Perseverance: YOU Be that One in a Million!: 2012-10-28

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Women Helping Women

Women have gone through menopause ever since they could live long enough to pass the usual insults of medieval life ~ death by childbirth or communicable diseases. While menopause is a natural part of aging and not a disease state or illness per se, it is important to view it as a hormone deficiency state where quality of life needs to be optimized. Fluctuations in hormones can be erratic, or severe deficiency can occur, making the time ripe for evaluation by a professional. Did anyone have The Second Talk with you about menopause? Menopause is associated with significant health risk factors: heart disease and osteoporosis.

Many women complain of symptoms of pre-menopause, where periods become heavier, the abdomen is more bloated, and insomnia begins to plague a woman's quality of life. Ahhh. Quality of Life (QoL). That is what we are talking about, ladies and gentlemen.

Most women don't really know when they are going through pre-menopause, as the process can take from 1-6 years or longer. During this time, periods may be missed here and there, and symptoms do not yet include the typical hot flashes, vulvar atrophy, or dysparunia so characteristic of menopause.

Menopause occurs when the ovaries stop functioning, and the menstrual period has stopped for one calendar year. Women in menopause complain primarly of hot flashes (in Western society), joint pain (in India, Japan, Hawaiian Japanese, Iranians), insomnia, moodiness, irritability, and depression. Many studies on menopause and QoL exist, and several studies also looked at hormone therapy, finding that hormones had a positive effect on QoL. So menopause is complete at one year, and Postmenopause begins.

The Postmenopausal period extends for the rest of a woman's life, such that a woman will spend about one third of her life in pre-menopause, menopause, and/or post-menopause. With 6,000 Baby Boomers entering menopause per day in the USA, it's no wonder that we need to think about menopause, talk about menopause, and consider joining a menopause group. Women need to help women.

ORDER NOW! Dr. Aranda's books, please click here:

http://drmargaretaranda.tateauthor.com/other-works/

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Dr. Margaret Aranda's Books:

Face Book Page: No More Tears: A Physician Turned Patient Inspires Recovery

No More Tears en Espanol

Face Book Page: Stepping from the Edge

Little Missy Two-Shoes Likes to go to School

Face Book Page: Little Missy Two-Shoes Likes a Ladybug

From Menarche to Menopause: A Journey through Time

To Order Dr. Aranda's books, please click here:

http://drmargaretaranda.tateauthor.com/other-works/

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For Additional Memoirs, Please Click Here:

Age 1: A Baby on the Edge

Age 2: Getting Past the Edge of the Bed

Age 3: The Edge of the Cliff

Age 4: Don't Panic

Age 5: The Edge of the Pool

Age 6: Glistening in the Moonlight

Age 7: The Pigeon Boy, The Suction Bush, and The Darkness

Age 8: Selling Cupcakes

Age 9: Sitting on the Edge of the Cave

Age 10: Mr. Bubble

Age 11: Chasing the First Kiss

Age 12: Keeping the Best of the 70's

Age 13: Everything Just So

Age 14: Too Young to Know

Age 15: The Last Thing I Remember

Age 16: Graduating High School

Age 17: Working Working Working

Age 18: How Things Were

Age 19: I Read it in a Book

Age 20: Ways that Can Never Be Forgotten

Age 21: Christmas Carols

Age 22: My Own Crisis

Age 23: A Bloody Mess

Age 24: Applications

Age 25: Leaving One Era and Starting Another

Age 26: Studying through My Tears

Age 27: Repeating the First Year of Medical School

Age 28: Changes

Age 29: Match Day

Age 30: Graduating and Being on the Bottom

Age 31: The Color Blue

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Additional Free Articles by Dr. Margaret Aranda

The Cost of Illness for Women in America

Silver Stethoscope Award Nomination

"It's About Time" for Invisible Diseases to Speak Out

Cultural Variations of Menstruation

Cups, Pads, and Girls in Uganda

Menopause and Painful Intercourse

The IF Tracker

An "Anti-Inflammatory" Meal

Low Sexual Desire in Women: Is it HSDD?

Menstruation, Accidents, and Pilots

What Aristotle Thought of Menstruation

From Menarche through Menopause

The History of Menopause

The Different Types of Hysterectomies

Ovarian Conservation, Ethics, and Informed Consent

My! What Long Telomeres you Have!

Surgical Menopause and Testosterone Therapy

Bears Can Smell the Menstruation: Or Can They?

The Ovaries: Endocrine and Reproduction

Women Helping Women

The Virgin and the Maiden Tribute

Menopause, Painful Intercourse, and Vaginal Dryness

Chapter One: From Menopause through Menarche ~ A Journey through Time

Research Questions on Menopause

Research Questions on Menstruation

The Cost of Illness for Women

Medical Disclaimer: Nothing on this website is meant to diagnose, treat, or practice medicine. You must be seen in person by a physician for appropriate and individual medical treatment. If you have an emergency, call 9-1-1 in the USA.

