Finding Your Spark: After Surgical Menopause with Helen Clarke

In this powerful episode of Find Your Spark: Real Life Menopause Moments, I sit down with the brilliant Helen Clarke, Women in Business Network franchisee, co-owner of Bright Red Digital, and all-around champion for women in business.

Helen shares her deeply personal journey through early surgical menopause, a path that began with years of debilitating periods, a long-awaited diagnosis of adenomyosis and the life-changing decision to have a hysterectomy at just 36. She opens up about the emotional toll of being thrown into a medically induced menopause overnight, the impact on her mental health and confidence, and the lack of support she received at the time.

We talk about:

 💡 The importance of pushing for answers when you know something isn’t right
 💡 How sudden menopause symptoms affected Helen’s work and self-esteem
 💡 Why finding the right GP (and the right support network) can transform your experience
 💡 The power of community and how joining Women in Business Network changed Helen’s life and career
 💡 Her advice for anyone navigating complex women’s health challenges, early menopause or surgery

Helen’s story is raw, relatable and full of hope. If you’ve ever felt dismissed, overwhelmed, or blindsided by menopause, this conversation will remind you that you’re not alone and that finding the right information, people, and support can be life-changing.

You can find Helen through her Linkedin profile; Helen Clarke | LinkedIn, her websites are; https://www.brightred.digital and https://www.boltguitars.co.uk and to find a Women in Business Networking Meeting, https://wibn.co.uk.

I'd love to connect with you on LinkedIn;

www.linkedin.com/in/⭐alison-allen-chartered-mcipd

Transcript

Ep 10 FYP Helen Clarke FINAL

Are you or someone you know and love going through the menopause? If this is you welcome to Find Your Spark: Real Life Menopause Moments. I'm Alison and I'm excited to guide you through all things menopause. In this empowering podcast, we'll dive into honest conversations, share real life stories, and bring in guest insight to help you feel supported through every stage of the menopause transition.

Welcome to Helen Clarke today on Find Your Spark: Real Life Menopause Moments and I'm absolutely delighted to be joined by Helen, who is a Women in Business Network, franchisee business owner and director for Bright Red Digital. And we've known each other a couple of years now, we've talked about menopause quite a few times as well, as many other topics, so I'm absolutely delighted that you've agreed to join me on this episode.

Welcome, Helen, and please can you introduce yourself. [00:01:00] Hi. Thanks so much for inviting me. I'm really excited to be here. So, as you said, I'm Helen and I am in the fortunate position to be a Women in Business Network franchisee and I also co-own and I'm the director of Bright Red Digital and we do everything from advertising through to software development and we're based in Penwortham, in lovely Lancashire.

Yes, it definitely is lovely and so are you. Well, thank you so much, like I said, and the conversations that we've had over the couple of years that we've known each other, you know, so go back many, many years for, for your own personal menopause journey, and it hasn't been straightforward.

It's certainly a story that when I decided to launch this podcast that I was really interested in you sharing your story. Um, and luckily you agreed to that and you were up for it. So please, can you go back, a good few years and tell me where [00:02:00] your journey started, which led to your, your surgical menopause, and an early one at that.

Yeah. So, menopause is obviously something as a woman that, that I've, I had spoken about as a teenager and as a young adult, my mom and my gran, um, I, I'd heard the word thrown around. I wasn't really expecting it to affect me quite as young as it ended up doing. I've always had a bit of a, I don't know how to describe it really, but it's been a bit of an unusual path with sort of women's health from, from the be right, from the beginning, from, from starting my periods and from them being, um, they had quite a bit of impact on my life that I maybe wasn't expecting quite so much. They affected things like my GCSEs, I had to defer, um, one of my GCSEs and redo it because it landed on a time that was on my period and I used to faint and have blackouts and lots of embarrassing things when you're a teenage girl and I've always struggled with it. I was on lots of different medication. I was put on the pill at a very early age when I was [00:03:00] 13, and I'd seen a lot of doctors about it because, you know, it, it did really have a big impact on my life and I saw lots of different gynaecologist’s and it wasn't until I had my son in 2011 that I really realised that there was actually a condition that was going on that had been sort of gone undiagnosed, that, um, that reared its head during my childbirth and, and they realised that I had something not right, was how it was described to me, which then led to me having to have a blood transfusion and a bit of a dramatic birth.

