Hormones

Well here we are in February, guys, and nothing is much clearer, is it? Well not for me anyway. Dry January didn’t happen – not in any defiant, cool way, it just sort of started and stopped and then some weeks I didn’t drink, just on the weekend. And sometimes it was all the time. And some days I went without sugar, but mostly not.

And in my head I was at a spin class twice a week but in actual fact I was sitting by the fire watching Blindspot on Catch up. (Just between you and me every morning right now feels like I’ve woken up in Times Square with no memory and my body is covered in strange tattoos.)

And my skin… Jesus Christ my skin! Some really, really seriously bad hormonal shift seems to have happened and the entire lower half of my face is, like… I mean… there aren’t really words to describe it. My husband isn’t even making jokes about it because it’s so bad.

My skin has always been an absolute fucking bitch but after I had Kitty and Sam it calmed down. The odd actual zit perhaps three times a year but other than that it was plain sailing. I mean, I still looked exhausted and baggy and like something that got caught in a drain – but no actual spots.

Then in November last year it started up again, like a thousand demented deep-sea monsters had woken up from a long sleep and vomited their fury onto my face.

So I did the only sensible thing and sank into a deep depression. During the brief patches when I only had perhaps one giant chin-cyst and not three or four, that was a good day, I could be cheerful.

Then I bumped into my old friend and former boss Jemima who said: “Go to the London Hormone Clinic, they will sort you out.” I always do whatever Jemima says (it’s a bit of a hangover from her being my actual boss for two years) and so made an appointment.

The London Hormone Clinic is on Welbeck Street in London and is an offshoot of the Marion Gluck clinic, which also specialises in hormone therapy. LHC is run by two GPs who used to work for Gluck but have gone out on their own – a bit like Dave Grohl with the Foo Fighters after Kurt Cobain died, even though Marion Gluck hasn’t died I don’t think. Actually I don’t know. In fact, forget that whole analogy.

At the LHC we had a very nice chat about me, which is my favourite subject, and then I am to go back and have a blood test on the 20th day of my cycle or some shit like that. I haven’t gone yet, but I can tell you what it will say when I do go, though, it will say that my progesterone is at 0 and my oestrogen is at 45,000, which is why my face looks like the 8th wonder of the world.

And then with any luck I will be prescribed a very promising thing called progesterone cream, which you just rub onto the inside of your arms. Score! I love the sound of that. I love a magic cream.

Of course, all this comes with some kind of very frightening price tag, (I will let you know when I have the final reckoning), but I can guarantee that it won’t be half as frightening as my zits.