What They Didn't Tell Me About Surgical Menopause

I had a CT scan recently that showed a complex cyst on my only remaining ovary. I call her Bertha. The ovary, not the cyst. The cyst doesn't deserve a name.

Bertha had been causing me pain for a few months, but I wasn't in the mood to deal with ultrasounds and conversations about surgery, so I mostly ignored it — or complained loudly to anyone who would listen. Same thing, really.

Once we had images showing Bertha was hosting not one but two cysts — one large simple cyst and one small complex cyst with some solid features — my doctor ordered bloodwork to check tumor markers. Just to be safe.

A bunch of them came back elevated.

Ugh. F*cking Bertha.

That kicked off a follow-up MRI and a meeting with an oncologist. She decided that even though the MRI looked okay, there was enough risk that Bertha needed to go. We agreed, we scheduled the surgery, and just like that, Bertha got her walking papers.

Here's the thing nobody fully prepared me for: removing Bertha was kind of a big deal. Not just medically emotionally, physically, hormonally — because she was my only remaining ovary abd my only source for hormones Taking her out meant I would no longer produce estrogen or progesterone, and I would be launched — at 100 miles per hour — directly into menopause. Not easing into it. Not a gradual transition. Just... menopause. Now. Go.

Cool.

I already knew enough about menopause to be terrified of it: night sweats, sleep problems, brittle hair, dry skin, dry everything, osteoporosis, heart disease, mood swings, anxiety, depression. Menopause has the energy of the end of a medication commercial. The one where they spend 45 seconds listing everything that might go wrong.

I was scared.

So when my oncologist confirmed we were firing Bertha from her hormone-making duties, I asked about HRT — hormone replacement therapy.

She said, "Oh, we don't really prescribe HRT prophylactically for heart disease or bone health. If it becomes a real problem, maybe your gynecologist will prescribe something."

Okay, LADY. (And I say it exactly like that — because menopause is coming for her too someday, and I highly doubt she's planning to white-knuckle it. But I know when to argue and when to smile and say "Oh, interesting, okay" and move on.)

So I did.

And then I texted my gyno and asked for HRT. Which I'm starting in a few days.

Anyway — I had the surgery at the hospital because I have a lot going on health-wise and this was a "let's rule out cancer" situation, so we brought in the big team. I was in the women's surgical center — a place that performs surgery on women, all day, every day.

So I asked the nurse who was giving me discharge instructions: "Is there anything I should know about what happens now that I have no lady parts left and am in menopause as of 20 minutes ago?"

She said, "No, not really. You'll just take it as it comes."

I mean. What?

Okay. So here's what the doctor and the nurse failed to mention — what I wish someone had handed me in a pamphlet while I was still in my hospital gown:

(Actually, quick note before we get into it: I am not a doctor. I am a woman who just had her ovary removed and got very little guidance on her way out the door. What follows is a combination of research I did on my own, conversations with women who've been through it, and information I pulled together because nobody handed it to me when I needed it. Talk to your doctor — ideally one who actually wants to talk about this stuff. This is my notes, not a prescription.)

Surgical menopause is not the same as regular menopause. Not even close.

Natural menopause is a transition. It unfolds over years — hormones fluctuate, symptoms come and go, your body gets a slow, annoying heads-up that things are changing. It can take anywhere from four to ten years just to move through perimenopause.

Surgical menopause is none of that. When your ovaries are removed, your estrogen and progesterone don't gradually decline — they disappear. Immediately. It's not a transition. It's a hard stop. Going cold turkey from hormones your body has been making your entire life.

That means the symptoms hit harder and faster than they would in natural menopause. We're talking hot flashes, night sweats, insomnia, mood swings, and low libido — potentially all at once, on top of recovering from actual surgery. Fun! Great! Love that for us!

And the effects go beyond feeling terrible in the short term. Long-term, the sudden loss of estrogen increases the risk of:

Osteoporosis. Estrogen protects your bones. Without it, bone density loss accelerates. The earlier you go into menopause, the more years your bones are at risk. A bone density scan (DEXA scan) is something you should be asking about.

Heart disease. Estrogen also has a protective effect on your cardiovascular system. Losing it abruptly, especially before the natural age of menopause (around 51), increases your risk of heart disease down the road.

Cognitive changes. Brain fog is real, and research suggests that earlier menopause — especially surgical — may be linked to increased risk of cognitive decline and dementia later in life.

Mood disorders. Anxiety and depression are more common after surgical menopause than after natural menopause. The drop in hormones affects the brain's chemistry, and when it happens suddenly, your nervous system doesn't exactly take it gracefully.

