I have been thinking a lot about this word and what it means to me.
I am in the throes of menopause, thanks to breast cancer and its treatment.
I am 43 years old. I have no children. I will never have any children.
When I was younger, I always pictured myself as a mother. The thought of raising a child intrigued and terrified me but I knew my husband would be there to bail me out of any motherly mishaps.
I figured The Weed and I would have a precocious little boy. The Weed’s genes would produce the next Einstein or Yo-Yo Ma, I always thought.
I planned to call him Jackson. However, The Weed and I bickered about names. So, it’s hard to tell what The Boy would have been called.
We talked about starting a family. Honest. We didn’t actually ‘try’ or ‘not try’ but we did agree that if it was meant to be, it would be. I guess it wasn’t.
Because of breast cancer, much in my life has changed. My body. My attitude. My relationships.
I never expected to be 43 years old and going through menopause. The average age for natural menopause is 51.
For me, however, this is how things have played out. So, I am trying to accept it and learn to live with this added change.
According to TheBreastCareSite.com, chemotherapy can bring on menopause by damaging a woman’s ovaries and reducing the amount of hormones they make. For women within a decade or so of natural menopause, this change often is permanent … Meaning the end of menstruation and fertility.
Fortunately, this change hasn’t been as dramatic as I worried it would be.
I am having hot flashes. However, they aren’t debilitating. I am having some trouble sleeping. However, it’s not ruining my activity level. Other symptoms some women experience, include: mood swings, fuzzy thinking, vaginal dryness and a loss of interest in sex.
Hormone replacement therapy is not an option for me to help alleviate any symptoms because estrogen feeds the cancer I was diagnosed with.
Instead, my oncologist prescribed Effexor, an antidepressant that helps some women with menopause side effects like hot flashes, irritability, depression and moodiness. It has worked well for me and does not counteract the Tamoxifen I will be taking for the next five to 10 years.
So, there it is. Menopause.
I am not bitter. I am disappointed.
Too much has changed for my family and me because of breast cancer.
#breastcancer #breastcancerawareness #cancerdiva #chemo #menopause – Did treatment for breast cancer cause early menopause for you?
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