Daijiworld Magazine, Vol.12, Issue 4, September 2020

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DAIJIWORLD Magazine | September 2020
HEALTH & WELLNESS
Aunt Flo…
By Dr Preethi Rebello
Assistant Professor, Dept. of
Psychiatry at Father Muller
Medical College, Mangaluru.
So next time your wife,
mother, daughter, sister
or girlfriend is cranky,
just give them a
smile and say you
understand what they
are going through.
Chums, Menses, girl flu, time
of the month….different
names for the same monthly
routine half of the population has
to go through for more than half
of their life, for a minimum of
cumulative 60 days in a year (almost
2 months). For the uninitiated XY
chromosomes, it is the time of the
month in your mothers, sisters,
wives, girlfriends and daughters
lives where their uterus decides
let’s make them miserable for the
next 5 days. Its code red when they
feel bloated drained, and ugly. The
pimples decide to pop up and have a
party all over their face.
When I was pre-pubertal I
used to wonder why mom has
diapers hidden in her cupboard
but later I realized I will be tied
to it for the next 4 decades of my
life. Sanitary pads have made our
life much easier than our mothers
and grandmothers who used unhygienic
cloth repeatedly washed
and dried in secrecy as if what
they are going through is abnormal
and other people to know.
Also now sanitary pads come
in pretty yellow, pink, blue small
packs which look like a purse
where in olden days they used
to come in big rectangular pads
wrapped in newspaper and
passed along with much difficulty
when required. When my dad
used to go to medical stores to buy
sanitary pads for mom (proud of
him for being so macho) they used
to wrap it in 2 to 3 layers of newspaper
as if, if it’s a WMD. (Weapon
of Mass Destruction)
Then when it is again the
time of the month we are always
stressed about overflow, staining,
changing, peeing, toilets nearby,
coughing and sneezing. It
also becomes like a sisterhood of
stained skirts when a classmate or
schoolmate who you do not know
comes and sympathizes with you
and whispers in your ears… “its
stained” and we go running to
restroom to check and change.
Physical activity becomes like a