Ad copy

A Woman Sat Down on the Steps of the Public Library Next to Me Last September and Asked Me If I Was Waiting Out a Hot Flash. I Was Sixty-Five and I Had Been Out of Menopause for Twelve Years. I Want to Tell You What She Knew That I Did Not. I am writing this because the woman from the library steps texted me on a Sunday morning last weekend asking if I had ever written down what we talked about. She had been the one who named the thing I had been carrying for two years. I am writing it down now. For her. For the next woman who sits down on a public library step to wait out something she does not have words for. I am Joanne. I am sixty-six years old. I retired five years ago after thirty-four years as a court reporter. I am married to my husband Bill for thirty-eight years. He is sixty-eight. He retired three years ago from a long career as a commercial insurance broker. We have one grown son. Two grandchildren. I have been post-menopausal since I was fifty-three. Twelve years on the other side of it by the time the woman sat down on the library steps next to me. I want to tell you about the two years before the library steps. Because the two years before the library steps were the two years I had been pretending I was not feeling what I had been feeling. For about two years before that September, I had been carrying something I had not named. Not a hot flash. The hot flashes had been done for almost a decade. Something else. A kind of warm pressure that came up through my chest in the late mornings. A kind of fullness behind my breastbone if I had been on my feet too long. A kind of tightness when I carried a basket of laundry up from the basement. I had been to my doctor twice about it. Dr. Vandermolen had run every test you can run. Bloodwork. EKG. The full cardiac panel. An echocardiogram the second time, to be careful. Everything had come back fine. She had sat me down both times and said: "Joanne. Your numbers are good. Structurally your heart is fine. What you are describing is something I hear from a lot of women a decade or so out from menopause. The cardiovascular supports your body used to give itself have been quietly thinning. It is not a disease. It is not something I would put you on a medication for today. It is real, and it is what you are feeling." She had given me the standard advice. Keep walking. Keep sleeping. Eat well. Come back next year. I had thanked her both times. I had walked out of her office feeling validated and stranded at the same time. I had been carrying it for two years by that September. I had not told Bill about it. I had not told my sister. I had not told my son. I had been carrying it at the kitchen sink, on the porch in the morning, in the produce aisle at the grocery store, in the line at the post office. I had been carrying it alone. The Saturday afternoon in September, I drove to the public library. I had been going to the same public library for thirty-one years. I had been a court reporter. I had used the library's reference desk for cases for years. I had stayed friendly with the librarians long after I retired. I went on Saturday afternoons mostly out of habit, to return books and to wander the aisles for a while. That Saturday I had returned three books and had picked up two new ones. A historical novel my sister had recommended. A book of essays I had been wanting to read for a year. I walked out of the library at about two thirty. The library has a wide stone staircase down to the sidewalk. Eight steps. I had been walking down those steps for thirty-one years. That Saturday I got to the top of the steps and the warm pressure came up through my chest the way it had been coming up through my chest for two years. I had been standing at the top of the steps with my two books in my hands and I did not feel like I could walk down the eight steps without stopping in the middle. I sat down on the top step. I had not sat down on the top step of the library in thirty-one years. I sat there with my two books on my lap and I waited. I sat there for about ten minutes. I was not having a heart attack. I knew what a heart attack felt like — my mother had had one when I was nineteen — and this was not that. This was the same warm pressure I had been carrying for two years, and it was lasting longer than usual, and I had decided to sit down rather than try to walk down the eight steps with it. A woman came up the steps from the sidewalk. She had a tote bag with three or four books in it. She got to the top step where I was sitting. She stopped. She looked at me. She said: "Are you waiting one out?" I did not understand the question for a moment. I said: "I am sorry. Waiting out what?" She said: "A hot flash. Are you waiting one out? I get them on these steps in the summer. I have been sitting on this step myself maybe four times this year." I almost laughed. I said: "I am sixty-five. I have been out of it for twelve years. I am not having a hot flash." She sat down next to me on the top step. She set her tote bag down. She said: "Then what is it?" I do not know why I told her. I had not told my husband. I had not told my sister. But I told her. I told her about the warm pressure that had been coming up through my chest in the late mornings for two years. I told her about the fullness behind my breastbone. I told her about the laundry basket. I told her about Dr. Vandermolen and the bloodwork and the echocardiogram. I told her about the standard advice and the going home feeling validated and stranded at the same time. I told her I had been