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Compassion and Serial Killers
Me: I am on season 12 of Criminal Minds
Therapist: Have you watched Unorthodox? (goes on to describe it)
Me: No, I am obsessed with serial killers currently and have watched all of these seasons consecutively
Therapist: Continues to talk about the poignancy of Unorthodox…
Me: Oh! You think I should stop watching serial killers and connect with something more heartfelt!
Therapist: …..I often joke that the first half of my life was about getting fucked up, and the second half was about fixing it. Cue 20+ years of therapy. Although I will have to change the maths, as that was applicable when I was 40… I am back seeing my oncology psychiatrist for an unwelcome return of PTSD, or PTSS (replace ‘disorder’ with ‘syndrome’), or whatever it is called when you are utterly disconnected from yourself and trapped in an endless spiral of anxiety/insomnia/terror. I tend to be ridiculously high functioning when I am in a state of trauma and not only fool those around me into thinking I am doing well, but I also fool myself. Perhaps that should be high functioning foolish.
I started seeing the wonderful Amanda when I was mid chemo in 2015 and I was about to say she was a lifesaver then. Of course, the chemo/surgery/radio were the actual lifesavers, but she saved my sanity going through it all. Going through it all included entering into my first committed relationship in 10 years, which, it turned out, was a great reminder of why I had remained single for 10 years and why I have remained so since.
Back to compassion – I am deeply compassionate although it tends to be equally deeply buried. Underneath a pile of serial killers currently. Compassion is vulnerability, compassion means opening up parts of myself that hurt and are raw, compassion is scary. To feel compassion for others, you need to feel compassion for yourself and that for me is the hard part for all the reasons listed. It requires bravery to open myself up that much and sometimes I am all out of brave.
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Airports
I love airports. Luckily, since I spend a significant amount of my life in them.
I’m a people watcher, and airports are one of the best places to engage in this pastime. I love watching people heading out on an adventure, returning from one, meeting and greeting loved ones at arrivals, excited goodbyes at departures.
There is the seasoned traveler – marching through the airport confidently, efficient luggage and clothes, not looking around, they know where they are going and they take no hostages on the way. Not literally, obviously, since I imagine an airport to be one of the worst places to try and stage a kidnap. They are smartly dressed even if casual, and always appear to be extremely organised. In case it’s not obvious I am mildly envious of these people because while I am a confident and accomplished traveler, I hardly ever look smart including casual smart and I always have various extra things in my hands making me slightly chaotic all the time.
Then there are the people who act as if they have never been to an airport in their lives. (Yes, I appreciate some haven’t but it is not these I am talking about.) These are the ones who arrive at security, suddenly remembering that they cannot carry liquids, look affronted when asked to take their laptop out, unfailingly oblivious of everyone else in the queue behind them. They have nothing prepared when they get to the actual security part, search their copious amount of hand luggage for every last liquid, try and fail to fit it into the plastic bag, need to then entirely repack their cases. They must have 5 hours to spare before their flight. The rest of us don’t.
The friends and family at arrival who are there with banners, who cannot contain their excitement at the impending arrival of loved ones. Who are rowdy, laughing, taking up huge amounts of happy space, who look as if they may combust with eager anticipation. Smiles and jokes all round. Love it.
The bleary and bedraggled traveler. Who has come off a red eye flight, has no-one waiting for them, looks around slightly bewildered but knows where they are heading. Exhaustion is palpable from these people, they want to get through and get to bed without having to engage with another human being.
Children are special at airports – because its a confusing place for many adults and yet children seem to be able to navigate them with no problem at all. From queuing at immigration to waiting for bags they take it in their stride. Get up, sit down, stand in line, walk up, down sideways, get on the plane, get off – totally unfazed.
Quite literally as I am writing, while sitting an airport waiting for my family to arrive (sadly, no banners as its not quite the same when you are alone bouncing up and down with balloons), there is a person at a table next to me in the cafe speaking loudly in Bosnian. Believing no-one around him can understand, which is a strange assumption at an airport. I am currently learning more about his relationship with his wife than I ever needed to know. In between he is including copious amounts of swearing, even allowing for the fact that one of the reasons I love that language is for the swearing – the type and the free use of pretty outrageous terms by the majority of people. I’m also learning that today is not one of the best days of his life and seemingly not sweating the small stuff is so far an unknown concept to him, judging from his complaints to the long-suffering person on the other end of the phone Mind you, an elderly man has also just sat next to me talking even louder on the phone, in English, discussing his aged relative’s arthritis and then ends the call abruptly after being told by his wife she is busy at the hairdresser. He is now watching a YouTube clip of ABBA singing Dancing Queen. Loudly.
