You're listening to a Mother and mea podcast.

Hello, welcome to Well Australian Women.

This is your full Body Health Check.

I'm Claire Murphy and for the past few weeks we have been talking about perimenopause and menopause and we've had tons of experts on to give us all the information that we really need for our own health.

But we thought it was time to maybe gossip about Perry a little bit.

If you're a woman of a certain age, it's probably all in your group chats anyway, we're just bringing it to you podcast and vodcast wise.

So that is why we have invited journalist and author Shelley Horton into the studio.

Hello, Hello, let's gossip about Perry.

I am your Peri Godmother.

It is the perfect person to gossip with, exactly right.

You are the author of The Peri Godmother.

I first of all want to ask you why write a book about peri menopause?

What was the motivation?

It was not on my bucket list.

I don't I.

Adge and like as a fifteen year old like one day, one day.

Look, honestly, I wrote about it because I was so blindsided with my parade sounds familiar, Yeah, and I think that's what a lot of people do.

It's just like, I don't want this happening to other women, so I want to warn them.

I also can tell you that I have had one of the worst pery experience really have anyone I know.

So I sort of describe it as I was at the top of the peary tree and hit every symptom branch on the way down.

So for me, there was a lot to tell and a lot to share, and a lot of horror stories.

And I also am really passionate about evidence based information, but I found a lot of the menopause books were dry like a vagina.

I couldn't help myself and neither could you.

So I wanted to kind of have a rollic and good story with a bit of humor, a bit of horror, but evidence based information and so women can help themselves.

Amazing.

And we have to preface this with whilst Shelley's experience has been every symptom, every symptom known to memory comes haven't had a frozen shoulder was the only lines, there are people who can cruise through this with lead to no symptoms too.

So whilst you know Shelley's story is the extreme, there is also the extreme of the other end.

So we're going to try and talk about all of the spectrum of perimenopause today.

But what I really loved in your book, Perry Godmother, is the way that the chapters are titled, like just really spoke to me because I was like, yep, I know exactly what this chapter is going to be about.

So first of all, I'd like to start with the same way you have started your book, which is welcome to the shit show.

Welcome to the shit show.

First of all, how did you first suspect that maybe the things you were experiencing were perimenopause and not just like other things.

I never suspected that it was perimenopause because I went into Perry in twenty twenty.

You might remember there's a little thing going on at that time, Perry and pandemic double pay.

I had never heard the word before, not once, and I consider myself fairly informed.

I've been a health reporter for christ Like, I can't believe I hadn't even heard the word before.

I thought menopause was like six year old ladies, gray hair clutching the pearls yelling at the kids to get off the lawn kind of thing, and they would have hot flushes and their period stopped the end.

YEP.

I had no idea about this spectrum of symptoms.

My mom hadn't spoken to me about it.

She's very much of that generation of secret women's business soldier on don't scare the horses.

Yeah, And I also I grew up in country Queensland, so I moved away from my hometown to work, you know, so I haven't even got that close school friends, you know, when you go all the same age and you're going through the same thing.

So I kind of felt really sideswiped.

So for me, my very first symptom was heart palpitations, right, and I just thought it was either heart problem or anxiety.

And I'm like, it's a pandemic.

Of course everyone's feeling anxiety.

I felt hotter, but not a traditional hot flush.

See this is where I'm the same as you, because I have friends who have hot flushes, to the point where my girlfriends had to pull her car over on the side of a freeway and get out and strip off because it was like she thought she was going to die.

But mine is just I've it's like my body's forgotten how to regulate my temperature.

Yeah, it's just like turned it up by three degrees.

And that was kind of I thought it was just because I'd put it on a bit of weight, because I'd been eating a lot on the couch during COVID, So everything seemed to be something I could pass off as something else.

But then the two symptoms that really scared me enough to do something about it.

First of all, as I started getting perimenopausal depression.

Now I didn't know what it was, but I was one of the very lucky people who at my age then was forty five, I'd never really had mental health issues before I had.

This was very much of out character, absolutely to.

The point where I was like crying at least once a day.

And I'm a pretty bobbly person.

But again, pandemic, maybe everyone's doing that.

I put up with that for months and months and months and months, and then it was only when and I love my IUD.

I've had it replaced three times, and I had terrible periods when I was growing up, and the ID meant that I had not had a period for twelve years.

So it was like, oh, you're right, But then in September I got what I described as an armagadon period.

I'm dressed as a period today, I said, the.

Most fabulous red outfit on.

But we have been discussing how you do resemble a blood cloth?

