And the Heat Goes On

I saw a Pi Phi friend last night and we got to talking about (what else?) hot flashes. She is nine years older than I and went off estrogen three years ago. She told me she is just now having days with no episodes. Three years! To hell with those women who croon, "Oh, I never had one hot flash."

Tyler asked me last week what a hot flash is like. I gave him a subsequent explanation, but have now amended that description to this: Imagine standing in a grocery store refrigerator case and then, in a heartbeat, racing outside to a typical Tucson 115 degree summer day. Stand there for 3 minutes, then run back inside and, instead of going into the refrigerator case, go stand in the freezer for 10 minutes. Return to refrigerator case. Repeat every 30-60 minutes all day long. Oh, and wake at 4:00 or 4:30 a.m. burning up to start the whole process over again for another day.

Jan, whose malfunctioning internal thermostat causes her to be dressed in five layers today to flash back and forth between a freezing cold office and her own personal summer.