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??

And now I have to take extra underwear to work...

"Not cool!  This is NOT cool!"  I exasperate.

"What?  What is it?"  David responds.

"I peed my pants FIVE  times today while coughing!!!"

"Oh hon... You'll do better tomorrow...  Tomorrow you can make it to six!"

"Do NOT make me laugh."  I have already crossed my thighs in preparation for any laugh leakage.

David and Rissa attempt to keep their faces blank.

"It is NOT funny!  You guys!!  I'm coughing ALL THE TIME!!!  I should have done more Kegels.  I did so many a decade ago and it's all gone to hell."  I try one while I standing.

"Are you Kegeling right now?" David asks.

"Yes."  I focus on my nether regions.

"You look terrified and like you're trying to do trigonometry at the same time."

"It makes me feel all squelchy.  I wonder if it's even possible to do rehab for your urethra this far after you've given birth."  (It is.)

"Mummy, I think, just in case, you should take extra underwear to work."

"I'd have to bring a 1/2 a dozen pairs!"

"You could always wear adult diapers..." David suggests helpfully.

"Dude."

He shrugs apologetically, then gives me a look.  "Are you Kegeling again?"

"No, I'm trying to figure out how to accessorize the maxi pad I'll be wearing in my underwear tomorrow."  I pause.    "Now I'm doing Kegels."



 

Who needs psychedelic drugs...

... when you're in the midst of peri-menopause? They tell you about the sleep disturbances, the night sweats - all that great stuff - they don't tell you that your dreamscape will be a cross between Terry Gilliam and Wes Anderson.

Last night, Inigo Montoya was waxing my bikini line before he replaced my kneecaps with silver plating.  To be fair - Inigo Montoya had been featured on the Mindy Project and I had watched an episode of Bones while I was on the treadmill.  It is possible I've been watching too much Netflix.

For years, I'd had no dream retention and now... TECHNICOLOR dreams.  In one night I can have 4 or 5 major dream excursions.  Hopping between murder mystery and house-shopping, archaeology and  extreme haircuts - usually accompanied by night sweats - blankets off - then the chills as the sweat cools, so in your dream you're now naked in front of your Grade 9 Geography class, with only post-its to cover your interesting bits.

I awake bearing a grudge against David because in one of my panic attack-inducing dreams there's a demon child who throws a patio door at me.  Trying to scream - only managing a whimper in my sleep - David 'there-there'ing me in his sleep, one arm curving around my midriff, patting me ineffectually when what I really need is to be able to climb inside of him so that he can keep me safe.

"You don't protect me," I say petulantly over breakfast.

"I was asleep!"

"You were awake enough to recognize that I was crying, you patted me, but then you just went back to sleep."

"Next time it happens, you have my permission to wake me up and make sure that I understand the gravity of your situation."

"Wake you up violently?"

"If need be."

I smile.  "You love me."

"Yeah."

"Enough to take an elbow to the gut?"

"Yeah."







  

If my breasts were 22, this wouldn't happen!

"Just one more?  Please can't we watch just one more?" I beg.

"No Mummy.  We've already watched three episodes.  You're done," says Rissa.

I look over to David forlornly.

He shrugs.  "The kid has spoken.  It's bedtime for Bonzo."

I throw myself across their laps, wailing in dissatisfaction.  They are unmoved.  As I am lying across their laps, I look down at my chest.  My breasts have caved in.

"What the?!?"  I struggle up and look down again, poking at my chest.  The girls are up where they belong.

I lie back down sideways across Rissa, my gaze now chestward.  Dents.  My breasts have DENTS!!!  The padded t-shirt bra cups are DENTED!!

"What are you doing?" Rissa asks.

"My boobs have dents," I say, poking at them.  I move back to sitting.  "See this?  No dents!"  I lie across Rissa once more.   poke, poke...  "Now?  DENTS!!!" 

My spouse and child do their best not to laugh, but are unsuccessful.

"Not funny, guys!  NOT FUNNY.  This means that I have floppy breasts.  FLOPPY BREASTS!!!" No longer wailing because they won't let me watch another Mindy Project, I am now wailing in narcissism.

"It's okay Mummy," says Rissa patting my arm.  "No one will know."

"I...  I will know!!  And your father, because he sleeps with me when I am naked.  "My breasts are DEFLATING!!!"

"They are not deflating," says David.  "They are..."

"Don't you dare say aging!"

"I wasn't..."

"Or ripening..."

"How about...?" 

"Or curing..."

"Transforming??"

"Into what exactly?"

"...soft pillowy... butterflies?"

"Okay, I can get on board with that."

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.

Why yes, this IS what middle-aged hair looks like...

"Heather, what do you want for... HOLY CRAP!!!" says David as he sticks his head behind the shower curtain.  He's reacting to the shower wall, upon which I have left all the 'extra' hair from my head.  And by 'extra' hair, I mean the hair that I regularly lose when I wash my hair. 

"Are you okay?" he asks, genuine concern in his voice.

I glance to the wall.   "Oh, this?"  I shrug.    "This is pretty much normal."  I scoop it up and offer it to him, a hamster-sized practical example of what happens when you're a middle-aged woman in peri-menopause with thyroid disease.  He shrinks back a titch.

"No, I think I'm good."

"By March Break we could make another ME - out of hair," I suggest.  "Which I will then sell to the AGO and become ridiculously wealthy and famous."

He nods mutely and backs away.

