Women’s Health

I Am Human

Posted on by K.S. Schultz

Living Disabled in an Ableist Culture

You wouldn’t know to look at me that I am disabled. It was a long, rough, and savings-sucking fight to keep working. I remember my primary doctor at the time telling me, “People get uncomfortable around those in visible pain, so they want to distance themselves”, an explanation for how differently I was treated by colleagues once I couldn’t hide my RA. In my autoimmune support groups, I know this hiding of illness is common, as if we aren’t human beings. The rejection of self is a recipe for depression and worsening physical health. Even college students, who may be afforded accommodations, often hide their disability, or do not accept it as part of their identity. We teach children that disability is something to be overcome. The Arthritis Foundation puts non-average patients who’ve done something impressive, on the covers of their monthly publications. They all say the same-“Don’t give up! Push through! Find a stellar specialist and eat fresh and healthy”, not bad advice, but not acknowledging any fluctuations in disease activity that make them unable to perform. Instead, a low-to-no-symptom snapshot in time of a world-class millionaire golfer is meant to inspire the more than 50 million patients they serve. I translated it as ,”you just aren’t doing everything you can”, although for new patients they provide some common-sense advice and a sense of belonging.

Recently, I read on a Crip Theory thread, “I’m not sure I’m disabled enough to claim that term”. I admit, I’m not comfortable with the term, either, and grew up averting my eyes. This is the ableism inherent in our very genes, that unconsciously tells us we must suffer greatly, and with witnesses, in order to earn flexibility and acceptance. Crip theory applies to queerness, along with disability, the compulsory able-bodiedness an agent of capitalism sharing common features of compulsory heterosexuality. Some scholars are working with Crip theory to create spaces that support the success and wellness of different mind/body types. It isn’t hard to imagine an expansion of this concept, however practical considerations may not always allow for authorities to provide what we need.

Disabled people, and advocates, promote Crip world-making by dismantling beliefs and assumptions about our authenticity and grit, our talents and worthiness. It’s hard to take care of oneself when you feel unsupported, so I suggest starting by giving yourself a bit of flexibility first, like a rotisserie chicken or prepared salad shortcuts , or a week for writing a blog post. Giving myself what I need in terms of rest, meditative time, efforts to find good doctors and bodywork practitioners, fresh meals and gentle exercise, and slack on weeding the garden, it all signals my inner self that I am worth it. Learning to accept oneself after disability is a process. Therapy with the right person may help, as can meditation and energy healing, to release repeatedly the ableist messages racing through our minds every day; they’re just trying to figure out how to get us back in the tribe. That’s not our tribe, anymore. My tribe now is a motley mix of other warriors and spiritual folks, the two overlapping in a predictable way, my own little “crip world”.

We create these expansive spaces by throwing off normative definitions of what we are capable of creating, and showing up as ourselves in all our complexity, as uncomfortable as that sometimes is. One of my absolute best tools is a daily morning meditation practice, my touchstone before I cast off from shore daily in a sea of ableism that I (mostly) let float by me.

Food and Drink, Gardening, Health, Life, Uncategorized

Attending the Bones

Gallery | Posted on by K.S. Schultz

Peace Through Rituals

Healing is an ongoing process, seemingly without an end point, a path spiraling upward and down again as life deals hand after hand, a few winning, most reliant on how mindfully I play my cards. In a world where masculine energy is celebrated for achievement, athleticism, and material success, we often yearn for and bemoan a lack of feminine energy-compassion, acceptance, natural beauty and nourishment. While we all possess both Ying and Yang energies, our world is currently brash and incongruous with a surplus of violence, greed and unmet desires for more of everything. The more we want, the more we consume, our well-being sometimes clouded with overwork, frustration and envy. I began learning mind-body practices five years ago and as I made rituals of my own, my mind and heart connected in a profound way which eventually awakened my soul to a richer existence.

