how many also suffer from PF.  It's an epidemic of failing foot ligaments.

You might say, off the cuff, "My heel's been giving me grief."

Six women over the age of 40 will turn to you. "Plantar Fasciitis," they will nod, commiserate and suggest exercises.

If they're really good friends they'll get you in to see the hot physiotherapist.  You know, 'cause a cheap little thrill at our age makes one's day brighter.  Although if I were to do that, I'd have to pluck my toe hair, paint my nails and pretend I don't have hammer toes.   That seems like WAY too much work.  So much easier to simply inform the poor schmuck who's caring for your feet that it's coming up to winter and what lies under your socks ain't gonna be pretty.  Unless the physiotherapist is  REALLY, REALLY hot... And then, I mean, come on... I defy any person not to take an interest in their pedal appearance if they have someone of Matthew Goode's or Scarlett Johanssen's ilk touching their little piggies.  Tough call. 

Thyroidosaurus vs Perimenopauseratops

WARNING:  Female issues will be discussed.  

You get to be a certain age of woman and you don't put up with as much shit anymore.  You've made it through early parenthood and you're still standing.  You've mostly got it down, you know what works and what doesn't.  You've developed a rhythm and that rhythm generally lets you get through the day, the week, the year.  You are at one with your body, mind and soul... ish.

And then you hit middle age and it all fucks up.

Used to be that women just kept their mouths shut.  Female 'issues' were not discussed in polite society.  As a result, generation upon generation of women had no one with whom they could commiserate.  We all just kept it bottled inside thinking we were going insane as our medical issues became conveniently labelled as 'hormonal'.  After you've been living in your body for a few decades, you pretty much know how it works.  When things don't seem normal?  They aren't.

You should NOT be losing hair in handfuls.  Take what ends up on the shower wall and show the doctor exactly how much you lose EVERY time you shower.  Offer up that guinea pig-sized example of 'normal' at eye level and then watch them try to dance out of it.

FYI - you should NOT be bleeding through three three pads or tampons in an hour.  You should not have to take a towel with you to sit on... anywhere... EVER.

You should NOT want to go to bed at 7:15 p.m.

In the 50s, women coped by drinking.  In the 80s, it was Valium.  Fast forward to 2015.  Most gals attempt to stay 'natural.'  HRT with its frenetic dance back and forth between between being a Godsend and causing cancer, scares the shit out of most women.  And although the conversation about mental health is becoming more public - often we strive to be self-sufficient women who can 'have it all,' remaining stoic in the face of major shifts in personality and health.

I seek and offer COMMISERATION.  My body is one brutal hormonal cocktail.  Between thyroid disease and peri-menopause, there are times I want to crawl the 163 feet to the back of my property, cover myself in a blanket of snow and become a cautionary tale for those who make the trek past me.  I exercise and exercise and exercise, I eat sensibly and still find myself  30  pounds overweight with back fat that, in my twisted self-image, I am convinced could feed a family of 12 for a week.  I pass blood clots the size of toonies through my hooha.  FUCKING TOONIES!!  I have days mired down in despair, panic, apathy and bone-crushing exhaustion.

I am one 46-year-old woman amongst billions.  There are BILLIONS of us.  You know what that means?  You're not alone.  We can be in this together.  We should be cognizant of the fact that we're all doing the best we can, treading water with a medical system that pooh-poohs women issues as something to 'get through.'

So here's my suggestion folks: everyone who has a child out there interested in medicine... encourage them become doctors, researchers.  Encourage them to specialize in women's health issues.  Encourage them to find the solutions - to support women's health, to foster a health care system that makes it easier to move through middle age if you happen to sport a vagina.  We exist in a world where our life expectancy allows us to become octogenarians, if not centenarians - wouldn't it be great if the last 30-50 years of ours lives didn't suck??

My get up and go has f@¢#ed off... how do women survive middle-age?

On the plus side?  I'm 46 years old and still alive.   If this were the Middle Ages, I'd be dead already, or close to dead, or, at the very least, a great-Grandma, with incredibly saggy boobs because they didn't have proper brassieres back then.

On the minus side?  The part of my brain that is proactive, gives me moxie, lights a fire under my ass?  It's fucked off.  At present, I feel as though my picture could be placed beside the word apathetic in the dictionary.

Hey look over there, it's a pile of clothes that's needed to be ironed for the last 5 months... I should... meh...

I'm not saying that I was a 'get it done right now' gal - not like my friend Nathalie, who would buy something at a junk shop to turn into a chandelier and then the next day it would be spray-painted, wired and fucking lit up in her dining room - that wasn't me... but it didn't used to take me 10 frickin' months to hem a set of curtains. 

And although I know that I have a a couple of things working against me (thank you ever so much, thyroid disease and peri-menopause), on bad days, I am convinced that  I have morphed into a giant, corpulent, reticulated slug.