Yeah, yeah, one thing.

But that period was so my first period in twelve years.

I bled through my clothes.

Wow.

And that was where I'm like, oh, and they ran to see a GP.

And again in my brain, what have I done to myself?

Like blaming myself for it?

So I went to the GP, and I happily admit that I'm a bit of a tight ass.

I don't have a family doctor.

I just go wherever there's book billing.

You're not you're not unusual hearing do that right?

And so when I went in and I presented with my symptoms of feeling hotter, feeling depressed, and extreme bleeding, the GP had not been educated about Harry MENOPAUSI there, which I know you've talked about on your show Befloor And she's like, oh, bleeding with an IUD could be cancer.

Okay, what's scary?

What as if I'm not going to spiral?

And then if you're suffering harry menopause or depression.

Does that then play into your mental health?

Does anxiety and depression go hand in hand?

And it was COVID.

So for me, I had to go to hospital for an internal ultrasound with everyone wearing masks.

It was just horrific.

I went back to see her a couple of days later for my results.

She's like, great news, you haven't got cancer.

Your blood tests are all normal.

It's not handling his stress.

Well, maybe you should take up a hobby.

Oh that is code fit.

It's all in your head.

Yeah right, And so I again just started crying, which was sort of my go to for everything around then, and blamed myself for not coping.

And you know, I grew up in country Queensland, where doctors are gods and you don't question what they say.

I didn't think to get a second opinion.

I didn't even enter my head.

I just thought, this is my fault for not coping.

Well, we're all like.

That, because you're right, doctors are gods and if they tell you that this is what's wrong with you, they are more educated in this area than what I am.

So I have to believe that what they're telling me is the truth.

Absolutely, So that meant that it was a long time until I actually saw another doctor, and unfortunately for me, my symptoms just got worse and worse, and the depression particularly got to the point where I was having days I couldn't get out of bed.

I didn't want to go to work.

I wanted to quit my job, and I love my job.

On Channel nine, I go in, get my hair and makeup done, sparkle to debate the news of the day, and go home, Whereas during this time I would go in terrified, feeling like I was a fraud.

You talk about imposter syndrome on the show all the time, but this was beyond imposter syndrome.

This was a banshee screaming in my ear of You just embarrassed yourself on national TV.

Your parents will be ashamed of you.

You should quit your job before you get fired, because you imagine how humiliating it would be to get fired.

Like that's how loud it was in my head.

And I drove home one time, and you don't ever tell anyone what's those horrible things are in your head.

I know that you're supposed to, well you're supposed to, but you done.

Yeah, I didn't even tell my husband, but I just I got home that day and I was almost hysterical, sobbing, and I said, I need to quit my job.

I'm just not good at it anymore.

I can't do it.

He's only known workaholic me, and he knew that this was major alarm set.

He's like, this is not what this leans.

No, no, no like.

And so he sat me down.

And my husband's name Darren, and the rest of you can call him earth Angel because dazz.

He sat me down and he said, look, I don't think there's anything wrong with you, but there might be something wrong with the chemicals in your brain.

So why don't we see someone together?

Darn?

Isn't that the most beautiful thing of Oh?

Bless him.

I don't even know how he found those words.

I've asked him.

I'm like, how did you not to say that?

He said, I had to be so gentle with you because you were being so mean to you.

Yeah, He's like, I just wanted to cotton ball you.

And so he came with me to my next GP appointment, and luckily that she b was educated and just went, this is perimenopause and we can fix it.

How did you feel walking away from that then like as opposed to I might have cancer.

And then you cry and then you're like, I.

Felt a lot of shame that I didn't know about it.

Yeah, I can, and so I felt shame about that.

I felt shame that I'd let it get so bad and very very tearful.

Again, she put me onto HIT or MHT, whichever you choose to describe it, and a Nanni deepressant and I'd never been on a Nanni depressant before.

Oh my goodness.

I support r UAKD.

I write about depression.

And yet when it was me sitting with that little box of pills, Oh my god, the searing shame that I felt, and it was all in my head saying, you've done this to yourself.

Is it because we have a societal idea on who the people are who take antidepressants?

Is that I've never judged anyone for taking antidepressants.

I encourage people to if they need it.

But when it was me, it felt like a failure.

And it was again it was like, I've done this to me, I've created this drama.

And in fact, it was just perimenophorse.

It's just estrogen.

It's just you know, simple yeah, or lack thereof, horrendous lack thereof.

Yes.

Well, then let's move on to the next chapter, which is symptom bingo.

