Let’s talk about menopause. Again.

I posted about this a few months ago, before my ovaries were removed, before my estrogen was blocked, before I knew what I know now. 

I’ve loved @drjengunter since she first started busting Goop myths and garbage sold to women looking for relief. I read this book hopeful that I would own my health and feel empowered to crush menopause. 

It was quite the opposite - I spent several days in tears, mourning my estrogen and the benefits it provides, growing ever more fearful of cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis. As a hormone positive breast cancer survivor, I can’t take the hormone replacement therapy (HRT) that would make me feel better. 

Don’t get me wrong - this book is a great read. But three months into menopause and I can honestly say I’m not crushing it, it is not graceful, and it totally fucking sucks. I thought hot flushes and night sweats were a mere annoyance - then I learned they’re associated with heart attacks and cardiovascular disease. I thought calcium, vitamin D, and strength training would prevent osteoporosis, weakness, and falls - instead I learned that even doing all the right things, I might end up with a stress fracture or lower bone density. 

It is disheartening at best, downright depressing at worst, to feel your body disintegrate at the age of 45, to watch the efforts of training and discipline fall apart, to know that even if cancer doesn’t kill me, full on menopause has lowered my life expectancy anyway. Since my aromatase inhibitor might increase my cholesterol, I can add heart attacks and stress fractures to the ever growing list of things that might kill me well before I hit my 60’s. Thanks, breast cancer.

There are simply no good solutions for women who can’t take HRT - I should be the poster woman for health in menopause (thin, exercise a lot, taking all the vitamins for bone health, acupuncture, massage, cognitive therapy) but instead I’m suffering, and basically will have to suck it up, buttercup. The mental weight of this is so much heavier than a double mastectomy was. I miss my ovaries. 

#fuckmenopause #fuckbreastcancer #lobularbreastcancer#hormonepositivebreastcancer