The heat is on…
Was it really my idea to visit Spain in the midst of all these hormones? Had I no idea what was coming down the line? Sure, all I thought it would be great to spend time with my elderly father followed by a couple of weeks with my younger family. However, the list of new symptoms I have just got longer and the heat exacerbated the ones I have.
The heat, help me. I have the air conditioning on full belt right on top of me. My daughter freezes in this situation. I think she’d mad, sure its 45 degrees outside! And my flushes start at the ankles and literally move up like a tsunami until it hits my face and I’m red. REDDER THAN THE REDDEST SWEATIEST RED THING. I must get my rest to cope with the full on days of activities and touristy things the kids want to do. I am unable to sleep. I have no energy. I sit (stick) to the leather couch and wait for the discomfort to go away. This can take a few minutes. Each one comes on with its own personality deciding whether it will reach my face or just stall around my chest and neck. This, added to the 45 degrees the app tells us we are experiencing in Malaga this summer make for the most revolting feeling. I flap to try get cool and even take off clothes and sit in front of the fan. And it is embarrassing! Sitting like a sweating pig and your body betraying you so everyone and the world can see you’re menopausal.
But thats not the worst, no. Reader, there is indeed one symptom here that I must speak of. I know not many of you speak of this. And I’m here to hold your hand and tell you its not just you. Last year I had it too but thought it was cystitis. I have learned it is not. I googled and it kept telling me it was a symptom of Menopause and I was like nah, can’t be that, I’m only 44. But it can and will start ealier in some of us. So what is it? Womb prolapse? Bladder infection? Nope. Worse. Dryness. Its dryness. Not on my sweaty face where I need it. No, the vagina. Internal dryness only becomes more obvious on holiday, where I do more walking in the heat than normal. The pain is HOT. Its internal. Its RAW. But it’s painful. Its the worst pain in the area, since childbirth. Long cold baths help but what fixes it (temporarily) is not moving. It’s sitting on sticky leather sofas, sweating and red facing away until you can walk again. So I’m sweating on the outside and dry on the inside. The irony.
The heat was not made for us Irish Women. Here we are desperately trying to top up our Vitamin D for the Winter and yet we can’t even move from the couch. My hair, already dry is now no longer simply dry. Its crispy. I am constantly drinking water, peeing like Austin Powers after a defrost and I look wretched. I have put off the appointment with my Doctor but I am going to see him the week I am home. This hasn’t been an easy decision for me to make. I really thought I would just muddle through The Change (as my mother called it) or like my older sister who would wake up one day and ping!…done without a single symptom. So, here I am dreading the conversation I have to have but the time has come and I’ll get it all together and get in to him. He’ll sort me out.
