Although my background is West Indian, I have spent the better part of my life in North America. I have been lucky enough to have had the opportunity to travel to Europe, and the West Indies as well as Canada and the United States. I am a health professional working with women and children throughout most of my professional career. I am married, with children and grandchildren. I have had a full and productive life.
Traveling has always been a passion for me but I am also a homebody. There is something about ‘roots’ that is so important. When I made the decision to return to my home and settle with my family, it seemed like the right decision. I knew that there would be huge adjustments and sacrifices but the opportunities for my children’s health and welfare meant everything. I worked at whatever I could get for three years until we were established then I pursued my studies and qualifications so that I could work professionally. I knew that the temporary job had to be just that. For some reason I was getting attacks of nerves. My hands would shake and I would sweat great buckets of perspiration for no apparent reason. I knew that it wasn’t fear or panic but the attacks felt real and suddenly I began to be afraid.
I also noticed that I was gaining weight. I had been slim through two pregnancies and after with no weight loss problems. Suddenly I couldn’t eat a thing. It all stuck to my hips and legs and thighs.
I decided to make some changes in my life and buried myself in night work for 5 years while I attended part time classes and raised my family. Night work was easier on my system and in fact all the problems that I had seem to settle except the weight and fatigue.
I knew that I was stressed. Being the only female in a house of males, with volatile and unpredictable behaviours meant constant tension while they fought for the position of alpha male. In addition, my aging grandparents and parents were getting sick and dying. While these events are normal in the life cycles, everything seemed to happen at once. There was support but no break from the ongoing burdens of caring for the sick and burying the dead. I felt like I was doing it all but in a dream-like state so that concerns about my health were secondary.
Things culminated with the death of my Mother just before Mother’s day. She had Alzheimer’s for the previous three years so it felt like a second death. Her loss was tremendous. I fluctuated with my grief for a long time, although I had good memories from the last time that I saw her alive.
Everything about my job had to do with mothers and helping them get through the early post birth days. I was challenged every day to remember my own mother and her contributions to my life and how I could incorporate that in my teachings. It was comforting.
What was not a comfort was the constant tingling in my breast, and the weight gain and my suddenly irregular periods. Then I had such dreadful hot flashes. It started with night sweats followed by a deep freeze. Hours later I would be on fire and just as suddenly I would be bathed in a pool of sweat and freezing again. I saw different doctors, specialists, had someone look at my enlarging thyroid but all I was told that everything was normal. I didn’t feel normal! My family didn’t say it either but I didn’t look or sound very good to them either. The sweats were the worst.
One day I was sitting in a Doctors office for concerns about my thyroid. She closed the door while I changed into the examination gown. When I was done I sat and stared at the door not feeling hopeful at all. There was a sign that asked ‘Are you suffering from the following symptoms?’ Curious, I checked down the list and answered yes to every one of them. I immediately put on my clothes and left. Next day I made an appointment with my Gynecologist. I wasn’t menopausal…I was pre-menopausal. So what? I was pre-miserable headed into very miserable.
Since the first year of my marriage when the oral contraceptive was a death trap, I never took any more pills or hormones. I was too scared from my reaction in those early days. I had the two kids I wanted and used other birth control until my tubes were tied. Sitting in the doctors office with sweat running down my face and body, my ears on fire, and feeling like death, I decided that life was tough enough. Give me liberty or death to quote someone. The Doctor agreed that HRT would be ideal for me and started me on the patch immediately. As an after thought, since I was only 42, I suggested that perhaps I should have a mammogram as a baseline just in case of problems with the HRT.
Brilliant! The tumor was not large but it was as clear as day. I misread the symptoms of tingling and discharge in the breast. So, not only did I have peri-menopause, but now I also had breast cancer.
The HRT patch came off and I headed off to surgery before I could even think. I had the breast lumpectomy followed by node resection and radiation. What I did not have was enough time off to recuperate. The story of my challenges with the effects of radiation and Tamoxifen are another story. The net effect of having breast cancer meant that my menopausal symptoms were untreatable with hormones.
In the midst of family stress, grief, worry, job pressures, and post surgical trauma., I still had to deal with the hot flashes, sweats, mood swings, fatigue, memory loss, aches and pains. In five years, I gained 45 pounds.
My sweats were on an adrenal cycle. Every two hours I had a hot flash. It came on with a sudden feeling of panic, shortness of breath, followed by the heat that seemed to rise out of my chest, up into my head and explode there. During that brief period of insanity in which I had to be alone, the feeling would subside. It would however be followed by floods of water pouring out of every pore in my body and a feeling of cold, chills and shaking. It was an ugly state of being. I hated meetings, meeting people, talking to people, and just about anything that raised my heart rate even one beat per minute more.
I tried every known relief for menopause symptoms from a Japanese paper fan to the most sophisticated herbal medications. Some helped, some didn’t. The bottom line was that no matter what I took it never went away completely. Even when I felt better, I still gained weight, was irritable and living in a fog most of the time.
When I got diagnosed with Diabetes four years after the Cancer and six years after the Thyroid, it felt like the last straw. I wondered if I was going to survive and if I did, what else would go.
Thirteen years later, I am still around to tell my story. I am still gaining weight, my diabetes has worsened, but the cancer has not returned and I am virtually free of the hot flashes but definitely older and certainly wiser.
