3683 A is for...

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Show me a man with both feet firmly on the ground,

and I'll show you a man who can't get his pants off.

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People who have phobias often feel that their fears are reasonable, not irrational at all, especially if they don't interfere too much with life.

Like, I have two:  spiders (arachnophobia) and edges (*not* the same as fear of heights).  And they are absolutely reasonable!

Ever notice that if you see a spider walking past, and you think, "I should kill that spider", the damn thing will stop, turn, and look at you?  Spiders can read minds!

Edges are treacherous.  You can't convince me otherwise.  If you are standing at the edge of a roof, or cliff, or balcony, or if you've just stepped out of an elevator on the highest part of the Eiffel Tower and discover that the floor you're supposed to step out onto is an open grid (ok, I'm getting a little carried away here, let me get my breathing back under control), well, you never know if a strong wind is going to come up and blow you over, or if you might have a dizzy spell, or step on something slippery, or if someone might bump you, or if the guy who tightened those bolts was maybe drunk, or too many other things.  Edges are very dangerous.

Oh my yes.   Phobias are absolutely based on real dangers.  Not silly at all.  (I can control mine by breathing and being careful, but if I am surprised by an edge, I can panic and I stop breathing and freeze, I can't move.  I don't mind spiders in my house because they eat other more destructive bugs, but they'd better not come close to me, and being mind readers, they mostly don't.  I can climb a ladder and get onto my roof, but then I can't get off the roof unless the end of the ladder extends well above the roof, so I can climb down past the edge, not have to go over it.)

Well, I found these little videos by accident the other day.  I don't know for sure who made them, but Disney has selected them as "Disney Shorts".  They are about a little fellow named Figaro Pho who has phobias, and what can happen, or what he imagines can happen.  There's one for each letter of the alphabet (except for some reason there's no "R", and Disney skipped the "fear of poo" one).

You can watch them all right here, or go to the link after the video and watch them at your leisure. (Toward the end, there are some duplicates, and the "poo" one is tacked on at the end.)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk3pIQ1Xq5Y&list=PLWninjceejEhlkniXEJ3klP6D76h0cQQI&index=1]

I love Figaro's house!

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Math is treacherous, too.

In the post on menopause, I had said I stopped taking HRT when the medical community got all het up about it up to doubling the incidence of certain cancers.  Well, the link for the report that explained what it really means explains the numbers (and now makes me wish I had stayed on HRT).

Doubling isn't necessarily as bad as it sounds.


Let's say the incidence of cancer A is 30%, or that 30 in 100 people can expect to get it if they live long enough.  Doubling the incidence, doubling your chances to get it, means that you now have 60 chances in 100.  Yikes!

Let's say the incidence of cancer B is .001%, or 1 in 100,000. Doubling the incidence of cancer B means that now 2 people in 100,000 can expect to get it.  Um, weighed against the benefits, that's a chance I'm willing to take.

It turns out that the cancers that might be increased by HRT are of the very rare variety.

My doctors were freaking about the word "double", without, apparently, asking "doubling from what to what?"
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3680 Menopause and me

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

The cost of living hasn't affected its popularity.

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After circling each other for years, Jay and I started dating when I was 47ish.  I was "perimenopausal", meaning I was just starting the process.  I thought it would be a gradual thing, ya know?  And I wasn't having any of the common symptoms, like hot flashes (I think I may have had two mild ones - or maybe the thermostat was just too high), or sleep disturbances like night sweats, insomnia or intense dreams. No dryness or loss of libido, nothing.

Except.

I quite literally found myself terrorizing Jay.  "Found myself" because it was like I was outside myself watching me chewing him to bits, and I can't even say it was over minor things, it was over nothing!  He had been legally separated and was involved in a very nasty divorce, and needed my support, and here I was dragging him across the coals.  It was like I had split into two people.  Outside I was a harridan.  Inside, I'd see and hear myself, and I'd be screaming at myself, "Stop it!  Stop!  He doesn't deserve this!  He's the sweetest guy, and he's trying so hard!  Stop it!", but outside I'd keep on snapping at him.  I couldn't control it.  It just got worse and worse.

At some point I went to my doctor for some other thing, and he asked how the menopause was going, and I said that was ok, but there was something else going on, and I told him about how I felt like some very nasty person was taking me over and I couldn't control her and I was hurting the people I loved.  Many years before, I had been diagnosed with a "poorly integrated personality", but after years of psychotherapy I thought I was doing well.  I was worried that I was now having some kind of psychotic break or something.

He handed me five tiny pills, said to take one a day, and stop in his office on the fifth day and let him know how I was doing.  He wouldn't tell me what the pills were, just smiled and said, "Try them.  Trust me for five days."

It was wonderful!  The effect was immediate.  The nasty person went away the very first day.  I assumed it was some kind of "happy pill", like Prozac or something, I certainly felt calm and happy, and the doctor knew me well enough to know that I would have resisted if I knew it was Prozac or something.  I like being me.

On the fifth day I went to his office and told him it was pure magic.

It was hormone replacement (HRT/EPT), the smallest dose. Yea!  I was still me!

I was on HRT for the next ten or twelve years, until research was saying it caused various cancers, or something, and then I quit.  I wish I had stayed on it.  Current research shows a much lower risk than previously assumed, and it helps with bones and vaginal issues.  My last bone scan says I'm starting to thin,  and I like sex too much for vaginal issues!  I wonder if there's a doctor in the world who would let me start up again.

When I stopped the HRT, I expected menopausal symptoms.  Nope.  Nothing.

So, I'm not a good one to ask about menopause.  I am a good one to ask about HRT.
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