Top 30 Menopausal Blogs

 Nancy, author and owner of the website How To Become A Nurse Practitioner contacted me this morning to let me know about her Top 30 Menopause Blog list of which Menopausal Monster is included, in the Comedic category.  Yay!  Thank you Nancy.

Comedic

Sometimes we all need a good chuckle. Check out these blogs to make you smile, as well as provide some factual information!

1. The Menopausal Monster
   The Menopausal Monster is a comical blog that chronicles the everyday life of a woman, Denise, going through her trying menopausal times! She is upbeat and gives great advice on how to handle various situations. If you are looking for some chuckling relief, tune in here!

 The other categories are General, Remedies and Support.  Tons of information here ladies, be sure to check out all of these menopausal blogs.

★Denise★

Signs That You Might Be Experiencing Menopause

* You sell your home heating system at a yard sale. (Hot flashes)

* The person you sleep with complains about snow piling up on the bed. (Night sweats)

* Your husband jokes that instead of buying a wood stove, he is using you to heat the family room this winter. Rather than just saying you are not amused, you shoot him. (Mood swings)

* You write post-it notes with your kid's names on them. (Memory loss)

* Your husband chirps, "Hi honey, I'm home." and you reply, "Well, if it isn't Ozzie f**king Nelson". (Irritability)

* The phenobarbital dose that wiped out the Heaven's Gate Cult gives you four hours of decent rest. (Sleeplessness)

* You find Guacamole in your hair after a Mexican dinner. (Fatigue)

* You change your underwear after every sneeze. (Mild incontinence)

* You need Jaws Of Life to help you out of your car after returning home from an Italian restaurant. (Sudden weight gain)

* You ask Jiffy Lube to put you up on a hoist. (Dryness)

* You take a sudden interest in "Wrestlemania". (Female hormone deficiency)

* You're on so much estrogen that you take your Brownie troop on a field trip to Chippendales. (Hormone therapy)

Menopause 'Sisterhood'

I got an email this morning from a fellow crafter who is a fan of this blog and who has herself been experiencing many of the same menopausal 'ailments' as I've written about in the beginning of this blog. She even wonders if our husbands are brothers, LOL. While menopause affects each of us differently, there are still enough similarities that we can all identify with each other in one way or another. I started out writing this blog as a humorous look at my own situation. Mrs. Jeckyl being myself and Mrs. Hyde my alter ego who says and does things that I might ordinarily never do. I have a warped sense of humor sometimes, and what I might find funny, someone else reading this blog might find weird or not so funny.

My 'fan' wrote "Your a very special person in so many ways and the kind of person that should I have met on the street.....I would have surely wanted to become good friends. You have the cutest sense of sarcastic humor when speaking about your husband. Nee Nee, you keep talking girl!!! I love your sense of humor, the way you have written in both personalities etc. Reading so far ...although I feel a sisterhood of sadness...I have enjoyed it very much and laughed many times and cheered you on the entire way!!!"

R., you've made my day with your email and as I wrote back to you, I cannot have too many friends. I count you as one of them.