I go back to conditioning my hair.  I've never had silky, manageable hair.  My hair never bounced and behaved.  It has always been coarse and disorderly and then after I had kids, it went curly with the coarse and disorderly.  If I brush it out I resemble Rosanne Rosannadanna.

The incomparable Gilda Radner...

But on the plus side, I now feel an odd kinship with Pamela Anderson.  Although I'm less leather corset and more just barbed wire on my head.  Almost 30 years of hair dying and strangely my hair is... dry...   I've been hanging out in the alley behind the beauty shop...

"Psssssssst.... Hey... HEY!!!  Can you slip me some deep conditioner?"

I Google up on how to deep condition and apparently, I have to find another 15 minutes in my day to sit under a bonnet hair dryer with a plastic bag on my head allowing my hair to suck up moisture.

Wait a second!  I actually own a bonnet hair dryer!  And 15 minutes?  There's gotta be 15 minutes somewhere in my day!  And I'm supposed to sit during that 15 minutes?  That's a requirement?  Oh sweet Jesus, I could sit and read... an actual book!! Because you know, I 'd be trapped under the hair dryer and all...  I could have a book in one hand and a cocktail in the other!!!

If my hair weren't in such terrible shape, deep conditioning would make it greasy...  Because my hair is such crap, I will now be required to read and drink alcohol.  15 minutes??  Hell, I'll make it 30!   Watch out world!  My hair will soon be so smooth and soft that I will injure myself and others when I whip it around as I travel in my own imagined deep conditioning commercial.

Who let the dwarves into my uterus?!?

WARNING: There will be foul language in this post.

MOTHERFUCKING DWARVES.*  I'm sorry, but... REALLY...   REALLY?!?  I'm sure that the lining of my uterus is chock-a-block with rich mineral deposits which can be sold at a premium on the Disc World, but I would just like to state for the record that I did NOT give my permission for a team of mining dwarves to bring their motherfucking pick axes into my uterus to collect its bounty.

At the very least, the little rat bastards could give me a cut.  If the (WARNING: TMI) 2 and a half inch blood clot, which they apparently spent the entire night chipping away, is worth so fucking much - I deserve at least 75% of the take when they sell that fucker to the black market.

I am sure that peri-menopausal blood clots hold a certain cachet - maybe the sick twisted pricks who buy them from the motherfucking dwarves eat them à la placenta ingestion...  I don't give a cat's fragrant ass who is doing what with them, I just want my fucking cut.

There are a lot of us out there gals - if we unionize, I'm sure that we can negotiate a more than fair business contract.

2, 4, 6, 8 - OUR FEMALE BITS AREN'T YOURS TO TAKE!

WHAT DO WE WANT?  COMPENSATION!!
WHEN DO WE WANT IT?  WE'LL FUCKING DECAPITATE YOU!! 

*I choose to go the Tolkien route - not the Disney route

And THAT is how Peri Menopause makes you healthier...

Blergh.

"You okay?"

I don't even want to admit what I've done.  "Fine.  I'm fine."

David's eyebrows raise.

I'm sitting on the sofa in our petite grande room.  I have a Rusty Nail in one hand and cheap-ass Christmas romance collection in the other.

"I might have eaten bad things," I mumble.

"Pardon me?"

"grumble... grumble..."

"Pardon?"

"I HAD THREE RICE KRISPIE SQUARES BEFORE DINNER!" I eventually blurt.

David sighs.  He shakes his head.  "Oh, love..."  He knows.  He knows that it's been a rough week.

Day 5 of my period - I'm having record-breaking blood flow.  Sweet merciful Gaia how much blood can a woman lose?  David has been handing me random glasses of water all week to keep me hydrated.  And my food cravings?  They are through the roof, hence the three Rice Krispie squares before dinner, and the empty bowl that had contained chocolate chips and Skor bits in it beside me, and the Rusty Nail in my hand.

During the night, I suffer.  I suffer miserably from night sweats.  Because why?  Because of all the sugar and alcohol running through my body.  Usually I avoid it.  Not all of it because that would be bananas, but most of it.  I have no caffeine, I limit myself to one drink, I avoid overly sugary foods... 

As I flap the blankets around me, it's revelatory.  THIS.  This is how to begin living healthfully...  Not because it's good for you, but to avoid the worse stuff.  I love caramel, I love enjoying more than one of anything in life, but now that there are ramifications... ramifications that affect my sleep...  I gotta change my ways.  Surely to God there are better things out there than a caramel and alcohol!  Things that won't make me feel ill and won't give me hot flashes...

Sex!  I CAN HAVE LOTS AND LOTS OF SEX!!!  That will give me an endorphin rush AND it will HELP ME SLEEP!!!  How is that for solving things the natural way?  I am a freaking genius.

"David, come here..."

I now understand the zip-up, floral, velour nightie/housecoat/muumuu...

You see them in the lingerie departments of the Bay. You see them in the Sears catalogue. You have memories of your Gran or your Great-Gran wearing one. You think to yourself: I will never wear one of those. 

I'm shopping for one.

I used to sleep naked. I used to revel in my naked slumber. Since the night sweats began, nakedness is not an option. I'm the peri-menopausal Karate Kid.

Blankets ON!  

Blankets OFF!

Blankets on one leg and half your torso!

Blankets OFF!

Blankets on your legs!

Blankets on your torso!  

Blankets OFF!!!

