The Facts of Life (Parental Guidance Suggested)

I bit the bullet yesterday and went to a new doctor who runs.... Hang on to your panties..... A Menopause Clinic. I know, I know, but I just wanted to see what all the hoopla was over "Getting to that age." Every hangnail and muscle spasm I've had the last couple of years has been diagnosed by Pseudo Doctors as being part of "That Time of Life". My personal opinion is that women are just really hormonal nuts (from the beginning of time... Hello Eve!)and the older we get, the nuttier we get. The big bad phrase is used for anything we can't explain, comprehend or rationalize. Not that changes don't occur,but seriously!!! Must we throw that term out at every inexplicable thing we experience? Okay, I'm slowly--stepping--away--from--my--soapbox--rant (I just had a little... "That time of my life" moment there). Back to my Menopausal Clinic experience. The office was really very nice. I walked into a waiting room filled with women my age and older. It's like some kind of secret club or something. I checked in (not knowing the secret hand shake, I just use my name) and then I sat and tried to concentrate on reading my book instead of the many humiliating ways I was about to be violated. Finally I gave up because I was too nervous to read, so I looked around the room at the different women and secretly wondered about their stories. I was making a mental note to self to avoid Botox at any cost as one older lady had the whole perma-joker smile going on and WAY too many lip filler injections... Bad, bad, bad way to age, when they called me
back to do my Mammo(which I'm two years late on). The technician was a chipper little thing. I mean REALLY chipper and very animated. She just loved her job and as I pressed myself up to the cold machine, I nonchalantly looked around the room for hidden cameras, because I was pretty certain I was participating, (without my knowledge), in a Punked episode. She was seriously nice, but it was just like having a Lilly Tomlin character do your Mammo... But Lilly Tomlin doing a Mammo is way better than having the Grinch who stole Christmas doing your Mammo so I am in no way complaining,

just making mention that it was a little humorous (if having that done can be humorous).By the time the Mammo lady was done with me, we were old pals. I knew how old her son was, I knew a lot about his personality and now that I say that I just realize that... That sounds just like my Mother!!! She gets the personal scoop on everyone she meets... Back to the point. After the Mammo it's back out to the waiting room where more mental notes were taken, until they called me back to see the nurse. She gets the scoop on what's going on with "things" then she passes me off to a P.A.. The P.A. asked me questions that made me blush (kind of like when I was in elementary music class and we were singing a song with the word "yearning" in it and I thought it was a dirty word)... Geeze, that ADD medicine just doesn't seem to be cutting it today. Then the P.A. announces the doctor will come in to meet me.... "He likes to

meet his patients with their clothes on first." I have always heard that men mentally strip you down within seconds of meeting you, so I'm kinda wondering what the point is, but then I'm like... "Oh! That's comforting." More waiting then the handle on the door turns and in walks... The Doctor? He didn't look like a doctor, he looked like a kid imitating a doctor. His scrubs were mismatched and frayed and wrinkled. He was wearing ratty old converse sneakers that he had probably had for about 25 years (if in fact he was even that old)with no socks. His hair was dark and shaggy and by gosh if there weren't several strands of gray waving around in there. He introduced himself, shook my hand and then as I watch with my mouth hanging open in utter surprise, he kneels on the little rolly chair with both his feet tucked under him like a 3 year old. With my chart on the table in front of him, he puts his elbows on the table, leans in and asked... "So, what's going on?" Immediately my eyes look toward all four

corners for those dang cameras. I am amazed and a little confused because... A)These people are way too chipper! I'm like the lady on when Harry met Sally, "I'll take some of what she's having." B)Doctors don't sit on their feet! I sit on my feet! but Doctors are suppose to be tidy,old, refined and maybe a little condescending... This guy is none of those things.C)He expressed a desire to help me "Make my uterus happy." Yes, you read correctly, that is a direct quote. Just like the Mammo lady, he was very animated, to the point that he actually clapped his hands like a small child when he learned I had a TBI last year. He practically begged me to allow him to help me with that recovery because he found it "Intriguing" and he said he enjoyed working with people who have had a brain injury because no one else would do it because it wasn't "Glamorous" and it took a lot of time and research, not an easy surgery fix. Light! Action! Cameras!!! He was so joyful, he had even me believing that I could have a happy uterus as I practically skipped out of his office like a schoolgirl at recess. I'm actually looking forward to my next gyno appt.! How weird is that?!? Yesterday was a treat! It was like going to the dentist, as a child, and looking forward to the bubblegum stuff they put in your mouth or the sticker they give you afterwards... It may not actually make what happened in between any better, but it sure seemed like it did. Besides, you know the old saying... "If the uterus isn't happy, ain't nobody going to be happy." That's a fact Jack!

Things Are Fine

"Why do you feel the need to make jokes about it?" My Doctor asked with a serious look. My automatic response was... "I just thought if I acted fine and made jokes everyone would relax. If I did that enough I would actually be fine and everyone would be happy." Well, apparently that's because I'm a "Blue Personality"... I'm a fixer, a people pleaser and a caretaker. That may be true, but to be honest about it, I don't feel like I've done much fixing, pleasing, or care taking for several months. I agree that part of it stems from the head injury, but also, as I've gotten older I've just gotten fatigued by jumping through flaming hoops, (as I call it), to make everyone else's world okay. I talked to 3-4 friends last week who felt exactly the same way (we're all the same age.hmm) Is that what they call a mid-life crisis? No, in my opinion that's what they call being a woman, wife, mother, daughter, friend and employee. Women have to have a lot of "Blue" traits. If we didn't, our men would never find the catsup, our kids wouldn't make  it anywhere on time, our parents wouldn't have anyone to blame, our friends wouldn't have anyone to go shopping with and our employers would wonder around endlessly searching for documents that did not exist and therefore had not been filed. Seriously, after years of tying everyone's loose ends together, who wouldn't be a little frazzled and need a crisis to give them a little break? Throw a little PMS, peri-menopause, Alzheimer's, or dementia on top and say "Welcome to my life!" In fact I truly believe that if they did enough scientific research, they would find that women actually never have any of these aliments, it's just an excuse someone came up with to describe the times in a woman's life when she-has-had-enough and just shuts down! Experts blame it on our hormones, psychiatrist blame it on our childhood, but if the truth were known, it all boils down to the fact that after a certain age women just get tired! We get tired of doing.... Tired of fixing..... Tired of care taking.... And tired of being the "go to gal". There are tons of cartoons out there that help us laugh about the various aspects of being where some of us are.... Because whether it's a head injury, or a mid-life crisis, it makes us feel better if those around us are laughing. It makes us think that if we laugh long enough and hard enough we'll be alright. Because women feel they can handle just about anything as long as those around them think things are fine.