Pre-Mature Menopause : Part I

About two years ago, I was doing my usual cleaning routine on a Saturday afternoon. I was mopping the tiled floor of my apartment (which had been a couple of days overdue). While listening to upbeat music and drinking a strong shot of Cuban coffee to get my cleaning mode going, I began to sweep and mop. While bending forward to pick something up from the floor and getting back up to a normal position, I felt the sensation of a warm flush on my face. “ Hmmm, this is certainly awkward” , I talked aloud (happens quite often).

I went to the bathroom to look at myself in the mirror to “ see”  the feeling that I had just experienced. I thought maybe it was a lack of oxygen flowing to my brain. If that was the case, I would have felt dizzy and seen all different types of weird black and white shapes form in my temporarily impaired vision until I would have regained my composure and equilibrium within seconds. That was that, back to cleaning, listening to “ I don’t care About My Reputation”  by Joan Jett.

But a warm sensation? Something was not right. I stopped what I was doing and went directly to the bathroom to look at myself in the mirror and check out my new discovery. My cheeks were red!

My first thoughts were, “ Oh, I got a tan while I went for a quick power walk this morning!”  Nah, I would have seen it when I washed my face from the sweat of walking outdoors. Then my next thought was, “ Oh no! I inherited mom’s rosacea!”

But after that, my rosacea didn’t come back for a while nor did that feeling of warmth around my neck and face. Although I did remember sometimes waking up in a sweat but thought that it was the result of the nightmare’s that I sometimes have. These incidences came and went from time and time but I kept on living my life without a clue as to what was to unfold with my state of health.