Tequila or hormone-replacement therapy

It’s now 166 days since I’ve gotten my period. Six months have gone by and nothing. I get symptoms some months with sore boobs and even cramping where I think I’m going to get “it” and then the symptoms subside.

I’m 42 and my mother explained that she was completely finished by 46, but, now nearing 69, she’s a bit of a revisionist. My sister is older at 48 and hasn’t really missed a whole one yet or even had a hot flash. Those come…oh boy! in an all out blitz, like being called on by a teacher and you don’t know the answer and flush with that heat surge while your face turns red with purple spots and everyone’s staring at you. It’s the same. And headaches. I’ve had two really, really bad headaches this month where I thought a creature would explode out of my temple like the stomach scene from “Alien.”

I’m moody, cranky, bloated, gain weight just looking at food, and some smell oozes out of my every pore. I don’t smell like me anymore, I smell like Shaquele O’Neil’s dirty socks, oh…and I cry…A LOT. I cry because the garbage bag will not come loose from the stupid, cylindrical fancy silver can my kids got me last year for Mother’s Day ‘cause for once I wanted the really expensive, top-of-the-line something in our house from Bed, Bath and Beyond—but it’s a pain in my butt because you can never get the bag out once it’s full. I pull and rip and curse and wrap my legs around the inner plastic container while yanking on the bag trying to claw it out without spilling the garbage—coffee grains and all—onto the floor.

I cry when the kids are due home at 3:30 and I’ve only gotten two things done out the 500 pressing items on my list and tomorrow 200 more will be added. I cry because this summer it’s camp mommy and with the three of them (9, 8 and 6) home all day, in the blazing sun at the community pool or the beach and hormones raging, I’m going to fry and scream at strangers or seagulls who get too close to me.

When I mentioned to a friend of mine what I’m going through, (the high and low mood swings, the smell), she told me a story about her aunt.

Apparently in the early 70’s when her aunt was huffing and puffing her way through menopause and being blue, her aunt’s male doctor said, “get a job.” The scary thing is, she did, and swears she felt wonderful once she busied herself keeping her mind occupied. Me, as a freelance writer, I have six jobs going at once, only two hands, feel like crap and my nerves are shot. I’m not sure what’s happening to me.

I went to my female ob/gyn to get checked and am awaiting the results of blood, thyroid, pap and sonogram tests. Apparently simple blood tests can evaluate the hormone levels and tell if I am indeed in menopause at age 42. My doctor said we’d talk about my taking hormone replacement therapy.

Let me know if you or anyone you know has been on this? E-mail at maryewalsh@optonline.net or post a comment. After all the breast cancer scares and other negative press, I’m not sure I want to take estrogen. But, it would help even things out a bit…that, or a bottle of Tequila.