Esther McCarthy: Going cold turkey on HRT leaves me in a flux
Esther McCarthy: I’m going cold turkey on the old HRT until things balance out. This is bad news for everyone.
So! Thanks to my idiotic ovaries going rogue and firing out oestrogen like it’s 2008, my hormones are, to use a medical term, gone mental.
Blood tests show I have 10 times the normal amount of oestrogen. Ten?! (I was like Tommy Bowe hearing numbers of siblings when I got the results.)
Anyway, I am bloated like the Michelin man, and for the first time in as long as I can remember, I can lie on my stomach, as my midriff is acting like a cushion and is equal in measure to my bosom. Silver lining. If only I could sleep.
Grrr, it’s so frustrating. First, I don’t have enough oestrogen; now I have too much. There’s a design flaw here somewhere.
So I’m going cold turkey on the old HRT until things balance out. This is bad news for everyone.
I have that white-hot fury back. Everything infuriates me to the point of wanting to go full Bruce Banner every time someone forgets to flush the toilet.
There’s a lot of breathing through my nose, and muttering darkly to myself going on. I am going about my business with a wild look in my eyes. The dog avoids my gaze, his bestial innate survival instincts kicking in.
The rude man who skipped the queue in the bakery obviously possesses no such instincts. Let’s just say one of us went home with the last sourdough, and one of us went home having narrowly escaped having a French loaf shoved somewhere unpleasant.
My hair has decided to leave the rest of us behind, and go solo. It’s going in a new direction, creatively. We wish it all the best, but this has resulted in me waking with tufts sticking up alarmingly, refusing to be cowed by a simple hairbrush.
Combined with the crazy eyes, I can not ignore the fact that I’ve got an unattractive Doc Brown thing going on. Even when I get the energy to actually wash my miserable-looking mop and attempt to put manners on it, it ends up all frizzy, like there’s a magnet it’s quite attracted to positioned three inches above my crown.
So, sensibly, I’ve given up. But I am forced to wear hats indoors, adding to my unwanted eccentricity.
Another side-effect is my increased sensitivity to the beauty and injustices of the world. They are being heightened to dangerous proportions.
I find myself spending 25 minutes trying to get an old web off a bee that I’ve rescued from one of the many, many, many, cobwebs around the Velux.
His furry little front half is fine, but his little bumbum is encased in the deadly silk, preventing him from taking flight.
“Why must nature be so cruel?” I sob using my Marigolds and a sodden Q-tip to try to gently free him from his webby prison.
He vibrates feebly in response. I name him Buzz and then castigate myself for my lack of creativity, and for my gender presumption, but my brain refuses to cooperate to think of a more original moniker, male or female.
We are both exhausted and emotional by the end. I leave him within reach of a spoon of sugary water and go inside to replenish the liquids I’ve lost, shedding hot, fat, salty tears. When I come back out, he is gone.
I decide to process the abandonment issues this has triggered by eating the last of the Lindor chocolate balls I’ve received from a kind neighbour who has heard about the scandalous pillaging of my Mother’s Day box.
Unfortunately, it is one of the mixed boxes, instead of the all milk chocolate red ones, and all that is left are the dark chocolate manky black ones.
I take my cup of tea outside and spend five minutes sipping and trying to slow the billionty thoughts vying for attention in my foggy noggin.
I watch the cat arch on his back, squirming around, batting something with his paws.
Aww! His tummy hair is all fluffy and cute. I smile and try to focus on the simple pleasures. A hot cup of tea, a comfy chair, the garden springing to life... the cat tangles himself up and falls off the step of the patio.
He only has three legs, and he sometimes takes a tumble. “My poor little Trio Leo, what happened to you?” I simper as he tries to shake if off and pretend he’s not morto.
I go over to console him and see he’s been playing with/tormenting a squashed bee. “Buzz!” I exclaim. “Noooooooo!”
My outburst surprises both Leo and myself, and I realise this is madness. I shoot Leo the Pollinator Destroyer a disappointed look, and return indoors to cut myself a slice of sourdough, do some box breathing, and clear those fecking cobwebs.
As I wave the small hoover around the glass, a corridor of clear thought pierces the brain fog. Beeyoncé! Stinger Rodgers! Sir Reginald Humblebee the Third! Bee Arthur! Sting Crosby!
I’ll be ok. This too shall pass.
