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The Times They Are Still A’Changing

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Yesterday my 50-something daughter asked me if anyone had ever recommended HRT to me when I was in perimenopause.

I had two immediate reactions, one unspoken. The unspoken one was, “What is HRT?” For you to appreciate the absurdity of that, you have to know I am a high functioning 78 year old retired professor of behavioral and public health sciences. So for me not to recognize the acronym HRT speaks to how thoroughly I had wiped it from my repertoire.

The second thought, which I shared with my daughter, was that when I was in my 40s and 50s, perimenopause was not the common term it is now. Like autism, ADHD, neurotypical and atypical, like PTSD outside of a post-combat situation, like so many psychological and pseudo psychological terms and diagnoses that social media has made widely accessible, perimenopause and HRT were diagnostic and treatment terms used almost exclusively in professional contexts and carrying a certain stigma.

Especially for women who, like myself, called themselves second wave feminists and built a large part of their identities around having the knowledge and strength to resist masculine stereotypes of the hysterical and menopausal woman, and masculine “cures” like HRT for “female problems.” Especially since evidence suggested that HRT increased cancer risks.

So no one suggested, through the years when I was blowing up my life repeatedly, that I was perimenopausal overlaying chronic anxiety. Just like no one knew that in childhood I was a high intelligence, high functioning autistic (or what would now be labeled autistic). I was just an intensely shy loner who always felt like an outsider, wondered how others could talk so easily, preferred life in books, daydreamed a lot, and always got As in school.

Until I was a raged filled teenager and young adult who tuned in, turned on, and dropped out. And protested. And became a feminist. And then a mother. Then a wife. Then a mother again. Then a single parent. Then a grad student. Then a professor. All while moving country 3 times. Remarried along the way. Stepchildren. Widowed. Grandchildren. 13 years on my own. Remarried again 10 years ago, just as I retired.

 Lots of problems along the way with almost everyone I love because of rage and hurt and withdrawal and misunderstandings beyond my comprehension and confusion and hopelessness and sleeplessness.

Counselors and psychiatrists, faith groups and good friends, eventually an antidepressant/anxiolytic prescribed by my PCP and daily low dose marijuana prescribed by me but with the knowledge of my PCP. And marriage to a man capable of holding my anxieties and needing me as much as I needed him. A partner, finally, right for me. Along with the right meds and the right kind of contemplative prayer group for me.

But no one, friend or physician, ever said “perimenopause” or “HRT” back in my 40s-60s. And I would have rejected it had they suggested it.

Because it was not within my understanding of feminism. Once, just a few months ago, as I railed against the patriarchy, a good friend turned to my beloved husband and said, “She does know you’re a man, right?”

I have always supported LGBTQA+ rights but I admit to being less than enthusiastic about trans-women’s participation in women’s sports. We fought so hard…

And so I am led to think of our princesses who became generals. Leia and the Bride. But General Organa and Carrie Fisher are dead; Rey and Wonder Woman lead the fight forward. And it is probably better that I leave the fight for inclusion of trans-women in women’s sports to third generation feminists while keeping my mouth shut about that and making sure my younger cis-female friends know about perimenopause and HRT. My daughter tells me HRT was/is a game changer for her.

She Is Risen Indeed…Oh wait

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Mom was born in early September 1924. That is not a typo. Mom is over 100 years old. Just a few months ago she was diagnosed with vascular dementia. Last week, between noon on Wednesday and 6 pm on Thursday, Mom slid to the floor 4 times. Falls, yes, but sliding falls, not crashing falls. So she had no significant physical injuries. But simultaneously with the falls came a cascade of physical problems. Thursday she exhibited the characteristics of someone near death, or as the hospice nurse practitioner told us, “Your mom is on her final journey: your job is to honor her journey and let her do it her way.” We were prepared. We had no wishes beyond a peaceful, pain-free passing. We sent out “be prepared” texts to family and close friends, we finalized arrangements among hospice, the assisted care facility, the funeral home in Charlottesville, and the one in New Orleans.

Let me pause a moment and explain that Mom is in assisted living in Charlottesville but wants to be buried in the family tomb her great-grandfather purchased in the early 1800s in New Orleans. Mom grew up, raised her children, had her career in New Orleans.

When Mom turned 65, she purchased a long term care insurance policy, and what was recently described to us as the cadillac of burial insurance policies. She did that in 1989: 35 years ago!

Growing up, we were never “dirt poor” (despite what one of Mom’s grandsons once said – at least we hope it was only once). But we were lower middle class poor. Dad was a shipping clerk, mom a teacher. And they were both, of course, children of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Dad would sometimes bemoan, “Ah me, we don’t have two pennies to rub together.” When we wanted to go on a “real” vacation, like to Disneyland, Dad’s stock answer, always said with teasing eyes and a slight smile, “We’ll do that when my rich uncle in the poor house dies.”

Mom always kept the family finances. Over the years, Dad became less and less stable, including with money.

In 1989, Mom and Dad were living on his pension (Mom taught in the Catholic school system for over 30 years but has no pension), and their very meager Social Security checks.

In 1989, Mom had an unpdictable husband, no significant savings, a small monthly retirement income.

In 1989, Mom committed to monthly payments on a long-term care policy and purchased a burial policy.

Thanks to Mom’s foresight and money management, she is spending her last days in a truly incredible multi-level facility, Our Lady of Peace.

Mom, by the way, rallied on Friday, then seemed to slip away again most of Saturday, until she came alert at about 7 o’clock in the evening, Facetimed with four of her grandchildren and one or two of her 21 great-grands. Saturday evening, Mom told us that her family made her happy. Most of all her great-grandchildren, then her grandchildren, then her children, but she really liked her sons-in-law. That’s pretty much verbatim what she said, with some mumbling and pauses. We were doubled over in laughter (and maybe just a tad chagrined to find ourselves at the bottom). Mom also enjoyed her favorite cocktail, a Grasshopper, expertly crafted by one of those wonderful sons-in-law.

So who knows what tomorrow will bring? We at times wonder if there is a Guinness record for longest time on hospice, laughing at the possibility of Mom still in hospice in 10 years. Because sometimes she looks and acts like someone who wouldn’t qualify for hospice. And there’s those other physical issues clouding the picture.

But the awake times are getting fewer and shorter. Even awake Mom is no longer consistently “with us.” She has almost no interest in food. (She’s a Creole/Cajun from New Orleans, remember. I believe “loss of interest in food” qualifies as a sign of immanent death in New Orleans.)

Whatever happens during Easter week, we know when the time comes our cri du coeur will be, “Hallelujah she is risen. She is risen indeed Hallelujah.”