And this is for me.

I didn't realize what were symptoms until I looked back on it retrospectively, so for me to start off with skin, so I ended up with horrible dry leathery like an old handbag it and in some spots, like the under boobs, it got red raw, like it was really bad.

And I was seeing skin people, and I was putting stuff on it, and I was trying every trick that I thought would overcome dry skin.

Nothing was working.

My poor husband is like, I'm having him apply things to bits of me because I can't reach it.

And it was awful and itchy and sad and dry.

And then I think it was about forty four.

I just got a UTI never had one before him my.

Life, right, I went out to sign, I went to the gen because you're not a teenager.

I'm not having lots of sex.

Yes, what's going on?

My GP said to me, you do know you have to wipe from front to back?

Are you freaking kidding me?

And I was like, look, how offensive it.

I know, And I was like, look, I know you're saying this out of a concern that I don't.

Know how to freaking wipe myself through my.

Own hygiene routine.

I said, but this is my first ever of UTI and I'm forty four.

Do you think maybe that it might be something else?

And he was like, here's the antibiotic that'll fix it.

And then I got another one and another one, to the point where I nearly passed out in a public toilet because the pain was so intense.

As I was waiting for the chemist to feel my prescription, and I was like, what is happening to me?

And then for me not depression but anxiety.

Yeah, and same thing with work.

I would go to do my job and I'd go to open my mouth and it was like everything would restrict, yeah, and it's like sque y squeezing everything tight.

And I was like, oh my god, who is this person?

Because I don't recognize me the one that sent me off the rails and this might be too much information.

I feel like, you're not a tear in my galper.

I was having sex with my husband.

I orgasmed and thought my brain was going to fall out.

It was like my brain had split in half.

The pain was so intense.

I had no idea what was happening to me.

A stroke kind of feeling almost like I thought, this is it, and I'm having a head and eurysm.

I'm having some kind of stroke.

And then like my poor husband is like beside himself, is like, what is han?

And I took myself off to the doctor and he said that sounds like a thunderclap headache, which and then he sent me for an MRI.

Everything is fine, wow.

And then it happened again when I was exerting myself some other way.

I kind of remember what it was, and I was like, oh, this is happening again.

And then it happened again doing something else.

I'm like, this is not right.

But I've had all the scans and everything's fine, so I don't know what happening.

And then I was sitting on a couch one day and it's like the whole world tipped upside down like vertigo.

Oh, And I was like, what what the hell?

Oh my goodness, So my girlfriends who've had vertigo, I just like I can't even work, you know, it's like being having you line the couch and you'll hold onto it.

You don't.

It's like being on a ship out at sea.

Everything is unstable.

And luckily it only came and went in like small bursts.

But it was like I had convinced myself I have a brain tumor.

Even if these scan did not pick it up.

I was like, this is it for me.

It's all over.

They'll find it too late because I've already done all the tests and it's done.

Then someone said to me perimenopause.

I was like what.

And I went to my GPN.

I said, can you test my hormones?

And he goes, what's the point of that?

Yeah, doesn't do anything.

It doesn't do anything.

And I was like, well, how do I know?

And he goes, you're not in menopause and I was like, no, I know.

It's don't get my period.

I get that.

And then we had this big fight about it and he sent me on my way with appeal to deal with night sweats and I had to go via some someone else to get a prescription for MHD yep, and literally within two months I had almost none of those.

Symptoms, yeah at all.

So let's talk symptom BINGO with you how many do reckon?

You can tick off the list.

There are others which I forget and because like brain fog, and now my brain fog is to get these the worst for me words, words, names, I'm terrible at I've never been good with no kids, and now it's worse.

But now at least and go, brain fog not my fault.

So tell me about your your Mine was unusual in that once I knew what perimenopause was, I kind of then spoke to my mum, who finally talked about her experience.

See my mum still says, I don't think I had menopaus Oh no, I mean.

With my mum's permission to tell a story about her as a primary skill teacher in a small country town where it was she was teaching grades two and three and you know those molded plastic chairs, So she's sitting on that teaching the class, and then the just filled with blood.

And they didn't have mobile phones then, so luckily she could reach the phone on her desk, the land line, and she rang hoping for the secretary, and of course got the elderly male principle and just said it's a medical emergency, and he was the hero of this story, which I'm so happy to share because his wife had been through it.

So he just marched down to her classroom and said, guess what Grades two and three, We're going bird watching.

Everyone follow me.

So they left, and then the secretary was there with tails to like mop.

