I'm A Flasher

I've been having hot flashes now for 4 years. Not occassional ones but on a daily basis, sometimes all day long. Most of the time I look like I've just stuck my head in a bucket of water. I have to wear my hair in a ponytail 98 % of the time because if I wear it down, it sticks to my neck and back like glue. I can't stand it around my face, I'd opt to have it cut short but I have no body to my hair and it's poker straight. I'd be better off to get a crew cut. My husband won't let me.
A couple years ago my husband Tom and I took a car trip to Atlantic City with another couple, John and his wife Teddi. John and Tom sat in the front and Teddi and I in the back. It was the week of February 14th - we were going for Valentine's Day. Driving from Western PA to Eastern PA, you have to drive through the mountains and it gets pretty darned cold up there. The temperature was showing to be 2 degrees below 0 and Teddi (who is the same age as I am and also going through the change) and I were both miserably hot. The guys had the heat going as high as it would go and the windows were foggy from the hot air inside mixing with the cold air outside. We begged them to turn the heat off and when they wouldn't ( damn them) Teddi wound her window down. Ahhhh the cool air felt absolutely wonderful!! Now the guys were complaining. We compromised. We shut the window , they turned off the heat. But they whined about that the entire trip.
We stayed at the Tropicana and we always get 2 beds - because I need the AC on and Tom gets the bed furtherest ( or is it furthest) from the AC. We used to sleep in the same bed but he covers his head with the blankets and inadvertantly covers mine as well and I feel like I'm smothering. I haven't slept with anything heavier than a flat sheet in the winter months for a couple years now. I HATE being overly warm. I'm already hot as it is, I feel like a toaster oven. At home, Tom will curl up and put his cold feet against me to keep warm, I don't mind because his feet cool me off. Just wish he'd cut his toenails a bit shorter. And don't even touch me when it's hot out, I'll bite off your hand.

Been talking to some women I know who are also going through the change and we all have so much in common except I seem to hold the record for flashing on a daily basis.
Teddi tells me she's being flashing off and on for 8 years now. WHAT?!!! I was under the mistaken impression that 'it' lasted 5 years tops. Another friend tells me she's been having flashes and night sweats for 15 years now. Good Lord is this all because Eve ate that damned apple?
You would think that with my face raining a river of water that I would have lost some weight....at least in my face. Nope. I have to drink more water to replenish the water I lose through sweating. It's a no win situation. Drink it, sweat it, pee it, a vicious cycle.
All I keep thinking is how much longer will it be for me. Can I stick it out without hurting someone. When I'm overly hot, I'm also irritated and miserable and that's when my alter ego Mrs. Hyde visits. Mrs. Hyde isn't as nice as I am. She gets very cranky and starts turning on all the ceiling fans in the house, the AC and when she starts to calm down, she leaves. That's ultimately when Tom gets home from work and I have to go running around opening the windows, turning off the fans and the AC so he won't know Mrs. Hyde was here. I think he suspects something though. I feel another flash coming on, so I'm going to stand under the ceiling fan and dry my hair.

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