The Rant of the Menopausal Chef
Episode Thirty-four
Hello lovely one! Thanks for stopping by. Here, let me make you a cuppa, try a piece of this scrumptious Biscoff brookie ( a brownie with cookies pressed into it), and let me bleat in your ear for a while.
Quick intro if you’re a newbie here:
Hey, I’m Maggie, and I’m a chef! Thirty five years in the Hospitality Industry and I still have all of my digits intact, quite a bit of my hearing is left, and some of the time I can walk around without my feet, knees, or back hurting.
I also love writing. Cooking has been the career in my life, and writing has always ALWAYS been the hobby. This year however, I’ve managed to win a couple of short story competitions (yay!) and also (quite excitedly) was recently asked to send in my women’s foodie fiction manuscript when I had a very lovely face-to-face pitching opportunity. I’m trying very hard not to think about that (IMPOSSIBLE - lol) because it’s further than I’ve ever got with any of my writing before. But if I get no further, it’s fine. Next time!
But I’m not here today to warble on about food (although more than likely there will be some delicious mentions - I can’t chat with you and not mention food), nor am I here to muse about my ‘budding’ writing career.
I’m here to chat about girly bits. Old girly bits to be precise.
So if you’re a bit squeamish, and don’t want to join in on this chat, please feel free to pop your cup on the coffee table there, and wander out into the garden. Just mind the step on your way out. The magpies have stopped swooping so you should be quite safe.
For the rest of you,
WHAT THE HECK.
IS MENOPAUSE THE WORST THING OR WHAT???
Throughout my entire life I’ve had a horrendous time with my monthlies (yes, we’re going there) - cramps, headaches, you name it. I remember at some point along the way, some sage older woman smiling and nodding at me and saying these hope-filled words - ‘You know, Maggie, when you’ve had a dreadful time with your monthlies, it usually means menopause will be a lot easier.’
I remembered sighing and thinking, oh well, yay I guess.
LIES. ALL LIES.
You have a horrendous time with your body’s baby making department when you’re young and it doesn’t stop when you get older!
I am eternally grateful that my uterus and all its accoutrements worked twice for me. I am the proud mum of two of the most unimaginably brilliant young men you could ever wish to meet (no, your children are not better than mine, sorry).
But that’s it. Two kids. Thank you. We had planned on perhaps a third child, I would have loved to have had a daughter, but my body was in such a desperate state of flux at that time, and my monthlies got so heavy that I literally had no iron stores. I distinctly remember standing in a walk-in freezer at the place I was working at, standing there in -15C or whatever it was, trying to work out what we had in there for functions, and if it would be enough for an upcoming mayoral morning tea. My brain just could not add up. Maths was never my strong point but this was ridiculous. Okay, there are two boxes of party pies in here. Two boxes of 48. We have about 180 people attending the morning tea, so how many more pies do I need?
Nothing. My brain had packed its bags and gone to sunnier (and more ferrous-prevalent) climes. I stood there until the buttons on my chef jacket froze over, then gave up.
Not long after that I had to have a hysterectomy, so no third child but a blissful, non-bleeding, non-cramping, brain-friendly state.
My GP mentioned something about the possibility of me going into ‘early menopause’, and at the time I was so grateful for the cessation of exsanguination (look that word up if you dare :-) ) that I didn’t give it a moment’s thought.
Before I go any further, I want to share a few resources that have helped me stay sane, and not stab my family with forks and gouge their eyes out with spoons (I kid you not).
Jean Hailes is a website dedicated to empowering women by sharing updated medical research (i.e. not quackology) about health issues particular to us Aussie girls. A very dear friend recommended it to me, after I called her one morning in tears, asking in very hushed tones how one stays sane during ‘the change of life’. (It almost sounds like a little holiday when it gets called that. Oh, where are you off to this summer? I’m having a change of life - you?) My friend recommended that website to me, after it was recommended to her by her female GP.
Another invaluable resource I’ve come to use again, and again, and again is Kaz Cooke's fabulous book - It's the Menopause I bought it at the same time as another very dear friend and I were trudging through the miry trenches of our midlife crises. Initially we kept tabs with each other as to what chapter we were up to, but it’s all rather overwhelming. The book is bloody brilliant though, Kaz chats in her irreverent, light-hearted way about horrific things that we girls might (or blissfully might not) expect when we hit our 50’s. Again all very researched and full of no-nonsense stuff, which when you’re trying to navigate life with a head full of fairy floss, is really quite important.
When you dry your tears and start reading all this very well researched information (and non-big-pharma-backed nonsense) you very quickly deduce that women between the ages of 45-55, who are going through peri-menopause - that time in life when the previously well-ordered release of oestrogen, progesterone, and testosterone goes completely up shizz creek - should be awarded medals for simply getting out of bed each day.
I had been experiencing these symptoms for years - YEARS - and was unaware of it.
