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Spring 2020 I was visited by Bloody Mary – aka the ‘bleeds-under-an-hour-through-a-SUPER-plus-tampon-WOMAN’.

Just so you know, Bloody Mary is not your average type of super hero; she has very peculiar super powers.

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And whether I wanted to or not, Bloody Mary transferred her bizarre superpowers onto me. Until her visit I was blessed with a regular and modest period with little or no PMS, but now, I literally ‘peed’ blood; no tampon or pad could absorb the continuous floods of blood that kept streaming from my body.

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Which resulted in me leaving permanent marks everywhere I sat.

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Suddenly I was able to fly into toilets faster than you could say “Pardon, my period!”, and ‘disappear’ in there for hours.

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Sometimes I bled my brains out, several times a day, and still managed to stand up.

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And, all of this I could do this for days on end.

Over ~ and over ~ and over again!

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So, I adopted, Bloody Mary’s motto:

Normal is for sissies!

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Because of my superhuman menstrual bleeding, I suddenly suspected that other minor abilities (like spontaneous peeing and crying – sometimes simultaneously-, breathing ‘fire’, hearing a a soft hissing sound throughout the entire day and being able to withstand all sexual temptation!) and some physical changes (dry eyes, tongue and vagina, insects living under the skin of my lower legs, growing dry sore skin under my feet and finally larger – yet painful!- breasts) could maybe also be ascribed to my new super hero status. I wondered why these powers were given to me now. I suspected that maybe Bloody Mary’s visit had to do with me being menopausal. But I was only forty-two. Was that even possible?

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When I checked this with my GP she dismissed the idea resolutely because I was too young; according to her Bloody Mary only visited women of fifty and older, and their special power was heating up their body temperature faster than a child with fever. ‘Did I have that power?’ … The answer was ‘no’. So, she concluded, these other ‘changes’ I perceived were probably in my head, or caused by stress or fatigue, which pretty much boiled down to the same conclusion…

Somehow I felt that my GP and I were not seeing eye to eye about this Bloody Mary business.

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‘Lucky’ for me my heavy bleeding continued. One morning it was so bad I couldn’t get out of bed. I called my GP who suddenly became very alarmed. She now admitted that, maybe yes, I was in menopause, but she didn’t want to rule out the possibility that I had fibroids (‘vleesbomen’ in Dutch, which literally translates to ‘meat trees’). She told me I needed an ultrasound to rule those out.

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The ultrasound was clear and the hospital Obgyn recommended hormone pills to stop the bleeding. My GP informed me of this on Friday just before five and urged me to go to the pharmacy to get them; I had to act fast or I would bleed out. She assured me these drugs would be save for me, referring to the stroke I had had ten years ago. This baffled me: ten years ago I was told to stop taking the contraceptive pill because the hormones could cause a new stroke. I’m terrible at making decisions under pressure, I needed time to think this through, but there wasn’t any. I knew the pharmacy would close at five. So, I dragged myself there and bought the pills while crying at the register. I shared my concerns with the pharmacist who was clearly upset by my behaviour.

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That night I decided to take the pills.

I did not suffer another stroke, but lo’ and behold, the hormones made my breast grow again (one even started lactating) and I could feel my body retain all fluids inside. Within hours I had transformed into a human tampon…with breasts.

O, and the bleeding stopped for ten days, after which I had a normal period.

Bloody Mary had finally left.

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Because I didn’t know if her absence was permanent I had booked an appointment with the Obgyn at my GP’s. At the day of the consult the Obgyn was late, very late, I had to wait for almost an hour. Suddenly I heard a gruff male voice mention the word ‘late’ to the practice assistance. This couldn’t be the Obgyn, could it? When I was called into the office I saw a grumpy Greek butcher sitting behind a desk, the appearance matched the voice. I told my story, the Butcher barely listened. When I asked for advice he said I would be wise to have my endometrium removed. I responded that I had read about this procedure and found that it did’t always work and asked for an alternative. The Butcher became visibly annoyed with me and started pressing his case. I barely managed to stand my ground and repeat I did not want that surgery. He ended the conversation by telling me I could make an enormous mistake because some women suffered these bleedings for ten years.

I left the practice rattled, felt sorry for all the Butcher’s patients and reported the ‘consult’ to my GP.

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I was lucky, Bloody Mary did not return, my bleeding stopped completely. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean my menopausal complaints were over, far from it! But that’s something for a different (graphic) story …