Miss Nevins: I just posted a poem my friend penned in 2004 at http://www.samuraidragonfly.blogspot.com She’ll get a kick outta your using her name in the title of your interactive fiction…and her confirmation name was Agnes. Thanks and Injoy,

My change was a horror story with a happy ending. Right after my 50th birthday I started long and strong periods. Soon they were weeks long and I was sure I was bleeding to death. Went to several doctors (this is back ‘96 when HRT was goddess) and they all told me I needed HRT. I just couldn’t wrap my mind around putting mare urine into my body so all the doctors refused to treat me. After about six months of severe bleeding, severe mood swings, severe hot flashes, everything started to taper off and within another six months it was all over. I went to a chinese health food store in Portland OR and this little old man gave me boxes of stuff that I couldn’t even read the labels on. Long story short (ooopps to late) I feel better now than I did before the change. I like the phrase ‘the change’ because that is what it felt like to me. I was in a cocoon for fifty years and can now spend the next fifty flying like the butterfly I was meant to be.

At 39 I thought I was going to bleed to death, called the doctor and he laughed at me and said it was my age. I called my mom and asked her why she didn’t warn me. She answered nobody warned her. Then we discussed how the change affected her. We laughed about the period in her life when my younger sister and her boyfriend broke up after they got out of high school. Both of the mothers cried more than the kids did. We deduced menopause for both of them. She told me she didn’t really have hot flashes, she said her thermostat went up and stayed stuck. She was hot all the time. She spent her time going around turning every body’s thermostat’s down. For myself, menopause didn’t really start for me for another six years and I was in the middle of a stressful divorce and I hardly noticed. I remember my only hot flash. I woke in the middle of the night and threw the cover off and said out loud to no one, I was alone, “It’s hot in here.” There was snow on the ground outside and the temperature was about 0%. Then I woke up enough to realize it was a hot flash. My finances were a mess, my divorce was a mess, and I was attracting an incredible number of younger men. Who had time for menopause. I hardly noticed. There are things to worry about in the aftermath however: 1. Accumulating excess weight. 2. Blood pressure goes up. [I always had low, not anymore.] 3. Heart disease. [All hormonal protection gone.] Remember this is not a disease, it is natural and if you think of it that way you’ll quit worrying and remember every ancestor had to go through it. I wasn’t sick a day for the next 20 years. Good Luck.

I started my period when I was 14. For the next 13 years, I suffered unbearably with endometriosis. It put me in the hospital every single month. I refused to go on the pill, which was their big cure for it back then ( or have a child, which frequently - but not always - cures it. Or have a hysterectomy, oopherectomy, and salpingectomy - removal of the uterus, ovaries, and fallopian tubes, respectively, at that young of an age). At that time, those were my only choices, and none of them was appealing. I took the lesser of the evils as I saw it, and went to the emergency room every month for 4 days worth of pain killers and anti-emetics. I never, ever wanted kids, and wasn’t particularly attached to my uterus, so at 18, I’d had enough of the emergency room and drugs, and I begged my GYNO to perform a hysterectomy. He wouldn’t hear of it. Finally, when I was 27, I gave him an ultimatum. Either he did it, or I’d find another surgery-happy doctor to do it. Grudgingly, he agreed, but grumbled the whole time about how when I hit my 30’s and decided I wanted kids, I’d better not come back to him and blame him for doing the hysterectomy. He took out my uterus, but left my ovaries. Even though estrogen production, which is from the ovaries, is the main reason for endometriosis, he was using this technique called Argon Laser (not new anymore) and he explained that the Argon Laser had been found to inhibit regrowth of endometrial tissue. Sounded good to me. And it was. It was the absolute best thing that ever happened to me. No more planning my entire life around my period. No more PAIN. No more hospitals and all the drugs. My liver rejoiced. I was FREE. For the next 17 years, I led a charmed life. I had never had the bloat, the mood swings, and all the other things associated with PMS when I had my period. I just had the pain. Now, the pain was gone, and life was wonderful. I never, ever missed my uterus. I never changed my mind about having kids. After all the agony I went through, getting rid of my uterus was a miracle. I never associated my uterus with “being a woman.” Having neither my period nor my uterus was my true gift from God. Now, at 45, instead of my ovaries slowly decreasing the amount of estrogen they produce as I age, they’ve gone into overdrive. They started producing about three times more estrogen than a flock of teenaged girls. They call this “estrogen dominance,” but there is a lot of controversy over that term. Anyway, I gained 100 lbs (from 106 lbs. and I’ve recently lost 28 lbs., but still…!). My boobs went from a small 34B to a 46D, and they hurt - CONSTANTLY. I wear several sports bras at a time because I can not bear to have them move or jiggle when I walk. I have to cover them with my arms while in the shower because water beating down on them reduces me to tears. They are always IN MY WAY! I hate them with a passion I can not even begin to describe in words. And bloat? Yep, you bet. Mood swings? Uh-huh. My mom also had painful periods, but back in her day, there was no knowledge of endometriosis, and therefore, no treatment at all. She suffered through it until she had me, which did, in fact, cure her endometriosis. When she finally did go into menopause, she was nearly 60. It was just like someone else described here: one day her period just stopped. No hot flashes, not even a hint. No osteoporosis - really, no negative effects at all. Since it appears I am following in her footsteps - she too all of a sudden started gaining weight when she was in her 40’s and went from 119 lbs. to around 200 lbs., and her boobs got big, so she was probably “estrogen dominant” as well. Our histories are nearly identical, so I’m somewhat confident that my menopause will mimic hers…I just wish (and hope and pray) I don’t have to wait until I’m nearly 60 for it to kick in. If I have to go through another 15 years of this crap, I might just lose my mind. Amazingly, with the huge amount of estrogen I’m producing, there is no regrowth of the endometriosis, but ladies, I am here to tell you that I can NOT wait for menopause!!! After this current bout of agony of a different nature, I can’t wait for my ovaries to shut the hell down. I have seriously considered having them removed also, but can’t quite make up my mind about that. I’ve also considered having a breast reduction, but it is entirely likely that as long as my ovaries insist on producing enough estrogen that I could probably use it to power my car, the boobs would grow right back. As my husband, who has been through most of the peaks and valley’s of my whacky hormonal cycle, says, “It’s tough being the boobies.” :-D *Sigh* I’m glad someone has a sense of humor about it!!!

AMEN!!!!LOVE IT….

ok, that was just fabulous. thanks Sheila.

And I thought my experience was stressful. Cat T - you are one funny lady.

OMG! Who would ever want to be like a man? I, like Eunice was 13, though it was not considered a late arrival, but right on time. I was fortunate, too. I rarely ever had cramps, never had any PMS, and never considered it a curse. At the age of 48 it was all over and I felt, I don’t really know. I guess I felt disappointed, empty. It wasn’t that I wanted any more children. My youngest was 12 and I was planning his Bar Mitzvah. I was also planning to, maybe, go back for my master’s. I did not need a baby to fill up my days. What bothered me, I think was the fact that I could no longer have children. I have 2 wonderful sons and I never thought of having more. But the fact that despite what I decided, I really couldn’t have any more kids, well that bothered me. I wasn’t depressed, or obviously unhappy. It nagged at me. I would see babies and I would think, I will never have that adventure again. I would remember that I didn’t want that adventure again, but it still nagged at me that I could not make life any more. It took a few years for that feeling to go away. I am now waiting for my daughters-in-law to give me the adventure of being a grandmother. Someday.