5 rituals for Balance and Resilience

  1. Writing/typing a page/note helps me see where my mind is and corral self-defeating assumptions galloping toward triggering situations and people. Words are precious to me; how they can be curated, constructed, or destructed with an intention to relay a feeling or a grand idea is evidenced in quotes we refer to centuries later. Writing has been a purging and healing ritual since childhood.
  2. Cleaning is often a ritual. I use a handmade turtle rattle as well as 432hz or 528hz music to move out heavy or unhelpful energy, and smudge with white sage, incense, or palo santo. I cleanse the front door, my desk, 2 small dressers on the sides of the bed and my altar with distilled water plus a few drops of peppermint or lemon essential oil to both disinfect and purify energy. My bedroom is a sacred sleep/intimate space and keeping it clean is part of Feng Shui for the bedroom.
  3. Lighting a candle and staring into it for a few minutes , or closing my eyes after lighting it and sitting in stillness or meditation/prayer has given me profound insights and often solace. It takes practice for the mind to quiet, but focusing on breathing helps. I have an altar in my office with crystals, bits of nature and female statuary I find empowering. This is a personal choice guided by Spirit, however I know a few practicing witches and do not mind being called one. If I accept any label it is Writer and Friend, who’s interests are varied.
  4. Gardening is ritualistic with it’s seasonal to-do lists, year after year of amendments, new life, relocations, death, and as of last year-food. It’s not a big garden, but every time I water the giant hostas, the pole beans or even the petunias in flower boxes, I feel motherly and grateful at the same time. There is a definite reciprocity and satisfaction to natural law with the ants, the droughts, the storms that have whittled down my sense of entitlement. Every year is different, seasonal rhythms often upset by something happening far away from my home.
  5. Cooking with fresh foods and spices can be a creation ritual, as is making tea. When I was tired and stressed from working at a highly-pressurized job, I admit I didn’t appreciate good food as much as I do now. That’s the thing about being overworked-I spent a lot more on convenient frozen and packaged food only to become ill. Now I know health is wealth. This is also one of my favorite ways to show love.

These are small ways I cope with a busy digital world full of stressors vying for my attention. Rituals have signaled my spirit that I love me; a big difference from 5 years ago. I hope it sparks something for you because each of us adds to the whole, and most of us can use some lightness, a reprieve, however small. Namaste

Nourishment
Sweetness
Sustenance

Alt Journey-Serpents

Posted on by K.S. Schultz

Part 10

Stock photo

If all you can do is crawl, start crawling – Rumi

Professor Fritsche kindly allowed Phoebe to submit both her and Shana’s essays on the topics of marriage, lust, and consequence, as portrayed in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. Their deceased parents served the young women’s purposes as bad examples similar in scope to Anna’s, although they had different opinions about her karma. Professor F peered above his glasses at her and mumbled something about, “a waste of talent” and “Hope you’ve started your final despite everything”. He finds the ground under academics more stable than death‘s abyss of unknowns, Phoebe thought later over a cup of peppermint tea as she sat in the grass and pretended to read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein for the umpteenth time. With her urging, their 19th Century Lit prof agreed to submit a final grade for Shana, minus a final exam essay, if the Dean of the English Department, and one of Shana’s most loved professors, approved. Phoebe simply framed her request as a memorial to Shana, and gave the Dean a copy of her friend’s last and final essay. The Dean found Shana’s ideas about passion versus fidelity especially naïve and moving in light of her suicide. Shana would receive a grade for her favorite class that semester, and Phoebe would remember it as the last course they took together. Classmates gave her shy nods, their sad eyes relaying the words they didn’t find. A few were obviously surprised when she walked into chem lab an hour after being released from Resting Pines, not that they imagined what Phoebe ran up against after her best friend’s painful exit.