I was sort of fast tracked to go and see a gynaecologist after the birth of my children, and they then discovered a condition called adenomyosis, which I had never heard of before. Um, finding out I had it and it's a bit like the, uh, the naughty sister of endometriosis and it had basically caused my womb to become quite fibrous and very [00:04:00] large. Um, it was described to me as being the size of a sort of 25 to 30 week pregnancy. Um, and it was also causing me to, to bleed a lot. So the average person is sort of on their period, what do they say between like five and maybe 10 days? And I was sort of menstruating for about three quarters of the month.

So it had quite a big impact on me. So I was advised that a hysterectomy was the way forward for me. I'd had two children. I wasn't really considering having anymore. I'm not sure that it was a, it was a funny feeling making that decision 'cause it did feel very final and even though I knew I didn't really want to have any more children and I know how lucky I am to have had the two that I've got, it still did feel quite final and it was, um, an interesting sort of process that I went through.

But, but yes, I did decide that, ultimately that was going to improve my quality of life and, um, [00:05:00] and that was the decision that I came to. But I, but I was only 36 when this was suggested to me. And in addition to that the problem that we had was that because my, my womb was quite enlarged, um, they wanted to essentially shrink it before they could do the operation, which I had again, never heard of and so they suggested a medication called Zoladex, and it was kind of likened to a similar, quite similar to, um, chemotherapy in some ways. And what it did is it basically put me into an immediate menopause. So it cut off all of my hormones and put me into a medically induced menopause, which yeah, I was gonna say, so that's at 36.

You've spent probably 20 odd years having horrendous menstrual cycles and then finding out that you [00:06:00] had adenomyosis two children later. At the young age of 36 that you were then advised to, to have a hysterectomy. Obviously it's a lot. How did you, I mean, first, your diagnosis, I'm assuming it made a lot of sense and answered questions for you, but how did you feel going through that?  You know, like you say, you had two beautiful children, but your health had to come first at this point. So how did it all feel? 

It was difficult because I'd seen so many different gynaecologist’s and specialists and doctors, and the very frustrating thing was that actually to get the diagnosis, it took seeing one doctor who suggested an MRI scan and it was literally within two appointments I'd had a diagnosis that I'd been looking for for like you said, 20 years. So that was quite frustrating that I hadn't been able to access that, that care really, and had been fobbed off a lot.

And it [00:07:00] was, you know, heavy periods. People struggle with them, you just sort of need to get on with it and it had massively affected my life and just things like, I knew if we, if we were going on holiday and it happened to clash with, with being on my period, that would be it and that would be me out for that week.

And it was just, it was just so frustrating and I'm not gonna go into too much detail, but, um, the, the birth of my son was massively complicated by this condition that I didn't know I had. It landed him in ICU for 10 days, it landed me having to have a very rushed emergency C-section, followed by a blood transfusion.

And we were very lucky, but the, the condition itself can cause sort of fibrous bands. Um, and my son was actually born wrapped in amniotic bands that were all around his chest that were stopping him from breathing and because no one knew I had this condition I'd hadn't had any extra scans throughout my [00:08:00] pregnancy, I'd just been, you know, the standard 12 week, 20 week, and then just left to it.

We were so lucky that he's not been left with any, you know, serious medical problems, but it could have been very different. Um, and I just feel like if I, if I'd been sort of maybe received that diagnosis earlier, um, my, it might not have been so traumatic and been such a thing, you know? And because I knew I had this condition with my little girl, um, she came nearly five years later, I had scans every two weeks. I had all my pregnancy monitored. I had a planned caesarean section because they knew I couldn't give birth naturally 'cause of the condition and everything was just managed so much better and it was just such an easier, an easier road. And so, yeah, it's twofold really. It was being a bit sad for the previous sort of 20 years and, and not really receiving the care that I could have done. [00:09:00] Um, but also a big decision to make at, at 36 to decide to have a hysterectomy because it really was the only sort of thing offered to me. Um. It was ultimately the right decision. It's completely changed my life, you know, in a, in a really good way.

It was definitely the right decision for me, but it is a big decision, um, to make absolutely 36 is young to make that decision. But, you know, going back when you, when you went through the process of shrinking your womb and taking the Zoladex, how did that impact you? 