Sexual dysfunction. Vaginal dryness, discomfort, and low libido are common — and undertreated. There are options, including vaginal estrogen, that can help specifically with this even if you're not using systemic HRT.

Weight changes. Oophorectomy is associated with more rapid weight gain than either natural menopause or hysterectomy alone. Just so you know.

So what actually helps?

HRT — hormone replacement therapy — is the most effective treatment for surgical menopause, and according to current guidelines, it's recommended for most women who go through surgical menopause before the age of natural menopause. Not as a "let's see if it gets bad enough" afterthought — proactively, because your body lost hormones it wasn't supposed to lose yet.

This is why I made the follow up with my gyno on the day I realized I needed surgery.

Beyond HRT, the basics matter too: weight-bearing exercise for bone health, adequate calcium and vitamin D, monitoring your blood pressure and cholesterol, and not smoking.

Here's my point: I was in a facility that operates on women every single day, surrounded by medical professionals, and I walked out of surgery without a single person handing me a roadmap for what was about to happen to my body. No pamphlet. No conversation. Just "take it as it comes."

We deserve better than that.

So consider this my pamphlet.

You're welcome.

The Day the Door Opens

Today, The Room to Be Brave enters the world.

That sentence feels both simple and enormous.

This book was written quietly. Slowly. In stolen moments and long pauses. It was written in the spaces between everyday life—between work and parenting and healing and doubt.

It was written without certainty that anyone would ever read it.

What I knew, even before I knew how to say it, was this: We all carry a house inside us.

Rooms filled with memories that shaped us. Rooms we return to often. Rooms we avoid at all costs. Rooms we didn't choose, but learned how to survive inside anyway.

For a long time, I believed bravery meant never going back. Closing doors. Locking them tight. Declaring myself "over it."

But that isn't what healed me.

What healed me was learning how to return—slowly, honestly, with compassion—and letting in just enough light to see what was actually there.

This book isn't a how-to. It isn't a redemption arc. It isn't a promise that everything gets better if you try hard enough.

It's an invitation.

An invitation to notice the rooms that shaped you. To sit down instead of running through them. To understand what you carried—and decide, gently, what you no longer need to.

If you choose to read this book, I hope you feel less alone in your story. I hope you recognize parts of yourself in the rooms I share. And I hope you feel permission—not pressure—to move at your own pace.

You don't have to open every door. You don't have to finish in one sitting. You don't have to be brave every day.

Today, the door opens.

You're welcome whenever you're ready.

Letting the Light In

There's a misconception that healing is about fixing what's broken.

I don't think that's true. Mostly because I don't think any of us are actually broken.

I think healing is about letting in light—just enough to see what's actually there.

For years, I kept certain rooms dark on purpose. Not because I was in denial, but because I genuinely believed that looking too closely would undo me. That opening those doors would mean falling apart, and I'd worked too hard to hold myself together to risk that.

What I didn't understand then is that those dark rooms were already affecting everything. The way I showed up in relationships. The limits I placed on my own joy. The exhaustion I couldn't explain. The patterns I kept repeating without knowing why.

Letting light in didn't mean flooding the space all at once. It meant cracking the door. Sitting on the threshold. Letting my eyes adjust.

Not all rooms need renovation. Some just need acknowledgment. Some need grief. Some need compassion. Some need a chair and a moment of rest.

Some rooms, I discovered, just needed to be seen for what they were—not monsters in the dark, but spaces that held younger versions of me who were doing the best they could with what they knew.

When I wrote The Room to Be Brave, I wasn't trying to offer answers. I was offering permission—for us to return, to reflect, to tell the truth about what shaped us without turning it into a life sentence.

Because here's what I've learned: healing isn't a dramatic transformation where you emerge completely different. It's a series of small, honest moments where you choose to see yourself clearly. Where you stop running. Where you sit down in a room you've avoided and realize you're still standing when you leave.

Healing doesn't require bravery every day. It requires honesty, practiced gently.

If you've been walking through these rooms with me—in the book, in these posts, or quietly on your own—I hope you feel less alone in the process.

And if you're not ready yet, that's okay too.

The doors don't disappear. They wait patiently.

And when you're ready, even a crack of light is enough to begin.

New Year, New You Doesn’t Work (And Here’s Why)

Every January, we’re sold the same idea.

New year.
New you.
New habits. New goals. New energy.

And while I love a fresh start as much as the next guy, I’ve learned something the hard way:

You don’t become new by layering change on top of what you’ve never healed.