Stock photo
Golden Eyelash Viper

Her fists slid off it’s slick stark white scales as a serpent with Doyle’s dark eyes fully consumed her. Phoebe discovered herself a golden serpent who slid across symbols carved on tangerine colored walls within her Grandmother tree, an ancient cedar in the Northwoods of Michigan. The symbols pulsed with heat as if alive, but the Ankh is where she fit her slim viper form. Her head rested in the opening of the key of life and Phoebe finally surrendered all she was before Shana’s suicide. Intelligent and witty, her well-crafted college persona came apart at the seams like a sun-bleached scarecrow, mere stuffing of knowledge, sarcasm and friendship scattered, buried, and carried off by crows. Or snakes. Phoebe dreamed of a snowy white python with hinged jaws thanks to Kazmir, Death’s demon who orchestrated these nightly feasts. Warm blood pulsed and squirted into her eyes and mouth as she yelled out, foot, ankle, tibula and fibula crushed like glass in a grinder with each agonizing swallow. Smothered screams with the last gulp of her skull and then nothing until she opened slits and felt her essence in a snake’s condemned existence. “As low as a snake”, Kazmir whispered as she envisioned her cedar sanctuary finally on the third night. In the Ankh, considered in Hebrew as the “Key of Life”, Phoebe’s essence glided among reeds along a lake’s shoreline, her slim serpent body a ribbon of gold amongst the cat tails and lily pads. She dove and swam along the bottom between weeds that rose toward the light above, rocks risen from below, and an occasional clam, the silt velvet against her tender underbelly. Deeper and deeper into the dark she searched and undulated her length as she came to embody the viper and her eyes adjusted to see every shadow. Unsure of what she sought exactly, Phoebe swam until far away she thought she heard a song one only ever sung for her, in private. Ahead, a blushing glow grew and beckoned with a sad melody where only friendship existed before.

“Some say love, it is a river that drowns the tender reed. Some say love, it is a razor, that leaves your soul to bleed.” Shana sang Bette Midler’s The Rose for Phoebe not long after their blood sister ritual at the end of 7th grade in 1985. She’d sang it to her countless times over the past seven years, when Phoebe felt like anything but a rose, and it served as a soothing balm. Although she’d never been able to express how special it made her feel, she didn’t have to. For Shana, Phoebe’s patient tutoring, whenever she needed her, felt like acceptance during the years that followed her parent’s abuses. Phoebe had never made her earn love, and forgave easily, but Shana had never skipped out on classes before. Her personal drug usage consisted of a couple puffs during marijuana movie nights at a friend’s apartment last summer. Her parent’s addiction served as a constant reminder of how drugs and alcohol changed people for the worst, hard-won knowledge which kept her straight until Doyle’s manipulations opened the door for Death. During the last weeks of her life, paranoia about losing Phoebe’s love grew as Kaz gleefully watched her create her own scenes of rejection, including burning insults it planted in her psyche. The two friends had never exchanged insults, had never even had a blowup disagreement, but Shana’s artist’s imagination had always been powerful. If they had fought, Phoebe would have explained how it was simply impossible to lose her friendship for a mistake. She would have said “Love forgives”. As Phoebe the golden snake entered the pink glow of a temporary healing chamber, miles deep in a Great Lake, their human essences reformed as womanly silhouettes. Shana and Phoebe hugged and cried dry tears as they held onto one another. No words sufficed, so none were exchanged.

Phoebe awoke to Doyle’s yell from the kitchen, “Time to get up, Phoebe! Gotta fly, but there’s hot water in the kettle. You awake?”. “Yeah” she croaked followed by a stronger, “I’m up! I’m good!”. Her voice squeaked a bit. She prayed Doyle didn’t check on her behind the privacy screen and spy the perfectly shed golden-hued snake skin complete with eyelids stretched out on her bedspread. Doyle flipped the switch on the radio and turned up the volume so she’d get up for sure. Paula Abdul accused her of a being a “Cold Hearted snake”, a dark start to her first day of crafting a final essay about the merits of Dr. Frankenstein.

Another Birthday, Another Revised Bucket List

Posted on by K.S. Schultz

In this esoteric era it’s said time is a construct, an illusion created to help mankind organize our existence, yet it doesn’t feel ephemeral turning 54. These lessons are solid. Looking back, and wandering repeatedly over familiar landscapes, isn’t where my heart lies. I am ready for new adventures outside of the same ol’, new ways of being me, new ways of relating and loving.

I can compartmentalize my life in decades,20’s being the learning years, 30’s being the building years, 40’s being the destructive years, and 50’s being the… the… maybe I will know once I am 60. I’d like to call them my “creative years” for now. I will not limit myself. Since I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis at 40, I’ve been working hard to overcome limitations. Not all, in fact not most, of those efforts helped me feel better physically. RA was like an undertow and the more I fought for control, the more disabled I became. I’ve never been so angry; inside I shook my fist at the world for a few years. There is a space in unrelenting pain which whittles down a person’s focus to only the cause, and a willingness to do almost anything for it to stop. A Rheumatologist is hard to come by, a good Rheumatologist who keeps up on medical advances in the journals is harder. I knew from the beginning I’d have to read and advocate for myself. What I didn’t know is how many factors would work against me. In January of 2018 a virus teamed with my RA for a lung attack. I was 49 and spent 10 days in the hospital.

