Tuesday 11th September 2029
Menopause. The one word that Sam detested the most at that moment. Once she had given birth to Daniel and Ella, she had looked forward to it; no more periods - what's not to like? But she had been juvenile then, she hadn't taken into account that some women had an absolute ball with menopause; they just stopped their periods and that was that. But other woman had it much, much worse. They had hot flushes and night sweats, loss of libido, vaginal dryness and pain, itching or discomfort during sex, palpitations, headaches, mood changes, such as depression, anxiety or tiredness, sleeping problems, such as insomnia and urinary tract infections. And Sam fell into that category.
After feeling a fluttering sensation in her chest, Sam had jogged into the staffroom to hide herself away from her colleagues as the fluttering feeling soon turned into a burning one and Sam's entire chest, neck and face flushed red. She could literally feel the heat radiating out of her skin as she endured the hot flush and all she could do was splash cold water over her face by the sink.
"You poor thing." Sam jumped as a hand was placed on her back but she continued with the rinsing of water when she realised that it was her husband.
"Sam? Tom? What're you two doing in here? We're a bit busy out there if you haven't noticed." Zoe stated as she came in.
"Sorry I-"
"No, don't be sorry." Tom interrupted his wife. "It's not your fault." He added as she dried her face with paper towels.
"What's not?" Zoe asked hesitantly.
"The fact that she's turned into a tomato and she needed to cool down." Tom chuckled quietly as Sam reluctantly turned around to show Zoe her flushed skin.
"Is it peri-menopause?" Zoe questioned.
"Yep." Sam relied bluntly.
"Oh I feel for you. When I went through it, it was absolute hell. I couldn't sleep at all, I just kept on waking up with night sweats." Zoe said sympathetically.
"She can't sleep either." Tom said softly as he rubbed his hand up and down Sam's back. "She's up all night tossing and turning."
"Well, ask your GP about antidepressants. They can be used to treat hot flushes, and that'll help you to sleep better. Plus they'll help with any mood swings or anxiety." Zoe suggested.
"I have suggested that but she won't touch 'happy pills'." Tom quipped.
"Have you tried Hormone Replacement Therapy?"
"That's what her GP has suggested as a next move if we can't get symptoms under control within the next few weeks." Tom replied. "Right, you ready to get back to work?" Tom asked his wife.
"Mmhmm." She mumbled reluctantly because her boss was there, and they all headed back to get on with their jobs.
6pm
In the evening, Sam wanted to get some exercise so she, Tom and their 10 year old daughter were taking Panda and Alex out for a walk in Victoria Park, which was actually several fields next to each other, so they were away from the hustle and bustle of Holby City, and in a nice quiet green area. And of course, their 14 year old son had far more important things to be doing than go walking with his family, so he had gone bowling with some of his friends.
Sam and Tom were slowly strolling next to each other whilst Ella ran about playing fetch with the dogs and Sam envied her own daughter as she couldn't risk running about, for she could trigger a hot flush and that was the last thing that she wanted.
"Mum." Suddenly, Sam turned around to see that her daughter had blood dripping down her nose, over her lips and then off of her chin as she quickly made her way over to her parents.
"Have you got any tissues?" Tom asked as he didn't bother trying to calm his daughter like he used to do; she was used to nosebleeds by then and didn't need calming.
"No, I didn't bring a bag with me." Sam admitted. "Hang on." Sam grinned as she reached into her pocket and then took out a single tampon from her jeans that she had had in her pocket because she had worn those trousers to work and she was always cautious of starting because her periods were so irregular.
"Are you being serious?!" Ella laughed.
"What? It's designed to absorb blood." Sam said innocently. "Seriously, just use it. It's clean." Sam stated so Ella reluctantly took it and unwrapped it. And within seconds, Sam and Tom burst out laughing as Ella stood with a tampon sticking out of the nostril that blood had been dripping out of. "Tom get a picture of this." Sam laughed.
"No! Don't you dare!" Ella protested as she turned away and leant forwards to stop the flow of blood.
"Good girl." Tom said softly as he rubbed Ella's back in a circular motion whilst she waited for the bleeding to stop. Only whilst Tom had his attention on his daughter, he failed to notice that his wife was having another hot flush and as it took over her entire upper half of her body she tried to take off her zipped jumper but the sudden surge of heat caused her to feel a bit light headed and she was unable to undo the simple zip.
"Tom." Sam managed to mumble and he turned around to see his wife struggling with her hands and she could barely open her eyes because she felt lightheaded.
"Sam? Sam it's okay. You're okay. It's alright, I've got it." Tom said reassuringly as he unzipped the jumper, pulled it off of her and put it over his shoulder leaving his wife in a tight white camisole vest that showed that even at 45, she still had the body of a young adult.
"Mum?" Ella questioned.
"Don't worry Ella, she's fine. She just needs to go home and lie in bed with a nice cold bottle of water and the fan on. Does that sound good to you?" Tom asked his wife.
"Why did we have to walk so far?" Sam joked halfheartedly.
"So that I could be your knight in shining armour." Tom replied quietly as he slipped his arms under the backs of her knees and then the other arm underneath her arm and around her back so that he could pick her up, and carry her bridal style.
"You won't be able to carry me the whole way." Sam stated. "Just put me down, I can walk."
"Yes, but the chances are high that you'll have another hot flush if you start walking, that's what caused the one you just had so I'm taking you home." Tom said sternly. "Ella, are you alright now?" Tom asked the girl who had just taken the tampon out of her nostril.
"Yeah, I think it's stopped. Is mum going to be okay?"
"Mum is right here and she can hear you." Sam quipped.