carrying it alone for two years. She listened to the whole thing. When I was done, she did not say anything for a long moment. She looked out at the parking lot. Then she turned back to me. She said: "Joanne — is that your name?" I said: "It is. What is yours?" She said: "Beverly. I am sixty-eight. I have been on the other side of menopause for sixteen years. I had what you have been describing for about three years when I was sixty-two through sixty-five." She said: "Will you let me tell you about it? You do not have to do anything with it. I am a woman on a library step. But I want to tell you." I said: "Yes, Beverly." Beverly told me she had been a high school chemistry teacher for thirty-six years. She had retired at sixty-three. About a year into retirement, she had started feeling exactly what I was describing. The warm pressure. The fullness. The not-quite-rightness behind her breastbone. She had been to her own doctor twice. Same standard cardiac workup. Same clean results. Same standard advice. She had been carrying it for almost two years when her older sister had visited her from out of state for a long weekend. Her older sister had been a labor and delivery nurse for forty years before she retired. Beverly's sister had not been a cardiologist. But Beverly's sister had spent forty years watching women's bodies and had picked up things along the way. Beverly's sister had sat with her on the porch and listened to her describe what she had been feeling. Beverly's sister had said: "Bev. I am not a doctor. But this is the layer the standard tests are not built to see. The body has supports that quietly thin after menopause. The standard tests look at the structural things. They do not see the layer underneath." Beverly's sister had told her she had read about something. Not a medication. A supplement. A small company called Rosabella that made a cold-pressed beetroot supplement. The active compound — the betalains, the deep red pigment in the root — had been studied for decades for cardiovascular wellness. It supported the body's natural antioxidant balance, supported healthy circulation, and supported the body's natural cellular energy. Beverly's sister had said: "Bev. I have been taking it for two years myself. I am not telling you it has fixed me. I am telling you it has been support for a layer my body has been quietly losing since I was fifty-four. I am sixty-nine and I am at the top of my game at work. I am not in a hurry to stop taking it." Beverly had brought the bottle to her doctor before she had started. Her doctor had said it was a sensible thing to add. Add it to what she was already doing. Don't change anything else. Beverly had been taking it for three years when she sat down next to me on the library steps. She told me, sitting there, that she had not had the warm pressure in over two years. She told me she had been walking up these library steps four times a week for the last three years and had not had to sit down to wait out anything since the first six months of taking the supplement. She said: "Joanne. I am not telling you that is what will happen for you. I am telling you what happened for me." She did not push. She did not tell me to buy it. She tore the inside of one of the books in her tote bag — the inside cover, a blank page — out gently and wrote the name down on it for me. She handed me the torn page. She said: "Have Dr. Vandermolen — is that right? — bless it before you start. I am a woman on a library step. I am not a doctor. I am one story." She picked up her tote bag. She stood up. She said: "Joanne. Will you tell me how it goes? My number is at the bottom of that page." I said: "Beverly. I will." She walked into the library. I sat on the top step for another five minutes with the torn page in my hand. The warm pressure had been gone for about twenty minutes. I walked down the eight steps to the sidewalk slowly. I got to my car. I sat in my car in the parking lot for fifteen minutes before I drove home. I told Bill about the library steps that evening. I told him I had been carrying the warm pressure for two years. He set his book down. He said: "Hon. I have been watching you carry something. I have not known how to ask about it." I said: "Bill. I am sorry. I should have told you." He said: "Hon. You are telling me now. That is what matters." I told him about Beverly. I showed him the torn page with the name on it. He said: "Hon. Read for a couple of weeks. Call Dr. Vandermolen. Let's do this carefully." I am going to skip the part where I read for three weeks. Most evenings at my kitchen table after dinner, with my laptop and a notepad, and Bill on the other side of the table reading the paper. I read carefully. I had been a court reporter. I knew how to read a record. Beverly had been telling me the truth. Beetroot had been studied for decades for cardiovascular wellness. The betalains were the active compound. Cold-pressing at low temperatures preserved them. Rosabella was a small company that did exactly what Beverly had described. The capsules in the photographs were the deep crimson the pigment makes when intact. The wellness layer Dr. Vandermolen had been describing to me — the body's natural antioxidant balance, the body's natural circulation, the body's natural cellular function — was the layer the supplement was meant to support. It was not a treatment for anything. It was support for a layer. I called Dr. Vandermolen's office on a Monday morning. I told the nurse I had been doing some reading. I told her about Beverly on the library steps. I