These first 4 years of my 50’s have been different, almost as if there was a reset. The Universe seems confident I reclaimed my desire to live after it tried to kill me. My new rheumatologist prescribed a different biologic after the lung incident and it’s worked up to now. I had to laugh when I learned I’d have to push the plunger on the syringe, a new challenge for a human who fought off nurses as a child, and just happens to have a tremor. I stopped caring so much about so many different things, and started meditating with a goal of not being afraid of death. 50 made HUGE goals, but this, along with other mind/body energy practices, set me on a peaceful path for the first time in my life. Many things aren’t as hard as I once made them. Embarking on the 5th year of this decade, I am writing fiction about death and the afterlife, about friendship and grief, two themes of my journey thus far. I am ready for new stories now, having released all of the old ones except for the good. I still want to wrangle this beast RA, tie it up like a trussed hog with natural healing and self-love, good nutrition and friendship, writing, reading, and laughter. Can’t hurt to aim for it, to steep myself in the Divinity and richness of my life for the rest of this one. In this moment, it is well and I’m grateful I get to be this old.

My Online Friends = Good Medicine

Posted on by K.S. Schultz

During the past decade I’ve tried dozens of traditional and alternative treatments for rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia. I’ve appreciated pain complexity and adjusted remedies to fit, backed off harsh medications or added steroids, adjusted my diet almost daily along with activity levels (completing a project may take 5X as long as it used to). Consistency vanished along with my life outside disease management until I joined an online support group, but not JUST any online support group. This group is fiercely devoted to humor (you may get ousted for complaining), support served on the side (in heaping portions, if needed). Not long after joining this group, my focus shifted, and I began laughing again. Sometimes I was in horrid pain and unable to walk, but I felt better after connecting and laughing. Sometimes I provided the laughs, and it felt good, like I contributed something positive! I’d almost forgotten that feeling.

Truly understanding the effects of disability and pain on a person’s self-worth when you are healthy is beyond difficult even if temporarily stricken with an illness because you get better. That’s not a judgement (YAY for healing), but reality as much as I cannot possibly understand what it is like to live in (Insert Least Liked Country) for the rest of my life. I can learn as much as possible about (Insert Least Liked Country), even visit, but without being forced to live there when I don’t want to, it is a topical comprehension. Experience is where empathy grows, and from shared experience friendships are born.

My friends are online mostly, but please don’t pity me or assume I’m lonely/depressed. I have people I can be 100% real with, if not in the group, then on messenger. Around-the-clock support is there when steroids keep me up all night because: 1. I have friends across the world. and 2. I’m never the only one on steroids at any given time.

We have regional meetups, where I get to hug a few of these Warriors in person vs. our usual cyber-hug routine and we laugh for hours, and end with promises to meet again. Whether online, or in the flesh, the founding member in my neck of the woods teases mercilessly, tells great stories, and is a pretty good sport when humor boomerangs on him. Some friends have travelled for hours to meet each other, in my city this summer and in Elkhart, Indiana yesterday. These are not only friends I laugh with, but also friends who pray for me and send me positive energy when I’m very sick or just walking with a limp. They are the friends who invite us for a big spaghetti dinner, and add special details like twinkle lights and grapes hanging from the ceiling and little gifts of jasper. And they are the ones at home watching us online, hopefully getting a little ambient flavor through the screen. 

I don’t socialize less because of this group, trust me. If anything, they help keep me fit for decent company.13257

 

 

Not Today, Death

Posted on by K.S. Schultz

“Don’t cry. Stop crying,” she commanded, as I trapped my sobs and focused on her words. “Don’t cry. You have one heart, one body, one life. YOU have to fight for it. Stop crying.” The Infectious Disease Doctor seemed exasperated with me, as if my tears were drops of weakness that made me sicker. Briefly I thought my illness must seem measly to the towering Serbian blonde. In that moment I felt so small in my hospital bed. It was day 4 and despite innumerable tests, no bacteria had been found despite the appearance of my lungs on x-rays and a CT. “Maybe you aren’t finding anything because RA is doing this to me.” “You have fever and pneumonia, all signs of infection. This is what we are treating with antibiotic, ” she waved her hand at an IV bag hanging from one of the poles next to my bed. An oxygen machine ringed in pale blue gurgled and hissed in my left ear. The night before a child with big eyes stood at my bedside wearing a dress in the same shade. Intuition said I should keep that to myself.

