While I’ve been playing around in peri-menopause for a while now, I hadn’t been particularly bothered by hot flashes or night sweats. I’d get a little heat rash under my breasts that would move up to my face and be gone almost as quickly as it came on. I had one or two night sweats that ended in shivering. I thought I’d gotten off easy. I mean, sure, I was still having periods, but they were getting more and more irregular, so I thought I was lucky. My Mom experienced the worst of the worst in terms of the fire and water of peri-meno, and I said a prayer of gratitude that it wasn’t my lot.
Flash forward (see what I did there?) to about 1 month ago. I looked at my calendar and realized I hadn’t had a period in a few months. Longest space between that I’d really had so far. And I swear to you, within a day of that calendar check, I experienced my first full hot flash. It started at my belly and crawled up over my face and right up to the roots of my hair. Pulse. Pulse and…..gone. A sheen of sweat layered my skin. That night, I had another one. It woke me up and had me kicking off covers and stripping off my tank top. Pulse. Pulse and…gone. Another sheen of sweat. And the shivers. Suddenly I was freezing.
Morning came.
And another burning. And then another drowning and freezing.