INT. JABBA'S LAIR

JABBA 

Have you met my sister? 
(cut to closeup of slightly younger female Hutt) 
She is renowned throughout the universe for her
excessive weight and sallow colour.

Checking out the back of my hair in the mirror, I have to quell the urge to self nip and tuck... "Okay, seriously??  How many rolls of back fat can a girl have surrounding her bra??"  Then you play the how can I look fine from the front, but utter shit from the back? game - rotating in front of the mirror like you're a car on a  pedestal revolve at an auto show.

I get home from work and it's all that I can do to walk over to the refrigerator to see if we have vegetables in the crisper.

I don't think my Mom went through all this shit. Yes, hot flashes - she flashed for years and years and years... but she didn't bitch out, she didn't crawl into bed at 8:00 p.m. and she sure as shit didn't resort to grilled cheese sandwiches with a side vegetable of pickles several times a week.  Oh, don't mind my daughter, the malnutrition will right itself when she's in university on a proper meal plan.

Overwhelmed is a constant.  I was at the grocery store on Saturday and found myself near tears in the canned goods aisle.  Too many people, too many colours, so much to consume...  How many children in the world can't have cereal?  What are they using to clean their floors?  That person has 17 items in the 16 item lane!!!  If I've been out in public, David generally meets me at the door with a cocktail.  He sits me down, wraps me in a blanket and stands guard for the emotional implosion. 

This hormonal shift is akin to when I was in adolescence - but now there's an added level of soul-crushing despair and self-loathing that I have to mask in front of the public.  Jazz hands Heather, keep up those jazz hands!

Big things?  They ain't happening.  It's time to refocus on the minutia of joy.   Tying on an apron to successfully finish cooking a meal that involves more than bread and cheese is a win.  And last night? I emptied the ironing basket - and not just by hiding it in a bag somewhere else in the house.  I dusted my bedside lamp, reorganized the face cloth basket, I mended a sweater of Rissa's that had been waiting for a year and a half.  By accomplishing  the seemingly inconsequential - I may just keep myself out of the nuthouse.

Lick my Phlegm

There's a difference between mucus and phlegm.  I mean beyond the spelling.  Although, frankly, just spelling  'phlegm' gives me a sick philologist's thrill.  That 'g' - it is so tasty.

Basically, mucus is supposed to be there and phlegm isn't.  Mucus relates to actual mucoid tissue - like say in your nose or eyes or genital areas - where it's good to be that little bit moist.  Phlegm, on the other hand, is more related to disease.  It's like MUCUS PLUS ++.  It's thicker, coats the back of one's throat and makes you feel like you're going to choke to death in the middle of the night.  Gives you that chronic throat clearing that drives people nuts.

But then I've been driving people nuts since I was a child.  My running tally of chronic conditions makes me sound like an Edwardian Artist -  infections of the throat, ears and lungs, migraines, dizzy spells, hypoglycemia, back, chest, neck - and now - shoulder pain.  My father frequently threatened to take me out back and shoot me - you know, to put me out of our communal misery.

"Heather, you're very sensitive to your body."  This from my mother, usually as she shakes her head, wondering where the hell I came from.  My mother - healthy as a horse.  Me?  Not so much.

My present ailments thrust me deep into Catch 22 territory.  My right shoulder, hindered by pain, with a side of next-to-no-mobility, should be treated with anti-inflammatories for pain and... well... inflammation.  (Along with icing, and physio.)  As instructed, I've been throwing anti-inflammatories at the problem for the last couple of months.  Turns out, these same anti-inflammatories, can eat away at a gal's stomach and leave her with ulcers and GERD, which in turn, give her blinding nausea, phlegm and difficulty swallowing.

NOT COOL ADVIL!  NOT COOL!

Last night, I found myself at the pharmacist's counter, begging for wisdom.

"Is there anything I can take, other than anti-inflammatories to help with inflammation?

"What's the issue?"

"I have inflammation in my shoulder."

"And you can't take anti-inflammatories?"

"I cannot."

"Why not?"

"Because they give me ulcers. Is there another way to deal with inflammation that doesn't involve a pill?"

"Topical Creams."

"Like Arnica?"

"Yes."

"Doing that."

"Is it helping?"

shoulder shrug

"Cortisone shot?"

I hold up my prescription bag - "Doing that."

"So you're doing the topical cream and you're having a cortisone shot?"

"Yep."

"That's as far as I can take you."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"You don't have a hush-hush Shaman-like herbal remedy that I could cook over my stove, leaving me with a stinky mess of unguent to apply to my bum shoulder?"

"I do not."

"What if I slip you a Sir Wilfrid Laurier?"

"Are you attempting to bribe me?"

"Not at all.  How do you feel about Sir. John A.???"