When I was about 14, I took ballet classes (doesn’t every girl?) and it was that time of the month. I tried to fake being sick so that my mom wouldn’t make me go but I had to attend anyway. I didn’t know how to use tampons at the time so I had to use a pad in leotards. Have you ever tried doing this? This was BEFORE wings. Think black bodysuit, white leotard a bulky pad. So everything was going well until we started doing leaps diagonally across the room and one of the girls shouts out – What’s wrong with your tights? So much for leakage control…my pad had leaked and I now had a red stain down the leg of my tights. The teacher let me go to the washroom to clean up. I couldn’t get my tights cleaned and I think I just sat in the bathroom for the rest of the class….mortified….

Thanks for the giveaway!

http://kaydencebookblog.wordpress.com/2010/03/18/ballerinas-should-not-surf-the-crimson-wave/

I’m almost frightened to see if my eighth graders read and comment on it. I think I’m lucky that in most cases they don’t bother to check my blog links.

For many of you, (cue spooky music) I am the voice of your future. I had my last period 17 years ago. (I’m 57, in case you’re wondering. No sense being coy now.)How that came about falls into my personal chapter of “when good periods go bad.” My periods had become extremely heavy and lasted a long time, to the point that I was “flowing” more than I wasn’t. My GYN said a hysterectomy was a reasonable option, but as an RN (then; not now) I had read that there were a lot of unnecessary hysterectomies being done and didn’t really want to have surgery if I didn’t have to, so I chose door #2. Behind it was progesterone therapy (the same hormone in Depo-Provera). It was extremely effective in managing my periods, but unfortuantely a pesky side effect for me was migraine headaches. Miserable headaches. (I suspect I’m preaching to some of you.) Can’t-open-my-eyes headaches. Can’t-do-my-job headaches. Can’t-take-care-of-my-children-and-I’m-the-only-adult-here headaches. The worst part, though, was that these were I-can’t-keep-anything-down-for-days-and-days headaches, so I ended up repeatedly in the hospital for rehydration and IV medications to treat the pain and nausea. Then, my internist called me one day to tell me that a new medication was on the market for migraine treatment. Imitrex initially was released in a self-injecting syringe, but the first dose had to be given in a doctor’s office. So, the next time I took progesterone, I got a migraine, and went to my internist’s office and got my injection. I was to just lie down and relax in the dark for about 20 minutes. After about 5, my throat felt a little funny, then I started coughing and couldn’t stop, and the next place I found myself was in the hospital ER with an SRO crowd in the room. I had had an anaphylactic allergic response and had had to be given CPR. Oh, my. My chest hurt. My throat hurt. And dammit, my head still hurt. When my internist and GYN appeared in my hospital room together and asked how I felt about a hysterctomy now, my response was “where do I sign?”