When I created this blog 5 years ago I was 44, and fresh off losing a tough, unfair battle for my health and career. I’d been fighting since I was a kid, for myself and sometimes for those who I thought needed a champion, and I was spent. In hindsight, other people, especially those in power, not only preferred women who didn’t make waves, but rewarded them for not fighting. Maybe if I adopted a quieter, more graceful approach during the 5th decade, life would prove less bruising. In any case, I needed time to heal. What I didn’t know is that my fighting spirit would one day be the difference between life and death.

Lying in that hospital bed a few weeks ago, I feared going “…gently into that good night”, dying of pneumonia as the poet Dylan Thomas did, but after 5 years of curbing my fighting nature I was sorely out of shape. There are dreams I haven’t realized because I laid ambition aside, trips I haven’t taken, and works I haven’t written. Death takes who it can snatch away, especially if one cannot fight. Medical professionals are often champions when we are weak, their educated treatment hitting a bullseye and chasing away mortality. And then, there is luck and those who rage; “… rage against the dying of the light” – Dylan Thomas. One physician listened to my mumbles about rheumatoid arthritis as I was sliding near intubation, the ICU, and a large sucking mudhole next to my bed (According to a study published by the American College of Chest Physicians, every day a patient is delirious brings a 20 percent increased risk of prolonged hospitalization and a 10 percent increased risk of death). Once he consulted with my rheumatology office and hung a high dose bag of steroids, the mudhole disappeared. For me, rage didn’t look like the screaming, swing at the fences anger of my younger years. It looked liked grasping, holding on and repeating my assertion that RA affects the lungs, despite feeling small and weak. A reward for my tenacity is more time to write and dig my toes in the sand. Love is sweeter now, too.

My sixth decade begins in a couple of months, time enough to regain my strength, embrace my true passionate self, and resolve to live as loudly as I want. I understand now that I don’t have time to waste. Death is funny that way.

 

Knowing Your Boobs Could Save Your Life

Posted on by K.S. Schultz

On Tuesday, the American Cancer Society published new Breast Cancer Screening guidelines reducing the recommended frequency of mammograms for women over 54 to every 2 years and increasing the age for a first mammogram to 45 for women with an average risk of breast cancer.  They also kicked the clinical breast exam to the curb.  How much can a physician know about my boobs and my “normal” by feeling them once a year?  Now me, I can touch them every day if I want, and I certainly see them during my daily ritual.   Early diagnosis is key to beating breast cancer and many are triggered by women who notice a change in the look or feel of their boobs.  Our breasts feel differently in each decade.  Natural changes occur, especially as we bear children and get older.  Tiny, swollen, lumpy, I know intimately the phases my boobs passed through to land happily at soft tissue.  I know what my skin looks like, where there are stretch marks from pregnancy, and the color of my areola, however I need to use the mirror more often with arms raised.  Rashes, dimpling, or swelling also occurs in the breast tissue on our sides, and is more likely to go unnoticed.Breast Exam

The American Cancer Society is careful in its language, stating a woman should have the choice at 40 to request a screening mammogram and become educated on mammography limitations.  Women at high risk (20-25% lifetime risk) should begin annual screenings at 30.  They recommend breast MRI in conjunction with mammography for women at high risk because the two detect different types of cancer, so if I found a lump or had other breast cancer symptoms such as skin or nipple changes, my plan is to request both.  False positives are more likely with breast MRI, but despite the American Cancer Society’s concern about causing me ” a lot of worry and anxiety”, I prefer an unnecessary biopsy with a huge slice of peace of mind to later-stage cancer.  And despite a statement that self exams do not show a clear benefit, I trust my judgement on this one and will continue to feel myself up in the mirror on a regular basis because self-love is a beautiful thing and the new guidelines for breast cancer screening are not definitive, but leave the responsibility with me.

