Life in the Slow Lane

Life in the Slow Lane

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Booby Update With Knocker McHooterson

I haven’t bored you all lately with whinging and gory details about my tits. I plan to remedy that right this second.

I went to my very cute plastic surgeon the other day and he said we are all good to go with Operation (literally) Nipple. My Barbie boobs are soon to be one step closer to the real deal. No date yet but probably near the end of summer. I don’t like to think about it much as it involves my skin and a sharp scalpel. I plan to be drunk for the procedure.

Something else that has been new for me is menopause. Yes, that is right. I am 38 years old and in menopause. Voluntarily I might add. My breast cacner is HIGHLY estrogen receptor positive which means estrogen will cause the cancer to grow. Of course being a younger gal I would have more estrogen coursing through my body than post menopausal chicks. One of the ways they deal with removing that estrogen from my body is through a drug called Tamoxifen. I take that every day and will have to for 5 years. With Tamoxifen your ovaries can produce as much estrogen juice as they want and the drug will remove it. An oversimplification but I am boring myself just typing this out. I hate to loose you all to a narcoleptic reaction. Anyway, another method to reduce estrogen is to turn off the ovaries completely. You can get them removed which some ladies do or you can get an injection (every month or 3 months) in your stomach that turns your ovaries off through your pituitary gland. Men who have prostate cancer can take the same drug to shut down their man bits too. Anyway, I decided to stalk and beat down all the estrogen in my body both ways so as of the beginning of the year I’ve been getting these injections every month.

Well…

I can say that menopause has some good points. No more monthly angst, mood swings or cramps. No more frantic trips to the drug store for FHP. That would be feminine hygiene products for you XY chromosome readers. So that part is alright. The bad part is that when a lady goes through menopause naturally it happens fairly slowly. The body eeeeases into it over time. With my injection I got slammed into it. In a matter of a couple of weeks. The result? Can you say hot flash? Summer heat has taken on a whole new level of discomfort. Holy fuck! I didn’t know a person could sweat so much without any exertion at all. I look like one of those Gatorade ads where the very toned and muscular athlete is chugging back a bottle of much needed fluid while rivulets of sweat course down their body after running a marathon. Well that would be me except that my body is flabby and slightly fat and I am sitting on the couch watching Miami Ink.

There are a few things I do to cope. And by cope I mean sit there complaining, flapping my hands at my face and armpits and wiping off my soaked brow on the cat. I drink lots of cool water. I fan myself with silly cutesy fans I buy from Chinatown. And I laugh. I have a theory that the laughing releases endorphins which in turn will make the feeling of my head bursting into flame vaguely pleasurable.

Now the logical thing to do would be to get some sort of remedy for hot flashes, right? Nope. You see those medications (even the natural ones) are filled with either natural or synthetic hormones and I can’t have those in my body again. It would be defeating the whole point of the injection and Tamoxifen. So I am stuck. And sticky.

I sleep (when I do sleep as menopause also causes insomnia) without sheets or blankets. The cat no longer snoozes with me as I inevitably toss and turn and boot her hot and furry ass off the bed. My underwear is damp along with the rest of my clothes both day and night. I smell.

You’d think producing that kind of heat would burn calories thereby causing weight loss. Oh no. It doesn’t. Not at all. Crap.

Hey! I am having a hot flash right now. They are worse at night. I don’t know why.

And the beauty of it all is that is that these injections are usually prescribed for only two years so I could return to normal when I stop and then have to re-go through menopause all over again when it happens permanently.

I am pretty sure if men got these things there would not only be a cure but it would involve a fairly sizeable Hot Flash Compensation Package.

17 comments:

here today, gone tomorrow said...

(Ooooo...I love Miami Ink; I want Chris Garver.) Well, the fun just never stops; being a woman is NOT for sissies.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the update. Do they really use scalpels for ON? I thought it was a tattoo, so assumed it would be more like Miami Ink.

I hear ya on the menopause thing. Only I have a different drug--I think I'd rather get the shots in my ass than my stomach. Luckily, my side effects haven't been bad, but the whole no estrogen thing pretty much sucks.

