Menopause VS Puberty

All my life I have frozen to death at any temperature below 80 degrees. I sleep in socks, keep a blanket on the bed year round and threaten the life of anyone who adjusts the thermostat below 75 degrees. So when I had my first hot flash about 12 years ago, you could have knocked me over with a feather. I was in such a full-soaking-wet-with-sweat meltdown I could have easily entered a wet t-shirt contest. Notice I didn't say I'd win it... you kind of need big hooters for that, and my girls... well, yeah, they're not. Big, I mean.

Ahem, anyhoo... I blew it off. Yes, I did turn the thermostat down for a few minutes until I cooled off. I was soaking wet so it didn't take long before I was freezing again. At first, I thought I was getting sick. I couldn't afford to get sick. I was the office manager for my husband's business, which was booming at that time, so I couldn't take off more than a day at a time. Then... it happened again. Hooboy! And again. Three times in one day. Yep, it was official. I was dying sick. I had some kind of extremely rare incurable disease. I mean... come on, I freeze at temps below 80 and here I was having meltdowns throughout the day. More than once a day. I. Was. Dying.

How was I going to prepare my children, my husband, my family. I had already gone through cervical cancer four years before I got pregnant with my daughter and had pre-cancerous lumps removed from both breasts when she was eight years old and then again at nine. Maybe it was some weird new symptom of cancer. I worried about cancer because my father died when I was 25 from a terminal glioblastoma multiform aka brain tumor. So yeah, I worry about cancer, up to a point. I mean... no one gets out of life alive, you know. We all die. I just wasn't ready to melt like Frosty the Snowman, there's the sweat "ick" factor involved. I'm from the South and women down here don't sweat... we "glow". Okay... we sweat, we just call it glowing, it sounds more... genteel.

Unbeknownst to me, I was the winning contestant on the Peri-menopause Wheel of Life. Three years worth. Then, my son got on drugs, my mom developed the same type of brain tumor my dad died from, our business quit booming and fell off drastically... Menopause and the hot flashes really kicked in. I came very close to having a nervous breakdown. Seriously. The day I dropped to my knees in our office sobbing so hard I couldn't catch my breath was the day my husband told me something had to be done. Immediately!

I scheduled a checkup with my doctor and explained what was going on. She gave me drugs. Lots of drugs. Three different kinds at the strongest dose she could give me. They didn't help. After we realized the medication wasn't helping my husband suggested I stop taking them. So I did. Bless his little pea-picking heart. I think I threatened bodily harm to every family member I have and some people who were complete strangers. This was NOT me (my daughter wholeheartedly disagrees with this statement - she lies. Kidding. Just kidding).

So, I resorted to keeping Popsicles and eating them whenever I would "flash". It helped, somewhat. There were days I'd go through a box of twenty-four Popsicles within hours. I bathed twice a day. I changed clothes twice a day. That did NOT include during the night. I couldn't sleep. I would do good to get a couple hours sleep a night. Aaand, I stank. I stank like a been-dead-lying-on-the-side-of-the-road-for-a-week-blowfly-covered boar hog. Menopause sweat smells worse than any boy's locker room you've ever encountered, including grungy socks left in lockers over the summer break.

About this time, my daughter, GG ('lil Goth Girl) started going through puberty. OMG! Can you say "drama queen?" She was dying. Just dying. No seriously, this child had debilitating cramps so bad she would curl up in a ball screaming moaning and groaning. I have never seen the like! I didn't have this "Aunt Flo", "Surfing the tide", "On the dot", "Santa", "Alien baby", "Psycho" type of visit from Mother Nature. Midol became her best friend. She would pop them until she couldn't feel her legs, but she stopped screaming moaning and groaning as much. I bought stock in the company. Overnight my sweet precious baby became Chucky's Bride. She talked back. She was rebellious. She came close to dying. By my hand.

Then she had a five centimeter cyst on her ovary removed and her doctor prescribed birth control pills to prevent another from developing. The traumatizing visits from "Aunt Flo" subsided... slightly. Hallelujah! I sold some stock in Midol and purchased stock in BC pills.

We still have the occasional drama at our house. Not as much as there was previously... only now, it's my husband who's the drama queen.