And I think that’s it – airports give brief snapshots into peoples lives like little else, its like watching a collage of life through the equaliser of travel. Absolutely wonderful.
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Serendipity
Sometimes life absolutely amazes me. And I don’t mean in my permanent ‘WTAF’ way around people….
My Iraq deployment was shit. Wrong job for me, 23rd floor in an earthquake, not based in Baghdad where I wanted to be – I could go on. And I have no doubt that you are, at this point, begging me not to.
In my last few demented weeks there, I was connected with WaterAid, an organisation I have never worked with, who were looking for someone for 4-6 months in Zambia.
Did I mention I was demented? However, I am unfailingly high functioning demented – (some may call it CPTSD…) and I managed a successful informal interview whilst in some incredibly shitty guesthouse.
As an aside, the guesthouse that had cockroaches. I can do bombs and bullets, and apparently earthquakes, but I cant fucking do cockroaches. I was already not exactly on stable ground, literally, then met my insect nemesis…I packed up and left the next day.
As I was hiding on the bed 2 hours post interview, because of course the disgusting insects couldn’t get me there, I got an e-mail saying I’d been successful. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
All I could focus on was getting home in 8 days – my plan had been to spend a couple of months at home before taking another contract. So this was totally out of the blue.
I got back last week and in between passing out, and still working on some things, this contract was taking shape. Zambia is somewhere I would love to go, I deeply miss East Africa since I left 10 years ago, and the idea of going to Southern Africa was appealing. Just hard to find anything other than bed appealing.
And then in the last 72 hours it just all happened. I checked it out more, joined some FB Zambia groups, someone posted a gorgeous cottage they were renting adjacent to their family home, literally an hour after I joined. I secured it the next day, my company agreeing to it.
I put a post on FB looking for a dog sitter, unknown to me it went onto IG, an old friend who only uses IG saw it and his 22 year old daughter is looking for somewhere in London. And she will be here for my kids as they come and go some weekends, she’s thrilled, I’m thrilled – win/win.
And then today, an old and wonderful friend from Lebanon days just sent me a connection request on LinkedIn. I saw she’d recently moved to Zambia – she had no idea I’d just accepted this contract!
Our sons were in the same class in school, our daughters similar ages. Other than I can’t wait to see her again, it will be amazing for when I bring my kids out to visit. I saw she was connected to the woman I’m renting the cottage from – I asked her and she said they’d met some weeks before. And when she met her, she really reminded her of me….
Zambia, here I come. Can’t wait.
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When not to respond
Well, what a week.
I’ve been a humanitarian responder for 30 years, and I cannot comprehend 20,000 people dead.
Every single part of me is screaming to go and do something. Waking up multiple times in the night, wide eyed engulfed by the horror of what is happening.
No, of course it’s not about me. Nor my urge to ‘do good’. Nor the very real link to my past which is what has always motivated me. Nobody helped me, nobody spoke out for me and I will never let that happen to others.
It’s what’s driven me for these 30 years. And it’s what I’ve had to question and examine all the time – because the urge to help others can quickly become self centred. You are, in fact, not even seeing the others but rather only seeing yourself – you are vicariously saving yourself.
But I know this. I always have. And I’ve always named it, challenged myself, driven any number of therapists mad with the constant questioning. Checking my motives. Then examining them again and again. Because I have no right to help others unless I can help myself – that is the very least they deserve.
So I know now that the horror I feel, the acute despair, the visceral drive to go and act are real. My mentor, friend, boss once told me, when I arrived one morning haggard from the night of seeing and feeling the then starvation of people in a famine: ‘Sonia, if you don’t have times that you wake up at 2am in the horrors, you are in the wrong job’.
All of me wants to go to Turkey/Syria – the drive is immense. And I also know it’s the wrong thing to do right now – because that would be serving my need, my burning need to act, to do, to lead.