So I was just sort of told we need to, we, you need to go on this medication, it will put you in an immediate menopause and you'll come back every two weeks and you'll have the injection and it's very, um, painless. And that was correct, it was, you know, it was, it was nothing, you know, having someone just quickly inject you, it was, it was not a big deal at all. It'll put you in an immediate menopause.[00:10:00] 

Okay, that's fine, that happened too. Um, they did not prepare me at all for the symptoms that I was going to, to go through, and obviously, because the intention was to strip all the oestrogen away out of my system, there was no, I couldn't have HRT, I couldn't have any of the treatments that, you know, traditionally, they would offer someone going through the menopause and I was not prepared at all.

The hot sweats are one thing, obviously I went through them and the embarrassment of having hot sweats, especially when you're only 36, people are looking at you thinking, what on earth's wrong with her? You know, I didn't, I wasn't the right age, you know, that people would traditionally think, but things like my teeth crumbling were things that I was not ready for. Uh, you know, possibly I would've gone on some kind of calcium supplement or looked for some things but because I was just so unaware of these things, I went from sort of having one tiny little filling in my mouth to actually losing two teeth, um, because my teeth just started to [00:11:00] crumble.

So having severe bone, bone pain and just, I would say most of all, the brain fog was really the biggest one for me. I really struggled with it and that had an impact on my mental health because I suddenly didn't really feel like myself anymore, and I was, I've not long started in a new role and I just felt very much like oh my goodness, what, what is happening? You know, they've got the physical symptoms are one thing, but the, but the mental symptoms of not being able to think of words and, you know, forgetting things and getting quite overwhelmed and emotional, which I didn't really experience before that. I was quite, um, I'd always been a very busy person and very quite switched on and, you know, juggling lots of, lots of balls all, all the time and then I'd, I'd gone from that to suddenly not being able to think of a word. Um. It left me feeling quite, um, incompetent, [00:12:00] I guess, and, and not sure of myself. And then that had a huge impact on things like my self-esteem and self-worth and, and all of those things. 

So when you've just said, then you just start a new role, how, how did these sudden and severe symptoms impact your, not only your work, your personal life, but your work life as well, particularly in a new role? It must have been difficult. 

Yeah, it was definitely difficult. I was trying to learn a new, a new subject matter. I had new colleagues that I was trying to, you know, help them think that they'd employed the right person, um, for the job and that I didn't know what I was talking about and that was quite difficult. Like I said, I think not from a practical point of view, they were more than happy with my performance and actually I was doing a pretty good job at, at work but how, how I felt about how I was doing at work was a very different story and I'd gone from being quite a sort of quite self-assured, really, and quite [00:13:00] confident in myself to suddenly second guessing my decisions and going back and having that sudden like, you know, that panic that you feel where you feel like you've forgotten something or you know, there was a lot of that going on.

Um, and it's just not something I had any idea was linked. I mean, of course I sort of started putting two and two together and thinking, you know, I've just got on this medication and I'm feeling like this. Um, but it, I think, you know, we're not talking even that long ago. I'm, um, you know, it's about eight, trying to think, seven, seven years ago but I don't think menopause was spoken about as much. Even as soon as, as short as seven years ago and there was definitely, I didn't feel like maybe the information was out there, but I didn't feel like I had access to that. And I certainly wasn't warned by my consultant or any of the health professionals that I was, that I was working with, and there was no mention of it whatsoever.

It's scary, isn't it? [00:14:00] Because you know, obviously it would've changed the outcome, but if you'd have known that this was potentially coming and could have prepared and read around that subject, you wouldn't feel as blindsided. No. It's what I assume you felt by just suddenly being hit by all these symptoms that, that you weren't prepared for.

A hundred percent. And I don't feel like my, um, partner, my husband, or my family could really support me as much as they could have done if I'd known what to expect, I could have then told them what to expect and they would've found it easy to support maybe because I, I hadn't sort of told them that this was what was gonna happen 'cause I had no idea. And don't get me wrong, I'm sure some people don't. Not everybody experiences the same symptoms, but, um, I could have at least said, you know, there's a potential that this is gonna happen or that's gonna happen and it probably could have supported me better. Um, I mean, throwing into all of this as well by the time I had my hysterectomy, my daughter was only two. So [00:15:00] when I'd started this treatment, she was only one. So I was like, you know, not a new mom 'cause I already have my son as well but, you know, it's, it's still quite stressful that first sort of year, isn't it? After, um, having a baby and especially one that doesn't sleep.

