Motherhood – this is the most important role in my life, this is what I’m proudest of, and I think this is what defines my role and mission in this world. I have four adult children, and it feels great to have two grandchildren at the age of 62. I love to cook, bake and take care of others. “We’ll solve it” is my main motto.

According to family anecdotes I’ve been preparing for motherhood since I was a kindergartener. I had an unexplainably strong desire to have children and I did everything in my power to lead my life in that direction. Ours was a high school love, and it was obvious to both of us that it wasn’t going to end there. After graduating from college, we got married and our first child was born, followed by three more later. My youngest daughter moved away half a year ago. The house is empty without her; I got used to having people around me.

I am an accountant by training, but I’ve never worked for anyone outside the family business. Running errands for the company had enough challenges besides the household chores, it’s hard to get bored with four kids around. Not that I’m complaining; on the contrary. I’m grateful to have been able to live through the miracle of birth four times. Having kids made me feel fulfilled, I’m so proud of both my children and my grandchildren.

Recently I’ve been volunteering in a retirement home in my free time. In the afternoon I organize various programs for the residents. It’s great to see how the activities and the time spent together allow the elderly to break out of their everyday routines. There is life after 80, and what a life! I’ve made many senior friends in the home; we have amazing conversations, and they always listen intently to my stories about my family and grandchildren.

I’m energetic, a true woman of action, I don’t shy away from tasks and even in the most difficult situation I believe we can find a solution. The years of menopause were one of the hardest periods in my life because the hormonal changes took from me what I loved the most about myself: the energy I needed to solve the various problems I encountered every day.

At the age of 55 I had to face the fact that I had completely fallen apart. Until then I had been a well-organized woman who had paid attention to detail and met every deadline. Then all of a sudden I found myself forgetting important things more and more frequently. The obvious deterioration of my memory resulted in many problems and of course, in hindsight, a lot of funny situations. Besides my loss of focus I also became forgetful, which was coupled with disorganization and constant tiredness.

It crossed my mind that I was going crazy and sooner or later I would end up in the psychiatric ward. I was confused because the symptoms appeared before the changes in my cycle, and for a long time I wasn’t sure if the changes were connected to menopause. The situation was very alarming, but what scared me the most was when one afternoon I slept through my youngest daughter’s sports competition. We had been preparing for that day for a long time, it was an important event for both of us, and yet somehow I managed to completely forget about it. I felt guilty for months. But there were other instances. For example, once I was preparing for the big weekend family lunch and I forgot that I’d left the cake in the oven, which of course got burned beyond recognition. My family was amused by what had happened and they didn’t despair for a second. My husband and one of my sons ran out to the nearby pastry shop and brought a few cakes to comfort me. But what had happened bothered me a lot, I felt silly and ridiculous because of it for the rest of the day. I kept letting myself and other people down with my disorganization, and I felt doomed. On many occasions I got into quite dangerous situations, it was only thanks to good luck that they didn’t turn into disasters.

After one such scary incident I decided to accept the help offered by my doctor, and with that, the suggested hormonal treatment. I didn’t have anything to lose, the situation could only get better than it had been until then. Although I was never very supportive of pharmacological treatments, I’m very grateful for it because it helped me to be myself again. I was surprised that the change of life could cause such crazy symptoms, but as soon as I decided to start the hormone therapy, I began to trust that it would work, and I’m glad I did so.

Now we’ll never know how I would have felt if I’d decided to try another treatment option, but I’m happy it happened this way. What’s important to me is that I can be myself again, the vitality and cheerfulness so characteristic of me have returned, and this was necessary to reassume my role in the family and be able to support my loved ones again. Today I appreciate the skills and abilities I have much more than I used to. Perhaps I had to lose them for a while for this, but in the end everything turned out fine both inside and around me. We’ve solved it!