Bitches Love Lavender
How to Hack, Survive, and Ravish — or die tryin’
Friends and passersby always ask me: “How do you do it, Susie? Your insouciant style, your ageless spring, the innocent way you—“
Oops. No one says that. Fuck it.
I’m not known for looking younger. I have silver hair, and my wrinkles can blast out the sun with their authority.
I do, however, feel better than I have in a long time. I’m able to move freely about the cabin. I am dialed into life’s small pleasures— all the more crucial in a totalitarian fugue state.
I’m Generation Jones— the age where one gets blood lab tests to see how your organs are doing. My results this year are wild. . . I haven’t been this internally healthy since my late 40s.
I am inspired to tell you why. I’m grateful to the ones who got me spirited in the right direction.
Don’t worry, I haven’t fallen into a vat of self-improvement. I will shout my piece once, and then carry on in my insouciant way.
American Healthcare: A Hacking Guide
We are on our own in the 21st century. Those in the United States, are dying younger, suffering sooner, and bewilderingly disabled before we know it. Shithole patriots, rejoice.
By necessity, we cut corners— to cure our maladies and find credible information. We hunt in odd places to get the help we need. Con artistry abounds. Medical stealth and cunning is the only game in town. Welcome to my roadmap.
The first major thing I did that was huge for my health, was to turn on Social Security and Medicare, even though I was considered too “young” for it.
Just turn it on, I say, before Mr. Wonderful takes it away altogether. I started paying into the SSA system at 15, and now, it’s time to turn the spout in the other direction, rather than sit at home trying to solve my medical crises with tiger balm, booze, scotch tape, and camomile tea.
I was without health insurance— clinical healthcare— for years. Of course, I worked full-time. This is the richest country in the world.
I’ve been astounded to see, since I got my Medicare card, that yes, Virginia, there’ve been medical breakthroughs that excel home remedies. It’s amazing to get access to professional care and drugs, without worrying about a bankruptcy hit.
The Hearing Revolution: Mild is Maximum
Whenever people ask me the most significant event in my life, I say, “When I was 8, I got glasses.”
I was the kid who couldn’t see out the car window, couldn’t see the chalkboard. A public school teacher from Hawaii stood up for me, and got me help, a subsidized pair of spectacles.
Seeing was everything. Seeing clearly. Hearing is the same.
I knew I had “mild” hearing loss for years — it runs in my family. But what gets clinically called mild is, as it turns out, a painful deficiency.
“Mild hearing loss” is like a real estate euphemism, when the broker says a place is “charming” and that means it’s not big enough to swing a cat.
I had no idea what I was missing, even if I was annoying my family by asking them to repeat themselves, or removing myself from a conversation in a crowded room because I knew it was hopeless.
When my father wore hearing aids, he found them to be so troublesome, hardly better than a tin horn. Boy, have things changed. Apple, and the music business began the chase for great, great sound— they revolutionized tiny hearing devices.
Next breakthrough: the grocery chain Costco decided to make hearing tests free, and devices cheap. They broke the monopoly that impeded diagnosis, and distribution of treatment.
Don’t bother with trying to get your insurance or Medicare to contribute — their stupid rules can’t beat Costco’s retail point. Believe me, I was stunned too. But that’s the way it is.
This will not be the only instance you lay out your own cash and foresake any “insurance.” Because you HAVE to.
Yes, my first pair was $1,000 dollars, rather than $4,000 the other retailers were advertising.
I gulped.
But I use them every minute I’m awake. Like my glasses, I’m not going without them.
One of the cool parts of hearing tech: modern devices have settings for different situations, like “Talking to someone in a crowd.”
And then there’s . . . music.
When my Costco guru, Kim, asked me to name a song I liked— to test the music settings— I said, “Something I know every word to. . .”
Kim punched in, “Love Me Do.” Tears came to my eyes. I hadn’t heard the full spectrum of music in so long. I hadn’t heard my own singing voice, either. I had missed so much, for years.
Music is on the very, very short list of why you keep living. —More than you might think right now. So, yeah.