Um, so I sort of had like a small child, then this treatment. Um, and yeah, there was just a lot of change and it was a, it was a, it was a difficult time to navigate. 

Absolutely. You got postpartum. Medically induced menopause and then the knowing that you were going through surgery. Yeah, so you made the decision that at 36 you were going to have your hysterectomy, so talk me through what happened after your hysterectomy. 

So I had the hysterectomy, they removed everything except for my ovaries because the thinking was that if they left them whilst the most probable [00:16:00] thing will be that they will eventually, it sounds awful, this, but wither and die because they're not attached to anything, it will be a slower and more gradual sort of move into the menopause. And I'm so glad that I did do that because it wasn't as immediate as the first time around. So it was just like a slower release of, of, you know, of losing those hormones. But yeah, it was round two with the menopause. Um, and I think it's been, you know, obviously my first journey was only about nine months.

That's how long I was on the medication until I had the hysterectomy but obviously now from having it at 37, I'm now 44 and it's been quite a long, a long process of, of going through Menopause. So the recovery after the, after the operation, and then, and then experience in menopause over the, the last seven years, it was quite funny actually, they gave me, I ended up, um, with a bit of complications after the surgery. [00:17:00] I ended up back in hospital with an infection. I had quite a few extra scans done and they, they could only find one ovary, um, that had managed to float away and lodge itself up near my ribs somewhere. Um, but they actually couldn't find the other one.

So who knows where that went, which I thought was quite funny. I had no idea that they would just sort of float off and, uh, and find their own home, but apparently that's what happens. Um, so yeah, it's definitely been more of a gradual sort of journey through my second menopause. Yeah, similar symptoms, if I'm being honest, um, the ups and downs, I think I was saying to you a couple of weeks ago wasn't so that I felt like I'd got a bit cocky with my, with my menopause symptoms and felt like, oh, you know, I've not had so many hot flushes for a while and I'm starting to feel pretty good and then lo and behold, it came to, uh, give me a nice, a nice little wake up call and, uh, went through a couple of weeks of having really bad hot flushes again.[00:18:00] 

And, uh for me, um, I dunno about you or I dunno about anybody else, but a lot of people get hot flushes at night. I more struggle with my temperature regulation, so it doesn't really matter for me whether I've, it's moving from one temperature to another, so say I've been outside and it's say three degrees outside, so this happens even in winter, if I come into the office and it's seven, with that change of temperature, it's almost like my body just goes into overdrive and heats up, and I find it really, really difficult to cool down. So yeah, it tends to be, for me, it's moving from one temperature to another, just sort of kicks it off and then that's it, then I can't cool down and like I said, it doesn't even matter if that move from minus two to three degrees. I would still have a hot flush and that can be, I don't know, I think that's inconvenient more than anything. As a symptom, we all hear, don't we, about hot flushes, people go on and on about it. For the [00:19:00] menopause, for me, that's more of an inconvenience than anything else. The most impactful ones I've found is things like the brain fog and the impact that that has on, on how I feel about myself and it frustrates me as well because I'll be, say I'm in a meeting, I might be talking to an new client, and you just trying to grasp that word that you're trying to think of and it may, and I'm sure people don't perceive it. I mean, maybe they do, but, and I know I'm probably harder on myself than, than people are on me, but I'll just think, oh my goodness, I sound so incompetent. I sound so ineloquent. I, and it, and it drives me up the wall that I'll be, that I end up using a word that that is not the one that I'm, that I'm meaning, but I just cannot. It's just something that just blocks it from, from coming. I place it, oh, it drives me up the wall. Say they're the things that annoy me the most. 

I completely get you. Just going back to when you'd spent your [00:20:00] nine months on the medication and then, um, then you were waiting a period of time, I assume, for the surgery.

Yeah. 

When you came off the medication, how did you feel then? I'm just curious because, you know, you've had a gap of time. You've been thrown into an immediate and severe menopause, then you've got a gap of time coming off that when they've checked the medication worked, your womb shrunk, and then you set, you know, you're waiting for surgery. How was that period of time? 

