Let’s introduce the conversation about HRT. And all good introductions should begin with a full legal name: Hormone Replacement Therapy.

Are you on HRT? Do you love it? Hate it? Don’t notice any difference yet? Tell me all the things. Talk to me like a 5-year-old stuck in the body of a 53-year-old woman. 

Unfortunately, I am discouraged from taking HRT due to my increased risk of breast cancer. I’ve already had two biopsies (thankfully, gratefully negative). But the perimenopause symptoms are reaching the point where this chicken-shit woman is willing to become a risk-taker. 

I am by no means downplaying or making light of the horrors of breast cancer. My aunt as well as my mother-in-law are breast cancer survivors. I do not want breast cancer. Full stop. But the perimenopause symptoms and their impact on my life and on ME are starting to become untenable.

Hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings, brain fog. If you read this far, you know the drill. Sleep is elusive and good sleep is almost non-existent. When I do sleep, I wake up soaked in sweat and freezing since my clothes and bedsheets are wet. Now, I understand all those Alaska survival shows where they strip the clothes off of someone who has fallen into a frigid lake or river. Wet clothes suck the warmth out of you. Which is ironic, since we’re moving on to…

Hot flashes. They sneak up and have no regard for where you are or what you are doing. At home? Here’s a hot flash. At  work? Try to hold it together while you burn from the inside. At Costco? Head over to the dairy walk-in and have a seat until it passes (this might be one of the luckier places to have a hot flash). Honestly, I didn’t understand before they started happening to me. How bad can it be? I would think. It’s just being hot. Big deal. Except it is a big deal. It’s a big, hot, sweaty, gasping, heart racing, short-tempered deal. 

Which brings us to brain fog. I’m sorry, what was I saying? Oh yes, brain fog. Enough said.

And remember how you used to think PMS moodiness was the worst? Perimenopause moodiness is like the big sister to PMS moodiness. She’s angrier, more bitter and just generally pissed off. Which is what I am most of the time. Pissed off and angry and sad and tired and ready to be done with this whole process, but at the same time terrified of what’s on the other side. 

Let’s not even talk about my skin, wrinkles, and just the general feeling of being old. Who is this old woman that I catch sight of in store windows and in the camera above the Target self checkout? Would HRT help slow the process and make me less fearful of reflective surfaces?

So, I debate daily: to HRT or not to HRT? This is the question that presents itself daily and is made more pressing by the assurances that the earlier one starts HRT, the more benefits one derives. (Yet another countdown clock that women are forced to contend with.) So if I want quantifiable benefits, I’ll have to decide soon. I’ve never been good at decisions, so feel free to help me by sharing your HRT pros and cons. 

All choices and opinions on this subject are met with no judgement, only gratitude.