Because we are not blank slates on January 1st.
We walk into the new year carrying old rooms.

Rooms where we learned who we had to be to be loved.
Rooms where we learned what was safe.
Rooms where we learned what made us valuable.
Rooms where we learned what to hide.

Our behaviors don’t come out of nowhere.
Our reactions don’t either.

They usually come from beliefs we formed about ourselves, or from how we thought other people saw us.

And those beliefs came from somewhere.

For decades, I carried a belief I didn’t even know I had:
I am only worthy of love if I am useful.

So I was useful.

I volunteered for everything.
I overextended.
I fixed things that were never mine to fix.
I stayed longer than I should have.
I took on more than was healthy.
I made myself indispensable.

You may have seen my life and thought, “She’s so involved. She’s so driven. She’s everywhere.”

And I was.

But underneath that “extra” was fear.

Fear that if I wasn’t helpful, needed, or producing something… I would be rejected.

Over the last year or so, I finally slowed down enough to look at that behavior and ask a braver question:

Where did this come from?

And the answer lived in a room I had avoided.

As a child, I lived with a lot of different family members when my mother, for reasons that were not in my control, couldn’t care for my brother and me.

We would stay for weeks. Sometimes months.
Then my mom would be able to take us back.
And we would move again.

There was no stable foundation.

So my nervous system built one.

Be good.
Be helpful.
Don’t be a burden.
Make people want to keep you.

That belief didn’t stay in childhood.

It followed me into relationships, where I tried to save what wasn’t mine to heal.

It followed me into work, where I took on too much so I would be valued.

It followed me into adulthood, where usefulness quietly became my worth.

Nothing changed until I went back.

Until I returned to the rooms where my mother had left.

And this time, I didn’t go back as the child.

I went back as the adult.

I sat with her.
I comforted her.
I told her the truth she never got to hear:

This wasn’t about you.
You were never unworthy.
You never had to earn being kept.

And that is how the belief started to loosen.

Not through resolutions.
Not through productivity.
Not through becoming “new.”

But through returning.

Through witnessing.
Through grieving.
Through offering the support that was missing.

That is how rooms release us.

So when I hear “new year, new you,” I gently push back.

Because the work is rarely about becoming someone else.

It’s about meeting the parts of us that were never given a choice.

The parts that were groomed by circumstance to believe something about themselves before they were old enough to question it.

So I’ll ask you what I now ask myself:

What belief system have you been carrying for too many years?

What behavior are you exhausted from repeating?

What belief and behavior never really belonged to you anyway…
but were handed to you in a room you didn’t get to choose?

Because that room might not be behind you.

It might be waiting for you.

And going back doesn’t make you weak.

It makes you free.

Want more stories about finding joy, breaking cycles, and choosing courage? Sign up here to get updates about the book launch, and you’ll receive a downloadable guide to finding your own rooms that may be holding you in place.

Why I Had to Go Back

For a long time, I believed healing meant moving on.

Closing chapters. Locking doors. Declaring myself "over it."

I thought that surviving those moments was enough. That I had "overcome" by simply making it through.

And to be fair—that worked, until it didn't.

What I eventually learned is that closing a door doesn't mean a room disappears. It just means you stop visiting it. And rooms we stop visiting don't stop shaping us.

They shape how we love. How we parent. How we rest. How we speak to ourselves when no one else is listening.

They shape how we allow others to treat us and the value we place on our own ability to take up space.

But going back didn't mean I had to relive everything the same way I lived it the first time. That's the fear I felt before I went back. What it actually meant was revisiting the rooms with context I didn't have before.

Adult eyes. Language. Boundaries. Choice.

The bravest thing I did wasn't confronting the past head-on. It was allowing myself to enter slowly—to sit down instead of sprinting through, to notice instead of judge.

Most rooms softened once I saw them clearly. Some needed grieving. Some needed forgiveness. And some just needed to be acknowledged for the role they played.

Every room needed the perspective that I not only survived what happened there, but that I have the power and knowledge to understand it's over. That I am safe. That it is not happening now. And that I won't let it happen again.

I didn't go back to punish myself. I went back to reclaim parts of me that had been left behind.

If you're avoiding a room right now, I want you to know this: You don't go back because you're stuck. You go back because you're ready to live forward with less weight.

Want more stories about finding joy, breaking cycles, and choosing courage? Sign up here to get updates about the book launch, and you’ll receive a downloadable guide to finding your own rooms that may be holding you in place.