Just prior to that desperate phone call which led me to Jean Hailes, I’d been to the dentist because there was something weird going on in my mouth. I thought it was some precursor to all my teeth falling out (I had so many dreams about that happening when I was a kid) and wanted assurances that nothing like that was going to happen. The dentist looked askance at me when I tried to describe the sensation, and after a thorough investigation found nothing out of the ordinary. My mouth just constantly felt ‘dry’, like I needed to drink a swimming pool full of water, but it wasn’t thirst, it was just this weird feeling in my mouth.
Whaddayaknow? One of the magical things oestrogen does is manage the levels of saliva in your mouth, so if your oestrogens have gone AWOL, you’ll possibly experience Burning Tongue/Mouth Syndrome.
How about those infamous hot flushes?
As a younger woman, I used to chuckle when I heard women say they woke in the night sweating profusely and had to change their pj’s/sheets/everything.
I am no longer laughing.
My night sweats come in waves. I will be blissfully off in dreamland, minding my subconscious brain’s own business, when I’ll wake up. For no reason. Just wake up. Turn over, get comfy again, maybe consider reaching for my drink bottle to assuage the burning tongue MY GOD WHY IS IT SIX THOUSAND DEGREES IN HERE ALL OF A SUDDEN???? The doona gets tossed across the room, and I lay there like a starfish, gasping for air as sweat beads all over my skin as if I’m in the middle of a hectic Saturday night’s service at a busy restaurant.
After a few minutes (which feel like eternity) my body slowly calms down and I start nodding off again, only to surface once more because I’m shivering with the cold and my doona is over there in the dark somewhere.
This might happen once, or on a particularly bad night it might happen six or seven times. The real doozy is when one gets them during the day. Oh, you think waking in the night in the privacy of your little bedroom is awful? How about when you’re trying to do the groceries? Trying shoes on in a shoe shop? Carrying out some semblance of an intelligent conversation with a friend? There’s none of this flaking out on the floor and being a starfish then. People tend to look at you very oddly indeed if you try that at your local Woollies supermarket.
There are some lucky women for whom this is all a bit of a joke. They get no symptoms whatsoever (or so few that it doesn’t even register) and wonder what the rest of us are doing running around with sweat pouring off us while holding our boobs because they’re so sore. They’ve never experienced the nightmare of trying to remember where they parked their car half an hour ago, or had that rollercoaster ride of feeling all fine and dandy one minute, then crushingly and inexplicably sad the next.
I’m not even going to go anywhere near all the ‘stuff’ that goes on down in our nether regions, but need only utter the words ‘atrophy’ and ‘irritation’ and as Kaz Cooke calls it, ‘sneaky wee’.
The cessation of these magical hormones even effects your stomach lining (!!!) Whereas you previously might have enjoyed eating whatever the heck you liked, now thanks to oestrogen and progesterone packing their little bags, your metabolism is slowing down, and it takes a lot longer for food to pass through your gastrointestinal tract. Welcome to bloating, bowel blockage, and possible nausea. This one I’ve found one of the more easier ones to work around, I just eat less. Maybe graze instead of wolfing three huge meals a day. And eat lighter, changing your diet as the weather gets warmer/cooler. Eat because your body is asking for food, not because it’s ‘time to eat’. And definitely treat yourself. If you don’t have that slice of pecan pie there, or buy yourself an amazing gelato, or whatever it is that makes you happy, then what are we here for? And please treat yourself responsibly - I hear pine cones aren’t good for the digestive system - similarly smoking and the excessive consumption of alcohol.
It’s a sobering thought that not that many generations ago women were committed to the horrendously named ‘lunatic asylums’ under the labels of hysteria or Old Maid’s Insanity. This is probably why it’s only in recent years that we feel comfortable talking about women’s issues and realise that we sisters all suffer similar woes.
In the 19th century, women were seen to be at the mercy of their emotions, poor ducks. Before the link between having periods and ovulation was made, it was commonly believed that a woman’s menstrual cycle was nature’s way of helping her to calm her emotions by removing toxic blood from the body.
Umm…no.
In summation, menopause sucks.
To be in a flummox with one’s body while the world seems to be in the same state is somewhat unsettling. While we can’t fix the world, we can treat ourselves with kindness, and remember that if we see some poor woman looking confused and sweaty, throw her a sympathetic smile. Or a bucket of cold water. The first option is probably the safest.
I’d love to hear any and all of your horror stories if you’re also suffering through this portion of life. I think the more we talk about it and normalise it, the less stigma there is.
The one thing I shall leave you with, and the little saying that keeps me going when I’m doing my little starfish impersonation is - you are going through this. One day you’ll get to the other side and be free of it. Meanwhile, reach out to other women, chat on forums, read responsibly, and embrace the strong, resilient, beautiful older woman you are becoming.
Maggie x
Hahaha, this would be hilarious if it weren't so true 😆😳. Yet it has to be hilarious because if we don't laugh at the 'curse' of womanhood then we're resigned to reacting with whatever is the alternative! Bravo MaggieFromScratch 😘 xx
Oh my God, Maggie! This is so funny, so sad, so real! I'm lucky that I'm through the worst of it now and I didn't have it too badly, thank goodness. But the crazy thing is why isn't it talked about more BEFORE it happens? Anyway, great job at demystifying it!