In between fits of thermo-nuclear heat - you get chilled. Your teeth chatter as your sweat cools.

The other night I was in my striped, zip-up onesie. Night sweats came and I UN-ZIPPED. No hems to raise or lower - no pajama tops to tear off, then hunt for on the floor when I got cold. Getting my arms out of the fairly snug onesie did rouse me a bit from sleep, but the zipper - that zipper - EPIPHANIC!!!

This is why older women wear the zip-up nighties/housecoats/muumuus! The zipper is key!! No buttons, no hems, no snaps that you then have to struggle to re-snap after a hot flash!!!  t's all about the zipper!!! You're hot? You unzip!! You're really hot?  You unzip and take your arms out!!! It's perfect. 

SUMMER

WINTER
1 & 2 would be full-length but could zip off the bottoms

I propose going that one step further. Muumuu-sized onesies with a little more give in the arm/shoulder area. Focusing on the on/off functionality would give you the freedom to extract yourself from any arm covering. 

Gen X updated maternity wear - making it fun and sexy.  Now we will conquer night sweat attire.  I'll start a design collective with other like minded night sweat sufferers! 

This is NOT your Grandmother's loungewear! The NÜÜNÜÜ!!!!! (a modern take on a onesie/muumuu). The ADAPTAN!!! (a caftan suited to everyone's needs). The ZIPSIE! (a zip-up nightie featuring zippers in the armpits, legs, crotch and chest area!)

I really miss my right arm.

Ironing left-handed is akin to learning to ride a unicycle, but I'm pretty sure this hobble-shouldered old dog can learn new tricks.  Cursing and taking double the time to actually get clothes wrinkle-free - but 20 minutes later, the shirt's relatively smooth.  TAH-DAAAAH!!!!  Until the iron falls, spilling water everywhere, and I reach for it with my dominant arm.  What are the synonyms for pain?  Imagine them all now... all of them...   Each one emanating from my supremely fucked right shoulder socket....

I want to take the iron, and throw it through our living room window.  Except I can't, because I can't throw with my good arm, and if I attempt with my left arm, I'll probably hit myself in the head by accident.  I want to light the now re-wrinkled shirt on fire and throw it through that broken window.  I want to dance in the flames of the burning shirt and howl into the night sky.  I don't, but I really, really want to.  My shoulder and right bicep scream with me.

"Breathe Heather.  Just breathe."  I pour myself a Scotch - my best Scotch, the 12 year old Scotch - over ice.  I tumble the ice in the glass take deep breaths. 

I will not desolve into tears.  I will not desolve into tears.  I will not desolve into tears..."  I pledge, as tears now roll down my cheeks.

David glances up from his computer.  He hasn't heard anything because he works with headphones on.  "What happened?"

"Iron," I mumble around the rim of my old-fashioned glass. Right elbow, tucked into my side, right hand pushing the glass up to my lips as my left arm holds the shoulder down, in case it decides to do anything else stupid.

"Pardon?"

I point to the offending small appliance with my chin.  "Iron.  Falling.  Catching.  Apparently right-handedness is instinctive."

"Oh baby...  Can I get you something?"  He smooths the tears from my cheeks.

"Yeah. Can you please place me in a coma for the next 18 months?"

"?!?"

"A coma.  Just put me in a coma until the shoulder unfreezes."

'Cause that's what'll happen.  A shoulder can decide to freeze, all on its own, and it can decide to unfreeze - all on its own.  Regardless of treatment, drugs, physio.  One morning a year and a half from now, I might just wake up and be fine.  Until then - bumping that arm, attempting to use it to pick shit up off the floor, absent-mindedly putting weight on it, can send the closest thing to labour pain that I've experienced since giving birth.  I'm not exaggerating.  I bumped that fucker while performing onstage and almost passed out.  For last half hour of the play, I counted the seconds to get to drugs.  My shoulder, as it freezes, is actually worse since I started physio.  That's counter-intuitive.

Apparently, my body provides the perfect storm for weird-ass shit like this.  Frozen shoulder affects only 2-3% of the population.  Between peri-menopause and Hashimodo's Disease,  I am rocking those percentages.  I am a statistical GLADIATOR!  I should totally be buying those Princess Margaret lottery tickets! I have a 98% chance of winning! 

The Human Broiler

My Mom?  She used to make 8 grilled cheese sandwiches at the same time by putting them under the broiler.   The oven door would remain open, just a few inches, so that the sandwiches could be monitored - ensuring even browning.  My Granny used to do the same thing for breakfast, with open-faced hamburgers buns.  The broiler would toast bread to perfection.  The broiler was a secret toasting weapon.

I'm dreaming of grilled cheese.  At 5:45 a.m. there is a cookie sheet of buttered sandwiches in bed with me.  Dozens and dozens of sandwiches, evenly toasting at first, but then I remember that the oven door isn't open, I haven't been checking on their progress - they are turning to charcoal under the blankets.  I am turning to charcoal...

"SWEET MOTHER OF INTERNAL THERMOSTATS!!!"

"What?!?  WHAT?!?"  David starts awake.

"Hot flash!  HOT FLASH!!"  I flap, flap, flap the blankets around me, desperate to stop the toasting.  "TOO HOT!!!"  My torso is seconds away from spontaneously combusting.  "THIS IS HOW IT ALL ENDS!!!"