hugs
Neenee

Mrs. Hyde Returns

Maybe she never really left and was hibernating. I know she's around when I speak up for myself, as I normally take sh*t quietly but fume internally. This is not the case when Mrs. H is here, she speaks up on my behalf, and is not the least bit shy about yelling right back at the offending party. In this case, it's Tom. Yep, the husband who can be very demanding and irrational at times and who is more used to his little mousie wife, had a run in with Mrs. H yesterday afternoon. The mouse ALWAYS has his highness' dinner ready when he comes home from work at 4:30. He only eats a light breakfast of cereal and banana before he goes to work, he does not expect the mouse to get up at 6:30 AM and prepare him a King's breakfast, I'll give him that. He CAN fend for himself, he just usually doesn't as he takes for granted the mouse will take care of him since he's the 'breadwinner' in the family. He does not eat lunch when he works. Back to dinner. We were having leftover Rigatoni from the night before as I wasn't about to waste food and throw it in the garbage when there were starving children all over the world and I just spent $187 at the grocery store this week. The King was not a bit happy about that either, but I did have to buy extra ingredients for another rigatoni dinner I made and took over to my daughter's best friend's family who just lost their father to cancer. I also made a big bowl of pasta salad to take to a cookout our middle daughter had. Does he think food grows on trees?
He knew I had plans to go to Curves with our eldest daughter after she picked the kids up from school at 4:00.
Curves takes 30 minutes. When we got home, his Majesty was mowing the front lawn. From past experience I know that once he starts, he wants to just get it all done. All I had to do was heat his rigatoni up in the microwave for 5 minutes and I had a salad already prepared. While I was waiting for him to finish the mowing, I got on the computer to check my emails ( hoping I'd got a craft order, but I hadn't ) and check in with the craft forum I belong to. I wasn't on the computer more than 5 minutes when the Lord of the Manor stormed into the house and bellowed "WHERE'S MY DINNER" !!!! Not "is dinner ready yet, Hon"? "WHERE'S MY DINNER"!!!! "YOU'VE BEEN HOME FOR A HALF HOUR AND I'M HUNGRY, I DON'T SMELL ANYTHING COOKING"!!! (insert a lionly roar here).
I calmly walked into the dining room and said "you were cutting the lawn Tom and I know how you like to finish it once you get started. It'll only take a few minutes to heat up your dinner". ROARRRRR "I WORK ALL DAY AND I'M STARVING, THE LEAST YOU COULD DO IS HAVE MY DINNER READY WHEN I COME HOME". Aw oh......
Mrs. Hyde clawed her way out with fangs bared and told the SOB 'King' that 99% of the time his dinner WAS ready when he walked in the door, and how about all the times that it WAS ready and he was LATE and didn't bother to call to let me know to hold off dinner. And he KNEW I was going to be over at Curves when he got home and if he was so Fricking hungry he could have popped his plate in the microwave himself, you're not a moron or are you?
Hoo boy...Mrs. H knows I never call him names and she'd always wanted to so I just let her. I wasn't even scared.
Neither was she. HE might have been, hard to say. He hasn't seen me like this for months.. The worst part was our youngest daughter and her boyfriend were in the living room. It really p*ssed me off that he screamed at me in front of her boyfriend. That was really uncalled for. Mrs. Hyde at this time decided that she'd had her say and was going to nap for awhile, leaving me to deal with His Highness now. I said " it's all ready Tom, all I have to do is pop it in the microwave" and he bellows 'FORGET IT I DON'T WANT IT". "FINE" I retorted and went about my business. I cleaned up the kitchen, ran the vacuum, dusted the living room and threw some clothes into the washing machine. He disappeared into the tunnels somewhere, didn't come up for air for almost 2 hours. When he did, I'd thought he'd gotten on the computer and I heard the TV on in the LR so went in to turn it off, and lo and behold His Almighty was sitting on his throne watching TV so I walked right back out without a word. Now was a good time to wash the kitchen floor so I did. Now 3 hours had passed and the King still hadn't eaten. I was so sure he would have been so p*ssed that he would go get himself some fast food. He didn't. Now I'm not a total b*tch. And I was still mad but I walked into the LR and said "do you want to eat or not, last time I'm asking". He said (without roaring) " Well, yeah, I'm starving" I gave him his salad which he really could've gotten himself and I heated up his rigatoni which he could have done himself. What the hell is this man going to do when I'm gone for 4 days the middle of this month? I'm going to Harrisburg for a crafter's convention with the girls from a crafting forum I belong to. Oh wait.... there's a wedding we were invited to that same weekend which I'm not going to be able to go to, and he's going...he'll eat there.
He eats his dinner and even remembers his manners and says "Thank you". I start to do some hand stitching on a prim sheep pillow I was working on earlier and he brings his empty plate and salad bowl out to the kitchen. I wasn't talking. He says "What are you making"? LOL that man doesn't give a hoot what I'm normally working on. "It looks nice". Hmmmm maybe he WAS scared and making nice right now. Well, I'd show him I'm not always a MENOPAUSAL MONSTER and I remembered my manners and said "thank you". Shortly afterwards I took a glass of wine into the LR and started to watch TV with him. End Of Days with Arnold. By the time Tom was ready for bed he even gave me a kiss goodnight. Something he never does when he's p*ssed at me. Chalk one up for Mrs. Hyde.

