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Menopause Mental Pause Monstral Pause
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Menopause is a lot like puberty but in reverse. Instead of hormones raging wild, they are slowly ebbing away and shutting down. But not before driving us women slowly out of our ever-loving minds. Actually, there are times when it should be called mental-pause because of the wild oscillations of emotions and the scatterbrained thought patterns that run rampant through our once logical female brains.
And that's not the best part. Oh no. Now I know that everyone is familiar with the term hot flashes. A man must have coined that one. Because every woman since Eve has known that we don't have just hot flashes. No, we suffer the ravages of raging internal thermonuclear explosions. Blasts of internal heat so intense it makes our make-up melt off our faces. Blazing internal furnaces in overdrive, wreaking havoc with our bodies, wake us up at night, soaked and dripping wet.
Menopause can turn us into a female version of Jack Torrance in The Shining. When we are feeling this way, fixing dinner can be a very interesting experience, especially when our husband says something cute, like, "Honey, why isn't dinner ready. What have you done all day?" Whereupon, he will soon learn to pray the modified version of the 23rd Psalm, "Yea, though I walk through the hormonal valley of death.... "
I remember the first hints of my menopausal experience as if it were yesterday. I knew something was up because I cried when I had dirty laundry. I cried because it was Tuesday and I wanted it to be Friday. I screamed at my husband because he went to a fast food restaurant and did not tell me. I ate a whole package of hot dogs and I hate hot dogs. I was completely out of control. Loving one minute, crying and screaming the next.
Menopause usually occurs between the ages of 45 and 55. I was 37 years old when I went through it, at an age so young that it is called premature ovarian failure. If I had to fail at something, why did it have to be this? Now I knew something was happening because my menses had all but stopped so I did what any logical person would do: I went to my doctor. Instead of testing me for menopause, however, I was given a pregnancy test, even though I explained to my doctor that my husband was "fixed" and I did not fool around. I guess the doctor ran the test because my first name is Mary; that's the only logical reason because nothing else made any sense.
My menopausal nightmare did have a happy ending. After undergoing three pregnancy tests administered by three male doctors, I finally found a female doctor, whom I nearly grabbed by the neck upon introduction and screamed, "I am going through menopause, and you are not going to run another pregnancy test on me!" Luckily for her, she took a blood sample, ran an FSH (follicle stimulating hormone) level which did reveal (surprise!) that I was indeed going through menopause. I was placed on hormonal replacement therapy (HRT) and I was transformed from a menopausal banshee to a smiling, calm Stepford wife in almost no time at all.
I guess in my case I should have called my menopause experience monstral pause. I am back to my old self: older, wiser, and none the worse for wear.
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