 

Endometrial Ablation, An End to the Bloodbath

Posted on by K.S. Schultz

 

*Warning:  If discussions about menstruation and lady parts make you queasy, this post is not for you.

Since perimenopause set in eight years ago, I developed penis envy, not so much because I’d like one, but simply to eradicate several unpredictable and exquisitely painful periods per month.  Never prepared, no matter how many bloody tidal waves assailed my linens, my pants, my chairs, my life, I was taken off guard.   I am unaware of a more irritating interruption than a distinct gushing feeling in the middle of a meeting, especially when you are the one taking minutes.  Several times I prayed for a fire alarm.  When my red blood cell count fell to a level worthy of a gynecological consult, I felt relieved.  Dr. Burns, well into his 8th decade, said I seemed a good candidate for an endometrial ablation as long as fibroids did not lurk in my uterus.  Two tiny fibroids, one smack dab in the middle of my uterus and likely the painful trouble-maker, showed on ultrasound.  Fortunately, Dr. Burns has practiced for more than 40 years and was competent in more than one ablation procedure.  The simplest ablation procedure used a triangular mesh electrode that expanded in the uterus and delivered an electric current which cauterised and destroyed the uterine lining, and if needed, he had a back-up plan that used a roller-ball for the trouble-maker fibroid.

Elective surgery, while not typically as serious, entails risk and pain.  Infection is the scariest risk to me, likely due to a 3 month post-surgery infection following a previous gynecological mini-surgery.  I did not agree to an endometrial ablation sooner because of it.  Fear is a bitch, worthy of a post all its own.

Dr. Burns used the electrically charged mesh with success.  Prepping me with information, introductions, consent forms, and anesthesia took longer than the ablation, positively making me comfortable before asking Patrick to hurry up with the anesthesia in the operating theater.  Such a simple procedure to require such a dramatic environment, but…the risks.

My recovery nurse enjoyed my eyes-closed rendition of Gin and Juice and said I was her new favorite patient.  Apparently, I had my mind on my money.  Over the next few days I got to know the pain-killer norco as my uterus healed and I laid about on the couch drinking lots of liquids and eating toast.  So this is what it’s like in the 5th decade.  We endure procedures, therapy, and surgery to make life doable, and in this case, better than previous decades.  Little spots of blood every couple of months are all I have now.  Feminine hygiene companies are devastated by the decline in sales.

 

 

Birth Control Debate Attempts to Hit Men Where it Hurts

Posted on by K.S. Schultz

In a bid to show ‘em how it feels State Representative Yasmin Neal has proposed an amendment to Georgia’s anti-abortion law that would ban vasectomies unless necessary to prevent serious injury to a man’s organs or death.  Missouri State Representative Stacey Newman soon followed suit with a similar bill that also limits where a vasectomy can legally be performed to surgical centers and hospitals.  Both Representatives cited the fairness of legislating men’s bodies in the same fashion that predominantly male government bodies have attempted to legislate women’s reproductive health choices.

While women across the country are cheering for these bills, I see a couple of errors in this blatant strategy to encourage empathy in our male counterparts.  If you have not yet fully realized the inherent differences in women’s and men’s decision-making processes, I suggest Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus as a primer.  While many women are furious about recent debates over what a woman should be allowed to do with her body and affordable access to all birth control options, men will focus on one thing only- an attempt to mess with their genitals.  I call it “dick-sensitivity”.  When a man’s genitals become part of an equation, he loses the ability to think multidimensionally.  Last night I spoke briefly to my husband of writing a post on a proposed vasectomy ban.  He immediately covered his groin and started saying, “nanananana” to drown out my words.  Admittedly, I would greatly enjoy a video of the Georgia General Assembly when they debate Representative Neal’s proposed ban.  The looks on male lawmaker’s faces during such a conversation have great entertainment potential.

The second error in the bid to equally share government control over reproductive rights is thinking that men will fight for their right to a vasectomy.  Think about it.

