Going to the Doctor

I haven't been myself lately.

Can't seem to get enough sleep.  Constantly tired, not hungry not thirsty, vaguely nauseous all the time, especially in the morning.

I can hear my friend Berens snorting from here, That's not illness, SweetCheeks, that's a HANGOVER.

As most of you know (I think there was a special about me on the O Channel) I'm menopausal.

It's been about 7 (8?) glorious years now.  I had what is called premature ovarian failure.

OVARIAN FAILURE, People.  Ever heard of testicular failure?  No?  Yeah NO OF COURSE NOT.

Some lucky ladies wake up one day in their late 50s and say, Hey, I haven't had my period in six months, what's the deal?  And they then go skipping merrily into pregnancy-free sex.  I wish all my lady friends the same.  My symptoms started at 39 and are on the other end of the spectrum - look up any effects of menopause and I've had 'em, including the cysts and permanent memory loss.

EXCEPT:  My sex drive has not diminished.  Yet I haven't had sex with another person since the Clinton Administration.  Mother Nature, you are truly a bitch.

So back to medicine.

While in law school I was totally effed up and my GP sent me to a gyno, suspecting I was menopausal.  Gyno did a hormone test and the ideal results would have been a level of 8 to 10, 12 at the most.  Mine was 42.  My ovaries had shut down years earlier, bought a condo and moved to Florida.

I was in my car, on my way from school to my job two hours away in Olympia,
and I cried as she told me.

"Are you okay?" she asked.
"I just...I can't have children.  I'll never be able to choose... I won't be able to, to have a child, a child of someone I love."

"Yes," she said, "It sucks to get old."