Hot Flash
=========

* Colleen T Fogarty

*   Patient narratives
*   physician narratives
*   cancer care
*   menopause

> Finally, just as it is becoming an environmentally unfriendly lighting option,
> 
> Beginning tamoxifen gives me empathy for the incandescent light bulb.
> 
> The tiny inner filament heats up, reddening.
> 
> The hot glow spreads, heating up the bulb
> 
> until the surface glows with heat and shines with light.
> 
> Upon extinguishing, the heat fades from the filament,
> 
> gradually dissipating from the bulb.
> 
> I feel a tiny locus of heat deep inside my body.
> 
> Oh no, again?
> 
> Before I can answer,
> 
> warmth fills my whole body
> 
> until my skin glows with heat, glistens with sweat.
> 
> Gradually, it dissipates. I have no control.
> 
> Unlike for the light bulb, for me there is no switch.
> 
> When will I glow again?

## Footnotes

*   Competing interests None.

*   Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; not externally peer reviewed.