GRRRrrrr

Stupid mask!!! I cleaned it out, refilled with distilled water and made sure the hose part was connected properly and it's still gurgling. Now how the heck am I ( and Tom) supposed to fall asleep with that irritating gurgle?!! I didn't wear the mask at all last night. Mainly because I think Tom would have kicked me out of bed and had that happened, Mrs. Hyde was sure to retaliate and I'm not sure what she would have done. Sometimes I just don't trust her.
Take last night. Tom tends to 'poof' when he's sleeping. It's not really a snore. His mouth is slightly open and little poofs of air blow in my face. Usually I'll just either roll over or say "Tom, roll over" and he does and no more poofing for at least a half an hour or so. Last night Mrs. Hyde was already irritated because she was looking forward to a good night's sleep and we didn't wear the mask so that plan was shot down. We were just ready to fall into stage one of sleep when the 'poofing' started. She reached over and was about to pinch Tom's nostrils when I gasped and restrained her. I didn't realize just how strong she is, she fought me for a good three minutes and then Tom rolled over on his own. Whew...he's lucky. I really have to figure out what's wrong with that stupid mask so we can wear it tonight. I don't know how much longer I can restrain Mrs. Hyde, she's been so irritable and exhausted and I think she needs a good night's sleep better than I do.

Is Menopause The Cause Of Tiredness?

The past month or so I've noticed that even with my getting between 7 and 8 hours of sleep a night, I'm still exhausted during the day time. I do not sleep straight through the night. It doesn't matter how tired I am it takes me a good ten to fifteen minutes to fall asleep and I'm constantly waking up. I do not sleep straight through the night.
I am just so tired and I have no energy. At first I wondered if I might have sleep apnea, and the only reason I suspected that is because ocassionally I've waken myself with a 'snort'. I asked Tom if he's heard me snore and he says sometimes. Most of the time it doesn't bother him because he's so busy snoring himself. I looked up sleep apnea and it was 'possible' I might have a slight case.
I had to see my family doctor last week to get some new prescriptions and mentioned to her how tired I've been. She asked the usual questions and then looked at my chart to see when the last time was that I'd had my thyroid checked.
It's been over a year. She wrote me out a script for some blood work but I haven't received the results yet. Hypothyroidism runs in my family, my eldest daughter and two of my siblings have it.
I brought up the possibility of sleep apnea and she asked if I was a snorer and I explained about the 'snort'. She wrote me another script to have a sleep test done. I asked if she wanted me to wait until we got the results of my thyroid test back first, and she said no, that it's a good idea to have this sleep test done anyway because of my heart condition. She said she's surprised that she didn't think to have this done 'before'. I still need to make that appointment, just trying to figure out the best time to have it done so that I don't inconvenience the family. I watch my youngest grandaughter who is 21 months old ( the older two are now in school all day) while my daughter and son-in-law work. They have no one else they can depend on and one of them would have to miss work.

Sleep Apnea More Common, Severe In Post-Menopausal Women

Today I got an email from Wellsphere.com of which I'm a member. I went to the site to read some other member's writings on menopause and came across one that caught my attention by Eileen K. called Sleeping And Menopause.
Eileen writes that her own sleeping patterns have taken a turn for the worse since she began perimenopause. She came across an article called Getting A Good Night's Sleep Is The Biggest Problem For Women Entering Menopause .

I found it very interesting. Although in my own personal case, I think my sleeping problems are worse now than they were when I was perimenopausal. My menstrual cycle stopped three years ago when I was 52. I've had a few night sweats over the past seven years but I've never heard anyone refer to 'day sweats' until I read this article. I get the day sweats every single day, several times a day.
It's more than annoying.
Forgetfulness was another commonly reported symptom. Again, I was not aware that forgetfulness was a symptom of menopause. I just thought I was on the brink of early dementia. My forgetfulness has been embarrassing, inconvenient and scary. At least now I have something I can blame it on.