Friday, February 4, 2011

Flogging a Dead Horse - *TMI* Madmother Style.



Okay: WARNING. I am going to be talking about not so secret women's business here. It will be explicit and yucky so if you are a delicate little petal or just don't want to know please stop reading NOW.



I am old. Not really truly old but old enough. Old enough to be in peri-menopause. Which I am. The doctor told me so.



Now along with the mood swings from hell, and the burning in brimstone, hellfire hot flushes, the other lovely part of this sliding into the change era is a variance in your periods. Some women have lighter periods, some women have more infrequent cycles. Not me. My change of cycle has also been express posted direct from hell.

I do not have less frequent periods, I have totally unpredictable, sometimes fortnightly sometimes not, never know when they are gonna hit periods. They have also developed into the Niagara Falls category of blood loss and clotting, sometimes so heavy and the clots so large I feel like I am back in childbirth. Not pleasant. And at times absolutely humiliating.

I did warn you I was going to share WAY too much today, didn't I? Because I tell ya, you need to know. Apparently I am not alone and around 62% of women going through the change experience similar.



Back to the mortification meanderings. There was the time we were in the waiting room of a psychology clinic. It was the third day of my period, and usually things ease a little. Sitting with Big Boy in the packed room, quietly browsing the trashy mags (as you do), I felt that horrible gush. And knew. I had to try and make it to the ladies room with a huge wet patch of menstrual blood on the rear of my royal blue dress. and then return with a huge water stain on said spot.



Or the time my cleaner was here and I was working on the computer. Didn't feel anything that time but looked down to see blood pooling in my sandals.

Or when... well, I guess you get the picture.

I have now learnt to manage a little. I do not go far from home on those days. I now wear dresses with vibrant splashes of lots of colour including BLOOD RED. I keep multiple spare sanitary items in my bag at all times.



And no matter what I do NOT DO ANY VIGOROUS EXERCISE (ie derby training). After all, it is only a few days every month or so. Or fortnightly. Or every 6 weeks.

Sometimes it just ain't no fun being a woman.






5 comments:

Toni said...

I hear you loud and clear. I'm 46 this year and have had crazy periods all my life, but now they've stepped it up a level.
I'm so over it.
If this happened to one man, there'd be a cure within a year.

Leanne @ Deep Fried Fruit said...

I hear you too. That was me, nothing peri-menapausal about it.
Not now. I had a do-dat put into my who-ha via my which-what to fix that.
Mine was years and years of heavy blood loss every month. Then being completely drained of iron as a result. So I had a little thigimy put into me to stop it all. Sigh. No fun being a woman at all ...
You have reminded me to get my iron levels checked. Might explain a few things ...

Being Me said...

Oh that last paragraph....! Funny but awful, awful. Ugh, it's really not much fun to look forward to. "You mean there's THAT as well?" Greaaat.

Glow said...

My mum refers to hot flushes as personal summers. Keeping her sense of humour is the only way she is surviving the joys of peri-menopause.

Kakka said...

The bloody (no pun intended) trouble with peri-menopause is it lasts years and years and years. And even when you finally think you are there - the real menopause - nup - back it all comes. I am lucky to have missed most of the heavy bleeding, but the never knowing when it was coming and then nearly 2 years with nothing, think its over? No, now it is spotting whenever it feels like it. Think I was first told I was peri-menopausal when I was in my late 30s, I am now nearly 56. Aarrgg.