Diary of a Middle-aged Woman

03/22/07 - The Heat is On!

I stood in my boss's office having a pleasant conversation with her, when it hit. It came out of no where and without warning. At first I didn't know what it was, but then I realized what was going on. I was in the throes of a hot flash.

I'm a little slow to recognize them for what they are. I always misdiagnose the symptoms and blame it on needing something to eat. Well, of course I would do that - any excuse to eat something sweet. I think my blood sugar is low, so, hit the candy and you'll be fine.

I walked back to my office, sat down, and began fanning myself with the nearest file folder. It was that bad. I felt like I had just come in from doing yard work on the hottest day of the year and the air conditioning wasn't working. My boss looked at me and knew what was happening. She told me to go outside and cool-off, and she also told me that my face was red.

Okay, if I have to live through these hot flashes, fine. But, I don't want my face to look red. That's unacceptable. I don't want the whole world to know, just by looking at my face, that I'm afflicted with a hot flash. Isn't it enough that you heat up like someone lit a flame under you? Do we really need to have visible signs too? How do I pull this menopause-thing off without the whole world knowing? Talking to you about it is one thing. Having the whole world know is another thing all together. I want to have some kind of control over this 'condition'. And therein lies my problem. I, the consummate control-freak, have no control over this.

Can't I schedule hot flashes for early in the morning, or later in the day? Do they have to hit me while I'm at work? Don't they know how inconvenient that is for me? What if I had a customer during one of these bouts?

The more I experience with menopause, the more I dread it. And this goes on for years? Once, before I entered menopause, I said I wouldn't buy one of those mini-fans to use during hot flashes. Oh how I'm eating those words. A mini-fan is sounding pretty good to me right about now.