KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

Kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

For many women, menopause un­folds grad­u­al­ly over sev­er­al years. But for oth­ers, it can ar­rive overnight-trig­gered by surg­eries such as a hys­terec­to­my (re­moval of the uterus) or oophorec­to­my (re­moval of the ovaries). When this hap­pens, the hor­mon­al shift is im­me­di­ate, of­ten lead­ing to what’s called sur­gi­cal or in­duced menopause.

This was the case for Rober­ta Rose-Collins, who, at just 25, was ad­vised to have both ovaries re­moved due to poly­cys­tic ovary syn­drome (PCOS)—a hor­mon­al dis­or­der that af­fects mil­lions of women world­wide..

While PCOS can be man­aged through lifestyle changes, med­ica­tions, or hor­mone ther­a­py, Rose-Collins had a se­vere and com­pli­cat­ed case, mak­ing com­plete re­moval the most prob­a­ble op­tion.

“My PCOS reared its head af­ter I gave birth to my first child in 1993,” she said.

“The first thing that the doc­tor did was try to re­move the cysts from my ovaries, but in record time, my ovaries were packed with cysts again.”

The op­tion to re­move both ovaries was pre­sent­ed to Rose-Collins be­cause the large, painful ovar­i­an cysts kept re­cur­ring de­spite treat­ment.

“There was ab­solute­ly noth­ing that pre­pared me for what hap­pened af­ter the re­moval,” she said.

“My un­der­stand­ing was that I would not be able to have any more chil­dren. I was told that I would go in­to menopause, but at that time, I didn’t know about all the symp­toms re­lat­ed to it. I re­mem­ber wak­ing up drenched in sweat. I would be soaked as if some­one threw wa­ter on me.”

Her doc­tor at the time rec­om­mend­ed Hor­mon­al Re­place­ment Ther­a­py (HRT).

“It is very dif­fer­ent from what we have now. It didn’t work for me at all. I was con­stant­ly ill on the treat­ment; we tried it for prob­a­bly about a year. And then the doc­tor asked, ‘Are you still hav­ing hot flush­es?’ And I said no, and he was like, ‘Then you’re fine’,” she added.

“At the back of my head, I thought menopause was a thing you go through once, then you’re fine. Back then, you couldn’t Google things like you Google now, and I didn’t have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­search.”

Rose-Collins, who is now 52, suf­fered through se­vere menopause for many years, nei­ther she nor the myr­i­ad of doc­tors she saw recog­nis­ing it for what it was. It was on­ly about a year ago that her life took a turn.

“You name it, I had it. Things were so bad, they checked me for lu­pus,” she said.

“I used to have bone-break­ing pain; it felt like my an­kle was break­ing when I stepped on the ground. I had ther­a­py for that. I had frozen shoul­der, and I had ther­a­py for that. I had a blad­der pro­lapse just be­fore the age of 40.”

Fast-for­ward to 2024, Rose-Collins be­gan pel­let ther­a­py–a method of de­liv­er­ing hor­mones (usu­al­ly oe­stro­gen, testos­terone, or some­times prog­es­terone) through small, rice-sized pel­lets that are in­sert­ed un­der the skin, typ­i­cal­ly in the hip or but­tock area.

“With­in two weeks of hav­ing it, my en­er­gy lev­els were through the roof,” she said.

“I had ze­ro sex dri­ve, no li­bido for years; that thank­ful­ly has changed. A lot of mar­riages don’t last be­cause of those types of sit­u­a­tions.”

Liv­ing through these symp­toms took a toll on her mar­riage, but Rober­ta and her hus­band fought through with faith and open com­mu­ni­ca­tion over the years.

“Our mar­riage has not been a per­fect one; it was tough, but we were there for each oth­er. I didn’t do this alone,” she said.

“He said to me once that I didn’t make the de­ci­sion alone to do the hys­terec­to­my and that I would not fight through the symp­toms alone, and that made me feel re­al­ly loved and made me want to con­tin­ue to find a way.”

Her hus­band, An­dre, who has been to al­most every doc­tor’s ap­point­ment with her, said that Rober­ta was ‘edgy’ most of the time, as she felt frus­trat­ed and hope­less in her sit­u­a­tion.

“While I was there sup­port­ing, I was al­ways look­ing at it from my per­spec­tive, like I was miss­ing out on some­thing,” he said.

“But af­ter she told me once that this was be­yond her con­trol, that’s when it hit home, and I had to change my per­spec­tive.”

An­dre, who is an ed­u­ca­tor, start­ed look­ing at things dif­fer­ent­ly, do­ing a lot of re­search on the top­ic.

“Sev­en out of 10 mar­riages that end in di­vorce are ini­ti­at­ed by women,” he said.

“Then you have to ask your­self, out of those women, how many felt frus­trat­ed be­cause of menopause and felt like they couldn’t do any­thing. How many of them may have felt lone­ly be­cause no­body seemed to un­der­stand?”

His ad­vice to oth­er men is to be present. Even though it seems like she is at­tack­ing you, it’s much more than that.

Ul­ti­mate­ly, menopause af­fects the cou­ple, not just the woman. A sup­port­ive spouse helps cre­ate a safe space where change is ac­cept­ed rather than feared. To­geth­er a cou­ple can nav­i­gate the tran­si­tion with pa­tience, love, and un­der­stand­ing.

How to of­fer sup­port

* Lis­ten with­out judge­ment: al­low­ing open con­ver­sa­tions about symp­toms, fears, or frus­tra­tions will help her feel heard and you, as the man, to get an ap­pre­ci­a­tion for what is hap­pen­ing.

* Of­fer re­as­sur­ance: Re­mind a part­ner that she is loved, val­ued, and at­trac­tive be­yond phys­i­cal changes.

* Share re­spon­si­bil­i­ties: help with house­hold tasks or be pa­tient when fa­tigue or dis­com­fort makes rou­tines hard­er.

* En­cour­age health and self-care: sup­port med­ical con­sul­ta­tions, ex­er­cise rou­tines, or re­lax­ation prac­tices.