Of old, livid old ladies and

of HRT takers everywhere!
The brain fog though......!
Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing?
No clue?
Must admit, I was shocked! I truly thought my meno days were done and dusted, having had my ovaries removed a decade ago and been period free of those pesky hormones for just as long. I put my never-ending debilitating symptoms down to celiacs disease, which appears to have been equally relentless and I suffered greatly in almost silence, thinking 'this is just my lot in life'. Hey ho!
Of course, in the ten years I navigated, what I thought was my post menopause purgatory, times have changed and the advice is very different. After my operation, my rather rubbish surgeon (a woman who literally ripped my ovaries out of my V with a massive fibroid attached, scarring me forever), basically said 'get on with it, nothing more to be done here' and she wrote me a prescription for anti depressants, which I threw in the bin. I went cold turkey and learnt about surviving when only feeling 60/75% of oneself. It has been brutal.
Cold turkey was harsh for sure. I felt flat, anxious, inflamed and had so many other issues such as digestive problems, headaches, higher blood pressure, weight gain........I could go on. I could go on for a few hours but I won't. The point here is, that these symptoms got worse over time, not better.
Also, the thing is, that ten long and tragic years later, I've recently been trying to embrace it and me. The new version of me anyway. A new me in constant pain.
I'm in no way wanting to downgrade the experience, even as horrific it is for so many, the ill health or the mental load of the menopause journey is real, for me or anyone going through it. I'm not putting the holistic journey on the backburner! Not at all, but I do want to address the emotional load, the changes come thick and fast and are long lasting in many cases. It's a lot and it all feels quite negative most of the time which is no surprise at all.
The permanency of it should be discussed. Finding peace with it all needs to be part of the big conversation. We can't fight it and we have no control over it, it's coming, ready or not. Even with HRT, we are mostly not quite all there and never will be again. It's a loss. A grief. Yes, of course we have to deal with the physical aspects the best we can and if you were listened to, then I'm super happy for you. If you joined the HRT brigade on day one, then we must celebrate that and your tenacity in getting help immediately.
Me?
I'm battered, bruised and still struggling. It's been torture and like a slow death, on going. Who even am I?
As a result of my doctor's visit, I will also be revisiting the cealics diagnosis! I'm going to be retested. Was it gluten or was it continued degradation of my overall health due to lack of hormones?
The jury is out.
I need to go and get the blood tests done that the doctor has ordered, then I should know how to proceed.
Is it a double whammy of chronic autoimmune and menopause issues? How unlucky can one person be?
Good question and it took a visit to a small town GP in France with a long list of health woes, to realise all might be NOT what it seemed. I suspect I am a celiac still sadly, as far as I know there's no miracle cure and that diagnosis 8 years ago can't have been wrong? I don't eat gluten and I'm super careful 99% of the time. If I ingest gluten, it's not pretty and not on purpose, but I still can't manage my symptoms by cutting gluten out of my diet permanently. Something is amuck here for sure.
My new GP prescribed HRT and I nearly fell off the chair! I couldn't been more surprised if he'd told me I was pregnant at 56 years old, truly! Suddenly it all made sense! The constant joint aches and pains were due to my lack of hormones. My heart and bones have not been protected at all and the damage may be irreversable. I'm terrified. A decade of neglect, could it be too late?
When I say that for the last three years I've felt an average age of 89, I'm not jesting! It's not been pretty, but I made many excuses including a rather serious operation I had in 2017, which I took a long time to recover from and other things, but could it have been the menopause all along?
The point is, I never recovered from the operation to remove my ovaries a few years before the second op. I've just had to go with it and I can't remember the ME before that operation now sadly. I did have PMDD, undiagnosed, but I'm very sure of it. I guess I was just happy to be without the issue of hormones, but didn't understand that because I still have my uterus, I still have some hormones, I entered the menopause phase but I wasn't by any means done!
Like many, I just want to be ME again and that is impossible. What I'm hoping to find is some peace with the new me and to embrace what I cannot change now. I now believe latently, that the worst part of all of this menopause stuff is the loss of self. I feel that we don't talk enough about accepting who we are NOW.
This is us.
The good thing is, we are openly talking about this last phase of a womens sexual and biological health. It's the last phase even if it starts at 30 and ends when one dies and that could be for more than half of our lives. I'd give anything to go back and not have that operation, but I can't, I have to deal with the here and now. All I can do is take the synthetic hormones and hope they offer me some physcial relief. The mental and emotional relief remains with me and how I come to terms with it all is the new battle.
Going forward, I aim to try to be more positive about the changes and try to be more communicative with the doctor about my ailments. I worry now about osteoprosis and my heart health! Could this intervention have come too late? I sincerely hope not!
The worst symptom I have is hair loss and it does rule my world a bit. I'm loosing hair at the moment and I'm trying not to panic, it's not easy. Everyday, I'm trying to meet the process halfway. Acceptance is surely key to a happier, healthier life?
I think so. I can't change it, but I can meet it head on with a good attitude and a wicked, if snarly smile. At the end of the day, I have to do my bit and what will be will be, indeed, but I do know that if I don't make friends with it, The big M will take me down permanently! I'm darned if it's going win!
I want my life back wholly even if nothing like the early 2014 version!
Dear HRT, welcome, let's do this together.

Gumption
D x
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