And I am not in a place where I can give my best. I’m mentally and physically tired from the last 12 weeks here in Iraq – sadly, for all the wrong reasons. But the state remains. This past 5 days was overdrive to make sure my team were OK after the (minor, but real) earthquake here.
I would love to say that I realised this and did not say yes when asked to join various teams – but of course I said yes. I did manage caveats, I did say others would be better placed, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to say no the second time I was asked.
However, fortuitously, others were there first so I didn’t have to go – I said I would be available for 2nd and 3rd phases. After I have gone home next week and rested, recuperated and got myself on track.
Sometimes, the most appropriate thing we can do is to say no. The people of Turkey and Syria deserve those that come in to respond to be on their A game – I’m currently a D at best.
I’m doing a lot behind the scenes and I’m doing it well. And I’m owning my own deep disappointment in myself that I’m not there – and seeing it for what it is.
Waking up with the horror, allowing myself to feel the tiniest bit of what people are going through and staying still, feeling it, for now is enough. Sometimes running to respond can become a way of avoiding just that – and we need to feel it.
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I’m never going to dance again
George Michael is soulfully blaring in the background as I sit in Sami Abdul Rahman Park in Erbil. Immensely enjoying my fresh orange and pomegranate juice andthe sun on my face
The men, less so. It is such an incredibly male dominated, and male privileged, culture. On my walk today in less populated parts of the park I have passed at least 20 men, some in groups, some alone. All staring. Casual stares often, but clear about their right to act whatever way they feel or want, towards women.
It’s the same anywhere you go. Predominantly men everywhere and always with that ‘I can do whatever the fuck I want’ underlying vibe. Because they can. Its not overtly aggressive, nor is it harassment – it’s just quietly there
And I really fucking hate it. I’ve lived, travelled and worked in far more patriarchal and threatening places, but weirdly in somewhere like Somalia I never felt this in the same way. But I have in some parts of North Africa, much worse than here, and some other Middle Eastern countries.
There’s a constant and very real feeling that women don’t even warrant being second class citizens. You’d be lucky if a man noticed you struggling with bags or shopping and opened a door, a courtesy they would do automatically for another man. When I landed at the airport I had one huge bag, one small – the person collecting me took the small one.
It’s where I’m delighted I’m older and have short, grey hair. To be clear, I’m delighted all the time of both of those things, but especially so here. I get very little negative attention and no harassment – I was with a younger female colleague the other day and I saw all the looks, from blatant leering to just stating.
It’s not that people are not kind here, and respectful in many ways. Which I appreciate sounds like a contradiction, but it’s not. It’s that the entire culture is built around and dominated by men.
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How is Iraq?
I am asked. ‘I don’t know’ comes the facetious response.
A) I’m in Kurdistan, which is legally part of Iraq, but it really doesn’t want to be. It has its own government, systems and I’m not sure if I mentioned, but it really doesn’t want to be part of Iraq
B) I haven’t yet been able to go into Federal Iraq – i.e. not Kurdistan. You have to have a specific visa, preceded by specific papers, preceded by a legal power of attorney to be able to apply for the previous two.
C) I’m unsure of the security systems and how they are implemented. It’s a big thing of mine, fortunately, given my ‘specialty’ is conflict zones. And while we have a lovely security team here, I am not yet confident that I would trust them with my safety. Lovely is not necessarily what I’m looking for.
D) Related to C, ISIS are still very much present in Iraq. Smaller scale, less of a caliphate and more of a marauding group, scattered in small pockets around the country. But very much active. Along with scattered Turkish and Iranian bombings along the borders. I could go on, but suffice to say, I want a lot more than lovely in our security systems.
Therefore. I can tell you a lot about the office. As in, the actual building. And the 15 minute walk to the office as I attempt to keep some sort of exercise going. And about how I should be learning some Kurdish words and how I really don’t want to. I have a handful of Arabic and I am childishly hanging onto that.
I can also tell you about Mohamed, the lovely young Syrian man who works in the cafe downstairs from where I’m staying. You can see straight away that he is a kind, gentle soul. Painfully thin, huge soulful eyes, warm.
We’ve struck up a friendship and on the third day, he asked me, via Google translate, how he could get asylum in Europe. He is still learning English and my Arabic doesn’t stretch to international human rights law. My heart broke a little when he asked me, because I know I can’t help him.
