Let's Talk About Menopause

 

Let’s talk about menopause. No one really does, in medical school, in life, in social circles. I vividly recall being educated during late childhood on my impending puberty, my fertility, and the changes I would go through. 

But no one really talks about menopause. It is the process through which our bodies stop having the ability to bear children, and stop making the hormones that allow it to happen. Women are thought to begin the process somewhere in their 40’s, and it might last for 5 to 10 years before the ovaries completely shut down. 

Some women weather the change gracefully, barely noticing. Others suffer myriad changes that affect daily life (sweating to the point of needing to change clothes is hard to manage with a day job), that affect sexuality (so many losses here, too many to count), that affect health (cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis increase in post menopausal women). 

Well, by this time tomorrow, I’ll be in menopause. I’m 45. I’ll never know what natural menopause would have been like, if I’d have had a graceful transition from childbearing to later stages of life, but for me there will be no such grace - it ends tomorrow. 

And that’s the point - the end of my ovaries means the end of hormones that can fuel my cancer, and that’s why I’ll get them removed tomorrow. 

Technically known as a laparoscopic bilateral salpingoophorectomy - they’ll remove the tubes and the ovaries through tiny incisions in my belly button and lower abdomen. I will be home recovering tomorrow afternoon - and have no idea how soon after the symptoms of menopause will begin. 

Thank you to @beewood17 and my beautiful daughter for another organ-inspired cake to commemorate the loss of yet another one of my organs. It feels like a lot more this time, because of what comes afterwards, but it is a small price to pay for years of disease free survival and life.