Then, my human broiler shuts off.  "Oh thank God..."  I have 32 seconds of comfort before my skin chills and my teeth start to chatter.  The blankets back on - I now huddle next to David for warmth.

I thought I had it all figured.  I know my triggers... caffeine... alcohol... if avoid them, if I only have that one glass of scotch, I'm usually fine.  Wait a second!  I didn't even have scotch last night!  What the hell is going on?

I think I might just have to face it. I'm 46 years old, this could just be the next stage in Peri-Menopause. Yes, I've been 'flashing' since I was 36, but my Mom, now 69, still gets the occasional flash.   Upside, Heather.  There has got to be an upside...

It's autumn in Canada - won't need to wear that light jacket outside.

My hot flashes can augment our house's heat!!  Our gas bills won't be as high!

If I am my own 'sweat box,' I will be able to burn body fat with this process!

When I reach the combustion point, eggs can be cooked on my torso, which means that less electricity will be used in the home, PLUS I'll be able to hire myself out to side shows for some extra cash and we'll be able to pay off the mortgage just that little bit faster...

See?  All I needed was a perspective shift.  It's all good.

This is it, I have dementia!

"I love you," says David as we snuggle in under the covers.

"And I love you," I return.   I contentedly sigh.  "Life is good."

"Life IS good."

"Yep." 

Smooch.  Smooch.

You know how sometimes your brain  goes off on these weird tangents?  One minute, I'm kissing my husband and the next I'm doing math.  Rissa is 14.  In 4 years she'll be 18.  She'll be leaving home in 4 years!  David will be 45.  I'll be 50.  We'll be celebrating our 20th Wedding Anniversary!!!  Last year, to celebrate all these events,  we had a huge party - The 45-40-15-13 PARTY.  We invited all our friends and family, rented a fancy hall - David did the lighting design.

Sometime in the midst of all the math, I realize that David's still smooching me. 

"What did we do for our anniversary this year?"

"We went out to dinner."

"We did?"

"Yeah.  You have the most beautiful blue eyes." Smooch.  Smooch.   

"Where?  Where did we go out for dinner?"

"Hmmm....  Wasn't the Northside... Wasn't Cafe Marca...  El Camino...  It was El Camino."

"It was?"

I have a moment of sheer terror in the pit of my stomach.  I can't remember our anniversary dinner!  I don't remember going to El Camino!!

"Was Rissa with us for the dinner?"

"No.  Just us."

More terror pools.

Rissa had come home with homework from her English class, she had to recall a sense memory of food.  Maybe food would jog my memory...  "Quick!  What did we eat!?!" 

"Tapas."

"Yes, but what tapas?  What exact tapas?!?"

"I... don't know..."  Now David's eyebrows are down, he tilts his head, swings it a bit, trying to knock free the menu.  "I know that I got you a card..."

I remembered his card.  "And I forgot your card..."

We usually forget the anniversary.  Almost every year.  We're always doing other things when it comes around: moving, travelling, renovating.  We high five each other if we both come down with cards in hand on the actual day.

I close my eyes. I will the terror to abate.  I can do this, I can do it.   Calming breaths...  There, just there... in the back of my mind, behind my left ear, almost there...  almost there..."

"No, we didn't!!"

"We didn't?"

"No, our anniversary was on a Friday, we were driving to my parent's place, I think we stopped and had A&W at the On Route."

"You're right.  You're totally right.  We had a glass of wine and toasted when we were in the family room in front of the TV.  You parents weren't home yet.  I must have been thinking of the Father's Day Brunch we did in June."  He looks sheepish.   "Sorry, didn't mean to Gaslight you."

"Oh thank Christ.  It's not dementia."  I feel the panic slide away.  "I totally get my Auntie Laraine now."

"You do?"

" 'Certain things you remember with no recollection at all.'  We're there now.  At least I'm there now.  You, Sir, are so screwed.  You better pray that I become one of those happy senile people."

"Every day."

The carpet's not charcoal - it's beige, covered in cat hair...

"Minuit!  Minuit!  For the love of....  Scoot!!  SCOOT!!"

Minuit lies upon our bedroom floor, a vision of feline pulchritude.  She splays every splayable part of her body.  Rolling onto her back, she raises an eyebrow.

"Menh...?"

"Seriously?  I just vacuumed.  How can you produce this much hair in 2 hours?"

"Menh..."

"Plus, I just brushed you this morning."

"Menh..."

"I took a small Siamese worth of cat hair off you."

"Menh..."

David wanted the wall-to-wall carpet in the bedroom.  You know, for the cushiness under one's feet,  for the warmth in the winter, for the monochrome colour.  From the instant that carpet went down, Minuit spent her every waking moment rolling on it, leaving cat versions of crime scene outlines all over it.   On her back, with her left leg thrust against the wall and front right paw on her ear.  On her right side, curled into a little ball - but she must have been dreaming because her tail has left a windshield wiper swath of hair behind - sort a cat hair angel on the carpet.   I am this close to shaving her.

You're supposed to live in a house for a year before you make any big changes.  I don't think I'll make it.  Either I will have to devise a vacuum in a backpack that I can wear at all times when I'm in the bedroom, or I will I rip up the wall-to-wall with my bare hands in a fit of psychotic OCD, before manically installing laminate with a small multicoloured - easy to camouflage cat hair - area rug under the bed that doesn't require vacuuming every 12.3 minutes.  Not 100% sure, but I it's just possible that my hormones may have coloured my rationality.  I'm going to pour myself a Scotch and see if it comes back.