Tips: Did you know that hearing loss is implicated in clinical depression? Alzheimer’s? Loneliness, obviously. Regaining my hearing changed my psychological profile, not just my listening.
So, screw waiting. I wear my “ears” all day, every day. I think I had a learning curve of about 24 hours, and then, boom. I was back to life.
The Swimming Pool Library
I’ve written about this before. I go to the pool to dance and swim in the water, on my own, not in a class, just my own thing. I have quite a few accoutrements.
I was never a jock. When I was a Los Angeles kid, every child was dropped off at the public pool, all summer, all day. I hated swim team, so I got plopped in water ballet. I love moving in water. I just found a new Stooges Pandora station that I’m going to swim/thrash to, tomorrow. See you in the pool!
Behold my Cunt: The Miraculous E-String
I hope you understand this: topical estrogen is lifesaving.
The medical establishment is finally admitting it, slowly. You know they lied grievously to our generation about menstruation, birth control, pregnancy, childbirth. Menopause, the same. But the cover has been ripped off. There are now hundreds of women urologist and OBGYNs who won’t shut up.
When I first got older, I was told, “Well, if you need to, you can get a cream for . . . Um, marital relations.” It could not be more sordid. You were shamed. Men don’t get treated like this. It’s assumed they might like to be sexually intact.
But estrogen cream is not just a treatment to have “vigorous intercourse.” (Although it is certainly nice to fool around with hands, penii, and dildos, without the slightest hesitation).
The non-erotic reason estradiol is a lifesaver, is because older women start having urinary distress and it’s disabling.
It’s the result of estrogen reduction: UTIs, inability to release, cramps, the extremes of incontinence vs. constant bladder pressure without relief. It’s awful! You feel like you can’t go anywhere, or do anything. Endless courses of antibiotics, which do nothing, because of course, it’s NOT a bacterial infection. It’s hormonal.
This all happens long before menopause.
The misinformation about female-urethra suffering has been obscene. Women have been told “There’s nothing to do,” asked to go on antidepressants, take Valium, “try to relax.”
There is no such thing as relaxing when you have to take a piss and you can’t.
FUCK OFF.
And misogyny.
When you’re old, the establishment calls women’s issues below the waist “vaginal atrophy” Can you imagine men being told they have “penile atrophy?” Ha. 1
Here’s the lowdown: The openings to the urethra and the vagina have cells that are receptive to topical estrogen. With the application of estradiol cream, they become “young” again, literally. You apply the cream, and almost instantly, you are just in and out of the bathroom without a care in the world, like you remember in the old days. Yes.
My gynecologist said to me, “You should feel like you have the vagina of a 15 year old.”
Alrighty then!
When you look into all the details, you’ll see that yes, topical estradiol is safe to use even if you have cancer history or previous cancer. Because it’s topical. Read on it! Please don’t kill me with exceptionalism. This is broad, for broads. Most of us are being kept in the dark.
There’s one thing better than the cream. It’s Mommy’s Little Helper, it’s called the E-string2.
The E-string a medicated silicone ring you slide into your vagina, and it rests against your cervix, like a diaphragm; you never feel it.
It releases the hormone for three months before you change it. It’s perfect.
There has to be a catch, right?
YES!
The United States has made e-strings obscenely expensive, and the insurance companies say, “Bitch, you don’t need this, suffer.” They don’t have American inventory half the time! Its very existence is threatened as being “gender-affirming healthcare.” Don’t get me started . . .
The emergency answer: Buy it overseas. I get mine from a competent Canadian pharmacy.
More and more, you are going to find that American ‘stores’ do not have what you need, all kinds of things. The medical drought is the brittle edge. Today, drugs—tomorrow beans.
P.S.
Everyone asks me, “So can I put this Estrogen cream on my face, and have it do the same miracle?”
No. Our faces, and other parts of our dermis, don’t have the same receptors! No 15 year old butter face for you. Damn it.
Get your Cataracts out NOW, don’t wait
American insurance doesn’t cover cataract removal surgery until it’s far too burdensome and risky. I got my cataracts out at 50, long before any insurance plan would agree to it.