There was that much blood they were mopping it up.

And because we grew up in a country town, mum got to go home and have a shower and then come back to that again.

Yeah, but I'm like, you could have shared that with me earlier, thanks mom.

But mine was quite different to my mum's.

I didn't have those traditional hot flushes more.

I had some hot flushes, but for me, they were triggered by anxiety, so I'd be hotter all the time, and then the full anxiety push, particularly doing live TV, which is but I wear my Apple Watch and my heart rate doesn't even go up doing live TV.

I've been doing it for thirty years, and it's like my brain didn't remember that excitement and anxiety are different things, so it would just trigger a flush.

My mum went bald, like, lost so much of her hair.

She's actually had a hair transplant.

I have so much hair that it felt like a duner on my head.

I actually for about three years had an undercut under my distill light and alone just to lighten it so flushes.

Then definitely, weight gain, definitely.

The perimenopausal depression and anxiety was next level.

And then I think heart palpitations were very bad.

But then the heavy bleeding just kicked me to the ground.

And in my last year before I actually had an A, I bled for forty two weeks out of fifty two.

Whoa, And they weren't like Day one all the time.

It was just like constant spotting and then heavy periods.

But then I had six weeks where six weeks, every single day was like Day one, and I was so anemic and exhausted and crying and still trying to do my job razzle dazzhole, and I was just done.

It's like stick a fork of me.

I'm done.

So it's funny.

There are still lots of symptoms that I didn't have, but I feel like the ones I did have were turned up to eleven.

Yeah, right, so the ones you got, you got bad.

Yeah.

And that's the thing is that there is a list and the number I keep reading of perimenopause symptoms seems to fluctuate, but with somewhere between thirty and forty.

Odd I think it seems to be going up every month.

It does.

It's it's a little bit overwhelming, but I think my biggest advice to women is to look at yourself as a whole person and look at all of the symptoms as is this my normal and my biggest thing is I just didn't feel like me.

And I think if you're saying that to yourself or who am I?

Or I just don't feel right, then it's time to do some investigating.

The thing is too It can start earlier, but if you're experiencing a whole bunch of stuff and you're around forty four, five, forty six, then it has to come into consideration, right because now that we know about it, Now that we know about it, that is when we start to think, hang on a minute, all of these different things could actually be one thing.

Okay, So I feel like we've covered off on bleeding hell, which is one of the other chapter time.

How do I call it?

The whack a mole of bleeding hell?

Whack a mole of bleeding hell and the mental health mayhem.

I think we've talked about that as well.

But there is a chapter entitled work It Baby, which really struck a chord with me because I have worked and I didn't understand it at the time.

But I've worked with older women in newsrooms around the country, and I have seen the changes in them in their ability to be able to handle those stressful situations.

And then I've also got a friend from a newsroom who essentially kind of lost her job because she wasn't handling it well and there was not a lot of discussion about perimenopause.

She knew that it was coming, but she didn't know how to navigate that in the workplace.

And so I'd love to get your take on how we can better support women while we're working who are also going through something that can throw your mental ability to do your job completely out the window.

I've had a friendho set to take like a six month sabaticle because her brain fog is so bad she can no longer keep her diary in check.

Like, what do we do for women to help.

Them so that I go into workplaces and educate them about this, Because you know, if I'm going to get an issue, I'm going to go hard with it.

So I've campaigned in parliament.

I created a company that goes into workplaces and educates people because I am evangelical, that's what I am.

I have found the pairy Lord.

She has a preacher of the PERI.

So I'm all about education and choice.

So there are some women who will not want to go onto hit m HD, and that's fine, But I don't want people to not go onto hormone replacement therapy because they're afraid of breast cancer.

So we need to take that style reaction to hearing hit MHT and make sure that we're not associating it with breast cancer.

Of course, get your checks done, speak to your GP, but don't be afraid.

So for me getting that education and getting everyone on the same page, we need men and women educated about this, not just women.

I never blame men in the workplace for not understanding it, because we barely understand it.

But this is where I see perimenopause and menopause in the workplace as what mental health was ten years ago.

You would never talk about depression or anxiety at the workplace ten years ago.

Now it's like you have are uokday.

So we've got to start using the right words.

We've got to remove the shame and stigma once you get that education out there and let women know it's actually gets down to that frustrating bit of you've got to help yourself.

Yes, you also have to make lifestyle changes, and that is a non negotiable.

So when I'm teaching about it, it's not one or the other.

It's not like get on hit and you're all the problems are solved.

