I Aged 20 Years In 2 Weeks After Breast Cancer Treatments

Halfway through hot yoga class — my first in over a decade — I felt a volcanic wave of heat rise inside my chest. While a sea of spandex-clad bodies moved balletically around me, I collapsed on my mat in child’s pose. Sweat dripped from my brow. The heater across the room hissed and blasted another gust of scorching air into the small, sealed studio.

As I tried to catch my breath, the 20-something yoga instructor yelled over the electropop playlist, “If you want to experience growth, you need to do more!”

I couldn’t help but feel like she was speaking directly to me, and so, I mustered my last bit of energy. But when I rose to join the class in warrior two, the heat inside my chest exploded into flames. I was having a massive hot flash.

I did not finish that yoga class. Instead, I rolled up my mat and fled the studio for the air-conditioned bathroom where I stuck my head under the ice-cold faucet. It took an hour for my body to return to a state of homeostasis, and I felt exhausted and dehydrated for days, no matter how many electrolytes I consumed.

In hindsight, I’m not sure what possessed me to attend hot yoga in the first place. Ever since breast cancer treatments pushed me into sudden and premature induced menopause at 37 years old, I’ve suffered chronic, debilitating hot flashes. Sitting in the sun for too long can trigger an episode, let alone an hour-long exercise class in 100-degree infra-red heat.

In October 2017, I found a lump — the shape and density of a marble — sitting just above my right breast. I assumed it was something left over from nursing my then 18-month-old son, however, two years prior, I lost my mother to a fast-moving Chondrosarcoma and painstakingly learned that with cancer early detection is everything. As I pushed down on the mass under my skin, I made a mental note to follow up with my primary care doctor, just in case.

Later that week, following a mammogram and biopsy, I discovered that my breast cancer diagnosis was early-onset and estrogen receptor positive (ER+), meaning I wouldn’t need chemotherapy. Two months later, I underwent a unilateral mastectomy and post-op began a 10-year adjuvant treatment: a daily medication, Letrozole, to wipe out all the estrogen in my body, and quarterly Lupron injections to shut down my ovaries.

“These two treatments will push you into menopause,” my oncologist informed me, as if he was explaining a simple math equation. “You may or may not experience symptoms.”

“OK,” I responded. At the time, I knew so little about menopause I didn’t have any follow-up questions.

That quickly changed. Within a matter of weeks, an onslaught of symptoms hit me with a brute force. I suffered insomnia and night sweats, muscle and body aches, brain fog, mood swings, fatigue and hot flashes. I also had symptoms of Genitourinary Syndrome of Menopause (GSM), which caused frequent urinary tract infections and vaginal dryness that disrupted my sex life. At 37 years old, I was Benjamin Button in reverse — I’d aged 20 years in only two weeks.

It felt as though the cancer medications had hijacked my body and left me marooned in an unknown land — menopause. I woke every night drenched in cold sweat, as if someone poured a glass of water over my head. My joints cracked like an old wooden floorboard whenever I stood up. My mood was all over the place, and I became short-tempered with my two young children. I was confused about my symptoms, and I felt isolated in my experience. I couldn’t talk to my close friends about what I was going through because nobody else in my peer group had been through it yet.

“Have you tried any homeopathic remedies?” my primary care doctor asked me one day. I was back on her examination table bemoaning my menopausal symptoms. “A few supplements and vitamins might help.”

Later that afternoon, I went home and googled “menopause cure.” I poured over the vast selection of expensive organic remedies — supplements, vitamins, treatments — that popped up on my screen. I quickly ordered a pharmaceutical grade Vitamin D3 supplement and women’s daily vitamin, both of which helped to somewhat alleviate my chronic aches and pain.

Over the next few days, I noticed that my targeted algorithms had adjusted, and an array of ads took over my Instagram feed, touting everything from menopause face serums and shampoos to herbal teas. At first, I found it impossible to resist the beautifully packaged products — the promise that a green juice or body oil might restore my stolen youth. I purchased an expensive Aegean sea scrub to combat my dry skin, and an overpriced “menopause protein powder.” And while none of these products really worked, there always seemed to be another one I could buy.

Over the past decade, menopause has become an industry projected to be worth $24.4 billion by 2030. Despite a recent positive shift in public discourse around menopause — thanks in part to public figures like Drew Barrymore and Gayle King who have opened up about their experiences — capitalism has sunk its teeth into the “menopause industry” and continues to perpetuate a negative culture of anti-aging.

I know it took me a minute to make the distinction between “healthy aging and improved quality of life” and “anti-aging,” but my Amazon cart had become proof enough. In my effort to turn back the clock, I’d fallen prey to the falsity that aging is shameful, and worse, it’s somehow magically avoidable — if only we buy and apply the right face serum.

Over the years, I’ve learned that menopause isn’t just about hot flashes and dry skin, it’s also about the increased risk for serious medical conditions, like dementia and osteoporosis. I’ve learned that taking proper care of my body and mind means investing in my future health. For instance, I’ve adjusted my exercise routines to focus on bone strength and mobility rather than weight loss. I’ve also learned that this next stage of life is about coming to terms with shifting relationships — marriages, friendships and family — and empty nesting. It’s about reexamining value systems and reprioritizing what’s important in life.

For me, it’s been about redefining my expectations around beauty and my sense of self-worth, as well as letting go of the need to measure up to anyone else’s standards but my own. I’ve come to understand that with aging comes deeper wisdom and better discernment. As I get older, I’ve learned that I don’t need to do more to experience growth and change, I can just do things differently.

When I was first diagnosed with cancer, I became acutely aware that time is the most precious commodity. During those first few days, while I waited for my biopsy results, I stayed awake at night consumed with fear and anxiety. I wanted to live to see my two sons grow up. I wanted to experience life as a grandmother. In other words, I desperately wanted to survive cancer and grow older. But when my hormone treatment slammed me into induced menopause, it felt like what was left of my youth was taken from me. I quickly lost sight of what was important: I was still alive.

These days, when I look in the mirror, I see someone who has survived cancer and the intense grief of losing a parent. Cancer and sudden induced menopause gave me the opportunity to prematurely confront my own mortality and decide what’s important to me: my family, my health, my friends, my career. It helped me to embrace the idea that aging isn’t something that needs to be fixed. There isn’t a cure for menopause. It’s just another part of life. I’m thankful that I learned this lesson while I’m still young-ish.

I went to that hellfire hot yoga class at the behest of my friend. I remember thinking that if I could just finish the class, it would mean that I was back to my old self — my pre-cancer self. But maybe we don’t have to shoulder some great burden to feel young again. Sometimes, I still feel like I’m 25 years old. Other days, I feel like a shell of the person I used to be. On those days, I try to slow down and practice self-compassion, something I struggled with before surviving breast cancer. I remind myself that self-love means I don’t always have to do the full expression of the pose. Sometimes it’s enough to show up, sit on your mat, and breathe.

Anna Sullivan is a mental health therapist, author and co-host of “Healing + Dealing.” She has written for The New York Times, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, HuffPost, Today, Newsweek, Salon, and more. She is currently writing a book, “Private Parts,” about going through early induced menopause due to cancer treatment.

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