First Morning Thoughts

The best thing that happens in my morning is when I hit the clock light and see that the first digit is only a 5 (or better yet, a 4), and tell myself I can go back to sleep. But then, simply because I'm awake, the first hot flash kicks in and I'm fully awake and sleep is Gone Like the Wind. Oh, well.

I love sleeping with the windows open. I'm not sleeping very well lately, and as I wake throughout the night, I hear the traffic on the Ave and guess the time by the volume of traffic. The closer to 6:00, the heavier the traffic.

As the days fly off the calendar and November approaches, I'm nearing two years without my estrogen. My doctor, when she took away my estrogen two years ago, said I'd probably have hot flashes for two months. Then, when three months had passed and I was still suffering, said maybe six months. A month or so later my friend Boo told me she, also, had no ovaries and was just getting over her hot flashes after three years. Argh!

My new doctor in Youngstown suggested soy to decrease the severity and frequency of the hot flashes. The Topamax that I take for my migraines leaves a funny taste in my mouth at all times, and the soy supplements makes that taste even weirder, such that no food tastes good. But I still get hungry. Gee—you'd think there'd be a killer diet in here somewhere.

The killer diet, for me, would be if the Ben & Jerry's people heeded the request of those insane PETA people. I heard about this on "Wait, Wait" this weekend and thought it was a very bad April Fool's joke. I didn't even sample breast milk when it came out of my own breast. There's no way I'm going to buy my beloved Coffee Heath Bar Crunch made with breast milk instead of cow's milk.

The beauty of being wide awake at 5:40 is that I can open the laptop and read all the blogs and my mail and start the daily crossword or do a Sudoku and not have to start worrying about racing for the shower until 6:15. A little quiet morning relaxation.

Oops, it's 6:15. Seeya!