My Story, Sept.4th 2003

My life belongs to Murphy

         I have come here today, this 4th day of September 2003, to give you a little insight of what's been happening in my life.

         I hadn't been feeling quite altogether well for about a year now, and it has taken my doctors up until yesterday to finally come up with a diagnosis. I have been complaining of fatigue, hot and cold flashes, night sweats, fall asleep wherever, anxiety, anger, crying, and ( cover your eyes gentlemen), out of control monthly bleeding. I knew all this would come about some day in my life, and talking to people about it made them think I was off my rocker. Now mind you, I am but a mere young 41 year old woman, who's been going nuts trying to explain to family, friends, and doctors what's been going on, but to no avail. But YESTERDAY, after half a dozen tests were run, biopsy reports read, and a good round of blood work, they walked into my room and confirmed it. Yep, it's the big ( M ). Menopause.
         Holy smokes, did I want to run to the nearest bathroom and just heave. I couldn't beleive it. I figured a rampid case of PMS maybe, but not menopause. I'm way too young I told the doctors. They said, normaly in most cases, that yes I was too young, but their finding more and more women going through it earlier in life now days than what it was like years ago. They also said, how ever, that 95% of the time when a woman goes through this early in life, it's due to the fact of the amount of stress they are under. Then they asked me, "Have you been under any stress lately, especially in the last 10 years?"
         I about fell over. "STRESS! You want to know if I've been under stress?" Then I told them my story.
         "Back in 1996, ( I lived in Florida at that time ), I was blessed with being one of the victims of Hurricane Opal. We lost our home and most of our belongings. But we held our heads high and got through it. Only a week before the storm, we were going through a rough stage when my husband had lost one of his brothers. Things from that, weren't even settled yet when the storm hit. Then to top off the week, only 4 days later, my husband was fired from his job, because he told his boss he couldn't come in that day because he had to find another home for his family to live in. Now doesn't that just beat all. Could you imagin being told that? Anyway, we managed to get through it, we found us another home, yard sales helped us to refurnish till we could afford new, and my husband went to work for himself. Our children were 10 and 15 at the time, and it was a very hard time in their lives to deal with starting over from almost nothing.
         Then about 3 years after that, I had gotten really ill, and no one could figure out what was the matter. I was having severe blackout spells, anxiety attacks, and even seizures on occations, which were actually very imbarrassing on most occasions because most of them happened in public. It got so bad that I had to quit driving for fear of having an attack while in the car and possibly hurting somebody. I couldn't breath, even a walk to the mailbox made me feel dizzy and want to faint from exaustion and pain. The pains were always in my chest, like someone reaching inside of me and squeezing. My head pounded and the ringing in my ears was unexplainable. I could even hear my own heartbeat, which didn't even sound like a heartbeat, it was more like a loud WOOSH sound. On a few occasions I was taken to the hospital, but they couldn't find anything wrong.
         Well that year, in 1999, all I wanted was to move back to New York, were I grew up. It was home. When I reached New York, all the strange things were still happening to me, and I was beginning to think I was losing it. Finally I did, and was admitted to a psych ward. From there, a very special doctor came to see me and asked about my symptoms, so I told him. He decided to run a few tests of his own, once, twice, and then a third time. He came into my room shaking his head and with 2 other doctors beside him. He asked, "Has anyone in your family ever died at a young age?" He about knocked my socks off. Of all the questions to be asked. I told him, "No, not that I knew of but why?" He said I was having heart failure. I wanted to collaps on the floor at his words. Then he summond it up for me. He said the valves in my heart had disintegrated and the blood was not pumping back out of the heart, infact it was making it swell almost into bursting. Then he told me I had to have open-heart surgery to repair the damage. Talk about being scared. But I managed to get through it with flying colors and they replaced 2 valves.
         My mother insisted on nursing me back to health, so I went to live with her till I was up and about again. While I was healing, I had noticed my mother not looking too well herself, and questioned her on it. She said she knew, but she wasn't ready to find out what had been ailing her. Only 2 years after her helping me to get better, I had to return the favor. She was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I stayed by her side and nursed her to the end. And I would never think twice about doing it over again. It was a very special time for Mom and me, and we got to know more about each other in her last 4 months, than we had in our lifetime together.
         Then 2 more years after that, actually not even 2 years, about a year and a half, my now 16 year old daughter was having a baby, and my now 21 year old son has moved back home with us and with a girlfriend. The baby is now here and our family has gotten much more crowded. Since the baby's been born, I had learned that my Father too had cancer, and helped him the best I could until he could get better. They are pretty sure he is cancer free after major surgery on his neck and throat, but he no longer can speak. It was a very rough road to travel after just recently losing Mom to the same thing.
         And now after all that is said and done, I asked them, "You're telling me I am going through menopause at the age of 41 and you want to know what kind of stress I've been having?" The doctors sat in their chairs and turned completely ghost white in their complexion. All I heard were gasps and oh my God!
         Well, that's my story, from 1996 till today, Sept. 4th 2003.