Midwife, Mother, Grandma
Working out
In the pub enjoying a pint after work out
I enjoy being the age that I am. I think it gets a really bad press. When you're 20 you can't imagine knocking on 50.The menopause was never really on my radar at all and then five years ago when I was 43 I had cervical cancer. I had a hysterectomy and that was all the treatment I needed. At the time the doctor said “We’ll leave your ovaries in because at your age the advantages outweigh the disadvantages but it might put you into menopause a little bit earlier than you would otherwise”. My hair was getting thinner. Sex was ‘dry’- maybe people don't talk about that - but because I’m a midwife I'm used to talking about vaginas and telling women who’d just had a baby to use some lube. I was having palpitations quite a lot. Health professionals probably aren’t very good at looking after themselves; I just dismissed it.
Last year I started feeling really shit, like tearful, just not feeling myself at all. I've never suffered from depression, but I've got quite a strong family history of. I’d also really lost confidence at work. I’d just doubt myself with everything. I'd be doing appointments with women and I’d start off a sentence and then I couldn't remember what I was talking about. It was just really embarrassing. I thought it was all connected to the fact that I was depressed because of Covid, I didn't realise it was the menopause and that you could have symptoms like that. I’d just really focus on the physical side of it. One of my friends put something on Instagram about Davina Mcall using HRT. I watched herTV documentary and just thought ‘Oh my God, that's what's wrong with me.’
My mum's had breast cancer twice. She had always said I’d never be able to have HRTbecause of our family history of breast cancer, but I did vaguely have a recollection of a friend who said I could potentially still have HRT
I looked at the NICE guidelines to see what the risk factors were. I realised that because I have had a hysterectomy and don’t need progesterone, I don't really have an increased risk of breast cancer with oestrogen only. I called my GPwho said “I don't know if you can have HRT’when you’ve had cervical cancer because it’s a hormone receptive cancer” and you’ve got a family history of breast cancer She started going on about cardiac disease and I said to her “I don't think it is a breast cancer risk because I only need oestrogen”. She said “No, it's the oestrogen that’s the risk”.As soon as she said that I thought “You don't know what you're talking about and I don't trust you now.” I ended up going to private clinic which is not cheap, especially in London. I feel annoyed that I had to do it, but really fortunate that I could. Since I started on oestrogen gel I feel like a different person.