Category: Menopause

Just when I think I’m starting to get a handle on this whole menopause thing, something ridiculous happens to prove me wrong.

Yesterday I went to my first post-surgery yoga class. Up until now, I’ve been making a point to stay active, making sure I’m hitting my goal on my activity tracker each day, but I hadn’t really done anything except walk and play catch with Baseball Sammy. I thought I would ease my way back into it with yoga – something I love and had been fairly accustomed to at one point.

But as soon as I hit the mat, I could tell things weren’t the same. Nothing hurt per se, but everything was just different. As strange as it sounds, I couldn’t inhale the way I used to. I couldn’t get my lower abdomen to expand enough to take a deep yoga breath.

That’s when I started crying.

Even though evidence from the past two months points to the contrary, I am not a crier! That is Jenny’s role in our relationship, and as you know we try maintain our status as polar opposites.

But I sure was one yesterday. I think it was a combination of the realization that my body has actually been through a pretty significant alteration recently and processing some of the emotion I hadn’t really brought to the surface until I was in the quiet, intentional space that is yoga class.

It was so frustrating to me that my body wouldn’t do what I wanted it to do. I eventually sorted out, though, how lucky I am that my situation is temporary. I have no reason to believe that it won’t improve with time and practice, and plenty of people don’t have that light at the end of the tunnel.

If nothing else, this entire surgery/recovery experience has been a lesson in compassion and gratefulness that I desperately needed, and that’s something I want to make sure I don’t lose sight of as regular life resumes.

In the meantime, I am just glad people keep their eyes closed in yoga class, so only the teacher will think I’m crazy!

In this week’s installment of Emily’s Adventures Through Menopause…

I’ve started hormone replacement therapy (HRT).

And I will tell you more at some point but right now I’m going to interrupt the regularly scheduled boring post because OMG you guys, in an effort to add some pizzazz to my drivel I just did a google image search for menopause, and I must share the results. Because I am scarred for life and I want you to be too.

Let’s start by looking at the symptoms of menopause, so we know how to interpret the rest of the pictures.

So, to recap, anything you can dream up? Probably a symptom of menopause. (Also, electric shocks? Burning tongue? W. T. F.) (My god, changes in odor?!? This just keeps getting worse.)

Now for the first picture. I’m gonna assume she’s experiencing incontinence, bloating, and/or panic disorder. Probably all three.

Picture two, which I like to call “Watch Out, Menfolk.”

Picture three. I just don’t even have anything to say about this one.

Picture four. “I am devastated. I am experiencing loss of libido and vaginal dryness. But fortunately I have a supportive partner who likes to lounge around in all white clothing to support me.”

“Unstoppable desire to rip off ones clothes” and “Inhuman skin color” must be symptoms 35 and 36.

There’s this.

And then there’s this.

HILARIOUS. I’m ordering t-shirts with both of those images on them – let me know if you want one as well. (Where is the sarcasm font when I need it?)

Nearly every other picture was of a woman holding her head. I am not even joking. Either debilitating migraines are in my future or the menopause people and the headache people got a two-for-one deal with the stock photo people.

And I had to save the best for last.

So… I am starting to feel better, but as it turns out it’s really easy to not do much when one feels like crap, but harder to rest and recuperate when one feels slightly less like the walking dead.

In other words, I think I’m doing a little too much.

Which is bad, because really I’m not doing much of anything. I am caught in this conundrum between feeling really lazy and useless and, well, being concerned I’m opening up my incision.

I have like zero stamina and get so worn out after doing anything as complicated as going to the grocery. I just can’t imagine ever feeling like myself again, as ridiculous as that sounds. I can’t picture ever being able to do yoga or play tennis or whatever. I know intellectually that I will be able to, but my body feels really far off from that right now.

And OMG THE HOT FLASHES.

What HAPPENED to me??