When I had my lumpectomy, they also removed five lymph nodes, and my surgeon told me at least one of them was bright blue--something she hadn't seen before. I'd gotten a half sleeve on that arm three months earlier.

"He's the Pepsi fan of the game til he gets thrown out."

So I encourage women experiencing symptoms to do some research and talk to their doctors about HRT if they're interested in pursuing this treatment. And everyone, cut us 40/50-somethings some slack. Our bodies really are not being nice to us.

Peri-menopause symptoms generally start in people's 30s/40s and are quite unpleasant for many. You've probably heard about hot flashes, but night sweats, mood changes, sleep disturbances, cognitive changes like brain fog, weight gain, vaginal dryness and joint/muscle pain are also common.

Women's health has long been neglected and women's symptoms long ignored/minimized, so this is extremely good news for women, especially considering every person with a uterus who lives long enough will experience menopause.

I cannot take HRT because my breast cancer was hormone positive for estrogen and progesterone (the two main hormones used in HRT), but I have heard many positive things from other women taking it, with a significant increase in quality of life.

The black box warning came 20+ years ago after a poorly designed study found a "statistically non-significant increase in the risk of breast cancer diagnosis." Because of this, many doctors have refused to prescribe it in the years since.

For those who don't know, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) provides tremendous benefits to peri-menopausal / menopausal women, reducing the sometimes horrific symptoms of menopause while improving bone density and, for some, reducing cardiovascular risks as well as risks of some cancers.

Yes and yes. :)

The last search I chaired, we used an internal (university) system for submitting files that compiled them into a single PDF. I then individually downloaded each PDF for the search committee to evaluate.