When I confided my symptoms over the telephone to my gynecologist’s nurse, she mused, “Sounds to me like you’re premenopausal.”
I wasn’t surprised by her calculated guess. I had been expecting to hear just those words. I was kind of glad to get them said and out of the way.
“Do you feel you need to see the doctor immediately, or would you like the first available appointment?”
“The first available time suits me,” I said. “I’m not afraid.”
This statement was the truth. I felt a little out of sequence in my biorhythms, and the calendar confirmed that I wasn’t imagining irregularities. But nothing was happening that I found frightening.
My symptoms have included night sweats and an occasional daytime flushing that made me want to rip off all my clothes. Sometimes, I want to jump out of a moving vehicle. And, unlike my pre-premenopause days, when I would get a single jingle or tune stuck in my head, these days I can hear two songs playing simultaneously. Who needs headphones?
It has occurred to me that this change in my internal sound system might be my two ovaries serenading each other-their own distinctive swan song-but I don’t feel inclined to grieve. Instead, I rejoice that the natural payoff of my flesh’s deterioration is stereophonic music.
Before hanging up, the nurse and I settled on an appointment for me to consult my doctor. Then I called my best friend, who has been changing for a while, and told her my news.
“Been glowing in the dark, have you?” she asked.
“Remember, you’ve been changing all your life,” she said. “Menopause is just one more adjustment to make. Don’t dramatize it.
“Don’t worry about tomorrow,” my friend said. “Take it a day at a time.”
I thanked her, hung up, and put on a fresh pot of coffee. It was early for my second pot, but suddenly, as if I were an expectant mother rather than a woman who simply feels expectant, I felt I needed coddling.
While I waited for the coffee, I thought about the other differences in myself. I’ve been speaking my mind lately without editing for tact. A friend asked me yesterday if the favor she was asking me was a lot of trouble, and I didn’t hesitate: “It sure is.”
There have been other differences in me: a voracious appetite, an intensified maternal instinct, and a new brand of exultation. I’m glad to be alive.
The coffeepot gasped and I poured a cup, but before I swallowed the first hot sip, I felt myself begin to flush hot. The world grew intensely bright. I looked outside for a sign of a spaceship about to land that might be creating this special effect, and I saw nothing.
“Good,” I thought. “I’m not about to be abducted by aliens. This symptom must be normal.”
When I reached a certain fever pitch, the music began. That day I heard the movie themes from “Gidget Goes Hawaiian” and “Romeo and Juliet.” I can understand why the Gidget song emerged. I’ve always admired Gidget. But Romeo and Juliet? I’ve never liked any story where the lovers die.
It is absolutely not normal for me to be hearing that tune. I think about calling the nurse back to ask her which hormone to take to get rid of this song, but my friend’s advice stops me.
As the bright light fades, the songs die, and I decide not to worry, trusting that wisdom to discern the normal from the abnormal symptoms that accompany this particular change of life will, like my in-head duets, develop in me over time.
