My message to Dr. O: 

So far I have been feeling okay when I am awake. The problem is when I am asleep. Once yesterday and twice today I woke up overheated with hot flashes and a booming heart. I was able to calm my heart in a few minutes and therefore did not take the beta-blocker. But I was trembling with nerves and took a lorazepam to help me get back to sleep. This is absolutely awful because now I am afraid to go to sleep when it can be scary enough just being awake and so I was wondering if you had any advice that could help me. I sleep with the house at 68 degrees and a fan blaring on me and nothing but my undies and thin blanket. I had even kicked off the blanket and just had a cover sheet over me. I am going to try putting my gel-like yoga pad on top of the memory foam and see if maybe that will help stop the warming effect. I am on nights right now or else I would have contacted you earlier. My house is currently 74 degrees and I feel like it is 80. 

Later… 

And my life forecast says: 

Love = sunny. 

Money = sunny. 

Health = rain mixed with fierce downpours that could drown a herd of elephants in no time at all. 

I finally got fed up enough to message my doctor online and let her in on my “rude awakenings.” 

40 years ago I got my first period while at our summer cottage in Connecticut. 20 years ago it was either children or life. I chose life. Now, 20 years later I am having the hot flashes from hell. The hot flashes I once thought might be “fun” since I hate cold and being cold, but this is anything but fun. Especially when it wakes you up. Feeling like you’re on fire when you’re awake is one thing, but when you wake up feeling like your body is on fire, heart booming in your chest, it is anything but fun. 

This is the second day in a row this has happened, and this time it happened twice. The first time I got up and was just about to reach for the beta-blocker when I felt my heartbeat slowing down. I took a lorazepam and called Tom, totally rattled by the whole thing. Dangerous or not, it is still terrifying. He calmed me down and after an hour I fell asleep only to wake up from the same damn thing a couple of hours later. Only thing was that this time I was too tired to get up. I sat up for a few seconds to help cool me down and then I fell back asleep. So much for keeping the house chilly and sleeping with just the cover sheet in addition to having the fan on me, and wearing nothing but my boy shorts. Oh, and of course I had to wake up just because, too. I wish I could just give up sleep altogether! I’m not getting into that bed until I am absolutely utterly exhausted. 

Where are these things coming from all of a sudden anyway? I’ve had feelings of being warm and cold for quite a while now while awake, but nothing like this where it was waking me up. On the few occasions I woke up in the past, I would simply be hot. I didn’t feel like my heart was going to explode out of my chest as well. This is the third or fourth time this has happened in the last two months. 

The doctor explained to me that the hormones don’t go wacky; they just quit. Yeah? Well, I want them back. All of them. 

Where I was trying to stop questioning whether or not I thought my heart was racing or if it was about to start racing while I was awake, now I have to wonder what nightmares I may be in for when I go to sleep. I think I am more afraid to sleep than to be awake right now, though I still do fear what my medication may have in store for me later on. 

I shoved my yoga pad underneath my sheet and I’m going to see if that blocks the memory foam from causing me to overheat. My guess is that it won’t do me much good. There’s never a quick fix to my problems. Really, nothing is ever short and sweet for me unless it’s something good. My problems are always long-term. I don’t mean weeks or even months, but years. First it’s getting legally screwed until I could get that overturned, then it's poverty, and now it’s my health. If the doctors and I can ever get me feeling better (which I would absolutely love), what would be next? 

There’s a 65-year-old woman (in Germany?) who is pregnant by artificial insemination. While I think it is horribly selfish and wrong to have kids at that age, I can’t help but look at her as inspirational. If she can put herself through all that at her age, why can’t I survive this thyroid and menopause bullshit at my age? 

For the longest time, I was very much against the use of psych pills after the way they really screwed me over and basically made a guinea pig out of me trying to get me to be the “normal” person they thought I should be, as well as so many others, while I was a ward of the state. Tom read an article that says that the way they handled this type of stuff back in the 70s and 80s was almost criminal. It was horrible the way they lumped so many things together and had practically no understanding of the different types of issues and the proper way to go about treating them. They were too quick to resort to drugs rather than get to the root of the problem, so in a sense, they were no better than those who turned to illegal drugs and alcohol. I’m at the point now where I will take whatever can help me without killing me along the way. As long as it’s the right thing for me and I’m treated as the individual I am and not thrown into some group, labeled or categorized, and needlessly thrown on one drug after another, I am okay with a little artificial help. 

Other than a strangely sore throat, which doesn’t feel like the kind of sore throat one has when they’re getting a cold, it isn’t all bad. Bad enough at times, but there is some good going on. My metabolism is moving faster and my body is now burning what it eats. My joints and muscles feel better, although my skin and hair are still a bit dry. 

African Tea Rose nail polish really does smell like roses even with a top coat and even after wearing it overnight. I even got an awesome story idea earlier.