He works every day, 7 days a week, from 7am to 5pm in the cafe. He’s happy to have the job, but it’s also relentless. He’s a smart young man, he is teaching himself English, he is funny and kind and brings all of my maternal instincts to the fore.
He escaped Syria, he cannot go back, he is stuck here, like so many others. He certainly doesn’t have it as bad as many, say I, secure in the citizenship I have that allows me access to pretty much anywhere I want.
I want to help Mohamed. Because I like him, but also because I am feeling quite helpless here in some ways. I’m not sure that I can make the difference I want to make. Because I learned long ago that if I can help one person, that is enough. My work is meant to help hundreds of thousands, and sometimes it does, but helping one is how I reconcile the fact that no matter what I do, it is never enough.
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Saving children…
…one hair at a time ‘How is Iraq?’ I am asked frequently. ‘Wow, it must be tough there’
Nobody, especially not me, expected a text message like this from one of my team the night before they were due back at work.
It’s extremely rare that I’m speechless. This did it. Quite literally nothing prepared me for a hair transplant message and I’ve seen some strange things
So for those of you thinking that life may be tough over here, please factor in cosmetic surgery recovery as part of the struggle.
Who knows, maybe I’ll even come back with (hairy) boobs.
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Hotel living
#coffeehacks Like many of us, those at least who have proper priorities, coffee is a thing. I have a wonderful Gaggia coffee machine at home but it not exactly practical to travel with.
I used to travel with a French Press, but it never hit the spot. Or hit too many spots if I didn’t pack it properly, being made of glass. A friend suggested the aeropress, I think mostly because it’s entirely plastic and he knows my tendency to break/damage things or myself.
Excellent solution. Except for the milk. It makes espresso coffee, but if, like me, you take milk and you’re in a hotel room the end product is disgusting cold coffee.
Never to be defeated in my search for drinkable coffee, I found this hack online and it’s brilliant. You put the ceramic cup three quarters filled with milk sitting just inside the mouth of the kettle and let it boil for a few minutes. Perfectly heated milk and passably drinkable coffee – life is suddenly worth living again.
I feel that may sum up my first days here in Erbil. I will be moving today to a temporary apartment, which will be a welcome shift from the apparently entirely male dominated hotel.
Breakfast is on the 10th floor – the first morning I jog up the 3 flights of stairs, to be greeted by a room filled with middle aged men. Not a woman in sight. They all skip a small beat when I entered, then carried on.
I’m a confident traveller and it’s hardly the first time I’m in that situation, but I never like it. It’s impossible not to be self conscious, not to immediately put on the mental armour, not be hyper vigilant. It’s a hotel breakfast room, nothing sinister, but it’s an auto reaction developed over the years for good reason.
The next morning I was more prepared, it’s been a while since I’ve been work travelling, I went up, collected some breakfast and brought it to my room. Fuck sitting in the restaurant.
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Chchchchchchanges
We are so weird as humans. Not that I know what it’s like to be any other creature. Our resistance to change is enormous and powerful, in my case, despite myself.
I’m off to Iraq tomorrow and despite the usual deployment nonsense, I’ve been really keen to go and looking forward to it. Right up to last night. A friend told me recently the same thing happens to him, all gung ho until two days before when it all becomes shit – exactly this!
I love travel, I love adventure, new experiences and opportunities. I’m deeply passionate about all of these. Apparently not as passionate as I am about my bed and home comforts, however, according to my current state of emotions
I mean what the actual fuck?! Utter nonsense, I tell that voice as the emotional debate rages inside me. Fuck and off comes the reply ‘what about the dog??? You are abandoning the dog, she will be gutted’. My resolve weakens as I get teary over the dog.
No Oatly oat milk for my coffee where I’m going. My bed is soooo comfortable, bet the one there will be crap. How about all the TV shows I watch? My slippers won’t fit in the case.
Really and truly, and more than a little tragically, these are just a few of the thoughts flying around my head. All with associated emotions of sadness, upset and stubbornness, resisting the change with every fibre possible.
I confess, I am bringing my pillow with me. I caved. I love my pillow. Deeply, it seems.
