Three...! Two...! WTF?

Ladies of a certain age, I know you feel me on this one!

There is this common misconception that Menopause is a thing that lasts for years and years, a ceaseless torment that must be battled, to get to the other side, where a woman can finally enter her Crone Era. I'm here to tell you that isn't true. 

Menopause is not a decades-long hell that we all must suffer. It is but an instantaneous blip in our womanhood, a blink and you'll miss it moment. Because Menopause is simply the ceasing of menstruation. One moment, I'm a young female who menstruates, and the next moment, I am an old female who no longer menstruates. Boom. Just like that. Menopause is when periods stop for good. It's "diagnosed" after twelve full months without a period - including vaginal bleeding or spotting. Typically, menopause happens around 51 years old. 

I can hear you out there, you young folks... Why is my mom so crazy then, huh? What's she dealing with? Ah, youngsters, let me tell you... 

That's our good friend, Perimenopause! That is what everyone misconstrues as Menopause. THAT'S thing that lasts for years and years, a ceaseless torment that must be battled, to get to the other side, where a woman can finally enter her Crone Era. It's that transitional time before Menopause. During this time, estrogen levels begin to decrease, you get those well-known hot flashes, and irregular periods. You don't want to get freaky with your spouse. You have a dry vag, so even if you wanted  to get freaky, it probably would hurt. You need to pee all the time. You can't sleep. You sweat through the sheets (and we all know it's not because you got freaky... we already covered that). Your PMS symptoms get worse. You have mood swings, irritability, or depression (huh... I just did a post about that!). 

{gravelly voice}: I gotta look pretty!

Peri can start as early as your mid-30s, or start as late as your mid-50s, though most women start in their 40s. Some chicks are lucky and it's over in a short amount of time while others suffer for years. So what's happening up in there? Well, your hormones are changing; your estrogen is decreasing, which throws off the balance of progesterone, like a little hormone rollercoaster. Eventually, your body will begin to make so little estrogen that your ovaries no longer release eggs, you stop having your period, and you lose the ability to get pregnant. Oh, but hold on... during that rollercoaster, if you did avoid the dry vag and you did get freaky with your spouse, you could still be just fertile enough to get pregnant! In your 40s! Oh hell, no. Kids are great and all, but I certainly don't want to look like Grandma Yetta at my kid's graduation!

Anyway, Peri typically starts about 8-10 years before Official Menopause, and typically takes about 4 years (though, god help me, it could take almost a decade). And how do you know you're in Peri? That's the best part... you don't, really! Every woman is different and every woman experiences it differently. But generally speaking, the first sign is typically irregular or missing periods. You may start to sputter out with a few months of light to spotting periods, and then skip one or two, then chug along with another light month, then a spotting month... think of an old car engine, how it keeps trying and trying until it finally gives up. One day, your system just gives up. You won't really know it's given up unless you track this stuff, or do some backward counting. Now, if I were a highly-organized woman, I would be keeping track of these things, but I never do... I start to, but then after a few months I forget. All I can say is that it's been quite a while with no Panty Action down there. 

Until last week. 

Yep. It's time to reset the clock back to zero and resume counting again. 

Last week, maybe around April 15, I was having horrible bloating and abdominal pain. Funnily, it's been so long since I dealt with PMS, that my brain didn't immediately think of "that time of the month." I thought there was something wrong with me! Maybe I pulled a muscle at the gym on Monday. Maybe I ate something that didn't agree with me. There wasn't any bleeding or spotting so I was really confused! I just kind of dealt with it, but when I woke up on Thursday, it was bad enough that I would have played hookey from work, if I didn't have a huge meeting to run. I popped a Gas-X, hoping that would take care of the bloating and went to work. I was miserable all freaking day. 

All I wanted to do was curl up in a ball for a week, but I had a Mommy-Daughter day planned with my mom on Friday the 18th, and I knew that she was looking forward to that. So I popped some Aleve and soldiered on, having a great day with my mom; we went out to a place called Weeki Wachee Preserve and walked for about 2.5 miles or so, relaxed at home, then had lunch at Long John's before I had to head home. 

On Saturday, there was less bloating, but still I was feeling crampy and miserable. I walked at parkrun and didn't do much after that! Sunday was Easter, and the gym was closed, so I headed out to a local trail I'd been wanting to explore. It was a nice 3 miles, mostly shaded, slightly sandy, and harder than expected. 

 

By Monday morning, I felt like hot buttered ass, so I only did 20 minutes at the gym before admitting defeat and coming home. My feet were super-swollen all day Monday and Tuesday (so bad I could barely get my loosest-fitting sandals on!). Back at work on Tuesday, I saw it... the slightest bit of pink on the TP. Believe me when I tell you I just kind of stared at it in shock. Oh HELL NO. But there it was, all day long, the littlest bit of spotting and a teeny-tiny blob in the toilet. 

Oh, but wait... is this truly a period, or am I having issues with my IUD? My brain latched on to this in both a hopeful and apprehensive way. On the one hand, maybe it's not my period, so I'm still on the Menopause Countdown, but on the other hand, that meant I'd need to go to the gyno and have the IUD removed and replaced... Neither of these were good situations, really. So I waited it out a few more days to see what was going to happen. If it was a period, it'd be over in a few days, but if it was the IUD, I would continue to be miserable. 

As of today, the bloating is just about gone, my feet are no longer swollen, and there's no more Panty Action. I'm going to call it a period and start the countdown over. 

Today is Day 9 of 365. 

Sigh.