HOT FLUSHES, CONFUSION AND RE-LEARNING MY BODY.

Time flies when you go through various life changes and more medical treatment/“treatment” (depending on how you look at it). I don’t think that I am aware of how quickly the past three months have gone as it’s suddenly come to me chasing my next endo clinic appointment and my next injection.

Life has been chaotic and it’s mainly just life doing a PhD and living with chronic conditions. There’s been very little room for much of anything else other than trying to mange those two very big and challenging things in my life. Everything has been a blur as I think I had a stint of two very big consultant appointments a week between each other and then ANOTHER MRI for the endo clinic as well as taking a big step in my healthcare “management” by starting prostap injections. And for those lucky not to know about prostap, the three month injection to put you through temporary menopause (for those with uteruses, ovaries etc). What a rollercoaster that it.

The past three months have been about re-lerning my body, yet again. Although I did have a pretty horrific flare-up that lasted a week at the end of September, three weeks after my injection, that may be due to possible adenomyosis (yay) more than the endo. Instead of learning to manage flare-ups and new symptoms with those, I’ve been having to re-learn ways to manage different symptoms - menopausal symptoms. I just need to know why…why am I suddenly sweating, looking like a lobster and sticking my head out of my bedroom window like a dog in a car? What’s up with that? Emotions? All over the place. That could also be the circus of people coming in and out of my life like a revolving door all os a sudden too. Maybe I’m just a mess? Hot flushes over the constant pain though? Absolutely.

I think that I can comfortably say that the pain has been much more at bay or manageable to a much better degree other than when I do too much or eat something that instantly triggers the endo belly. It’s now all about the sudden hot flushes and being extra exhausted (that could be from stress though). The panic I was feeling when a hot flush was coming over me whilst I was in the middle of my MRI and couldn’t do anything about and just lay still,  strapped down with a panel on my abdomen as the machine screams. Not panic inducing at all. Now is like a waiting game of these MRI results, an appointment abut my coil and getting my next injection. It’s just there at the back of my mind constantly. Mixed feelings in many ways, it’s like I start finding something better for me and then get hit with more diagnoses, and I’m reaching the point of thinking I don’t know how to handle any more now. I am barely handling the ones I have got now but throw in more lifelong conditions I may just crumble.

“Two gowns for modesty.” Self-portrait before MRI. October 2024.