How did I know I had cataracts? I didn’t. I just was getting tired driving, especially at night, and I didn’t know why.
This is your clue.3 You don’t wait to become Elmer Fudd.
I recovered from my eye surgeries OVERNIGHT, (they do one at a time) because of my relative youth. That doesn’t happen over 70. Get surgeries while you’re young!
My stepmom lent me the money to pay cash, when the ophthalmologist offered the operation at a no-insurance discount. I didn’t have insurance, and if I had, they would have made me delay.
The gift of healthcare is like no other.
Epsom Salts Forever
Who was it that got me into bath time again? I think it was photographer Clayton Cubitt. He was my Epsom dealer.
Then Kat turned me onto Onsen bath salts. I watched the entire Gilded Age in the tub. Soaking. Soaking.
Get one of the SIMPLE “tub shelves”— you can set up your screen, your music, your drink, etc.
There is no substitute for the cure of an Epsom salt bath— for your whole body, or even just your feet, after a long day.
Epsom salt is the cheapest antidote on my list, and yet perhaps the most powerful. There is nothing, nothing, like feeling good.
Arthritis Begone
My solution to excruciating joint pain is controversial.
I can’t drop it here blithely, but here it is: Yes, I am grateful to GLP-1’s, the peptide hormone revolution— not particularly, nor primarily, for weight loss.
It’s a crime American research has been slowed to a crawl in the revolutionary peptide investigation. People end up using the grey market, word-of-mouth, over-priced brand names,5 etc. Some have sympathetic doctors.
Believe me, I know it’s not ideal. But people aren’t crazy— GLP-1’s became a phenomenon because they work.
I have struggled my way through the acquisition labyrinth, but I’m not going back.
The less-knowledgeable media hype is that this kind of medicine is a weight loss fad, or a stock market trend. Get rich and thin quick, at risk of your life! They’re missing the big picture.
The effect of double and triple agonists radically reduces your heart disease risks. Your “bad numbers” plummet. Your blood pressure, down-down-down. Diabetes fears: gone. After years of doing “everything else” with few results, it does feel like a revelation. No statins in my future.
Finally, this is the issue that’s blowing everyone’s mind: the anti-inflammatory effect. We don’t know exactly why the GLP-1’s are powerful in this way, and that mystery is enraging, but for millions, the relevant peptide hormones are making their arthritis pain disappear. That’s crazy.
We all want to know why, and also why there are exceptions; why there’s a spectrum.
I have friends on peptides who don’t want to lose a pound— they take a microdose of semiglutides or retatrutide to keep joint pain at bay. They are able to work and get out of bed and lift heavy things and use their bodies all day.
That describes me. I lost 20 pounds, which was dandy, but that’s not the point anymore. I don’t care to lose more weight. I eat modestly, but normally. I don’t overthink it, it’s not a “struggle.”
What I do want: my cardiac risk numbers to stay low and my joint pain to remain quiet.
I have an unusual bit of measurable evidence in this last regard.
In 2024, I broke my hand in a bike accident. I was not able to “make a fist” and I’ve been in occupational therapy to regain my “clench,” ever since.
The margins of my ability to press my fingers to my palm, get measured every couple weeks. After I started the peptides, my PT measured me, and said, “WHAT IS GOING ON?”
My ability to close my hand had “jumped” in two weeks, beyond anything they normally see. The rest of the hand therapists came into the room to witness it.
Yes, there’s all kinds of medical claims for peptides. Reddit is a minefield of confessions and anecdotes. Most of it is beyond anything I would be interested in. I’m not trying to be a body builder. I like to eat and cook, I’m not neurotic. I’m not trying to quit gambling, haha.
I’m just a gal who had heart disease and high blood pressure, and felt like joint pain had kidnapped my body. I was stuck. It was horrible, and no, I didn’t like to talk about it. No one does.
Are there unknown future side effects? Duh! We are the guinea pigs; yes. Very old guinea pigs with nothing to lose.