Link Disclaimer: We are not responsible for any links that go outside of this website.

Full Disclosure: Margaret A. Ferrante, M.D. is an Institute Physician with Cenegenics Medical Institute. She receives no monetary compensation for hosting this website you are on, which is independent and not affiliated with Cenegenics. The information presented is for education and awareness. Dr. Ferrante currently sees patients out of the Cenegenics office in Beverly Hills, CA.

To book an appointment for a free Consultation, please email her at: mferrante@cenegenics.com

Age 30: Graduating and Being on the Bottom

To view Article beginning on Age 1, please Click Here.

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by Dr. Margaret Aranda

It was 4 days before medical school graduation, and I asked my son once again, "Is it okay with you if I go to medical school?" He said, "Well, since you only have 4 days left, it's okay. I guess." I had tried to engage him in my escapades, but clearly he was too young. I was getting ready to do the impossible, to finish what no one thought could be done, to complete that which seemed to be just out of my grasp.

I had repeated not only my first year of medical school completely, but there was a little 'catch' of sorts when I transferred from Oral Roberts' University Medical School to USC School of Medicine. All my core rotations had to be done at USC. So in my third year of medical school, I had to repeat all my core rotations. So I ended up doing everything twice: Surgery, Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Ob/Gyn, Cardiology, etc. Hey, I was a better doctor for it.

So I graduated. On graduation morning, I awoke to a dozen red rozes from Frank, a friend. I sat in the blistering heat and at the end of the Ceremony, we all threw our graduation hats up in the air. Wooo~Hoo! It was done. It was 1990, I was 30 years old, and I was on top of the world. I was accepted into Anesthesiology Residency at USC, and was to start my Internship at USC, also. I was to do a year of Transitional Medicine through the Internal Medicine program. It would get me used to being an anesthesiologist, because I would rotate through the Intensive Care Unit, Cardiology, Diabetes, and other major rotations that were relevant. I looked forward to it all. How could internship possible be THAT hard, I thought. It was one year long. 365 days. I could do it. So I graduated, I took a week off, and then I was on the bottom of the ladder again, as an Intern.

I knew I would be up early in the morning, and up late at night. I would be working weekends and Holidays. If I missed Thanksgiving with my family, I would 'get' Christmas. If I was off on Christmas, I had to work both Christmas Eve and New Year's Day. I was at the bottom of the lowest rung on the ladder.

Well it was my first day of Internship on a memorable hot, July morning in 1990. I was on the 13th Floor of the big County Hospital, in a heat wave, with no air conditioning. We had our Orientation lecture at 0700 sharp. An elderly and stout women with gray hair, Dr. Osborne, told us about the "Locked In" Policy. She said, "You have all drawn straws to be here. This is LACounty Jail Ward. Welcome to The Beast." Then she proceeded to instruct us not to leave a pen in the wrong place. A jail ward patient could try to stab us in the face with it. If any of the jail patients took one of us Hostage, there was a full Lock-Down policy. The huge, 6 inch steel door entry to the Ward would close, the key would turn, no one was getting in, and no one was getting out. We would stay. So, we looked at one another turning green in the face, and we vowed to watch out for one another. Gulp.

My first patient was a 18-year old African American male who had tried to shoot his girlfriend. The LAPD shot him 14 times, and he was paralyzed from the waist down. He cried every morning when I saw him. He hated getting his blood drawn, and of course that was the first thing that I had to do. So, I did it as fast as I could. I figured that was the least I could do. And I wondered.

Did I go to medical school for this? To have an attempted murderer as my patient? I had no idea how he survived all those bullets, but this was only the first time that I witnessed miraculous escapes from certain death. I struggled with it. I struggled with it again. And finally, on the third day, I accepted it. I had to make him better, I had to make him well because I took the Hippocratic Oath and I had to 'do not harm'.

So every morning for a month, that great heavy steel door closed me and Lisa Hayworth, MD in as we Interned on the Jail Ward as our first rotation in medical school. We also left that place at 7 pm, watching as we turned our heads in unison to listen and watch as that huge door shut itself behind us at the end of another day. And we counted the days 31, 30, 29... 3,2,1. We counted each day of Jail Ward and each day was another story, another blog, another indelible memory.

And later in my Internship year, I went back to the Jail Ward again as a medical student. Yes, I got to rotate there twice in my Internship year. I wouldn't go back and change it for the world.

ORDER NOW! Dr. Aranda's books, please click here:

http://drmargaretaranda.tateauthor.com/other-works/