Category: Uncategorized

Go ahead. Explore my pelvis.

On By PamelaIn Health, Hot flash, Humor, Menopause, Uncategorized, Women's HealthLeave a comment

If  you think shopping for a bathing suit is humiliating, try this on for size.

You’re lying on a hospital examining table with a camera wand thingy stuck way up in your Lady Parts while the technician attempting to photograph the walls of your Va-Jay-Jay searches fruitlessly for a clear image.

Lots of scintillating conversation topics arise while someone is probing your Garden of Eden with a rod masquerading as a medical device. Like for instance, the weather. In Southern California, that can only go so far:

Girl With Wand [staring at ultrasound screen]: How’s the weather out there?

Me: Sunny and 72.

G.W.W.: Cool. Same as it was yesterday.

Awkward silence.

There was a time when lying prone while someone jiggled a device in your Hoo-Ha was actually a lot of fun. Especially if that someone was your boyfriend/partner/hubby/spouse/gigolo. This time, it was tedious and annoying:

[20 LONG minutes after the weather conversation]:

Me: Are you finding what you needed in there?

G.W.W. [mildly panicked]: Uh, I can’t seem to get a clear image [probes frantically].

Me:  Well, since this isn’t working, I would suggest it’s time for Plan B.

Plan B involved G.W.W. disclosing that we were using “an outdated machine.” And that there was a “newer machine” next door. Two minutes later, the bizarre tableau resumed in the adjacent room with a more modern machine, this time with a wand wrapped in plastic. Hmm…wonder why the first one had no protective covering?

[10 minutes into my coupling with said Newer Machine]:

Me: So, how long have you worked in healthcare?

G.W.W. [staring at ultrasound screen]: Six months.

Me [panicked but masking it well]: What did you do before?

G.W.W. [still staring at screen]: I was in sales.

Me: Pharmaceutical sales?

G.W.W. [looking at me sheepishly]: No, I sold tractors.

A vision of her in a John Deere trucker hat was all it took for me to want to wrestle the probe from her hands and self-administer the pelvic ultrasound.  She finished before I could do my best Mrs. Peel and somersault off the table, looking chic but tough wearing nothing but an open-backed hospital gown.

Two days later, I was in the doctor’s office with a bladder infection.

Shopping for bathing suits can be traumatic, no doubt about it. But I would argue that getting your Pleasure Palace photographed by a former tractor salesperson is right up there. So to speak.

A Menopause Bucket List

On By PamelaIn Hot flash, Humor, Menopause, UncategorizedLeave a comment

It was inevitable.

Last month I touched down in the Kingdom of Menopause. I arrived first class (natch!), a glass of Sauvignon Blanc in one hand, a bottle of herbal hot flash pills in the other.

So what’s a girl to do? Turns out, lots.  With love in my heart and three extra inches around my waist, I present you with my Menopause Bucket List:

1. Lose six pounds (that was a no-brainer).

2. Send out a search-and-rescue team to locate my long-lost libido.

3. Invent melt-proof foundation.

4. Find a creative use for that box of super-jumbo maxi pads in the bathroom cabinet.

4a. Teacup chihuahua daybeds?

5. Find a Kegel app. Anything I can do to avoid becoming Menopausal Pee Lady.

6. Start doing crossword puzzles to stave off Brain Fog Syndrome.

7. Shit. I forgot what number 7 was.

8. Wear a rubber band around my wrist and snap it each time I listen to smooth jazz.

8a. I haven’t yet listened to smooth jazz. That was just a preventive measure.

9. Never, ever publicly announce I’m having a hot flash. Ever.

10. Consider changing the name of this blog, as I’ve permanently vacated the Land of Perimenopause.

So there you have it, darlings. What’s on your Menopause Bucket List?

Anesthesia is Overrated

On By PamelaIn Fitness, Health, Hot flash, Humor, Menopause, Perimenopause, Uncategorized, Wellness, Women's HealthLeave a comment

Okay, so I’m feeling a little ripped off. Yesterday was my Icky Surgical Procedure and I was all psyched for the euphoria that was supposed to take me to higher heights once they started pumping the Happy Juice into my i.v.

I’m convinced they slipped me some Happy Juice Lite, because all I can remember was being led to the surgery room by the nurse, getting situated onto the bed, and the anesthesiologist telling me that he was about to give me something to help me relax. After that, nothing. I was in the middle of an very serious dream involving two fedora-wearing, 1950s-era businessmen with bad teeth when I heard a voice saying, “OK, time to wake up.”

Looking down at me were the Hot Hot Husband and the recovery room nurse. Giddy happiness as I was being led to the op room? None. Carefree laughter and cajoling with the op room staff? Zilch. Channeling my inner flower child after all was said and done? Nada.  So, what happened? All I got out of the Hot Hot Husband today was that the op room nurse told him I regaled her with a brief account of a “former employer” and, in the spirit of camaraderie, warned her that “Sometimes you have to work with assholes.” She wholeheartedly agreed. But of course I don’t recall one syllable of this lively discussion on the hazards of working for someone else, because my brain was in an alternate universe at the time.

But on to the meat of the matter (SQUEAMISH READER ALERT: skip this paragraph if medical details make you feel lightheaded). True to her word, my doc took four glamour shots of the inside of my uterus. Two showed velvety-smooth, blushing pink walls. The other two each revealed a filmy white growth clinging to the rosy surface of the uterus. If the Hot Hot Husband heard my doc right (and if he’s not lying so as “not to worry me”), she didn’t seem at all concerned about the growths and simply extracted them, shipping the tissue off to the lab. Now I get to wait until May 11 to find out the test results. The cool thing is I get to skip a period this month, since the doc squeegeed the walls of my womb and it’s brand-spankin’ clean until the next cycle begins.

For now I’m evaluating the artistic merits of posting photos of my inner sanctum on the blog, or maybe even using the images on our holiday cards this year.  Full disclosure—that last one was my doc’s idea. You can see why I love her. But I’ve settled on making a vow to get more exercise and finally buying that BPA-free bottle to take with me to the gym.  The wisdom to be gleaned, Gentle Reader, is that tests for cancer make one stop and re-think past insults to the body and resolve to live a cleaner life going forward. In the immortal words of that most famously feisty of southern belles, “Tomorrow is another day.”