Midlife Hormones Are Wreaking Havoc (But What If My Labs Say I’m Fine?)

Hey girl. Hey. Welcome back to Midlife Shenanigans with

Tish, the podcast where snacks are

required, sanity is optional, and

snorts are encouraged. Hey, I'm talking about the

laughing kind of snorts. I'm not sure what you were

thinking. Okay, anyways, I was

this close to celebrating seven

full months without a period and I was eyeing

menopause merch. I was getting

myself ready to have this

menopausal victory dance once I hit that

12 month mark. But bam.

Aunt Flo showed up like she forgot she was

supposed to be gone for good. Rude,

rude, rude. I spilled all the details about

that in last week's episode, but today I'm going to

dive into the next stage of the hormonal rollercoaster.

I'm finally getting blood work done. Yep, estrogen

progesterone and another one that I don't remember what my

doctor said. And I laugh because I don't even know

if I freaking pronounce these hormones correctly.

But anyways, I'm going to be getting them checked so that

my doctor knows where my hormone levels are. Before

I jump into this week's episode, I want to remind you, if you haven't

picked up my five midlife LOLs, no

advice, just attitude. A quick little PDF printable with

five laughs about midlife. You can grab that at

tishleigh.com P O-L

O L that's tishleigh.com

pod LOL. So last week when I had

my appointment with my doctor, I

like cuss in front of her. I about

things in front of her. Like she is just so down

to earth and just gets me in my personality

and it doesn't even phase her. She probably never

knows what's going to come out of my mouth from one minute to the next

because hello, I don't even know what's going to come out of my mouth

from one minute to the next. So as I'm in that appointment, you.

Know, I'm having this complete fest with her.

Like a full on what the actual. Hell

is going on in my body. I was bitching about the fact

that hello, I was coming up on seven

months without no period and then the came

back. So I was complaining about that.

I was telling her all about all. The freaking like hot

flashes and just feeling like I am literally burning

from. The inside of my body out it is.

Oh man. For those that have not experienced hot

flashes, they just don't

understand and they never will understand

the actual hell that hot flashes are. I was

telling her about my crazy Sleep issues.

There are nights that I can lay down and I can sleep

hard as a rock. Well, that's not true. I have never really

slept hard as a rock. What the hell does sleeping hard as a rock

even mean? I don't, I don't even know if that makes sense. But hey, whatever,

I'm rolling with it where I

can do my normal sleep. Which is, you know, I

sleep four to five hours and then I'm usually. Up and then I can fall

back asleep. But lately this

midlife hormonal hell has been.

I can't sleep. I will just

lay awake for hours. And hours and hours. If

I do fall asleep, 3am

3, 3:30am seems to be this

amazing magical bewitching hour

that suddenly my body just says, boom, bitch,

it's time to be awake. I was just

bitching to her about. Everything that has going on

and, and. I told her I was like, I. Feel like I

am playing hormonal roulette and I'm

losing every damn spin. Like I.

Anyways, I, you know, was just bitching about all that.

And she just says, well, this

may. Not excite you, but it excites me. And I'm

just looking at her like. What are you, why are you

excited? Excited that my. She was excited about

the fact that my period came back. It

turns out that since I just

got my period again after nearly seven

months of that being gone.

But I guess there is like a hormone

that she wants to check. It's

perfect timing for me to have it checked because if you

do it like I don't know how to explain it within so many

days of like your menstrual cycle or something

like that's the best time to check it. And I just laugh because I'm

like, well, I think it's funny that, you know, it's best to

check it in like a certain time frame of my

menstrual cycle when considering I haven't freaking had

a cycle again for almost seven damn

months. She said, you can check it without,

you know, having a period. But she's like, it's better if

you do have a period. So she's like, again, I'm

excited. Oh man, I'm not

excited about this whole frickin period thing. You may be able to

pick up on that. So anyways, I am

going in for blood work

on Friday, November 14, and

I have to say, y', all, a part of me is excited

and there's. Also a part of me that is low key scared.

I'm not scared about Getting the blood work.

So when I say that I'm scared. Here'S,

here's what I'm scared about. So I go in for this blood work,

they check my estrogen, progesterone, and that one other

one that I don't remember what it is. What if

all of that blood work comes back normal? Like,

I don't even know. I guess I could probably google it. Like, what

are normal, you know, hormone levels for a 50 year

old woman. But so it comes

back, quote unquote normal. Like, what if

all these symptoms, the. Brain fog, the anxiety,

the hot flashes. The, the, the moments

of just pure rage, the black chin hairs,

the, you know, just all the weird hormonal shit that's going

on. What if my labs tell my

doctor that my hormones are normal?

That freaks me out. It makes

me feel like, so if, if

these labs come back normal, am I going to

feel like, okay, this is all just in my

head. Like I'm just being dramatic and I am a

drama queen. I mean, I'm overly dramatic all the time,

but. So it just

freaks me out a little bit that there is a

possibility that my hormone levels could come back normal.

Now, deep down, I don't think they will come back normal

because I think my hormones are just so freaking

chaotic right now because they're just so

out of whack. But, so even

though there is that, you know, small possibility

that they could come back normal, and that sends me into this

mode of thinking, okay, am I just making all

this up in my head? Am I really not experiencing

all this stuff? Even though I know

1000% that I'm

literally experiencing all this stuff, even though I know my

body and I know something's off. It's just

that since this whole

like turning 50 thing.

It just makes me. Freaking question everything,

including my sleep self. Anyways, I'm holding

on to hope because I do believe that my

hormones are just freaking out of whack right now. But no

matter what the results say, I still deserve answers. We

all do. This whole midlife,

like, hormone thing, it shouldn't be some mystery

you have to solve while, you know, we're sweating

through our sheets and our clothes and crying over, you know,

commercials and spilled Diet Coke. Because, yeah, that just

happened to me. Not once, but this is like the third

time now in months that I've spilled Diet Coke and

cried. But again, I'm getting

off track. I digress. I digress.

Okay, so, yeah, my blood work is coming up on the

14th and you know, I'll be back to spill the tea on whatever it

says, Good, bad, confusing, or welp, that was

pointless. And if you're listening to this and you're

thinking, oh, my God, Tish, I totally feel

you, I just want you to know you are not

crazy. You are not alone, and you're definitely

not making this, you know, shit up. Our bodies

are definitely going through hormonal hell

in midlife. There's just no if, ands, or buts about it.

And if you've already been down this hormone

highway, please hit me up and let me

know, like, what your blood work said. How

out of whack were your home hormones? I want

to know. So head on over to

Tishleigh.com I have a contact form

on the website. Like, seriously, reach out to me because

I am so curious. I just want

to connect with other midlife women that have

experienced, like, what I'm experiencing and have

been through, like, having their hormones checked and stuff. And

I'm very curious about if you are doing

hormone replacement therapy, also known as

hrt, I guess. Like, what.

What is involved in your hrt? Because

when my doctor and I first talked about it, there was some very

expensive things that were not an option for me. I

do not have medical insurance. So, yeah, that's just what I

wanted to chat with you about today.

So, anyways, that's it for today. And.