Um, there wasn't very long in between finishing and having the surgery and then initially, like I said, it was just bad luck. I ended up with being quite poorly after the surgery. Um, but it wasn't that long. It was a couple of months of recovery. But I tell you what, that bit afterwards, I felt absolutely amazing when I first had my surgery and I think I, 'cause I still had some, like my hormones have come back 'cause they'd left my ovaries and I felt lighter. I was, I think I weighed myself and I was [00:21:00] almost a stone lighter from having it all removed, I was like two dress sizes smaller. It was absolutely amazing. Have to say that initial bit of having that medication made me gain a lot of weight, which I found really difficult as well.

I'd forgotten about that bit. It was a real struggle because I was trying, trying to keep my weight down because I knew I needed surgery but the medication itself makes you gain weight. So that was really tough, like managing all those symptoms whilst trying to, uh, manage this, because the other, I've forgotten about this actually. Um, the other thing they did was they put me on steroids at the same time and I think that was in an attempt to sort of make stop, uh, the bone, um, density, but it didn't really work. So yeah, I was on this Zoladex, but I was also on quite strong steroids at the same time, which sort of caused me to blow up.

Um but yeah, that initial few months after I'd had the surgery, I felt absolutely amazing. I was like no longer dealing with all these horrible, um, period symptoms. I was no longer on that horrible [00:22:00] medication and I felt so good. Um, and it was a, a much more gradual thing going into my second menopause.

And, and I do feel like the symptoms more crept up on me rather than were just like with the first time I, and it was literally like you wake up one day and you've got everything all at once, like a sledgehammer. Um, um, so yeah, it was definitely a more positive experience the second time around. 

I suppose you'd be more prepared.

Yes, absolutely, so that I had that on my side as well. Um, and actually I ended up about, I want to say it was about a year after having my operation. I went to my GP for a completely unrelated thing and mine is quite a big surgery so you never sort of end up seeing the same GP to what I switch, you know, is what it is.

But I just so happened to be seeing one of the GPs who was, she called herself a menopause champion and she, um, said, I noticed on your [00:23:00] records that you've been through a hysterectomy, but I also noticed that you're not on any HRT or any medication and she sort of went through with me, the importance of making sure that, 'cause I was young, that I maintained my bone health and all of these things and I have to say she was amazing. She educated me and said, you need to be doing this, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that, put me on HRT, you know, and we went through all of these things and she was fabulous and I feel like she is what should have happened right at the beginning. So when I was discharged, after my OB had all of the follow up of, you know, are your wounds healing? Has the operation been a success? All of those sort of technicalities but there was absolutely zero follow up from a menopause point of view. There was absolutely nothing in place to say, you know, do you want to go on HRT? These are your options, none of that existed at all and and so it was great that I ended up seeing her and massive shout out to her.

She was amazing, but I [00:24:00] almost feel like she is who I should have got straight away, um, right at the beginning. Yeah and it's so sad really, isn't it, that, you know, you do hear about these stories of ladies who've been to the GP and they haven't had a great experience, had to go back, get a second opinion, or go and seek somebody else who, who is more aware of menopause.

You know, there's usually somebody per surgery who knows more than the other, um, GPs or health professionals. And hopefully, you know, it is going to improve, certainly from 2024, medical professionals that are coming through the training are studying women's health as a mandatory thing now, so it will get better, but for now it's so sad that some women won't get the help and support that they need.

Going back to, you said that when you were starting on your treatment, you were, um, you'd start a new role. Obviously you've, you've talked us through, you know, a number of years. How did, how was work [00:25:00] impacted along this journey? Yeah, so I've been, I've been self-employed pretty much since I graduated in 2002, and that makes me feel very old now, um, and I've done lots of different jobs. My husband and I used to run a music venue. Uh, we ran a graphic design business. We've run a wedding stationary business. We'd done all sorts and I also used to have my own collection and I, um, also had a shop. I ended up in quite a bad road traffic accident, um, the year before I had my son, and it made me take a bit of a step back.

I was really struggling with the symptoms of my periods, plus I'd had this really bad accident and I kind of retreated a little bit from the world of work really. And I ended up just going and getting a job in a couple of days a week just to tide us over working for quite a large company, um, [00:26:00] in their HR department and then that was good in some ways and not so good in others. They were not very understanding about any of my symptoms to do with women's health, and I went through, I think, what a lot of people do when it, whether it's women's health, pre menopause, or during menopause or post menopause, there just was not very much understanding.

