Fighting Breast Cancer

I’ve started having a new symptom:  Hot Flashes.  One of the side effects of chemotherapy is that it shuts down your ovaries and causes your estrogen level to deplete very rapidly.  This is the onset of menopause.  The problem is that most women gradually ease into menopause over several months, even years.  Chemotherapy just shuts down the estrogen flow like a faucet one day, so you go through severe menopausal symptoms at warp speed.

I was at the supermarket with Michael today when the hot flash came on.  Just out of the blue I felt like I was on fire.  It was like I was burning up from the inside, out.  I hurried over to the frozen food section, opened a door, and stuck my head in.  It was all I could do to keep from stripping right there in the middle of Albertson’s. 

Then, I started sweating.  I know what you’re thinking.  “Girls don’t sweat.  They glisten.”  In the case of chemo-induced menopausal hotflashes, there is no delicate way to put this:  I sweat like a giant pig.  Real dainty.

So there I was in the frozen food section airing myself out.  Suddenly I went from being extremely hot to extremely cold.  My sweating was now making me catch a chill and I was shivering.  I moved out of the frozen food section, and within moments I was back to normal as if nothing had ever happened.

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