Lifestyle, food and drink, and our family life and travel adventures.
I realised a few weeks ago that it’s been just over a year since my ovarian surgery. I can’t believe it’s been that long already. I think lockdown and Covid make it seem like the last six months or so are one big bulk of a thing, so nothing that came before that seems like it was very long ago.
One whole year.
One whole bloody year since I had my remaining ovary removed, my tube, appendix, part of my Omentum, my tumour, and since I started on HRT.
What’s happened since then, what have I done? Because it doesn’t feel like I’ve done anything. Oh, this year is fun, isn’t it!?
So, what have I learnt since then?
Well, I’ve learnt that HRT patches are really bloody sticky and that scratching the remaining glue off my thighs and bum twice a week isn’t easy or fun, and usually leaves me with rashes and scratches and sore bits (oh my).
I’ve learnt that you can spend an awful lot of hours tracking down a chemist that has your HRT in stock when there’s a ridiculous HRT shortage, and despite you having a mammoth to-do list sourcing those bloody patches has to shoot straight up to the top of that list or you don’t really know what will happen to your body and that’s pretty scary.
I’ve discovered that if you go into surgical menopause at 35 and constantly hear all of the bad stuff that happens to you during the menopause, that you will constantly think you are ageing a lot faster than you were before. You will study your face up close in the mirror a lot more, and be absolutely sure that your hairline has receded a foot in the last year, and that it suddenly takes you an extra two minutes to get up off the floor.
I’ve discovered that agreeing to be in the magazine of a national newspaper and discussing what you’ve gone through and how the HRT shortage has affected you can still be swayed and twisted. That even if you do it to try to raise awareness and the idea of a day off and a trip to London and getting your hair and makeup done appeals, you will end up being thoroughly pissed off that your story was exaggerated, changed, your infertility experience and everything you’ve gone through altered.
And after there only being clothes available that are too small for you (at a time in your life where your body has just undergone massive changes) will only make you feel really shit about yourself and wishing you had never agreed to it.
I’ve realised that our education, as women, on the menopause, is shocking and we only know what we’ve heard from other sources, including wonderful headlines on the freaking Daily Mail. And it really pisses me off. It’s the same as the rest of the crap that affects us – we don’t learn enough about periods when we are young either.
Despite starting on HRT soon after my surgery, I have still been suffering some of the symptoms of menopause one year later. I have hot sweats, particularly at night, where I wake up drenched, uncomfortable and bloody knackered. Hot sweats are not just feeling really hot and taking your jumper off.
I am still getting some kind of ‘period’ that really hurts, but in a very different way to a period. I mean, come on, one of the few benefits of having this surgery (other than the not dying of ovarian cancer part) is not having to deal with bloody periods anymore. Pun intended.
I was provided with HRT patches in hospital a week after my surgery and sent home with them. I didn’t have a clue how to use them and despite feeling bloody awful had to work out how to use them very quickly. At the end of last year, I spoke to my doctor about the fact that I was still getting a kind of period. She said that I could change to something else if I wanted to, but I knew from what I’d read online that it was pretty common for the first six months, so didn’t want to go messing with my hormones again and decided to see if it would all settle down after a bit more time.
After finally getting to see another doctor very recently after a couple of phone calls during lockdown to discuss more Oestrogen, I have been given a trial of an extra patch of just oestrogen because I’m pretty sure I haven’t been on enough for the last year. This means two lovely, sticky patches on my lower body that I have to change twice a week, and this still may not be enough or make a difference to the symptoms of menopause I’ve still been getting.
Ideally, I would change to one similar patch still containing Progesterone but with more Oestrogen (I think that’s possible), or even change to a pill that I would have to take every day. However, after struggling to find my HRT patches (Evorel Conti) for about 9 months, I have managed to build up a decent supply of them which will last me a while. So I’m loathe to move on to something which then also may be hard to get, nor do I want to waste them when there are so many women desperate for them.
Unsurprisingly (despite my doctor checking for news about shortages) my new extra Oestrogen patch wasn’t available at my local chemist, now my usual one seems to be more available again. It’s all fun and games.
It’s horrible because I want to try whatever I’m on long enough to give them chance to work and see how they affect my body, but it also means a few years of potentially still getting symptoms and still feeling like crap.
I know it’s not the end of the world and it could absolutely be worse, but it’s still pretty shitty and I’ve had enough now. It’s even made me doubt whether I should have had the operation in the first place despite knowing it was completely the right thing to do.
I can no longer have children, I get horrible symptoms, I’ve spent a million hours on the phone to chemists this past year, have to scratch my skin to bits twice a week, have very little self-confidence (being at home most of this year hasn’t helped with that), it’s affected my mental health, and I have a beautiful scar running down my belly to criss-cross my last big one. I don’t actually mind my scars in general and I just see them as a part of my story but there are a couple of sections where they get a bit sore and are a bit of a mess, and I still can’t help being envious of women with gorgeous flat, scar-free stomachs. Not that I had one of those before either.
HRT patches make your fake tan look amazing too.
“The age group for women with the highest suicide rate in the U.K is 50-54. The average age of menopause is 51.” Source.
I’m just pissed off really. It’s World Menopause Day today, and it just shouldn’t all be this hard. There are plenty of positives (so I’m told) to going through the menopause too and getting older is wonderful, but there needs to be more done to raise awareness, to give doctors up-to-date and thorough training, and to teach us more about the menopause from when we are young.
This didn’t quite go in the direction I had planned, which is so often the case with my ranty, rambly posts like these. But I just wanted to say something.
If you, my lovely reader, are currently going through the menopause and suffering because of it then I hope you are OK and things improve for you soon. I hope you are able to get all of the HRT you want and need or find other things that help if you don’t want to go down that route.
The menopause isn’t horrendous for everyone, but it does also massively affect some women’s lives, both physically and mentally, especially when they are unable to get the treatment and care they need, and there should be a lot more support for those going through it, and education around it. And it’s not just the women going through it that suffer – it affects the family of those going through it as well.
The Make Menopause Matter campaign has already ensured the addition of menopause to the new RSE curriculum in secondary schools in England and are hoping that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will follow too. They are calling and lobbying for mandatory menopause training for all GPS and menopause support in every workplace as well.
Please support the campaign by signing the petition and sharing it if you can to help raise awareness and ensure that we are the generation to #MakeMenopauseMatter: here.
You can also donate to the Crowdfunder for The Menopause Charity, which is to raise funds to build a website on all matters menopause, with evidence-based, unbiased medical advice from the UK’s leading specialists. It will also offer education modules for NHS doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals on the menopause, as many women are presently turned away empty-handed by their GPs or given anti-depressants instead of hormone replacement therapy.
The Crowdfunder will continue until the end of October and hopes to raise £25,000 to further the campaign. You can donate here: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/the-menopause-charity.
Thanks for reading and supporting ❤
Lou xxx
Welcome to Birds and Lilies! I'm Lou: mother, blogger and freelance writer. This is my lifestyle blog, where I talk about motherhood, infertility and IVF, beauty, my love for food and wine, as well as my thoughts about stuff, and our real-life and travel adventures.
Contact: [email protected]