I was put on performance plans because of the time that I'd had to have off. I was getting really frustrated with it, and about the same time, my husband had come to work at Bright Red, um, a couple of years before that and um, and they needed someone to come and help with marketing and I was sort of offered that role and I decided, you know what, I'm really struggling with this place that I'm working at and not being very understanding, I'm just gonna go for it. And my husband was a, um, shareholder in Bright Red, so he partially owned the business and I thought, let's just go for [00:27:00] it and yes, it was a difficult time because I was on this, um, I was already on the medication preparing for the hysterectomy. I had all this new stuff to learn and then I ended up having the op quite early into my journey here but it was a hundred percent the right thing to do and fast forward a few years, I also bought into the business and became a shareholder and then my husband and I ended up buying out all the other shareholders, and now it's just myself and him that are, that own the business.

And that's been a hundred percent what was the right decision for me going through my menopause journey and, and lots of other things and I think it was the, it was the push that I needed really was struggling maybe with, with being stuck. I almost felt like, um, what is it? Square, pegging round hole and, and I was being sort of processed rather than looked at as a, as a person and I also, during that journey when I [00:28:00] was, I want to say persuaded to come and do this role, um, I was also told that I was in charge of business development and told to go networking. Um, and I remember going and doing my first ever one and I was absolutely shaking like a leaf and so scared and my very first networking meeting I went to was a Women in Business network in the Preston group, as it was with my, with my previous franchisee and I was so scared when I got there. And then I still talk about it to this day, the women in that room, it literally felt like they just all enveloped me in a great big hug and it was the best decision I ever made was walking into that room and they helped me so much with things like my confidence and, and not feeling like I was quite good enough and it was, the decision was made then. Yeah. I was staying and I was gonna become invested in this business and, and really go for it as, as a business owner, you know, like I said, I'd, I'd been self-employed before, but I'd lo really lost my confidence. [00:29:00] And, you know, I then ended up becoming involved in Women in Business Network by helping them with their marketing.

And then I ended up opening my own about two and a half years ago in Preston and Ribble Valley in Lancashire, and again, best decision I've ever made is just this. Becoming involved in this amazing network of women that like, and it's such a cliche and I, and I always say, God, I sound so cheesy when I say these things, but it really is the most supportive, amazing environment to be in when you are a woman in business, whether you're menopausal age or not, you know, I think we all go through cycles in our lives where we need support. Whether that's because we're going through something emotionally or we're going through stuff at home, or we're going through a big change like the menopause or having children, you know, whatever it is, I think you really need that, those people around you that [00:30:00] are gonna not judge you and really support you. And I put going to that first meet, taking the leap, first of all, I'm gonna give myself a little bit of credit, taking that scary leap where I had, you know, an 18 month old and I knew I was going for this surgery and I knew I was on this medication and I went, I took that leap anyway and thought, do you know what? I can do this. I'm, I'm worth more, um, but then finding that group of people, that group of women at the same time was just like the perfect sort of scenario for me where, um, I kind of found where I was supposed to be and the rest, as they say, is history. 

Absolutely and talking about networking, I joined your networking group in the Ribble Valley when you opened, yeah, over two years ago. Anyway, and I remember saying at the time, I thought from being in, in corporate roles and [00:31:00] going networking as a HR professional, I thought I hated networking. I know that's a strong word, but I really, really did not enjoy it. I used to walk in and feel that can't walk up to people. People were already in the groups chatting to each other. I never felt like warm, welcomed, invited. I just felt like an outsider and probably got a drink and stood on my own, which obviously defeat the object. But when I came into your group, I remember at the time saying that, wow, I loved it, that it was the fact that it was warm, it was welcoming, everybody supports everybody and everybody has the opportunity to speak. You know, you're not feeling that you're fighting for that, um, that intro or that, um, how do I put it?  The, the time or you know, I've been to many networking sessions where I've been to great ones, but I've also been to ones [00:32:00] where I've just felt really outta place and uncomfortable. Yeah. I can honestly say if anybody's looking for a networking group, then get in touch with you. If you're in, if you're in the North, obviously I know you do online as well, but certainly, um, get in touch with you.

So where can people find you then? 

So, um, they can find, we've got a brilliant website where you can find a group. Um, so we've got, as a network, we've got over a hundred groups spread all over the UK, our furthest north is Penrith at the moment, uh, and our furthest south is in Kent, um, and they are all run by fabulous franchisees, we all run our own little patches, our own business, um, so you can find yourself, um networking group there. We also run free online sort of introduction sessions so if you're not sure if you're gonna like it, you can just pop along to one of those. um, no pressure. And I also say if anyone's interested in coming to my groups, um, I run them around North Lancashire.

