Several years ago, when I started going through perimenopause, I began to experience a lot of anxiety.  I was always a Type A personality- high achiever, perfectionist, perhaps a few worries here and there.  But until that point, I had never experienced anxiety like this. I began to suffer from panic attacks.  My ability to deal with even the slightest stresses was diminished and would put me over the edge.  I described myself feeling like I was a cat clinging to the top of the curtains when people would ask me how I was.

  I recently had blood work which indicated my Estrogen and Progesterone were most definitely at post-menopausal levels.  When I talked to my doctor about it, he said that I should consider HRT and that taking it would make me feel better. I was kind of taken aback at that comment because in the last year I actually have started to feel better, after years of feeling like crap.  I could have used that help many years ago.

I recently spent three days in Saskatoon teaching skin and wound care to nurses who work in First Nations communities across Saskatchewan.  It was an excellent conference and I realized how much I’ve missed teaching nurses and being at conferences.  The last time I was able to teach wound care to nurses was well over 21 months ago.  Being there brought up plenty of emotions.  A lot has changed in the past two years for me.  Some of it is wonderful, some has been demanding, and some of it has been heartbreaking.  But changes at midlife (and all throughout our lives) are constant and need to be managed so they…

Our skin is our largest organ and it is our first layer of defense against things in our world that can harm us.  It is important to take good care of our skin to ensure it continues to protect us as we age.  I’ve been a Skin & Wound Consultant Nurse for many years and have learned a lot about how to keep our skin healthy and these are 15 Tips for Easy Midlife Skincare that I use myself to keep my own skin healthy.

If you’re like me, you may have noticed that it isn’t as easy as we age to eat everything that we want and not worry about weight gain- like when we were in our 20’s.  After I turned 40, I started noticing the weight slowly gaining, especially around my middle.  Let’s face it though, I definitely wasn’t exercising and eating right.  It’s hard to do with family-young children demanding your time as well as ongoing exhaustion from full-time work as a nurse and farm wife.  I placed my own needs second to all that, and truthfully, I didn’t have the energy.  I was exhausted all the time!  Which of course,…