Bring It...

"Two piece or one piece?"

"Are you going to need to pee at any time during the day?" asks Rissa.

The thought of having to visit a public washroom while attempting to drag down a wet, clingy (to the point of achieving adhesion to my body), one-piece swimsuit, makes me shudder.

"Point taken.  Two piece it is.  I'll wear a cover up."

I wiggle my ass into the - surprisingly-tighter-this-year - crotch of the bottoms.  Once a year swimming offers new corporeal discoveries.  This spring/summer I discovered that my inner thighs had suddenly, expansively.... developed.

I do up the swim top, sqwoosh my breasts into the appropriate cups and then get them somewhat level; my bodacious bits pushed nearly up to my chin, near-to-choking off my air supply.  I turn my back to the mirror to sneak a peek at my rear view...

"Is that my back?!?"  HOLY CRAP!"  I slam it against the wall to hide  from my own gaze and the world at large.

My back now has the articulated appearance of a caterpillar, all rolls and bulges, from where the supporting back band has tightened - enhancing my extra back and armpit boobs.  On a caterpillar, these bulges can be sexy as hell, but in my twisted female eye?  I resemble a swamp troll.

Quelling the immediate urge to weep, I instead repeat my new mantra, "No problems, only solutions."  I grab my multi-coloured, Pucci-esque, cover up and drag it over my person.  "HAH!"  I place one hand on my hip with insouciance, and flash a smile in the mirror.  "Take that, back boobs!"

Welcome to Peri-menopause - your second adolescence.  Strange that we're not as excited about those developments later in life.    We are SO excited about getting those boobs when we hit puberty - we compare cup size, band size - try out different bras - feel all feminine and grown-up.  Why is it that when our 36 Ds morph into 38 DDDs, we aren't all doing a happy dance in the change room of the bra boutique, giving high-fives to the woman who just measured and then manhandled our breasts into the appropriately-sized bra?

"38 DDD!  YEAH!  WHOO-FREAKING-HOO!"  The confetti cannon will then explode with glitter and streamers.

"What do you plan to do with your new breasts, Heather?" the colour commentator will ask.

"Well Sandy, I'm taking them to DISNEYLAND!!!!"

"And your new inner thighs?"

"I'm going old-school Sandy.  I'm bringing back the 'bloomer.'  Let me show you here what I've done.  These used to be a pair of seersucker pajama pants... I've cut them off to mid thigh, you can choose to hem or not, because no one will see them.  I wear these under all my summer skirts and dresses, entirely eliminating inner thigh friction.  I've brought an extra pair for you to try, go ahead and put them on to see how they really work!"

"Wow, Heather, these are amazing!  I have ZERO thigh friction!"

"That's right Sandy.  And if you buy now, folks, you'll get two free pairs of bloomers along with your initial purchase!  Plus I'll throw in a shirt that actually fits you - no muumuus, no XL t-shirts, and NO club wear.

Peri-menopause is a shocker. Our bodies change - in spite of our best intentions.   I exercise every day.  I try to eat healthfully.  I'm doing squats and and lunges and planks and triceps lifts.  And you know what?  I still have extra boobs and newly voluptuous inner thighs.   Am I thrilled about them?  No.  But I'm 46 years old, folks.   Given how long the women live in my family, I probably have at least another 46 years left on this planet.  The thought of complaining about my physical appearance for all that time?  It's exhausting.

So I'm going to do the best that I can.  I'm going to continue to exercise and eat well and I'm going to wear clothes that actually fit me - not the 24 year old version of myself that media outlets tell me I should cling to.  And the next time my husband and daughter say "You look so beautiful!" I'm going to listen to them.  I'm going to accept their compliments graciously, without a grimace.  I'm going to fight back the judgy-judger inside my head, square my shoulders and say "Bring It!"

And that's why my new boss had to undo my dress in the parking lot...

"Are they going to fit in?"

"I'm trying to make them," says Rissa.

"I swear to you that these breasts were not this large in June."

"I think you might be right."

"What is going on?!?"

"I don't know, Mummy."  Rissa huffs, as she places her knee in my back to gain leverage.  "You can't help at all?"

"Dude!  My right arm might as well be amputated at this point."

"How long will it take for physio to work?"

"I think maybe by 2016 I'll be able to dress myself again."  sigh "It's fitting everywhere else but the boobs, isn't it?"

"Yes.  Blow out all the air in your lungs."

"Maybe... I... shouldn't be..."

"Almost got it...  all... most got it..."  Stay on target... STAY on target...

My boobs are now practically up to my chin.  "This is not natural.  That lady at the bra shop must be right.  It's freaking peri-menopause that's causing this insanity."

"Probably...  There!"  Rissa is triumphant.  "Ta-DAH!!!!  Can you breathe?"

"I'm trying."  I glance at the clock.  "Oh crap!  I'm going to be late!"  I glance at my profile in the entryway mirror.  My breasts are somehow almost up to my chin, and yet, they have morphed into a weird-ass uni-boob under the dress.  "Gotta go baby!  I'll see you before I head to physio."

"No you won't!  I'm heading out to the mall with my peeps!" she yells as I get into the car.

It's not until I arrive at work that I realize I am trapped in the dress.  As my now flattened, yet still bodacious ta-tas tickle my chin, I start to panic a little bit.  I am now channelling my inner debutante -  a bad case of the vapours is seconds away.