As you said, I really do pride myself, now. I wanna give myself a pat on the back, I really do pride myself on creating an environment where the space for everybody as a, as a bit of an introvert myself, and people don't necessarily think that about me, but I can be, um, I want to make sure the space for everyone to speak. You don't have to be the loudest, you don't have to be, um, the most extroverted person to have your space in that group. Um, and anyone that's nervous, I really do do my best to make everyone feel really welcome. Um, and also I do that kind of with the work that I do at Bright Red as well. I always say the reason I do these businesses is because essentially I'm a nosy person that likes getting to know people. Um, and so we, a big part of the work that I do at Bright Red is really getting to know business owners, finding out what makes them tick, finding out what they need and just really helping them and supporting them, um, with what they need to help their business grow.

And I guess that's what I do [00:34:00] with Women in Business Network as well. So that's why the two things really sit really well for me. Um, and yeah, I just love getting to know people, like I said, I'm nosy. I love finding out more about people, getting to know them, um, and doing everything that I can to support them really.

And you do, you do it brilliantly. And then one of your passions I know is music. You mentioned it before, so tell us about your other business as well, just in case anybody is interested in looking more. 

So, it's an interesting one, and we're, we're in a bit of a, a development phase at the moment, but um, like I said, we at the, at the rip old ages of, I was 21 and my husband was 19, and some, um, crazy person gave us a license and let us run a, a music venue so we did that for a while. Um, and my husband, um, has always been in bands and I've always done a lot of like, promotion around events and things like that. Um, so a little while ago we decided to put together a company called Bolt, and we provide, um, [00:35:00] guitar kits, so if you want to learn how to make an electric guitar.

Um, and then we also do, um, like training sessions on set up and things like that but we are in a bit of a, uh, a sort of development phase at the moment where we're really trying to bring that manufacturing side of it in-house and, and it keep it in the UK. So we are, we've got a waiting list for things at the moment um, and yeah, we're in a bit of a development phase, so it's a bit more of a, um, keep, keep your eye out for what comes next. So, yeah. 

Amazing. So I suppose for anybody listening before we, we go today, what would be your tips or words of wisdom for anybody who's finding themselves in a position where either they're thinking that you, they're not having, uh, what you would class as a standard or a normal menstrual cycle, you know, and also being faced with the position of input into a medically induced menopause and then going through [00:36:00] hysterectomy and the aftermath, uh, of that as well, being put into a, going into an earlier menopause than, um, necessarily you would've done.

So, I would say if I could look back and the positive things that I have experienced, and the negative would be that information is power. So, the more information you can find about what you're going through, um, to help you to advocate for yourself. So, if you know that you, you know, there's possibly, you feel like there's something not quite right, push it.

It took me 20 years to get a diagnosis. It shouldn't have taken that long. Um, but sometimes it does and just because one person closes the door on you, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't then approach somebody else. Um, so from that point of view of, you know, possibly thinking that you've got a condition that would lead you into early menopause, uh, but for the menopause itself, again, knowledge is [00:37:00] power.

Find yourself some resources and find yourself some people, whether that's professionals like yourself, Alison, or if that's women going through the same experience as you. We don't all experience it in the same way, but there is common ground that you'll find with people and they'll have tips, they'll have things that they've done that have really helped them.

Um, and just from a support point of view, you really need people that get what you're going through and that is worth its weight in gold. 

Absolutely. Thank you so much for joining me today. You know, I've absolutely loved chatting to you and I'm sure that everybody will love listening to you. I'm going to put all your details in the show notes if anybody is interested in, in joining or visiting the Women in Business Network.

If anybody is interested in Bright Red Digital or, or Bolt, you know, all the details will go into the show notes. Thank you so much. You have completed series one of Find Your Spark: Real life Menopause Moments. So [00:38:00] thank you so much for joining me today. 

Fantastic. I've had a ball, so thank you very much for having me.

Thank you so much for listening to Find Your Spark: Real Life Menopause Moments. If you'd like to learn more, visit www.sparkshr.co uk. Please share this episode with others navigating their Menopause journey or supporting someone through it. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. Your feedback helps us to spark, change and connect with more people.

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