My titration issues were minimal. I take very little, I never really upped my small dosage. That’s another mystery. . . Why it isn’t the same for everyone.
I belong to a “Women Over 60 GLP group” on Facebook which is the last reason besides birthdays I’m on FB at all. A thoughtful, no-nonsense bunch.
Here’s the thing about “future” side effects and seniors: We’re up there. When you’re old, quality of life trumps years of misery and incapacity. You should hear the 70 and 80 year olds in my support group! They got their lives back. —A day to be with their grandchildren outside, stepping out to be with people they love. The re-connection is overwhelming.
Bitches Love Lavender
Betty Dodson told me years ago to get a “Volcano,” so I could vaporize cannabis instead of smoking it. Steam, not tar. Great! Betty’s aging tips are the best.6
Like every member of the AARP, she was hip to the gentle effects of weed on ageing bodies.
So, I got a Volcano. I was wondering what else I could vaporize in the “bag.” I know how powerful aroma and taste is, to change one’s mood, to open the senses.
Let me dwell on that picture for a moment.
With toddlers, you know how you’re always helping them with transitions?
—Going from one place to the next, avoiding a tantrum, handling a tiny switch?
Well, when you get older, your Two-Year-Old Self re-emerges. Transitions are difficult. This is why old people are so angry in cars, or coming out, or going in, or doing anything new. Transition.
Transition stress tip: Try taking the time to change your literal temperature,7or change the aroma of your surroundings, in a pleasing way. This is not woo. This is fact.
Back to the Volcano.
I wanted to see if there was any beneficial herb I could vape. I was getting nowhere, until once again, I stumbled on a Reddit wormhole of hardcore stoners, not a female to be found. 24/7 vipers.
“Hey, my old lady always complains about the weed smell; she won’t shut up. What else can I burn that’ll get her off my back?”
A fellow Dude answered: “Lavender, man. Bitches LOVE lavender.”
These priceless words are now yours to live by.
Lavender is a scent that soothes that savage beast, eases the mind. It’s easy. It grows everywhere. Add a little of the dried flowers to your vaporizer and everything is copacetic. Infuse oil with it, perhaps, or water. It’s a gateway scent, it’s hard to go wrong with the purple plant. Hard to believe something so delicate could be so powerful . . . But it is.
And there you have it.
Don’t push my luck!
In Case You Missed It
I know men reading this will have an encyclopedia worth of info on what they go through with urinary/kidney/genital hassles, and inadequate healthcare. I have something to say about how the Santa Cruz Boardwalk rollercoaster was used in a formal study to dislodge kidney stones, but I’ll save that for another day.
Sorry, their web site is lame, but it’s the official landing page. Can you imagine Viagra being marketing like this? No.
I know this is a commercial site, but their education copy is sound.
In this case, I’m showing you a peer-reviewed academic article, free of spam. There are thousands of commercial sites that explain it all in plain English. Maybe start with your doctor or other friend who’s in a competent protocol, and go from there.
E.g. “Ozempic.” That is so two years ago. There are much much better versions now. But everyone knows that name.
Betty also said the best time to start smoking cigarettes is after 90, because… so what?
This is why a “cold cloth” or a “warm cloth” is so often offered to the distressed. It breaks the chain of upset.
Susie, this has got to be your best medical advice piece yet. I can’t believe it. I cried when I read this. I have felt so exhausted after menopause now and I can’t get anyone to listen. I’ve changed doctors twice because no one will help. I am definitely going to do my research and try these suggestions, THANK YOU, ONCE AGAIN, for being the cool big sister teaching us all how to do this. 😭💕
Behold My…I’m sorry, I wouldn’t say that bad word even if I had a mouth full of it. My favorite medical breakthrough is the CPap—noisy, yes, but less noisy than SNORING—and metoprolol, which calms down the arrhythmia and has the side effect of easing the bad temper I try not to display at the job. (I put up a picture of Nimoy as Spock to remind me how to conduct myself when answering stupid questions on the phone.) Good piece, Susie!