I’m also strapping my HRT to my body to make sure it comes with me. My packing has involved 50% of must haves which I’m too embarrassed to even start listing – I’ve confessed about the pillow, that will do
The point is, our mind fucks with us. Tells us to resist change. To dig deeper into out comfort zones and stay put. The world out there is just too overwhelming, look at all the lovely things you have around you, your routines, habits. Never mind that they may also be dull, stifling and…routine.
Because breaking out of them is exhilarating. Let me rephrase – after you’ve made the break it’s exhilarating. The break for me at least, is emotional and frustrating as I don’t make sense to myself.
I know when I get there I’ll be thrilled. Excited by the new people, places, experiences – everything will be new and different and that is my soul food. It’s where I expand, where I exhale and soak it all in, where my mind comes alive.
Shaking off the comfort blanket of familiarity is immensely freeing. The last 2.5 years of COVID and personal health forced isolation, lack of travel, remotely working have shrunk my world and it’s soooo easy to get stuck there.
But, fuck that. I will head off today, sobbing at saying goodbye to my dog. Probably also sobbing at saying goodbye to my bed. And make sure I tap into that excitement, thrill of new experiences and opportunities and people.
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Iraq, HRT and a cold
I’m off to Kurdistan Iraq in a week – assuming flights are sorted out. I’ll be based in Erbil on and off for the next 3 months which I’m really looking forward to – amazing city and fascinating part of the world. And the icing on the cake is that I won’t be the one in overall charge – thank fuck. Its a gap fill position and I get to run one team, not all of them – something I haven’t done for a very long time and it’s bloody wonderful.
Deployments with agencies are always…interesting. You would think (I wouldn’t) that they are so used to sending people around the world that it’s a well oiled machine. A rusty, abandoned tractor is more often the reality.
This deployment team are much more on it than others – I have my contract and everything was confirmed within 48 hours which is impressive. I’m also impressive since I’m ridiculously efficient when it comes to this type of thing. And just like my comment about rusty tractor agencies, those of us who get deployed can be the rustiest of all.
I was told I need to get a health check, lucky I’ve spent most of the last 7 years getting checked, rechecked, remodelled and fine tuned. Note my continuity of machine/tractor themes. I am a finely tuned tractor.
Fill out this health form and get these tests, came the e-mail. Excellent. Make an appointment with Nomad Health. Even better. These forms take me quite a bit of time and effort given they always include a health history…
On the phone to Nomad to make the appointment, having to ask them what appointment I needed, both of us equally confused after two minutes. We muddled through and I have ended up with two appointments lasting 45 mins each – one all about vaccines. I don’t want or need any, but that seems to be besides the point
I e-mail the form as requested, only to be told that it’s the wrong one and can I fill in this one? Which is a shorter version of the one I already completed – as in, it’s contained in its entirety in the one I had already sent. Seemingly the one I sent will confuse the doctor as it’s the wrong one. I reply that I don’t want to see a doctor who will get this easily confused. We agree that this form will do.
Which brings me to HRT. Day 9 and my anxiety has gone – completely left. Nothing, nada – NO FUCKING ANXIETY. Hand on heart, I cannot remember the last time I did not feel anxious. Varying degrees, from crippling to gnawing, but ever present. I am in shock, good shock, but holy shit. The permanent knot in my gut has gone.
I’ve also slept the last 4 nights – 8 hours, barely waking and if I do, briefly and back to sleep. The anxiety and insomnia were best friends who have now buggered off, and I’m happily waving them goodbye.
A cold has replaced them, since Tuesday, and I’m pretty sure it’s my body going ‘thank fuck I’m no longer fuelled by anxiety driven adrenaline and can now slow down’. I also never get colds – I tend to go from well to hospitalised, so I’m really doing full on man flu here. It’s great. Moaning about feeling shit, eating my body weight of homemade chicken soup, staying in and whingeing. To my dog, mostly.
And it’s fucking great. I never get to moan about ordinary things – I always have to be extra, rise above the next body part to go or cope with a major bloody crisis. Right now I feel like my cold is the worst thing in the world, while still managing to laugh at myself in the background. Bemoan the sniffles, whinge about feeling shit after 5 days, wonder will it last forever, think I’m the only person in the world with a cold this long lasting.
And above all else, whine without a trace of anxiety, just pure and unadulterated self absorption.
