The menopause symptoms are getting better. Well, amend that: first they got a whole lot worse, and then they got better. First, I went to see my family doctor and got worked up the wazoo for seemingly everything. I waited and waited, and finally heard back. "Your cholesterol's a little high, the doctor wants you to take Brand X mutivitamin, Brand Y calcium, and suggests using Brand Z progesterone cream for awhile."
That's it? I'm literally going bananas, and that's all you have to suggest to me?
Yep. That's it.
Argh! Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. I bit the bullet and called my homepathic consultant, Jana Shiloh. She's not a doctor, but she studied with one for 8 years to learn all about homeopathics. And she's treated my entire family for various whatnots over the last 13 years, including my son who was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 19. 5 years later, he's still in remission. I trust this woman.
Biggest problem is, homeopathy's expensive. But then again, so is losing my sanity.
Jana and I talked for a long time. Homeopathy's takes a good deal of talking, information gleaning, I guess you could call it, cause it's a holistic (whole-body) diagnosis. 1.5 hours later, she prescribed a remedy. I took it, and wow! holy smoke! within 24 hours -- an almost-normal person!
Two days later, I'm on the phone to her. HELP. I've been hit with horrible (and I do mean horrible), black depression. She asked, did you happen to ingest anything that would counteract the remedy? I think back. Hmmm .... well ... I'd had one small cup o' joe this morning. Yuppers, that'll do it, she says. Take the remedy again, and no more coffee. Ever.
Okay, so I'm semi-normal again (as normal as I'll ever be). The hot flashes have abated, the night sweats have turned into just night warms, my moods have evened out pretty well. But, I've had to give up coffee in the process. :sigh: O well. It was either that, or keep trying to assemble the gun.
The only symptoms that still remain strong are the wavering mental fog and the insomnia. I'm going to talk to Jana again this coming week about both, but in the meantime, let me just throw out a rhetorical question: why does this insomnia happen anyway? I'm old, I need sleep. It's not like I feel refreshed after 5 hours. Gawd no! My brain wants desperately to go back to sleep, but my body won't let it. Or, is it the other way around?
Anyway, there I am, awake at O-Dark-Thirty in the morning. I'm too tired to do anything, it's too early to do it even if I wanted to, it's too early to get ready for work, but way too late to go back to sleep. What a dilemma. I've seen other women talking about it in menopause forums all over the 'net, so it's pretty universal. And, one gal made a comment that really stuck with me, "The problem with waking up so early is that I think too much."
She's got something there. Introspection can be a good thing. But, it's like anything else; more is not necessarily better.
Now, if so many women are going thru this, and it's been going on for thousands of years, why aren't at least a few stores open at 3:00 A.M.? Huh? What about movie theaters? Why is television such a wasteland in the wee hours? Let's not even start with middle of the night radio talk shows. I can't believe some marketing genius hasn't come up with a way to engage our collective sleepy attention. (Okay, I know that's the point of informercials, but c'mon, get serious. One night of watching 'em has exceeded my personal lifetime limit.) After pondering for several days, I think I've come up with a solution. How about I open up a homey, little gathering place for all of us insomniacs?
We'll call it The Insomnia Cafe. Or maybe, the OhWhyNotI'mUpAnyway Inn.
Of course, I'd have to live above it, so I could schlump down the stairs in my jammies and robe at 3:15 a.m. to let you all in. You shuffle on in in your jammies, too. Getting dressed is up to you. (Well, maybe except for in the winter. Heehee.) It'll be like a slumber party in reverse. We'll have coffee, various teas, OJ, healthy and not-so-heathly munchies. We'll sit around and talk. Or maybe, just stare into our cups and listen. How about some music? Not Led Zepplin, I couldn't take LZ in the middle of the night anymore. The Shirelles? Patsy Cline? Johnny Mathis? Bobby Vee? Memorable songs from our youth.
What else? Oh, how about some mindless, little things to do, for those of us who aren't in the mood for talking? Arts and craft projects, perhaps, a la PostSecret?
I keep remembering things I used to do on the internet, in the early 90s, before the internet exploded into such an ad campaign. Remember BBS's (bulletin board systems)? They were fun, and they were local, so you got to know folks in your own area. They had a small variety of games: Trade Wars, Major MUDD, and Trivia. Most every evening, 10-12 folks would gather inside the Trivia game, chatting and laughing while we played the game. The game was multiple choice, and slow enough, that you could fit a fair amount of conversation in between answering.
Hmmm. Another thought just occurred to me. Could something like this be done in cyberspace?
I wonder ....
