Jack Canfield - Chicken Soup for the Soul in Menopause: Living and Laughing through Hot Flashes and Hormones

These menopausal sweats and shivers and shakes!
Lord, theyre really more than a body can take!
One moment I am hot, and the next I feel cold,
Yet Im told its all to do with my growing old!

My teeth and my hair are departing from my head,
And my figure is developing that hourglass spread.
Wrinkles fast are multiplying all in a race,
To see which can be first to disfigure my face.

I need some new glasses to read the fine print,
And my joints squeal in protest if I have to do a sprint.
Although my needs are plenty and my pleasures are few,
My bones refuse to do what I tell them to do.

My heart palpitates at twice the given rate,
Yet when I need some energy, its several beats late!
The very simplest chores have now become a huge task,
And if you want help, dear, please dont ask!

Sometimes I forget where I put things down,
Or even where Ive parked the #$%& car downtown!
One day I am happy, but the next Im full of tears,
And I often feel I havent slept for seven hundred years!

To those lovely women out there who have aged with
such grace,
Either someones lying, or Im quite a disgrace!
And to other ladies following, whose praises now I sing!
Ignore all the advice, and just do your own thing!

What was that you said, dear? I didnt quite hear,
But then, you know, Im slightly deaf in my other ear.
In any case, please tell me, Lord, this wont last long,
Or these menopause blues could be my very last song!

Valerie J. Palmer

I was forty when I had a hysterectomy. My doctor told me that although my ovaries were intact, I might experience an early menopause and not to be concerned if I did. For the first six months or so, I was on full alert for any signs of the change. When nothing happened, I forgot all about it.

It was not until my late forties when I found out what the word hot flash really meant. If you think youre having them, youre not. Theres nothing flashy about them. In fact, theyre closer to having someone stoke an internal Bessemer furnace. The heat begins with a warm glow in the solar plexus then builds in waves to scalding proportions and finally becomes nuclear at the hairline. Sweat drips, clothes darken, and if youre wearing more than one layer of clothes, youll strip without shamein the office, at church, wherever. Thats what a hot flash is, and youll know you are having them when you get to the point of giving them pet names. Mine were called power surges.

Nights were worse than days. During the day, I was uncomfortable and sometimes embarrassed. At night, I would wake as the heat reached a crescendo, tossing off blankets no matter the temperature. The surges seemed to be on a schedule; I could count on waking at 2:00 AM and again at 6:30 AM. Who needs alarm clocks when you have your own personal fire-breathing dragon?

At a time when women complained that their husbands become distant and uninterested as they went through menopause, I had no such problem. During my hot flashes, my husband would look at me with sympathy. Pretty bad, arent they? he would say as blush melted from my cheeks, and mascara ran down my face. Youre beautiful to me, and I love you. During my nighttime episodes, he would often rise and wet down a facecloth for me with cool water. He would replenish the water carafe next to my side of the bed every evening before we turned in for the night. And nearly every morning, my husband would cuddle close to me, and I would awake, my internal furnace on high, folded in his arms. It made me feel cherished, lovedand hot! I could never figure out how he stood it; it had to be like holding a jalapeo. But I would soon find out why.

We lived in Florida at the time, and the winter that year was unusually cold. Wed turned off the air conditioner in October and by late November, nighttime temperatures were plummeting into the forties and fifties. Not cold by the standards of most of the country, but South Florida winters are damp, not cold. The temperature changes come in the space of hours, not seasons.

I had gone for my annual checkup that January. My doctor had prescribed low-dose hormones to help me through my symptoms. My dragon was now only puffing smoke, and I was thrilled. I finally had control over my personal thermostat again! Well, most times anyway. It was often enough that I allowed color back into my wardrobe.

February was the coldest month, with daytime temperatures in the sixties and nights approaching the mid-thirties. Some mornings we had hoarfrost on the lawn. Early one morning I woke in my husbands arms and snuggled deeper, enjoying his warmth. I was glad that I didnt feel as though I was going to self-combust.

Hon, my husband whispered in my ear, do you think you could go off those pills for a while? Maybe just until spring?

That was when I realized that the morning cuddle had less to do with sympathy than it did with my power surge. He had been warming himself at the furnace of my menopause before getting out of bed to start the day! I think it was the first pillow fight I had had since I was seven years old. There was no way I was letting the remark pass unnoticed. Besides, isnt menopause the advent of a second childhood anyway?

Kim A. Hoyo

D reams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them.

John Updike

In 2003, my wife Scharre was diagnosed with breast cancer. After several consultations with her doctor and surgeon, she decided to have a double mastectomy even though the cancer was only detected in one breast. Scharre had the operation early in 2003 and spent the rest of that year undergoing chemotherapy.

When the chemotherapy was completed, Scharre was prescribed the drug Tamoxifen to be taken twice a day for five years. The oncologist explained that Tamoxifen reduced the amount of estrogen the body naturally produces; ten years earlier, in 1993, Scharre had had uterine cancer, resulting in a hysterectomy. She was also placed on hormone replacement therapy after her hysterectomy; the oncologist said that while the HRT she was taking did not cause her breast cancer, it appeared it may have accelerated the growth of these new cancer cells.

Since Scharre had been on HRT during her fifties, she never experienced menopause. Now, at age sixty-something, she learned that she would get to go through the passage after all, since the oncologist did not want to put her back on synthetic hormones. He warned Scharre that some of Tamoxifens side effects included high-intensity hot flashes and night sweats.

After Scharre completely recovered from the effects of her chemotherapy treatments and was feeling back to normal, I asked her what she wanted to do to celebrate her survival from her second bout with cancer. Scharre replied that she would like to take another trip to Alaska with our truck and trailer, similar to the trip we had taken four years earlier. With that said, we made our plans and soon departed from our hometown of Crescent City, California, heading north to Alaska.

Both retired, Scharre and I love to camp comfortably, and do so in our twenty-six foot trailer, which has all the amenities you could wish for. Excited about our trip, Scharre stocked up the trailer, anticipating our latest adventure. Every day brought a new twist in the road, but we were enjoying ourselves immensely, with the exception of Scharres menopausal flare-ups. I felt sorry for her when this happened and as any good husband would do, I made sure she was comfortable, then I stayed out of her way.

The night sweats were the worst part of her symptoms. Several times a night I would wake up to find Scharre on top of the covers naked, covered in sweat, and miserable. The amazing part of this was that it would be in the low thirties, but she was on fire. She would eventually recover from these hot flashesas she cooled down, the sweat on her body would begin to dry, and she would get cold. Scharre would then pull all the covers off of me trying to get warm!