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First draft of book
Done and dusted. Eighty thousand words, similar amount of emotions laced with various levels of hysteria. And lots of tears.
None of which I was expecting. Well, I clearly was expecting the words, but not that level of emotion. ‘I’ve done 650 years of therapy – of course I’ll be fine’. Looks like I’ll be up to 651 years soon
This first draft will most likely bear very little resemblance to the final version, thank fuck. Because it’s pretty dark in a lot of places – inevitably including dark humour – but dark nonetheless. The words kept pouring out, I tried a number of times to divert, shift focus, but I always returned to the underlying emotions and drivers.
I was expecting it for the ‘My Poxy Childhood’ section – my fond working title – but I was surprised when it came through in pretty much everything else. From work, to country moves, to marriages, to pretty much all the numerous life events.
I had about 2 weeks of being totally lost in it – I can absolutely see now why I haven’t written this up until now. I never had the space, mentally or physically, to get these words down and more importantly, process each time I did.
It’s not a dumping ground, it’s not about me spewing out everything that had happened and treating the writing like a confessional. Because I have done plenty of that in hundreds of different therapeutic sessions over the years, and have no need or desire to do so for a public audience.
And this is where the processing each day came in. I wrote every day, often for not more than 2-3 hours and then processed for the rest of the time. While getting on with day to day life, as opposed to sitting on the side of mountain gazing at my navel.
At more than one point I was wondering who the fuck would ever want to read this. The intensity is stunning. Real and gut wrenchingly honest, but a lot. Then I realised that this will underpin the stories, this will show the depth behind each major event, outline the why. But will not comprise the entirety of the book.
I was told by a number of people that you need to dig deep, you need to really get to what the core is, the why. When I dig deep, I go deeper again. And then some more for good measure. I do ridiculous honesty. And I know that when I do that, it resonates with others – it’s how I connect with people and how they connect with me.
It’s where I am at my most real and it’s where I make a difference. It’s also where I see the ridiculous, where I right size whatever is happening in life and where I prioritise the important things, not the bullshit.
And it’s where I make some people uncomfortable. If you are going to reach that deep into yourself and lift the rocks that hide the dark, icky parts of yourself, you develop a clearer vision of life. Some dislike clarity, they like to keep the rocks firmly in place are invested in keeping it blurred, covering up, avoidance.
And ultimately, fuck it. My life motto. Wading through the mud and the dark provides an incredible freedom. A hard won freedom, but then I don’t think it ever comes easy.
I can’t wait to get to the next draft, where I can talk more about the freedom and the joy, about the laughter and the love. It all co-exists – a friend of mine used to say ‘The darker the dark, the lighter the light’. It took me years to understand that fully, but it’s so bloody true.
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Menopause
As someone who is oblivious to 99% of media that is not political (and I only engage in the latter as little as I can), I missed the whole Davina McCall menopause campaign and related flurry.
I know it’s a hot topic, pun intended, which means it has in turn made its way to me and led me to have a look at my symptoms
My menopause was chemotherapy induced – second dose of chemo stopped my periods and brought it on, almost 8 years ago to the day. As my focus then was on staying alive and surviving the hell that was chemo, I paid little attention to it.
And since then, I have blamed this endless range of symptoms on the aggressive treatment I had – and much needed – for my successful breast cancer survival. Anything from aching joints, awful insomnia, brain fog, mood swings….I could go on.
I also blamed these symptoms on all the various life events from the ridiculous life I lead. COVID nearly took me out in March 2020, that could explain a lot of symptoms. The multiple surgeries over 2 years, maybe those. The toxic work environment- who the fuck can sleep while dealing with that?
Then in recent months, thanks to friends talking about their menopause journeys, I started to realise that perhaps this was the cause. That many of the chemo side effects during and since may well have not been chemo, but were in fact more likely to be menopause.
