Dear Visitors,
It's time to update my will, not this site!
For three weeks I have had increasingly bad chest pain when walking
my two miles to work. Now I can't even walk five blocks to the grocery store
without searing pain from my stomach to my jaws and down both arms.
Two days ago a thallium stress test showed that I have arterial blockage
in my heart, a shock to this vegetarian non-smoker
who for decades walked miles every day instead of driving.
This Monday, 3 May, an angiogram should show how serious my situation
is. It's possible I'll have heart surgery in the near future.
So rather than update this Web site I decided to get ready to die! I
misjudged my health three weeks
ago when I wrote that I had 15 years left to live.
Getting ready to die, for me, besides the will, means cleaning my house
up. Imagine someone seeing this place! How embarrassing!
But what bothers me most about dying is not knowing
if this museum and Web site will survive me, and the fate of my cats.
I have asked that the contents of MUM go to the Smithsonian Institution,
here in Washington, which has twice asked for it. This museum will probably
disappear forever from public view, but at least the public and scholars
could request permission to see portions of it, under supervision, in some
back room of some warehouse. That's better than dispersing the collection
or tossing it - a possibility.
This Web site is paid for until next January. Someone interested and
qualified I hope would step forward and run it. I think it's too valuable
to drop.
As for my cats: if anyone mistreats them I will haunt them forever;
I mean that.
But if I live I will press ahead to make this a nonprofit museum. But
I need a public official for the board, the more prominent, the better.
Please help me find one! Let's get this museum into the public!
And understand, please, if I don't respond to e-mail, phone calls or
your letters in the next week or two. For the past two years I have spent
from 12 to 20 hours a weekend on this site, a labor of love. But I'll need
that time, and the weekdays, to recuperate and re-think, if I'm lucky.
I hope to see you here in two weeks.
The BBC wants to hear from you if your
cycle is a blessing, makes you
creative, if you have experience with menstrual
seclusion, or know about current
research !
Here's your chance to say how you feel about
menstruation!
Please, may I post a letter on your letter page?
I'm researching a documentary for the BBC [British
Broadcasting Corporation] about menstruation -
myths and facts and blessing or curse.
I have much information about the curse and predjudice but I
am finding scant information about the blessing! I was thrilled
to find medical information linking surgery for breast cancer and the menstrual
cycle and the New Scientist report about differing medication levels required
during the 28-day cycle, and the research about eating requirements differing
during the cycle etc., but I want to hear from women
who have evidence of the cycle as a blessing, for example, artists, writers,
etc., who are at their most creative whilst menstruating.
I also want to meet women who practice menstrual
seclusion, as with menstrual huts of
the past [and of the present; women still use menstrual
huts].
And anything and everything to do with research into menstruation.
Next week I am interviewing Mr Peter Redgrove and Penelope Shuttle
who wrote the first book on menstruation that offered positive information,
The Wise Wound, 1978. I am very excited about
asking many questions resulting from the book. If
you have any questions for them pertaining to the book or their second
book, Alchemy for Women, about the dream cycle corresponding to the menstrual
cycle, I would be delighted to forward them to them on your behalf.
They are not on the net so any questions would have to have addresses!
Thank you so much for this glorious Web site [many thanks to you for
saying that!] and I look forward to hearing from visitors to your site.
Help Wanted: This Museum Needs a
Public Official For Its Board of Directors
Your MUM is doing the paper work necessary to become eligible to receive
support from foundations as a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation. To achieve
this status, it helps to have a American public official - an elected or
appointed official of the government, federal, state or local - on its board of directors.
What public official out there
will support a museum for the worldwide culture of
women's health and menstruation?
Eventually I would also like to entice people experienced in the law,
finances and fund raising to the board.
Do You Have Irregular Menses?
If so, you may have polycystic ovary syndrome
[and here's a support association for it].
Jane Newman, Clinical Research Coordinator at Brigham
and Women's Hospital, Harvard University School of Medicine, asked
me to tell you that
Irregular menses identify women at high risk for polycystic ovary syndrome
(PCOS), which exists in 6-10% of women of
reproductive age. PCOS is a major cause of infertility
and is linked to diabetes.
Learn more about current
research on PCOS at Brigham and Women's
Hospital, the University of Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania State University
- or contact Jane Newman.
If you have fewer than six
periods a year, you may be eligible to participate
in the study!
© 1999 Harry Finley. It is illegal
to reproduce or distribute work on this Web site in any manner or medium
without written permission of the author. Please report suspected violations
to hfinley@mum.org