Hey guys, meet Delenn the Duck…
The past two weeks have been… challenging. My dizziness/veritgo eventually subsided, but last Thursday I had a migraine so great I had to take a full dose of Excedrin (*I normally only take 1/2 a dose) and was on the verge of tears from feeling so shitty, and now my left heel hurts so bad I can’t support my weight on it. And sometimes I get so angry and frustrated with… well everything. I hate that I can’t do a sun salutation in yoga because I’m too dizzy. I hate that when I got irritable on Saturday and decided I needed a long walk (3 miles) and it felt good and the wind was sublime – that for the last 5 days I’ve been hobbling around because my heel hurts so bad when I put weight on it.
It is so easy to just bitch about it all, but I don’t want to be that person. So I decided to draw a duck… because I want all this frustration I feel to be “like water off a duck’s back”. So, after taking more Excedrin on Thursday, I drew this duck. After a few days, I decided to name her Delenn, from Babylon 5 – she is a force to recon with, but she is also very Zen.
I haven’t been sleeping well, for the last three nights I’ve been having trouble regulating my temperature. Some parts of me feel like they are on fire, while other parts are freezing. I feel bad that I have the window open, because I don’t want to freeze the pups or the hubs, but if I close it I’ll be in a pool of sweat. Ugh. So I was reading yesterday that some types of food trigger hot flashes… some I was already aware of: spicey foods (no problem, I have this only on occasion), alcohol (no problem, I’m a teetotaler), caffeine (mmmm… I limit this to only 1/2 a coffee gummy in the morning, and then green tea throughout the day), hot beverages (What? noooooo!), carbs (son of a ughhhhh!). Also overweight women experience hot flashes more… Erm, Delenn, I need your zenfulness. So I was complaining to my husband that I probably should loose some weight, eat more salads, and less carbs and hot tea to help regulate my temperature better… damn it Bread and hot Tea is WHO I AM! 😭 How many things do I have to change to deal with all these side-effects of perimenopause?!!! 🤬
And that’s when he said, maybe it’s like a butterfly. It’s who you were, not who you are now. You need different things now.
Oddly, that made me think of Delenn (see the Chrysalis episode of Babylon 5; Season 1, Episode 22) So I decided to draw a butterfly. No name yet, I’m trying to decide if the name should continue the alliteration, be a name I like, or be a character’s name to have a double meaning.
I was thinking this morning, that yes, I am going through a transition (for the last 5 years! ugh, when will it end?!!?) and I don’t have a lot of control over the various side-effects (there are 34 of them!), like I don’t know when I’ll be dizzy, have a hot flash, or feel a sudden surge of irritability (which feels justified and irrational at the same time)… but I can control how I deal with it. I used to be more like Kevin the T-rex (see Inktober 2020), happy, silly and willing to help others. I used to be more like Delenn the Duck, things didn’t stick to me so velcro-y and make me so frustrated and irritable. I am becoming this nameless Butterfly, and I want her to be friendly, fun, silly, helpful… I don’t want to be an angry asshole. I can control that. So through drawing, I’ll remind myself of that person I want to be.
Also, I can meditate or do other yoga poses when I’m feeling dizzy, I don’t *have* to do inverted poses. I found a foot stretch yoga video (I like Yoga with Adriene) that helped my foot accept my weight, it still hurts a bit, but it feels sooo much better after that yoga session yesterday. I can walk now, instead of hobble. I can refrain from eating pie so close to bedtime, I think sugary foods also really mess up my temperature control at night. And I can think of the T-rex, the Duck, and the Butterfly when I’m not feeling like myself.
Ok… so that’s the story behind the Duck and Butterfly. The cross-hatching is a class that I’ve been taking thru Eni Oken’s Art Club weekly zoom classes. We have one more class of cross-hatching tomorrow. Here’s what we’ve done so far…
Feb. 26, 2021 — class #2
We’ll finish this one tomorrow…
Mar. 5, 2021 — class #3
I decided to practice that tangle a bit on my own…
I also have some photos of the pups… because puppies!
Trying to take a photo of Duke…
Trying to take a photo of Penny…
Little Cuties…
Ok guys… I was going to write about my rpg game and the pets I’ve fed to mounts (see last few posts), but it’s already 5 and I’ve gotta go look in the kitchen for some food.
Stay safe everyone! And wash your hands! 🙂
Until next time…
~nic
Photography by Nic 
Your doggies are the cutest! Love the drawings, so detailed.
Oh my, I know those hot and cold feeling so well. I entered that stage in my life in my late 30s I can handle the temperature changes pretty well, A/C and strategically placed fans are a godsend. You hardly ever hear about cold flashes but those are real too. The worst part of this journey (menopause) has been the feelings like my clothes do not feel right on my skin so I change 5 or 6 times day, happy to report those feelings are getting farther and fewer, hope it doesn’t last to long for you.
Take care and be safe.
Thanks, Art of the Beat! 🙂
Hot flashes have just become part of my day, my hands and feet might be cold, but my face is flush and my armpits are sweating… it’s crazy. I actually hate it more when my face is flush AND my hands are hot. At least when my hands are cold, I can put them on my cheeks to cool them down, haha. I’ve found in the last few nights that the cooling strips I use on my forehead for migraines work pretty good at night for my flushed face and poor temperature control, so that’s a neat new improvement to my sleep. I recently turned 49, and I’ve been aware that I’ve been going through the transition since around my 44th birthday when I was dizzy for a week. When I looked online for possible reasons I realized I had quite a few of the 34 perimenopause symptoms. A lot of my symptoms coincided with dealing with an ailing elderly Basset Hound (Scarlett) and I was only getting limited sleep taking care of her (she would wake me up every 2 hours needing assistance), then dealing with her passing. So the insomnia, anxiety, and fatigue was originally chalked up to that situation. I’m still dealing with the insomnia and fatigue (plus other stuff) 5 years later, and statistically I think I probably have 3(?) more years of this roller coaster. But having a loving and understanding partner and two silly pups really helps. 😀
Thanks again for the comment and have a great rest of your day!
~nic
Oh Nic, So sorry about the passing of your dog. It made me stop and hug my pets.
The full on face sweats are starting to lessen each month. I haven’t had an episode in a few months, knock on wood. You get hot hands? I only get the frozen fingers and yes, they can cool off your face 🙂 Personally, I like to shock my husband with them.
I hope it does not last much longer for you. I feel like I am almost at the end.
Take care,
Michelle.
I think I have awhile to go because I still have my period, they are closer together now and I keep hoping for them to get farther apart. That said, I have a weird looking forward to my period because I finally get a small reprieve from the lead blanket of progesterone for a day or two. I go from Marvin (Hitchhicker’s Guide to the Galaxy) to Gir (Invader Zim) and it’s wonderful. Yes, hot hands and feet along with the flush face… 5 yrs ago I’d put my cold feet on my husband to warm them up, now I seek out his cold feet to cool me down, haha. Except after just a few minutes I have to disengage, because I’ll start getting his heat too and then be on fire again, sigh.
Glad you’re almost done with this crazy roller coaster. 🙂
~nic
I laughed when I read about his cold feet. My fingers feel like ice cubes and I like to shock my husband with them.
Hmmm, I had never thought of the lead blanket way to describe that feeling and I know that feeling but wow, it is perfect. I think because they left me with one ovary, I still get the monthly cyclic feelings without the monthly flow.
Take care 🙂
Michelle