Having decided to again jump off the cliff, stop work, take a break, use the money from my house sale to do so, and calm the fuck down has meant I can see things more clearly. Removing all the external stressors means I can see that I still suffer from insomnia, the brain fog, fatigue, mood swings remain
So do the body temperature changes – never had traditional hot flushes, but I get hot unexpectedly. My joints and muscles hurt, despite constant physical training, And the anxiety – good fucking god, the anxiety is insane – I always thought it was just my mad life – but it’s not, it has an absolute life if it’s own. I could go on. Suffice to say, I tick most of the things in the long list of menopause symptoms
And I never had a clue. Part of being a survivor means you, well me at least, don’t really talk or give weight to things unless they are major. So I just got on with all of this, figuring that was life and on we go
But it’s not. So the next stage was talking to my GP. Who was helpful up until she wasn’t – because of my breast cancer history, she had to refer me to a menopause unit with a 9 month waiting list. Next step, I paid for the BUPA private menopause service and got an appointment with menopause specialised GP.
Who was lovely, agreed that I very much did need HRT, that it would be extremely beneficial but that she couldn’t prescribe it. Because of my history. Which I had stated in the form I had completed prior to the appointment.
Not one to give up easily, I not only managed to get a refund for that, I also found a doctor in Nottingham who is endorsed by the British Menopause Society and I confirmed that if we agreed, she could prescribe HRT. My breast cancer was not hormone receptive – some breast cancers are fuelled by oestrogen or progesterone or both – meaning adding these to your body afterwards is not a good idea. But mine was something called triple negative breast cancer, meaning triple hormone negative. It doesn’t meant there was 100% no hormones involved, it means if there are, they were minimal. All of this I knew when I embarked on this mission, but I wanted to arm myself with as much info and advice as I could.
So I contacted my surgical oncologist and she replied to my question about whether it was safe or not. We all know the scares and confusion as to whether HRT is a risk factor for breast cancer or not. And she told me the baseline is that they don’t know. In more detail, but that was the gist of it – I have always loved her for her honesty and pragmatism. She also didn’t say that it was definitely not safe, which is what a lot of the studies in the 70’s said, with newer studies contradicting that
She was spot on. We just don’t know because, as fucking always, not enough research has been done on something that affects 51% of the population. Weak research was done 40 years ago and taken as gospel. Hormones have changed, and all the rhetoric around this now reminds me of when the contraceptive pill was new. Not enough research and any that was done at the start was weak, resulting in scaremongering and insufficient evidence
So have weighed it up and will go for it. I saw the Nottingham doc virtually – well, in fact, I didn’t see her as she couldn’t get Zoom to work…I knew more about the breast cancer side than her, but that’s OK. She knew her shit on HRT and that’s what I needed her for.
I joined a few groups on HRT and have been researching like mad. I have learned that bio identical hormones carry far less risk, that body identical ones are new with some people promoting them, but there is insufficient evidence on their efficacy and safety. I have read the NICE guidelines (https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng23 – you’re welcome) and I have armed myself with as much knowledge as I can absorb
And my vote has gone to improve my quality of life, physically and mentally, and go for HRT. There may be a risk, but I work very hard to mitigate other breast cancer risks, not having boobs is one, and I believe that if my quality of life improves, that can only be a good thing for overall health.
So at the end of my appointment on Thursday we agreed a plan of treatment and I was thrilled – third time lucky and all that. She said she’d send a 3 month supply, then also send details to my GP to carry it on – fantastic. The hospital pharmacy called me yesterday morning to confirm they would be sending it and I would have it today or Monday
Then I got another call at 4.30pm from the pharmacy to say that they had the whole prescription ready to go – but the Doctor had made a mistake on the prescription and they legally couldn’t send it until she corrected it. And, not their words, she had gone AWOL that afternoon, being a Friday…
I was literally tearful – did I mention irrational moods and emotions as part of the menopause? I could hear the trepidation in the woman’s voice as she was telling me, apologising profusely. While reassuring me they had all the medicines there, they just had to wait until Monday to get hold of the doctor.
It dawned on me after the call that they must have been sitting in the pharmacy drawing straws. Can you imagine? Who was going to call the wildly menopausal woman and tell her that the hormones she needed to stop being insane were delayed? This poor woman who got the short straw….I am very glad I managed to get it together half way through the call and say I understood it was not her fault and thank her for letting me know. Another time I could have just as easily lost it altogether – which she undoubtedly knew as the relief in her voice was palpable.
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Leader, speaker, storyteller, feminist, body positivity activist living an intense, unapologetic life. I take space, I speak loudly, I call out bullshit. With courage, care, and deep empathy. I have spent my life making a positive difference to others through my work as a Humanitarian leader and now through my life experiences.
Life Changing Times 