Menor-eek-overy; (say it fast)

The thing about menospection and blog reviewing is that one rediscovers 'eek' moments. Looking back one wonders why they ever got mentioned, but of course at the time, they were important. Essentially, the purpose of MENO blog (aka Wild YAM) is to let go of those 'eek' moments in life. All the drudge moments, the pulled rug moments, the 'it couldn't have been me!' moments. It was also, originally, about finding an anchor in the midst of the absolute mayhem that is 'menoplyxinaemia'; that point in a woman's life when Ma Nature rips away part of the personality and drains the brain of any function worth the having.

I discovered quite recently that both my sisters have been on long-term hormone therapy. "Why?" I wondered, we being a family who generally favour letting Ma Nature have her whim. Admittedly, they both look rather less than the fifth decade of living might display. Meanwhile the YAMster looks considerably more. They had their reasons, but it's not for me. I may have moments of cursing this body which is old before its years, but the truth is I don't concern myself about it for the majority of time. Oh I look after the basic needs, and tend any damage, but other than that, it is just my vehicle. "I" am not this body. This was something I understood from a very young age, when the arthritis was first ravaging it. Occasionally pains are bad enough for them to get mentioned... but then you know it is REALLY hurting. I ignore pain, for the most part.

That said, since the menoplyxinaemic pinnacle, I have been forced to acknowledge the need for more gentle treatment and consideration; as with all aging vehicles, a wider variety of maintenance and more frequent pit stops are required. It has to be said, though, that it seems that the meno is mainly over(y) and the biological business has settled down to its cronehood.

Astoundingly, it is five years since the actual date. The Pause. I nearly decked my mother when she answered my enquiry as to how she dealt with certain aspects with "I don't think I had menopause"... gggrrnrnrnrnrhhrhhhhhh.. Of course she did. She just didn't have any symptoms. Apparently.

What she seemed to have forgotten were the times she had made me promise that if she ever lost her mind I'd take her out and shoot her. It would involve sourcing the necessary equipment, of course, but that was irrelevant. It was also irrelevant to her that it might mean her daughter getting a life holiday at her majesty's leisure. Mother had terrible trouble with the mental effects - which I can date to about 'the time'. She'd forgotten all that though.

Length and variety of symptoms is an individual thing. Some folk only have the mental stuff, like mother, others get a few of the physical symptoms. Yours truly had the lot and for the fullest amount of time.

Yup. Read the manual; I copped the lot**. Early symptoms were, of course, not recognised and it is only in hindsight that it can be seen the meno was creeping on by the early-40s. Weight-gain; out of proportion to lifestyle. Investigations showed potential for diabetes, but not 'yer ackshual', just be careful. Beyond that, nothing. Just get more exercise. This at a time when I was, in fact, at the most physically active I had ever been in life at daily consistency, both through work and socially. It didn't make sense then. It does now. Once the weight started to build, there were the migrainous headaches. Only six in total, spread over a period of about eighteen months. Debilitating. Not being one ever to get headaches (other than with an infection), it was disconcerting. Then they stopped and have never returned. What came in their place was the anger. Rage. Not all the time. It just would pop out for an attack upon a someone or a something without any warning to them, it or me. It wasn't me. It was a monster who had taken over the vehicle and seemed hell bent on crashing. That was the point at which it twigged that there was something going on and the question was asked of the mother. It had been six years of symptoms already and I was still only 47. The next peculiar symptom was the desire for junk foods. Not just the odd meal of pizza or egg and chips and occasional iced chocolate... we're talking some kind of addiction here. I just could not seem to get enough of that stuff. Which all didn't help the weight management, the will power apparently having upped skirts and escaped via the back entrance. The head knew it was wrong, but had no voice whatsoever.

So it went on, until my 49th birthday. A day marked by dark red. On came the first of what would be many months haemorrhaging and gone was any concept of 'monthly'. Given that towards the end of that year, 2010, I was applying to attend Sandeepany, this was really making a nuisance of itself.

The day I was due to fly out of Australia, June 2011, on it came. I was buttressed in mega-stocks of protective items for that journey. I arrived in Edinburgh for the two months with family before going to India and I was very worried. How on earth was it going to be on an ashram with this stuff going on???

Twelve months later, sitting in Sandeepany, it struck me. There had been no more drainages. The flight out of OZ had marked the last flow. The end of 'the curse'. A full year on I could say the meno had paused.

Not the end of symptoms though. During my time at Sandeepany, the next major effect was short-term memory, the lack thereof. Those who have read the bloggy from the beginning will recall it was the central point of discussion. What I never mentioned before was that much of the long-term memory also seemed to disappear. It was worrying me sick. I was going to ask someone to take me out and shoot me...

I didn't; but I did ask achaarya-ji to release me from my obligation as I felt worthless and unable to contribute at the appropriate level and was 'clearly-an-academic-dwarf-compared-to-all-the-other-students!' He just let his gentle eyes glitter and his lips twitch a soft smile and said, "amma, you must stay. We need you and your insights."  That was it. Nothing else said. I stayed and I thrived^^. Despite the six month black hole in my brain which straddled the actual pause.

Five years later I sit here in the Hutch and see that it has been about a year since I had any symptom that could be attributed to the meno; except, of course, one has been left with the short-term memory loss as a permanent fixture and there are still some black patches where history used to be; as well as the inability to lose any weight whatsoever and feeling ten years older than the numbers say, a crumbling spine and legs which operate according to their own individual requirements. No, apart from all that, and seventeen years from the first onset, it seems I am menoreekovered.

Woo. Hoo.

**Am not listing all the effects here. Don't want to frighten anyone who has yet to embark on this stage of life's little adventure... Remember. It may not happen to you.
^^Away from the slightly tongue-in-cheek recall here, it ought to be acknowledged that I could not have been in a better place than Sandeepany to see me through the dreadful time; there was only one point of focus - study of Vedanta - and one expectation - understand Vedanta as fully as one can. All the peripheral stuff of life was managed by the application of Vedanta. Had I not gone to India, it is entirely possible that I would, in fact, have found someone to take me out and shoot me...