"She's got a very serious condition called 'sarcastic-itis'." Tom joked. "Can you just make sure the dogs follow us yeah? Your mum is fine." Tom said reassuringly before he kissed Sam on the forehead and began to walk her back to their car which was over a mile away.
"Don't you think carrying me from the car to the bedroom was a little bit pretentious?" Sam asked as her husband gently laid her on the mattress in their bedroom that hadn't had a duvet over it in months.
"When are you gonna just accept that we all need looking after sometimes?" Tom asked as he switched the fan on her bedside cabinet on so that it would keep her upper half, which was the part of her body affected by hot flushes, cool.
"Never." Sam replied smugly as she laid out with her arms and legs separated slightly to prevent heat from building up.
"Right, what do you want? I'll get you a cold bottle of water but do you want anything else?" He asked kindly.
"An ice lolly wouldn't go amiss." Sam admitted.
"You mean the 'diabetes on a stick' that the kids beg you for?" Tom grinned. "I'll be right back." He smiled as he kissed her on the forehead and then headed downstairs where he found his son and daughter in the kitchen making a hot chocolate each.
"Is mum alright?" Daniel asked as he had just seen Tom carry her upstairs and then he'd heard the description of what had happened to Sam in the park from Ella.
"Yeah, it's just... Well this is the one time that I'm gonna let you google a condition because I can't be bothered to explain it to you." Tom began. "She's going through menopause, and it's going to take a while but she just needs a bit of help now and then if she has a flare up in her symptoms." Tom stated and Daniel of course took out his iPhone.
"It's not anything serious is it?" He asked worriedly as he opened safari.
"No, it's just something all woman go through." Tom stated as he grabbed a water bottle from the fridge and an ice lolly before he headed upstairs. Meanwhile, Daniel got the NHS page for menopause to come up on his screen and had to show Ella what it was too as she pestered him to see. And he wasn't really bothered about what his mum was going through until he began to read through some of the comments about how some women were suffering so much and how awful it was for them to go through that he began to sympathise for his mother.
"What do you think we can do to make her feel better?" Ella asked innocently.
"Physically? I don't think there's anything we can do to stop the symptoms but doing things like keeping the place tidy and doing as she says might help her feel a bit better rather than ignoring her constant nagging to tidy our rooms." Daniel admitted.
"My room is always tidy; it's yours that she tells you to tidy because you can't even see the carpet in there." Ella replied. "But I think I annoy mum a bit when when I ask for her to sign off my reading in my contact book because she has to listen to me read the whole book." Ella admitted.
"Well maybe if you help me tidy my room, then I'll help you with your reading, and any other homework that you have." Daniel offered as he knew that his sister's year 7 homework would be easy for him to handle.
"Okay, deal." Ella nodded as she held out her hand which Daniel shook.
"Right, I know I've been putting sex off for ages so I think I'm up for it tonight." Sam said to her husband who had been lying next to her on the bed, reading a book, so that she wasn't by herself and she had some company.
"Well I'm not up for it Sam, because I know it hurts you." Tom said sternly. "You don't need to pretend you're okay with it because you think I'm not getting any so I must be getting annoyed with you, but I'm not. I don't want to do something that causes you pain." Tom stated.
"I'm not doing it for you this time, I want us to." Sam pleaded and Tom could see the desperation in her eyes; she certainly hadn't been affected by loss of libido.
"Are you sure?" Tom asked and Sam nodded straight away. "Alright then, we'll wait until the kids go to bed, and if it's still what you want then we can do it." Tom smiled. "We'll use plenty of this okay? And if it starts to hurt you, I want you to tell me straight away, even if we've just started." He added as he took out the bottle of silicone lubricant from his draw.
"I will." Sam nodded.
Tom smiled as he laid on his side, facing his wife who had fallen asleep waiting for her kids to go to bed. He knew she wouldn't mind being woken up to make love as she had wanted to, but he didn't want to wake her; he never woke her because to Sam, good sleep was valuable and rare. Suddenly, she began tossing and Tom placed a hand just above her bust where a hot flush usually started and he felt that she was warm so he gently lifted her head up and flipped her pillow over in an attempt to prevent her from waking up because every night, he placed an ice pack underneath her pillow, and then when she turned the pillow over, she would have a cold, fresh material on the back of her neck which she could do throughout the night.
Thankfully, within moments of her skin touching the cool material, she stopped fidgeting and then nuzzled the side of her face into the pillow which caused him to smile.
Meanwhile, Daniel was lying on Ella's bed with his sister besides him as she closed the Five Go Off To Camp, by Enid Blyton after reading the last few chapters to her brother to get her next reading award at school.
"You're a really good reader for your age y'know."
"Really?" Ella questioned.
"Yeah. You read so fluently when half of my class dread having to read out to the class because they take ten minutes to read a tiny paragraph." Daniel said as he signed Ella's reading card and then climbed off of her bed.
"Thank you. I'll help you tidy your room tomorrow after school." Ella stated.
"I'll try and get rid of anything that moves in there, by tomorrow then." Daniel joked but Ella wasn't sure if he was being serious of not as he walked out of her room because she knew how disgusting his room was most of the time. Nevertheless, after putting her book back into her school bag to take back to the school library the next day, Ella went and brushed her teeth and got ready for bed without her mother having to tell her to do so because she was growing up and she wanted to be more independent. However, the only reason her mother hadn't already come and told her to get ready for bed was because she was exhausted and had fallen asleep herself.
Coming up: Sam's relieved when her menopausal symptoms disappear, but when she begins to feel nauseous, she suspects that something other than ageing is the cause of all of it. But she and Tom both come to the same immediate conclusion and make a tough decision.
Thanks for reading, please review :)