That is not the case.

The other thing is making sure that workplaces understand that if something like brain fog is particularly bad for you, not to have a technical meeting at three pm in the afternoon.

If you need to be really sharp, have those meetings in the morning.

That's not a big deal for workplaces to do.

If everyone in the workplace is educated, that's when you support each other, so you can actually say, Jane, my brain fog is really bad.

If I forget the client's name, just jump in for me, and you can jump in for each other, and that's actually teamwork.

You know.

I think that period products should be in every.

Workplace, and I think they are here at MUM and me as they.

Should be, but they're not everywhere.

But we have tea and coffee, like it costs more to have tea and coffee than have period products there.

And I had one workplace that I was giving a chat to and they're like, oh, but women will steal the tampons.

I'm like, you don't understand.

I've been in nightclubs and given my last tampon to a girl who needed it.

This is the sisterhood.

And for me, when Channel nine did put period products, which was only like two years ago, into all of their bathrooms, I walked in and went, oh, did you cry?

I felt like crying.

I felt like crying.

I didn't cry.

The antidepressants were working, Thank God for that.

But it is important because, particularly with Perry, you might go five months without a period and then, like me, get an armageddon period and not be ready for it.

So having those just takes one less thing on your to do list to help you.

And then another thing that I really encourage is having a workplace menopause policy.

And I know that sounds very boring of me, however, I think menopause workplace policies should be living, breathing documents with clickable links.

So therefore, if you are at that workplace, go and have a look at the policy, click the links, read the research, see what's happening.

It needs to be updated at least every six months because then there's an education tool as well.

So to me, education and getting women to help themselves and help each other is vital.

Also have a free, easily accessible communication tool that women can opt into just to share some stories, because sometimes, you know, what all you need is another one one of your sisters to go, oh, that must be awful.

Oh you didn't sleep.

No, I totally get it.

Sometimes that's all you need.

If there's one thing we do well here at MoMA MIIR is office chat about all things.

All things like if the word vaginas not mentioned eighteen times a day in this office, some bad has happened.

Okay, let's talk about a chapter you've entitled Menopausal Zest, because this I find really interesting.

When I realized I was perimenopausal, there is a reckoning you have to now understand that you are at that stage of life which we have often been told is when women just kind of disappear off the faces what they used to do.

And now I've got women who are a decade ahead of me here, like Holly wayIn Wright and mere Freedman, and they've certainly not disappeared off the face of the planet.

In fact, they're as spikally as I've been.

So how do we help when we've reached this point in our lives and we feel like, Okay, so my baby making is done?

Am I still important?

Do I still need to be out there?

And do I still need to achieve things in life?

How do we keep the zest for life when our overreas and brain stopped chatting.

Overies over brovaries.

Yeah, so I am so excited about menopausal zes, like, I think I'm nearly there.

I won't know because menopause is defined as twelve months without a period.

I've had an oblation.

I don't have periods anymore, so therefore I won't know.

But all of my symptoms are kind of better now, and I'm like, oh, I think, are we on the other side nearly?

So.

Menopausal ZES was actually a term coined by Margaret Mead, who's an anthropologist in America, and it actually had a great study that showed that once women got past the baby making years, past the perimenopausal hell, and our hormones kind of cruised along.

There was like this, we don't care anymore, and they stepped into their And one of the funniest things that was mentioned in the study was one women quitting their jobs or starting a new job or a side hustle.

That was what they've always wanted to do, but they didn't feel like they could not.

Putting themselves last, you know, is like husband, kids, parents, the dog, then.

You, which might be also be where some divorce rates.

But I'm sure it's time to that.

Yeah, and you know what, And some of it's that guy's a jerk and you shouldn't be there anyway.

But there is this new sense of self worth and you've been through the peri war and you now have come out and it's like you got your battle scars.

And I love that.

So I call it giving zero fox.

But for me, I'm feeling that as well.

I was such a people pleaser before and a perfectionist, and now I see those as such negative traits and I feel like when I'm like that, I'm actually myself down, which is interesting.

And I also feel like, now it's not the end of your life, it's the middle.

It's the peak where it's time for you to make some big changes and grab it by the ovaries and give it a shake and go what do I really want?

Like?

What do I want?

Can I say something I really struggled with which I wasn't expecting is no longer being in the male gates?

Oh I so don't care about that.

I wish I didn't care at the time, but that really impacted me.

And I had to really think that through because I never thought of myself as someone who did care about it.

Yeah.

