| A Change of Subject |
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| Sunday, 11 July 2004 00:00 | |||
 When I started to write this, my subject was light and airy, referring to the fabulous time we had with Karley and Ian, which we did. However, after having another sleepless night, I have decided instead to write about a subject that I have an intimate relationship with... menopause. Yes, I know you have read about my experience a time or two but I have a little more that I want to share and apologize if you are bored with it. I have heard all the horror stories about "the change of life" that the human female species undergoes, but until I hit that magic age, I had no way of knowing what it was really like.
Isn't it bad enough that we have to have a wretched "period" every month, not to mention give birth to a watermelon-sized human occasionally, but we also have the joy of menopause? There is a rumour that some women can go through this time unscathed but I haven't met any yet. When I experienced my "monthly", I endured immense pain and discomfort for up to two weeks every month. Is it really surprising that I chose to have a child every other year for six years followed by a partial hysterectomy when I was only 30 years old?
Now I (and millions of other woman) have the delight of going through menopause! Until recently, our only relief from the symptoms was medication by means of hormone replacement therapy, which is now being associated with an increase in cancer. We also have the option of taking a variety of herbal concoctions, which may or may not reduce the side effects but there is nothing to completely rid us of them. The symptoms of menopause can range from hot flashes and night sweats to headaches and in the extreme cases, insanity, albeit usually temporary. I am sure that if men went through menopause a cure would be well on the way; after all men can get Viagra now! But it seems to me that because this is a female infliction, a resolution has not been found nor will it be anytime soon.
Oh... another side effect of menopause is the need to rant and rave and blame men for everything that goes wrong!
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