I used to work with a gal who, when she was heading into menopause, used to have a raging hot flash right around 3pm….daily…without fail. You could damn near set your watch by her, I swear! I sat by her, and I would suddenly hear paper flapping. I’d “gopher” up over our shared cubicle wall and sure enough…there she sat, fire engine red and sweating like a hooker in church. I was in my 30s at the time and got quite a kick out of it. Thankfully so did she, and she remains a dear friend all these years later.
I remember my mom trying to make a holiday meal, outside temps in the 20s and all the kitchen windows wide open. She’d be fanning herself with her apron, face flaming and sweat running down her temples. My dad would have a fit because he worked for the power company, “I don’t own the power company. Close the windows. You’re letting the heat out.” Yeah, that didn’t sit well with mom. As they say…if looks could kill….
And, I remember another gal I worked with who never wore a coat all winter, even when temperatures were in the 10s and 20s. I thought she was crazy as a loon. This is Wisconsin, after all. Put a coat on, for cry-aye. Come to find out, her body was on a long-term tropical vacation, heading into menopause. I think that craziness went on about 20 years!
This was all very funny until I hit 45….and then $h&# got real. Thankfully, I didn’t self-combust in the middle of the day. I didn’t deal with major pit stains, or melting makeup. My hair didn’t flop, and I didn’t look like I’d just worked out. Nope…I was blessed with night sweats, the big glorious kind where you’re soaked, the bed is soaked, your pillow is soaked and, as a dear friend says, “you smell like a damn smelling salt.” I didn’t want to take any hormone adjusters, natural or otherwise, so I found my only remedy was to move to a spare bedroom that faces north and never gets very warm. In the summer, I kept the vents wide open and the door shut so that by the time I arrived around 1:30am the air conditioning had made the room a balmy 60*. In the winter, the vents and the door were kept tightly shut to prevent as much heat as possible from entering the room. That room became a meat locker of cold air, and it was wonderful.
By the time I hit 55…yes folks, a full 10 years later….I finally got past the night sweats stage, and began sleeping through the night again. Oh, what a wonderful thing that is…to not be constantly looking for the cool spot in the bed, to not flip and flop like a fish out of water cooling off one side then the other. It’s wonderful to sleep all the way through the night.
And here’s another fine outcome – where once I was freezing all winter long, wore turtlenecks from October through April, and loaded down with blankets to sleep, in menopause I now am rarely cold. I only wear winter jackets when I’m going to be outside for an extended period of time, same with gloves, and I sleep with one light blanket and sometimes that’s too much. The good news is our heating bill is the lowest it’s ever been. And that, my friends is Menopause….without the Pause.
