Hot Flashes -- A Surprise Revelation

  Mutti at 84

In August, my mother visited from Germany. Mutti, as I call her, had grown smaller, but she was healthy, happy and delighted to see me. As we talked, the subject of menopause came up. “How come you never had hot flashes?” I asked, wiping the sweat from my brow. 

She wrapped herself tighter into her jacket. “When I was about 45, I went to the doctor and got these pills,” she said. 

I was dumbfounded. Here I was, believing all these years that Mutti was living proof hot flashes could be overcome and menopause could be conquered, and now she tells me she’s been on HRT all that time? I opened my mouth. 

Before I could say anything, Mutti said, “I wasn’t going to deal with hot flashes while raising all of you. Do you think I should quit taking them now? After all, they are probably gone when you are 84.” 

“Mother Towne says they aren’t,” was all I could say. 

I was uncharacteristically quiet the rest of the day. 

That night, Ken suggested we go camping. “I’m too old for such stuff,” Mutti said. “I’d rather go to the mall and do some walking.” I said nothing. I’d go camping again any time. But from now on, I would sleep on the outside. Let Ken wonder. I don’t care. 

Maybe the hot flashes, anxiety attacks and the claustrophobia will give up one day. I won’t.