There Will Be Blood

I have two teenage daughters, and I am a woman at the end of the childbearing bell curve. We spend a lot of time in my house menstruating, talking about menstruating, complaining about menstruation, preparing to menstruate, and recovering from menstruation. All totally normal.

Brace yourself. I am going to talk about menstruation.

I can commiserate with my girls. I see them suffer from cramps, and I remember that misery as I microwave heating pads and dole out fistfuls of ibuprofen to offer them some relief. I buy an endless supply of pads in at least three sizes and tampons and panty liners, none of which are ever on sale at the same time, and all of which are taxed as a luxury item, because there is nothing more luxurious than shoving overpriced chemically enhanced cotton wads in or near a cooch. I scrub panties and the crotches of jeans with hydrogen peroxide or a paste of baking soda and vinegar, making volcanos out of all the stains. I also endure the tears and rudeness and lethargy that one of us is constantly subjecting the rest of us to; misery loves company but hates everyone indiscriminately.

I’ve been doing this period thing for almost ¾ of my life, and while I would love to not deal with it, I don’t like the implications of breaking up with my lady friend. I actually thought that the dreaded M word had begun because I went from my current regular irregularity to a total uterine strike.

My period is all over the calendar. Not literally because what? Gross. I mean it’s not every month and then it’s twice in one month. It’s never a 28-day cycle like in the birth control ads. Sometimes it’s every 40 days, or every 22 days, or every 15 days, which is a real treat if it lasts 8 days or so. And then, out of the blue, it was over 75 days. It wasn’t my normal.

Naturally, I started to freak out. I’m old. This is it. I don’t know the first thing about hormone replacement. I’m going to wither and dry up and then fill out in all the wrong places. I will become invisible, as women of a certain age do, no use to anyone but not ready to shove out in the middle of the ocean on an ice flue.

I turned to the Internet, the source of the best and most accurate information in times of panic and worry.  Here’s what I learned: the definition of menopause is cessation of menstruation for a year in women of a certain age. I had 290 days to go.

Lucky for me, I needed to see my gynecologist for my annual exam, so I didn’t have to go out of my way to discuss it. I could just wait another week and then casually mention it with my feet in the stirrups. Deep down inside, I was convinced I was going to need a D and C, that fun procedure where they dilate you and scrape all the ick off your uterine walls. It’s an old school abortion, well, not wire hanger old school, but pre-medically induced abortion, back when women and their doctors could still make reproductive decisions together.  Naturally, I freaked out some more.

My appointment started out totally normal. Sit and wait. Pee in a cup. Finger stick. Sit and wait some more, only this time in a room filled with pregnant women. Feel old because you think you are in menopause and these women are all still fertile and youthful and you don’t want to be them but you don’t want to be you either.

I followed the nurse to the exam room. She asked me the usual medical history update questions, and then she asked the first day of my last period. I told her 80 days ago. She handed me some pamphlets and told me to disrobe and don my paper drape and vest.

These are the pamphlets:

 

They burned my flesh, just holding them in my hand. I stuffed them in my purse, got undressed, and assumed the position on the table.

My gynecologist seemed a bit surprised to hear I was on period sabbatical, because, get this, I am too young to be in menopause. She wanted to know about my mother and grandmother’s menopause experience, but they were of the generations who had unnecessary hysterectomies because something was wrong with every woman who was no longer having children.  Basically, we had nothing to go on except the 80 days part.

“Are you having menopausal symptoms?” she wanted to know.

“I don’t know what they are,” I said. And it’s true. I knew about moodiness, hot flashes, and no periods. Was there more to expect? “I mean, I could have hot flashes, but how do I know? Sometimes I get kind of hot for no reason.”

“Are you waking up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat and have to change your nightclothes?”

“No, nothing like that,” I told her.

“Crying for no reason?” she asked.

“I have two teenage daughters. There is always a reason,” I replied.

She ordered a blood sample to check my hormone levels and then prescribed Progesterone, which would make me have a period if I was still supposed to have one. She instructed me to wait for the lab results before taking the medication, but that I would need to take if for 5 days in order to make my period start. Apparently, if you are supposed to menstruate but you don’t, that can also be a problem, although she didn’t elaborate. I made a mental note to look it up on the Internet when I got home.

“So, I don’t have to have a D and C?” I asked her.

“Where did you get that idea? Of course not,” my doctor said.

“My own head. And the internet. But mostly my imagination,” I replied.

“Stop doing that. Stop looking up things, and stop thinking,” she recommended.

Two days later, the nurse called me to report that my hormone levels are normal. Totally normal. I am what is considered perimenopausal, which is totally normal for a woman of a certain age.

I took the damn pills. After yet another week, I got my period. It was not the massacre I expected. It was totally normal.

Since then, times are back to my 45 day, 30 day, 19 day routine. Perimenopause. I don’t really know what else to look for because I threw away my pamphlets. I imagine most women of a certain age do the same, and it’s totally normal.