It is ridiculous to call the buckets of sweat that poor off of me over the course of the night “night sweats.” You can tell a man coined that phrase. A woman would have been more inventive. We would have come up with something along the lines of “nocturnal Niagara’s” or “sheet soakers”. You know, something that aptly describes waking up in a puddle of your own sweat, pajamas drenched, hair looking like something out of Woodstock. I understand that right now the estrogen is on the outs. I get that. What I don’t understand is how a person can possibly lose 10 pounds of liquid in a room that is a piping hot 69 degrees.

I start out with a lightweight pair of pajamas or nightie encased in a set of soft cotton sheets. I end up in a lot less lying on a towel, because I absolutely refuse to wake my husband up at 6:00 in the morning to change the sheets. Especially when he has only been asleep about an hour. Again, no one told me about the joys of night sweats. In my innocent mind when I heard “night sweats” I assumed that I would sweat, much as I do in the daytime only at night. Hence the name “night”…”sweats”. WRONG!! No one told me that this “symptom” would cause you to wake up freezing because your night clothes are soaked and so are the sheets. No one told me that while I might glisten during the day under the same A/C that seems insufficient at night, I would actually man sweat at night. Man sweat is not pretty on a woman!

If I start creating a list of all the things no one told me would happen to me during the change it would probably wrap around the world and have a cute little tail to boot. And why in the hell is it called the change? Nothing about me has changed…I am still female (even improved because I don’t have to endure a period every month), I still have breasts (fabulous ones if I do say so myself), a vagina, two legs, two arms, and a huge mouth. I haven’t changed into a willowy blonde with a vacant look plastered on her face. I haven’t turned into a man, just because I am currently operating with reduced estrogen and sweating like one..periodically. I have, however, noticed that I have much more difficulty locating things since I had my uterus removed. I am beginning to think it actually was a locating device, just like I told the men in my life. Let’s just call it what it is…hell!
The body that I have known for half a century has began to behave differently. It’s not changing it is just morphing into something else, not someone else. Perhaps when I emerge from my chrysalis I will be a butterfly. A beautiful monarch with lovely wings and a body that doesn’t sweat like a fat Mexican man on a hot day eating jalapenos in the middle of the desert on a clear night. Is that too much to ask? I mean after all, I didn’t ask for my cellulite to be removed from my thighs. I didn’t ask to lose the 60 pounds that I know I need to lose and everyone else is pretending not to notice. I didn’t even ask for a face lift and I really, really, want a face lift. All I asked for was not to sweat like a ho’ beast at night. At least for now. I haven’t given up on those other things I just mentioned. I mean, I am taking a break to throw people off, but I haven’t given up…they should have known I wouldn’t.

You know I am mostly okay with the menopause thing. I don’t want any more babies. Hell, I won’t even let The Precious stay over night unless it is a matter of life and death. I love the not having a period every 28 days. I am reconciling myself to the increased facial hair (thanks Smoothe Away), and wouldn’t mind the few additional pounds if they were indeed a “few” pounds. I am okay with most of the crap that goes along with aging in general…I am not handling the fact that half of my life is over and I only have half of my life to live. That’s a real bummer. As it is, I would have to live to be 100 to just be middle aged. Yikes!! So I am going to learn to just deal with this menopause thing…sweats and all. I’m a good swimmer, it shouldn’t kill me.

 

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