"Side zippers.  Only side zippers from now on," I'm muttering to myself as I walk into the office.  I keep my breaths shallow so that I don't displace a rib.

"What's the matter?" one of my co-workers asks.

"Trapped.  I am trapped in this dress.  And my boobs have apparently grown 22 cup sizes since June."

"Pardon?"

"Have I worn this dress this season?  I have, haven't I?  You've seen this before, right?  Oh crap!  Maybe it's the other vintage-y turquoise and green dress that I'm thinking of...  Maybe my boobs aren't on sterioids, maybe it's been a full year since I've worn this dress!  But even so...  if my boobs are this much bigger - shouldn't my ass be the size of Texas?"

Everyone is now looking at me like I'm nuts.

"How did you get into the dress?"

"Rissa managed to do it up.  But I'll never be able to undo it on my own, and I have a physio appt. right after work."  I attempt to reach my right arm up to hold the zipper at the top of my neck...  "Nope!  NOPE!  Sweet merciful... Cut it OFF!  Cut the arm off!"

"What if we rig up a string to the zipper tab and then you can just pull the string at the end of the day?"

"I'm still going to need the other arm to stabilize the zipper.  There's nothing else for it.  One of you is going to have to undress me before I leave the office.  I'll drive home half-dressed and then change before physio."

"Why can't you just have your physiotherapist undress you when you get to your appointment?"

"I am not wearing my best underwear."

The security camera footage in the parking lot should be awesome.

So there I was... naked, running with scissors...

Stompy.  I was SOOOOOO stompy.  Throwing blankets and sheets down to be washed.  Stomp.  Stomp.  Stomp.  David and Rissa exchanging "What the hell is happening?" looks below in the kitchen.

The panic had beset me while still in bed.   I'd looked up at the ceiling with the skim coat of drywall compound taunting me - just waiting to cover the entire room with its fallout of dust.  I shot a terrified look over to the closet wall.  Plastic running the entire length of the wall reassured me - the clothes might be safe.

I then glanced at the carpet.  Oh God.  Carpet and drywall dust - we were doomed.  The taper/mudder was coming back that day - there would be sanding - I had to find more floor coverings. I had one rotten sheet that covered 10 square feet.  I had to find more plastic.   Where was more plastic?!?  We didn't have enough plastic to cover the entire floor!!

My head shot side to side in panic before I spotted, in the corner, a bunched up pile of plastic.  Okay... Okay... this might work. If I could just get to the corner... but I couldn't, because our under-the-bed containers (that had been moved when we shoved the bed to the centre of the room), were in my way.    And a box full of completely superfluous shit was in my way.  And there were clothes on the chair just sitting there.  And what about our bedding?!?   

That's when, still naked,  I'd grabbed all the bedding off the bed and threw it down the stairs.  I ran back to our room and grabbed the plastic sheeting that we'd pulled off to be able to sleep in the bed overnight and laid it over top of the now-bare mattress.  I grabbed the first under-the-bed container, defying the strain in my bad shoulder and hefted it towards the stairs.

"DAVID!!  David I need you!!"
(Now I'd morphed into Inigo Montoya.)

David appeared at the bottom of the stairs.  His eyebrows raised at my nakedness and apoplectic state, but he said not a word.    He met me half way up the stairs, stepping around the previously thrown laundry and took the container from me.  I ran back up the stairs to grab the 2nd container, which I carried downstairs myself.

More looks passed between David and Rissa.  I knew I was behaving irrationally.  I knew that.  Could I stop it?  No.

I moved the superfluous shit box.  I grabbed the plastic sheeting.  Scissors!  I needed scissors!!  Where were the fucking scissors?!?  I was giving myself whiplash trying to locate them in the room.  I launched myself across the bed when I spotted the errant tool on the dresser.  Armed now, I cut the sheeting in two pieces - one could go at the head of the bed and then other at the foot.  What about beside the bed?!?  The one side had been covered by the stupid rotten sheet - but there was still the other side!!  We didn't have any more plastic.  Old sheets!  Where were our old sheets?  I had no fucking clue - probably hidden in the eaves of the now-sealed wall of closet.

I raced to Rissa's room.  I was now naked, running with scissors... I opened Rissa's blanket box.. no sheets.  But there was an old plaid polar fleece blanket.  "HAH!"  I ran with it back to my room and used the scissors to cleave it in half.  If I put them end-to-end that might just do!  Yes, that'd do.  The floor was mostly covered.  The drywall dust wouldn't hit the carpet, but if someone - say a taper/mudder of near gigantic proportions was moving around on these haphazard pieces of floor covering... TAPE!! I needed tape!  Painters' Tape, I found out, does not stick to plastic.  DUCT TAPE!  I needed duct tape.  By the time I was done, there was a patchwork quilt of pastic sheeting, a rotten sheet, cut up blankets and duct tape covering the majority of floor that was within drop distance of drywall dust.  Then, then I took a breath... and apologized to my family.

p.s.  Turns out?  According to our taper/mudder... plastic sheeting? Not the best bet when you then might want to walk on the area.  Better idea?  Floor underlayment paper.  Thankfully, he had to take another day for the mudding to really dry, so we had time to visit the home building centre and do this after work yesterday...

p.p.s.
Peri-menopause and home renovations don't mix.

To spin, or not to spin...

