An Unexpected Introduction to the New Year

Disclaimer: I include this disclaimer strictly for my male readers. If you are squeamish of lady parts and that time of the month, then you should avoid/skip this entry. However, if you are mature enough, or just inherently curious about your mate, mother, sister, cousin, friend, or even coworker who may be experiencing this distress, then by all means forge on.

2nd Disclaimer: The language will not be extremely delicate.

3rd Disclaimer: I asked for this.

In previous blogs, I have been lamenting the endless cycle that is the menstrual cycle. I asked for menopause because after giving birth to my son, my cycle changed from a simple 5-day curse with 1 heavier day to a full 7 days with TWO heavy days—days so heavy I had to start converting to the ultra thick purple pads with wings—the ones that cover front the front to the back.

So for the past five years at least, I have been asking for menopause to come and to come swiftly. At first, the symptoms of perimenopause came slowly: one year in January, I started getttin acid reflux, and symptoms were so severe that I had to change my eating habits drastically. Although I rarely ate fried foods, I almost completely stopped that and highly acidic foods. In addition, I stopped eating after 6pm, unless it was light fruit or vegetables.

The acid reflux led to throwing up, and this reflux and throw up cycle always coincided with the pre-menstrual cycle. Once my period left, so did the nausea.

Now if you’ve read any of my previous blogs on this topic, this is merely review of TMI.

Then came the night sweats. I have never been one to experience being overheated. My coworkers will tell you that I spend most of my day huddled with my hearted and a sweater. But lately, my body chemistry has changed, especially at night. I may start off going to bed wrapped up, but within an hour, I ended up stripping down because I am drenched in sweat! I guess the best way to label them is to call them hot flashes, but it’s more accurate to say hot drowning. I would often wake in the middle of the night and the sheets would be so wet that you would have sworn that I’d hopped in the bed immediately after a hard workout. I mean Pilates mixed with kickboxing mixed with hot yoga kind of workout. Or that I’d taken sheets out of the washer and not bothered to dry them. THAT level of sweat.

So here it is 2019, and I find myself in full blown out menopause. The strange thing about ending your cycle is that before it goes away, you are forced to endure every bit of your womb being dried out piece by piece, every miserable step of the way. On the 27th of December, my cycle reappeared slightly later than expected. It was supposed to swoop in and ruin something during the holiday, but presumably, it would have appeared around the middle of the month, or by Christmas. Yet I rang in the new year on. Sadly, it is still with me—10 FREAKING DAYS LATER! And it is showing no sign of relenting.

Welcome to Menopause.