Ern said...

I'm with Sharkey about wanting a little more deets on ON. But that may be my own morbid medical curiosity. :)

That sucks about the hot flashes. (And you are right about if the men got them!)

alan said...

Dottie has been going through it (slowly) for 4 or 5 years now. She refuses to take anything for it for fear of side effects and having only one kidney. She sleeps on the side of the bed by the window unit air conditioner, and it's usually set between 64 and 66. She is less than 3 feet from it and usually only has a sheet over her.

I am on the other side of the bed, under sheet and two blankets, one of which is electric and gets turned on sometimes when I go to bed and my teeth are chattering...

I guess at least it's not pepper spray!

Thinking of you...thank you for the photo!

alan

east village idiot said...

Thanks for writing this post and letting us know what's going on. I'm so glad that your surgery is falling to place. A good friend of mine had menopause at 38 - only she didn't know it and the doctors didn't figure it out. They had her on every medication in the book - for high blood pressure,cardiac stuff - you name it. We worked together and I remember the hot flashes she had.

Kranki - you are a smart chick and you are taking the right path. I hope those symptoms subside soon.

I'm 44 and I'm probably beginning to be peri-menopausal (sp?). I have way more difficulty sleeping at night.

Anonymous said...

I am sweating just reading this.

"Barbie boobs" is brilliant. How come you always think of the best way to describe stuff?

I think I would prefer an ugly plastic surgeon, since I might be a bit shy showing my hoots to a cute one (even though, granted, he basically created them). Of course, if I had an ugly PS I would probably wonder why he didn't get plastic surgery and that might make me lose faith in him. So, hmm, a quandary.

Anonymous said...

LOL barbie boobs. Boobs without nipples -- crazy! Definitely get drunk before that surgery.

Sorry to hear about your hot flashes and insomnia. at least you're watching Miami Ink on tv, and aren't actually IN miami, where it's terribly hot pretty much all the time!

Stepmom said...

i think i would freak right out if i saw my boobs without nipples! that had to take some getting used to.

good luck with the menopause. i know you are absolutely right about if it happened to men. the fact that we have viagra proves that.

HAR said...

This is such a drag. I am really glad that you are doing this though. It is a brave thing to do, especially taking it head on like this. Knowing that the flashes are going to be brutal.

Do you get the chills after a hot flash? I get so hot and than for a minute I am cold.

I need to talk with you about the nipple surgery. I didn't do enough research before the regular reconstruction.

I am so hoping that you have an easy time of it.

As for the above comment from Candy. Let's just hope she never has to "freak out".
"WOW"

Squirl said...

You poor thing. Hang in there.

Yay on getting nipples!

MrsDoF said...

I know just what you are saying about kicking the cat out of bed. If I could also send the husband down the hall for awhile, hhmmm.

I walked around for almost 3 years never knowing when the next hot flash would happen. but the night sweats and umm, heavy flow, were worse.

Finally eased off a bit when I began taking hormones for my underactive thyroid gland.
Not being able to sleep, that's worst of all, and still happening.

MrsDoF

lawyerchik said...

Yikes. Sorry about the crash landing in Menopause Town.... At least when you go through it again, you'll recognize landmarks... :)

Squirl said...

I'm sorry you don't feel well today.

HAR said...

Hope you feel better soon! :)

mrtl said...

Thoughts of ice cubes to you.

Unknown said...

Yowza! Let's hear it for scheduling the new nips! It has been my favorite part of this whole reconstruction thing. They are cute as, well, little buttons. It was the easiest of the procedures as well. Just a little sedation, 45 minutes for the doc to work his magic, 30 minutes in recovery, and then off to lunch with my sister. Can't beat that.

Knocker McHooterson....great porn name...or even stripper name... Yeah, if people would pay to see a 42 year old menopausal chick sweating while she shakes small fakies, I could be rich.

eclectic said...

Jeannette just cracked me up so hard, I totally forgot what I was gonna say! Good luck with your new hooter-tips!!