Celebrating Menopause

Last weekend, I heard a conversation between my mom and an older sister, that sounded like a game show called "Name That Hot Flash." Sister Lee (looking for commiseration), "I'm having hot flashes every hour on the hour all night long." My mother, proudly, "With my change, I had hot flashes every 20 minutes day and night." Surly sister: "Well, I'm having them in three minute intervals 24 hours a day, but I didn't think you'd believe me." At this point, I got into the game. "One honkin' gargantuan hot flash started a year ago and I'm still having it!" Neither one of them laughed. In Celebrating Menopause, viewers learn that menopause is simply a biological marker signaling the end of the reproductive years, but not the productive ones. In layperson's terms, we discover what's happening physiologically during this transition and how best to prepare for the change, how to minimize and ease the discomfort of common symptoms, and finally, options to consider in the myriad of hormone replacement therapies and holistic choices available to women today. Interviews with health care professionals (such as wellness guru Andrew Weil) and alternative practitioners are interwoven with camera shots of ethnically diverse women of all ages (literally from around the world), accompanied by voice-over narration discussing the differences in cultural attitudes towards age and beauty, the history of the "Blood Mysteries" ( puberty, childbearing years, menopause-incidentally, there is no male counterpart to these complex cycles), and, ultimately, the freedom and self-realization that accompanies this transformation in a woman's life. Highly recommended for my mother, all of my sisters and the 50 million other woman who are either approaching or experiencing the joys and tears of menopause. Aud: C, P. (N. Plympton)