Menopause

Okay so I need to just... say this out loud somewhere. I'm 39. I had a bilateral oophorectomy eight weeks ago and I genuinely was not prepared for what happened to my body like the DAY after surgery. Not gradually. Not a slow fade. Day. One. The hot flashes woke me up every 45 minutes that first night in the hospital and I kept thinking it was a fever, kept buzzing the nurse. She was kind about it but I could tell she was like, honey, this is just menopause now. And I did not have a framework for that. I had read about menopause as this thing that creeps up on you over years. I had zero years. I had one afternoon. I've been keeping notes on my phone since week two because I couldn't hold it all in my head for my follow-up and I knew I'd cry and forget everything the second I sat down in front of my surgeon. So now I have this running log. Sleep quality (rough scale 1-10, mostly 3s and 4s). Mood stuff. Which hour the worst flash hit. What I'd eaten that day because someone in a cancer support group I joined mentioned that certain foods seemed to spike theirs and I wanted to see if that tracked for me too. The food thing is real by the way. When my appetite came back around week three I was only managing like small soft things anyway, scrambled eggs, soup, yogurt, nothing spicy or heavy. And those weeks were honestly calmer symptom-wise? Could be coincidence. Could be the gentler eating. I'm not claiming anything, just... it's in my notes. I have my first proper post-op follow-up in two weeks and I'm building a question list. Top of it right now: what does "normal" even mean for surgical menopause at 39, because everything I find online is written for women 20 years older than me and I feel like I'm reading instructions for someone else's body. Anyone else been through this and found language that actually worked with their care team? I feel like I'm showing up to appointments slightly out of step with the script they're used to running.

Right so I'm sitting here trying to write down my symptoms before I see the GP and I've had to describe my own body in ways I have never said out loud to another human being. 'Dryness'. 'Discomfort'. 'Loss of interest'. I sound like a very sad Ocado substitution notice. Anyway I'm doing it because apparently just going red and saying 'everything's a bit... you know' is not useful clinical information. If anyone else has found a way to write this stuff down without wanting to fold themselves into a bin bag, do let me know x

Right, bear with me because this is a bit all over the place. So I've started seeing someone. Casually. He's nice. And I am absolutely terrified, not of him, but of my own body doing something wildly unpredictable at the exact wrong moment. Hot flush in the middle of a restaurant. Dryness that makes me feel about a hundred years old. The anxiety that just descends with no warning and turns me into a person I don't recognise. I'm 58. I did not expect to be dating at 58. I also did not expect my body to feel this unreliable at 58, and yet here we both are. The thing that's actually been helping a bit is walking, weirdly. Not as a cure, just. I feel more like myself when I've moved. More solid in my own skin somehow. I've started doing it in the evenings before I see him and it takes the edge off the anxiety at least. I've also been making proper little meals for myself beforehand, so I'm not arriving starving and jangled. Stupid small thing but it helps. I do need to talk to my GP about some of the more private stuff. The dryness especially. I keep putting it off because saying it out loud to someone feels enormous. But I'm going to write it down before I go so I don't bottle it and just talk about my blood pressure for ten minutes instead. Anyone else navigating this? The dating bit AND the body bit at the same time? x