Interesting, But then when perimenopause hidden, when you add the word menopause to anything that is aging, aging, it is a like I see a different person in the mirror now because I'm not this young, fertile person who is out there hoping the mate that men find me attractive, even if I'm not looking for a mate, Like, there's some validation I was getting from that.

I wonder if you and I are different in that I've never wanted to have kids, that I've been child free by choice my whole life and never even had a scare.

You know, you've never been on my radar, so mating, no, thank you.

And also, and I'm going to sound like a wanker, but I still feel sexy.

I've got massive cans, right, and they just got bigger.

I mean that helps.

And to me, oh my god, the thought of going back to dating is like a horror movie.

Yeah.

Look that I have come to terms with the fact that that is the wrong way that I was looking for validation is finding it in men, and now.

Mind it in your girlfriend.

Yes, that's definitely find it in my girlfriends.

But also too, like I've realized now that I can look like whatever the hell I want to look like, because I've been told this.

We have so many stories on mamama dot com today, you about how jen Z's have this expectation of how my annual women and gen x's are supposed to look, and like, don't wear skinny jeans and don't have a side part, and I'm gonna wear my socks up.

Wear your socks.

However, I don't give up exactly right.

So you do, and you have opened one of the Australian chapters of that We Do Not Care Club, which I love, where you do get to zero Fox zeal And it is so freeing to put on whatever it is you want to wear that day, wear your hair however the hell you want, pull your socks up, put them down whatever, and then just go outside and feel really good about it.

And like, even just today when I met you in the lobby, I've just been out walking in the city streets and just admiring people because it's like, oh, look at that amazing outfit that person has a look at Like the judgment I think even coming from me to other people has changed as well as coming into Do you know.

What I've started doing complimenting strangers in the street.

I love that.

Yeah, and you know what I think again, because I'm not judging people poorly.

So I live on the Gold Coast and I was just walking one morning and this woman walked past with the most divine perfume on, and I backtracked and said, excuse me, I just wanted to tell you smell delicious.

Have a great day.

And she was like, oh, You've just made my day, and I'm like, so lovely.

Ten years ago I wouldn't have done that.

Well, ten years ago I lived in Sydney and she would have thought it was a serialculation.

Well, she abould to hit you in her handbag.

That is cool.

I love that, and you're right when it is a bit of a sisterhood now because especially if you do have girlfriends of around the same age and you are starting to experience things.

It's nice now that we're having these conversations with each other and really building each other up to get back out and grasp the world by the ovary, because you are still a human being who deserves to live on this planet and apps do whatever the hell you want.

I refuse to be invisible.

That's not going to happen.

What I do choose is when i'm visible, I'm very visible, and when I need downtime, I have my zero days and I just chill out.

So for me, instead of being on all the time to please everyone, I'm on when it pleases me.

I love that, and that's kind of nice.

Shellie.

Thank you so much for gossiping about perimenopause with me today.

You're very welcome.

I had to do it.

I had to and just snaps for dads.

Your husband please go and give him a big squeeze from us.

Men, if you're hearing this, support your ladies through this time.

It is not easy, and.

With your support it would just be a little bit easier and your bea be a team.

Get your girls together.

But thank you so much.

I love this chat.

If you have not got it, get a copy of Perry Godmother.

It is very eye opening.

Shelley shares a lot.

But like my psychiatrist recommends my book to her patients but says it's a little bit salty, A little bit salty.

Shelley, it has been so lovely speaking to you.

Thank you so much for coming on to well and sharing your story.

Is it wrong to say I love you?

I love you too, And you look divine and so sparky, and I love that necklace A big bloody clot, shyan blood clot, amazing.

Thank you.

So.

This conversation shares personally experiences and general information only.

It's not medical advice.

If symptoms are affecting you, make sure you speak with your GP or your qualified health professional about options for your situation.

If you are experiencing severe symptoms like heavy bleeding, chest pain, or a sudden severe headache, seek urgent care.

And if you're struggling with your mental health, support is available to reach out to the team Lifeline thirteen eleven fourteen or hit up Beyond Blue.

Shelley Haughton's book is called Pery Godmother.

It is fabulous.

We'll put a link to it in our show notes if you'd like to check it out, and of course Well is produced by me Claire Murphy, our senior producer, Sally Best, with audio production by Scott's Stronik, video production by Julian Rosario, and social production by Ellenmore.

Mumma Miya acknowledges the traditional owners of the land.

We have recorded this podcast on the Gatigul people of the Eor nation.

We pay our respect to their elders past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and torrest Rate islander cultures.