Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Tuesday morning, March 18, the 78th day of 2008
Spring weather: wind, rain, snow, sleet, hail, and sun – in 24 hours.

MENOPAUSE

“Maybe I’m going through menopause.”

A meant-to-be-light-hearted reply to those who ask how I’m faring with the course of my case of shingles. It is the case that surface manifestations have ceased – no more rashes and raw sores. The scabbed skin has sloughed off. Mild vitamin E cream has replaced cortisone ointment. And ibuprofen works now when only codeine would address the pain in the beginning. Even the spider bites, which may or may not have triggered the shingles, have stopped itching. Undeniably recovery is well along.

So, why the menopause comment? Ignorance and superficial information, I suppose. Several women gave me a harsh look and sharply pointed out to me that I will be over the shingles in a month, not years.

What I should say is that I have the smallest understanding of what women mean when they speak of hot flashes. For the past week every night has been passed with three hours of sleep, interrupted by an inner alarm - waking up feeling weird. Then WHAM! Overheated, sweating, and gripped by a bizarre desire to throw off covers, tear off my clothes and run out into the cold air.

But that passes. Wide awake, chilled and wrapped in bathrobe and blankets, I sit in the dark on the living room couch wondering What the hell is going on? After a week of this, I know the drill: Wait. Drink a cup of chamomile tea. Let my brain do whatever weird gymnastics is chooses. And try not to fall asleep crouched up on the couch – just get back to bed – because it’s going to happen a couple of more times before dawn. And then I’m going to have a weird day – be drowsy, irritable, and with either no appetite or ready to eat hourly. I can’t imagine putting up with this for years and years. Menopause was a bad analogy. Already I’m over that stage of shingles.

Several times I’ve run across references in nature magazines about insects that lay their eggs in the head or abdomen of other insects. The eggs hatch, eat up their host from the inside, and burst forth from the corpse. Maybe this is what’s has happened to me. I am a victim of an alien species that has laid eggs in my brain, which are now hatching and eating their way out. That’s what it feels like during the second wake-up fire drill around four a.m.

But all this will pass. I know this. And while waiting, the challenge is to practice what I often preach about any bad situation having opportunities.
My body is at war with a virus. My body will win. Meanwhile, my brain seems OK and available. So, for example, as long as I am overheated in the middle of the night, I might as well go ahead outside and see what’s happening with the sky. I’m rarely regularly up every two hours in the middle of the night. Distract the mind.

This week the new quarter moon and Mars were on display side by side, along with millions of stars. Actually, that’s not quite true. Neil Tyson, the astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium, says we can actually only see between five and six thousand stars on a clear dark night with an unaided eye. And, unless you are standing on a flat desert on a moonless night, the number of stars you can see is limited by your horizon – hills and mountains, in my case. So I didn’t actually see millions of stars. But I saw enough. At nine, p.m., midnight and three a.m. and five a.m. Five nights in a row. Each time, of course, the sky was different, reflecting the variable motions of the earth and the universe. And me.

Another coping mechanism was to turn on satellite radio while I am up. Thanks to Sirius and the World Radio Network, I listened to Radio Netherlands, Radio Prague, Radio Romania, Radio Australia, Rise and Shine Radio Africa, and Radio Ireland. The programs were mostly cultural – not the usual bad news and body count from regular radio. Nice to be reminded that some good things are happening somewhere.

As long as I was up and awake I could use the free brain time to think about things I’ve never deliberately thought about. For example, I tried to consider every bed I’ve ever slept in during my life. Looney? Not really. Imagining the beds led to sidetracks down other lanes of memory. Another night I tried remembering great meals – and the same thing happened. Instead of going back to bed in dread, I went feeling good about my life and looking forward to the next awakening in a couple of hours.

So, the simpler answer to the How are you? question is: still feeling weird and tired, but certainly better. This is the first time I’ve written in days.
A friend suggested that maybe I have Dutch Elm disease or Chestnut blight. Dead wood at the top of my tree. Perhaps I should consult an arborist. 

I started thinking about what I actually knew about menopause. And that led to buying a book about the female brain when I was in town on Wednesday.
A good read during the midnight wake-ups. Major update on hormones and chemistry and therapies. Turns out my knowledge was way out of date and a better understanding of what women endure was way overdue. 

It’s hard to explain to people that one residual result of having shingles is that I know a lot more about menopause. But that’s true.