SLEEPLESS IN THE VALLEY
I can’t sleep anymore. After 45 years of loving sleep more than any other activity; of being able to fall asleep and stay that way for ten hours at a time; of being able to sleep early and late and nap, to boot, my body has stopped resting for more than six hours a night. This means that when my cat starts to agitate for food, generally around 4:30 a.m., I am up for the day.

My acupuncturist says it’s because I have an excess of heat. Heat around my heart. “Are you anxious or worried about anything?” she asks. “Anxiety is my natural state,” I answer.

I’m anxious all right. I’m anxious about possibly having to move from the home I’ve made. I’m anxious about the job I have that feels like a hopeless dead end. I’m anxious about my health. I’m anxious about getting older and feeling trapped in Los Angeles, a town where I’ve always felt ill-at-ease.

But, here’s the good thing about never sleeping past 4:30 a.m. I get a chance to write, which is one of the few things that alleviates my anxiety. I get to watch the sun come up. I get to have a few hours to myself during which it is okay to let the disquiet wash over me and make it’s way to wherever it goes (my ovaries, it seems). I am able to plan my day, and when I’m alert enough, even follow through.

I’ve read that this sleepless state is common for women going through “the change.” I’ve also read that I need to get a handle on my anxieties or I’m going to get sick. I’ve read lots of things that are helpful in the ways they illuminate my symptoms and make them seem relatively natural. Still, mostly I’m too tired to do much with this knowledge.

The fuzzy, circular thinking that is the product of how my mind works in general, and the way the fluctuating hormones are wreaking havoc on me in particular, is not helping to produce a clear picture of what to do next. However, I am making the rounds of various medical professionals with the hope that my physical symptoms will be lessened. Perhaps then a plan will begin to emerge.

PERI-MENOPOTTER AND THE VAGINAL STONE
While much of the country is spending the summer reading the new Harry Potter novel, I am struggling to accept the limitations of a new job, freaking out over the idea that I may have to move soon and going through the palpably disturbing beginnings of peri-menopause.

The "change" made it's first appearance late last year in the form of irregular periods. When I say irregular, I mean having two, full periods per month — though, of course, not every month. In fact, after having my hormones checked by my doctor, and being told they were are normal levels, I promptly had four more periods within two months.

Now, eight months after my last check-up, and some prodding from my acupuncturist, I decided to get another test. This time my doctor thought it best to schedule an ultrasound as well. “Have you ever had a vaginal ultrasound?” she asked me while writing out the prescription. “No,” I gulped. “Well, they insert a wand that’s about the size of a tampon into you and move it around to get the pictures.”

That didn’t sound so bad, I thought and promptly made my appointment. However, four days later, when I was laying on the gurney with my pants down and I saw the “wand,” I became a bit alarmed. It was decidedly not the size of a tampon. In fact, it looked like something I once bought at the Good Vibrations store in San Francisco. While this may have been exciting in another context, it was decidedly fear-provoking in this one. Fear, as you may know, does not relax the vagina. Fear makes the vagina contract to a size that is not welcoming to probes of any size — or galaxy.

Despite my trepidation, the procedure turned out to be a piece of cake. It was more gooey than invasive and I sort of enjoyed watching the shapes on the Cooter Computer. I was a bit concerned when the technician kept stopping on one dark, round mass and measuring it, but I let it go when she explained that it was my ovary. Wow, I thought, I’m getting to see inside my body. That’s my freaking ovary! I left feeling a kind of exhilaration and awe — both about the human body and the state of technology.

That lasted until the next day when I came home to a phone message from the doctor asking me to call her. “I got your ultrasound results. We should talk and get to the bottom of what's going on in these pictures.” This did not sound like the cheery message she’d left months earlier when she told me the results of my mammogram (Hooter Computer) and blood tests were fine. “Getting to the bottom,” of anything sounds ominous. I felt a tiny, cold wave of dread begin to lap at my feet.

After playing phone tag for most of the next day, she finally got me on the phone just as I was sitting down to have lunch at an Italian restaurant. I think people who answer the phone in restaurants are fucking assholes. However, in this instance I thought it would be acceptible to abandon my rigid ideas of etiquette.

“You have a two-centimeter cyst on your left ovary,” she announced. “You also have some fluid in your uterus and the walls of the uterus art too thick for the amount of bleeding you’ve been having. The fluid could be due to the cyst having already ruptured, but I don’t know. I also don’t understand why the uterus wall is so thick. I’d like to refer you to a gynecologist to do some more tests.” Having that big, dripping slice of pizza was sounding less appealing by the moment.

Though I’ve not begun “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” I have been reading “The Wisdom of Menopause,” by Dr. Christiane Northup. Perhaps you’ve seen her ever-present visage on PBS, talking about women’s health issues. In any case, her book makes it clear that uterine growths are common at this stage of life and are generally benign. She also believes that stress and dissatisfaction with life will only exacerbate the symptoms of menopause and other diseases in mid-life women. In other words, stress=cysts. I’m pretty sure this will be resolved with some discomfort, but little lasting affect. I am not so sure, however, that my life, as it stands, will hold up to the kind of scrutiny under which I need to place it to begin to get myself strong and healthy enough to withstand “the change.”