On the heels of FDA recommendations that men be tested for underlying causes of erectile dysfunction, Virginia state Senator Janet Howell introduced a bill last month that would require a man to get a rectal exam and cardiac stress test before receiving a prescription for a drug such as Viagra.  Ohio state Senator Nina Turner has also proposed a similar bill stating that she is equally concerned with men’s health and believe they have the right to be fully informed of the risks associated with erectile dysfunction medications.

While I appreciate the clever maneuverings of our female politicians as entertaining, I am skeptical that such tactics will do more than add to explosively divisive rhetoric.  There are some things that need not be debated because they fall under our 4th amendment rights, and some things that are serious enough to fight head-on with a resounding “No!”  I would prefer female lawmaker’s efforts be strongly straight forward in their fight for women’s reproductive and healthcare rights.

Related articles

Night sweating the bed

Posted on by K.S. Schultz

Jolting awake in the middle of the night sopping wet and chilled is an uncomfortably shameful situation that I thought was buried in my childhood.  I stopped peeing in the bed when I was six, so what the hell was this all about?  The hormonal changes during the fifth decade often cause flashbacks to my childhood, with night sweats at the top of the retro playlist.  Initially I was confused, not attributing my drenched t-shirts, pillows, and sheets to hot flashes because I was not hot, but wet and cold when I awoke.  The same friend that taught me how to use a
tampon 3 decades ago filled me in on the hot flashes that are termed “night sweats”, and occur when I am asleep.  I would be a bumbling idiot of a woman if not for my girlfriends and my Mom.

I did not make a doctor’s appointment to discuss this new development due to totally illogical embarrassment, perhaps a leftover from my peeing in the bed years.  I felt lucky that I was not “flashing” during the day, a perfect term for turning as red as a tomato and pouring sweat in front of witnesses that do not love you.  You may as well be wearing a sign that says, “Menopause, or close to it.  BEWARE!!!” in flashing
lights.  If I begin to have hot flashes that are anything like night sweats I will need to secure a towel to my belt so as not to leave a trail.  The closest I came to needing a towel was at a national conference where I was speaking.  Anxiety was clearly a trigger, and luckily I could run up to my room to change shirts periodically.  I woke every night that week cursing the luxurious down comforter that had lulled me to sleep.  Those few nights were the only times I woke up on fire because the flashes were prolonged.
When estrogen decreases, the hypothalamus steps up production of norepinephrine, a stress hormone that acts directly on the thermo-regulatory center of the brain.  Studies have shown that internal stress, an individual’s perception of life, and external stress
such as overwork and insufficient sleep, exacerbate hot flashes.

The altering effect of meditative relaxation and physical exercise on brain chemistry becomes more essential the further I journey into the 5th decade.  Between the mindfulness exercises that I learned at Mary Free Bed Pain Center and Belleruth Naparstek’s guided imagery exercises I can boost my DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone) level and counter the increase of stress hormones.  I have focused on stress reduction techniques because anxiety is my most influential trigger for perimenopause symptoms.  The adrenal glands produce DHEA which can be promoted by “learning to think with your heart.”  It is similar to redirecting a toddler’s focus when they want something they cannot have.  Through practice I have learned to acknowledge what I feel anxious about, whether I have any control over the situation (usually not, hence the anxiety), and then refocus on something good in my life such as my family or a good memory.  It seems to put my life in a more balanced perspective and typically reminds me of what I deem important and what I do not.  One of the rewards of this practice is
witnessing the frustration of someone who is deliberately trying to provoke a stress response; it sort of freaks them out.  But, reduced night sweats and serenity must fall under the “living well” category in the common quote about revenge and are even better payoffs.  Other strategies to alleviate night sweats that have worked for me are: avoiding coffee after Noon, reducing alcohol consumption (drunk = guaranteed night sweats), eating fresh food and protein, and getting eight hours of sleep.  Interestingly, fasting and cleansing programs can weaken your adrenal system, which lowers hormone production.

I have discussed my night sweats and other perimenopause symptoms with my doctor who has offered to test  my hormone levels after I attempt to boost production with lifestyle changes.  He assures me that women today do not have to endure this decade in misery, and that in itself changes negative feelings that are woven into my understanding of hormonal changes during this time of life.  By paying attention (mindfullness) to what I consume and how I think I can lessen the impact of decreasing hormones, but it is comforting to know that my doc has a backup plan.  And comfort is the key.