My body is such an over-achiever.  It's racing full-on towards decrepitude decades before the norm. The good news?  I'm like those Sentinels from X-Men: Days of Future Past - I am able to adapt with every challenge.  My Achilles Tendons ache when I wear 4 inch heels?  Not a problem!  3 inch heels it is!  My neck goes out when I apply a rough plaster finish continuously for  3 hours?  Not a problem!  Rest every 1/2 hour and change hands occasionally - something every teenaged boy learns very early on.

Apparently, my trick shoulder - my Super Spanitus - has been craving a little bit more attention.  I guess that I haven't given it its due lately.  What with general forgetfulness, also associated with age, I don't remember doing anything to it.  It's not like I've completely disregarded my physiotherapist's advice and gone back to 50 push ups before I retire to the boudoir.  I'm not even doing 1 push up.  I haven't trapped my arm underneath me in bed and then torn the tendons by attempting to slide it up across the mattress without first rolling over to my back in a long time.  I've adapted.

And yet - the shoulder has been twingeing - when I reach for something, when I use the back scrubber in the shower.  I recently got a nice, new lift-and-separate bra, and it hurts to do it up.  Thanks to this bra, my girls finally have some vintage-inspired perk, and I can't put it on.

The last couple of nights, David's had to help me disrobe.   Poor bugger, I presented my back to him and he became confounded at not having to reach around me to do his 1-SNAP-NAKED move.  I'd thrown off his groove.  Me, relying on him in this way is throwing off my groove.  I was going to have to bite the bullet and invest in front-closure brassieres.  I was bummed.

Last night, at a long-awaited girls' night, I asked everyone's opinion about front-closure bras.  On account of the fact that I was going to have to switch to them because of my early decline into decrepitude.  The words had barely left my mouth, when a chorus of  "Why don't you just spin it?"s echoed through the room.  Little cartoon word bubbles, filled with the phrase appeared over each of my friends' heads - in differing fonts, depending upon the person.

It never even occurred to me.

Since the age of 11, I've been a reach-back gal.  After nearly 3 and a half decades of doing something one way,  to find out there was an alternative?  Revelatory.

It's akin to learning to knit.  Mom tried to teach me to knit the "Continental" way, and my brain nearly melted.  You know why?  Because knitting, in every North American visual medium, has that thing where you have to wrap the yarn around with one hand.  Even when you mime knitting, you knit one or whatever and then you have to wrap the yarn around the needles.  You don't just slip it under surreptitiously.  You make a show of it.  Which, frankly, is why I've always done my bra up in the back.

"Hey look at me!  Look at my dexterity!  Look how I can make my arms disappear while clothing myself! TA-DAH!!!"

But now... now, I didn't have to buy any bras!  Not a one.  I just have to put those wee hooks in their wee little eyes in front of me and then spin the sucker...

In our group of 6 women last night.  3 of us were reach-back ers and 3 were spinners.  I found out that two of the spinners tried the reach-back this morning, probably at the same moment that I was attempting my first spin.  Old dogs.  New Tricks.

Are they made from diamond dust?

You ever shop for bed skirts?  I was killing time at a Bed, Bath & Beyond a bit back, thinking "Hey!  We need some new bed skirts - I'll just have a looksee in their linens dept."

They started at $45 and went up from there.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's the bed perimeter x 15 inches of good fabric sewn onto a piece of crap fabric that actually sits on the box spring, right? Is the part that you can actually see made from spun gold or diamond dust?  It's just sheet fabric right?  It doesn't even have to be high-count sheet fabric - it's not going to go anywhere close to your body, and at floor level who is going to say, "Hey, that's 180 count fabric if ever I saw it"??

This is when not having energy pisses me off.  If I had loads of energy I would just buy some cheap-ass sheets and make my own bed skirts.  It's not rocket surgery.

My present ennui is stopping me from saving money. I'm all about saving money and now here I am, on the verge of buying freaking bed skirts.  And even if I did buy the bed skirts, just the thought of having to take the mattress and bedding off the box spring to then carefully smooth out the bed skirt seems too daunting a task.

So is this ennui that comes of moving to a new home and having accomplished the first round of renovations, or am I veering into depression territory?  Is my peri-menopause truly kicking into high gear and fucking with my sanity now?  'Cause either of those would be inconvenient.

What's really concerning me is that I don't want to go to movies.  And going to movies for me is probably my most favourite activity in the world - 3 weeks out of the month.  For the 4th week, I'm hormonal and all I want is sex, but those other 3 weeks, if I could see three movies a day in a movie theatre - I'd be in Heaven.  So when David suggests that we go see a movie, and I can't muster up the energy to leave the house, that's a pretty big freaking red flag for me.  Problem is, the signs of depression?  Apathy, exhaustion, mental fog?  Are remarkably like signs of Peri-menopause... depression, crashing fatigue, mental fog.  Which are also remarkably like signs of Hypothyroidism...  fatigue, depression, mental fog. 

I feel like I'm playing hormonal roulette...
 
Place your bets!  Place your bets!

Drowning once more in a pool of depression scares the shit out of me.  So I refuse to do that.  Not going to happen.  This, I have decided, is all peri-menopause crap.  My hormones have simply kicked into a higher gear of fucking with me - which, now that I'm aware and I know all the symptoms - I can counteract.  Today, when I get home from work, I'm ironing for the first time since Christmas. 

Baby steps, folks.  Tomorrow I'll unpack the last two boxes in my bedroom.

