I’m old.
This post may be filled with TMI (too much information) for the squeamish, so if you’re not willing to hear gory details about my personal life, this is the point at which you turn and run screaming from the room with your hands covering your eyes and ears.
Okay, are you all gone now?
I went for my annual check up yesterday with my gynecology office. I say that instead of gynecologist, because unless you specifically request a gynecologist, the office is “laahke a box of chock-lits; you never know what you gonna git.” Yesterday, I got Marianne, who I requested. She is a nurse practitioner, but during my pregnancy with Granuaile, she was so wonderful! We start going over things, including the fact that I am past due by over 2 years on my pap smear (the last one was done at the beginning of my pregnancy with Granuaile), and we talk about my weight loss, and I indicate to her that since my surgery, I have not had my period. Now, for the common person, this would be incredibly alarming. But I have PCOS. There have been periods of time in my life where it is not uncommon to go a VERY long time between cycles, so I was not alarmed when I started to miss. Combined with the surgery and whatever trauma that put my body in, I guess I was not expecting to have anything normal going on. Marianne decides that she should run some blood work, check some things out, and decide where to go once she has the results of the tests. Then the “M” word gets mentioned.
Now, I had no idea up until yesterday when people go through menopause. When Marianne brought it up, I said, “That’s an old lady disease, right?”, and dear, sweet Marianne turned vicious on me. She grabbed me by the leg, digging her dagger-like claws into me like a vampire (or maybe she just patted me on the knee, the memory is a little fuzzy) and said, “Oh, honey, do you know when your birthday is?” As it turns out, it is an old lady disease, and I am an old lady! Okay, so maybe not “old, old” but “old”. At least old enough to have the menopause.
The confirmation phone call came today, when the nurse working with Marianne phoned to tell me that my FSH levels would indicate that I am indeed an old woman. Women who are not old get levels in the 2-12 range. Women who are old have levels above 20. My level is 57.7 – not only confirmation that I am old, but that I am damn old.
The nurse, bless her heart, asked me if there was anything I needed to know, and I said that no, I would find information on the internet, if I could find my bifocals, and told her it was a bit of a relief to know I could cancel the psychiatric treatment for the unexplained mood swings and crying jags. She congratulated me on my ability to find the silver lining. Bitch.
And there you have it. Circle of Life and all that kind of nonsense. At 10 AM, I was young, middle aged at best. At 10:02, I am old.
Now I want to know where I can get my red hat, my discount card, and that monthly check I hear the old people can line up and collect!