My boobs are growing.

Is one of the by-products of peri-menopause bigger boobs?  Because I'm pretty sure that my boobs are growing.  Swear to God.  I feel like I have pregnant boobs.  I'm ALL boobs.  I look in the mirror and they're just... there...  I mean really, there.  Like  KAPOW there!!   I walk into the room and they get there a few seconds before I do.

They feel... more... substantial.  And they're more, well, sensitive. Like in the nipppular and sidal regions.  Which is how they were when I was pregnant, and seeing as I just finished my period - I know that that's not the case, so what's the deal?  Anyone?   Anyone???

On the 34 symptoms of menopause site (which is really a misnomer - because menopause really means that you've ended all that shit - it should be peri-menopause.  It's like nauseous and nauseated.  Everyone says nauseous, but that means that it causes nausea in others - so if you say "I'm feeling nauseous" that really means that you're making other people want to throw up.  The word you want is nauseated - that's when you want to throw up.)  (Another by-product of peri-menopause is irritability - with small things - like improper word usage.)

So... two years ago, when I went to the 34 symptoms of menopause site, I checked off 18 of them.  Now I have 30 of them. Once I fill my peri-menopause card do I get a prize?

Heather, you've just won an all-expenses-paid vacation for 12 to... HAWAII!!!! 

I'd love to go to Hawaii.  After I've hit menopause.  If I went now, the heat and humidity would drive my irritability levels through the freaking stratosphere.  And the volcanoes - those would piss me off.  And the heat of the sun...  Safer for everyone if I go then.   Then I'd be able to lounge around in bright floral caftans with large floppy sun hats - because apparently after menopause you turn into an elderly Floridian woman.

"Bernie!  Bernie!  I said 3 olives in the martini!  THREE you bastard!"

Parched in the Sahara

WARNING: THERE IS DISCUSSION OF FEMALE ISSUES IN THIS POST.

 

Sam Brown, explodingdog.com

My camel did not make it.   It had been days since he'd died.  I found myself trudging through the desert, my skin burning, sand in my throat...   Hot wind blowing around me, almost through me.  I could feel sand on my face.  Pricks of it picking at my cheeks - then harder and harder as the gusts increased.  Chunks of sand...

CHUNKS OF SAND??

I open an eye.   Lola is there standing beside my head, punching my cheek with her paw.

"Off!!  OFF!!!"

6:02 a.m.  How did she get in?  We'd installed a door to our room just a couple of weeks ago so that this very thing would no longer happen on a Sunday morning - could Lola now walk through walls?  Had our cat actually created a worm hole into our room?  Were we going to become millionaires because of our Mensa cat?  I look over to the doorway and do a face palm.  David hadn't shut the door last night.  Awesome.  I roll out of bed.

I run the gauntlet of falsely affectionate cats and stagger downstairs.  One races me down, another wends its way through my legs and Steve?  He lies across the stairs in all his tomcat glory. This house has somehow transformed all three of our felines into the most languorous of stair lying beasts.  In the other house, they never once draped themselves across the width of a tread.  This house, you're running a fur-covered obstacle course to get downstairs, and with two black cats, you take your life in your hands if you're trying to do anything in half-light.

I feed the beasts and climb back upstairs.  God, I'm burning up.  Why am I so hot?? My mouth is so fricking dry.  HOT.  And then I remember.  The night before, I'd had two glasses of wine and a flute of champagne to celebrate family birthdays. Stupid peri-menopause.  One glass of alcohol.  ONLY ONE.  No matter how good it tastes.  ONLY ONE GLASS OF ALCOHOL HEATHER!  Or what?  You have blinding hot flashes.  I know this!  But it was a really great blended red - went down so smoothly.  Why does my mouth feel full of cotton?  I wasn't drunk - I'd had the booze over a several-hours-long period.

I've lost all my saliva!  I am SALIVALESS!  I scan my memory for what else I'd ingested to get me this parched.  Popcorn.  I'd had some popcorn.  And there'd been feta cheese in the salad... I smask my dry lips...  annnnnnd I am having my period.  Bingo.  Combine salt ingestion and bleeding like the proverbial stuck pig and you're going to get a little bit dry feel like Akhenaten post-embalming.  I down a glass of water and desperately try to source my saliva.  Nope.  I down another glass.  Not yet. My tongue is still sticking to the roof of my mouth.  Another glass.  There.  There now.  Some moisture. 

Fricking period.  Fricking peri-menopause.  I should have known the week before, when I'd wanted to carry around my own personal salt lick.   And now I've been emptying my Diva Cup every two hours or so.  It's astounding how blasé I have become about menstruation.  When I was younger, the notion of using an OB tampon completely squicked me out, but apparently now that I have a blood faucet installed down there, I could become a full-on general surgeon.  Seeing blood on my hands is common place.

My poor family.  Rissa'll be brushing her teeth and glance over at me - I'll be in some state of Diva Cup removal or re-insertion.

"MUMMY!!"

"Sorry.  Look away.  Look away."

She'll turn her back and walk to the door.  The toilets in this house aren't as close to the sinks as they were in the old house.  So there I am in my fluffy pink socks, with my stripey onesie around my ankles shuffling to the sink to rinse out the Diva Cup shouting, "AVERT YOUR EYES!  AVERT YOUR EYES!"

"Nobody else's mother does this stuff you know."

"Think of all the material you'll have for your memoirs."