told her I had landed on a beetroot supplement called Rosabella, and I wanted to make sure Dr. Vandermolen was comfortable with me adding it before I started. The nurse called back on Wednesday afternoon. She said: "Dr. Vandermolen says she has been hearing about beetroot for cardiovascular wellness for a while. She says it is a sensible thing to add. There is good research on antioxidant support for women your age. Add it to what you are already doing. Don't change anything else. Come back at your next visit." I ordered the bottle that evening. It arrived three days later. I started the following Monday. Two capsules with a glass of water in the morning. I did not change anything else. I want to tell you what I noticed over the next eight weeks. I am not going to make a claim about what caused what. I am going to tell you what happened in the order it happened. The first thing was the laundry. About two weeks in, on a Wednesday morning, I carried a basket of towels up from the basement. I got to the top of the basement stairs. I did not stop at the top. I walked into the linen closet. I put the towels away. I went back into the kitchen. I stood at the kitchen counter for a moment trying to figure out what had been different about the trip up the stairs. The warm pressure had not come up. It had not come up that trip. I did not say anything to Bill. I did not want to draw attention to it in case drawing attention to it broke something. But I noticed. About a week after that, I noticed the late morning was easier. The warm pressure had been a late morning thing for two years. It had been worst between about ten thirty and noon, when I had been on my feet doing things. That second Friday after starting, I made it to noon without the warm pressure coming up once. I had not made it to noon without the warm pressure for two years. I sat at the kitchen counter with my lunch and tried not to make it into a thing. About four weeks in, on a Saturday afternoon, I drove back to the public library. I returned the two books I had taken out the day Beverly had sat down next to me. I picked up three new ones. I walked out of the library at about two thirty. I stood at the top of the eight steps. I walked down them at a normal pace without stopping. I got to my car. I sat in the car for a moment. I had not walked down those eight steps without stopping in over a year. I drove home. I called Beverly from the kitchen. I told her. She was quiet on the phone for a moment. Then she said: "Joanne. I am so glad." She said: "Will you meet me at the library next Saturday? I would like to walk down those steps with you." I said: "Beverly. I would like that." Beverly and I have been meeting at the library every Saturday afternoon for the last six months. We meet at two. We wander the stacks. We sit in the chairs by the magazine rack and we talk about what we are reading. We walk out at two thirty. We walk down the steps together. Neither of us has had to sit on the top step in six months. We do not always notice the steps anymore. They have become something we walk down without thinking about, the way I had been walking down them for thirty-one years before the two years of pressure. But sometimes we notice them. Last Saturday, at the bottom of the steps, Beverly stopped on the sidewalk. She said: "Joanne. Do you remember the first time we walked down these together?" I said: "Beverly. I do." She said: "I am glad we both got back to being women who walk down eight steps without thinking about them." I said: "Beverly. So am I." I went back to Dr. Vandermolen at my annual physical in April. She ran the bloodwork. Took my blood pressure. Listened to me describe the last few months. She sat back in her chair. She said: "Joanne. Your numbers are in the best place they have been in years. Whatever you have been doing, keep doing it." I told her about Beverly. About the library steps. About the supplement. About not carrying the warm pressure anymore. She smiled. She said: "Joanne. I am so glad." She did not say anything else. She did not need to. I want to be careful here. I am not a doctor. I am not in healthcare. I am one sixty-six-year-old retired court reporter who sat down on the top step of her public library on a Saturday afternoon in September to wait something out, and a woman with three books in a tote bag asked her if she was waiting out a hot flash. I do not know for certain that the Rosabella was responsible for what changed. I know what I was doing before. I know what I added. I know what I have noticed over the last six months. I know the timing. I also know I am sixty-six and I am going to keep aging, and there will come a day when no supplement will hold back the slow turning of the years. I am not pretending otherwise. What I am telling you is what I tried. What I noticed. What my doctor said about it. That is all. If you are a woman somewhere on the other side of menopause and you have been carrying a warm pressure in your chest in the late mornings, or a fullness behind your breastbone, or a tightness when you carry the laundry, and the standard cardiac tests have come back clean, and you have been telling yourself that there is nothing to do, here is what I would say. Talk to your doctor. Get the full cardiac workup if you have not already. Make sure there is nothing structural. If everything comes back fine and the standard answer is keep walking and keep sleeping, ask your doctor about adding one more thing in the additive layer. If your doctor agrees it is a sensible thing to add, add it to what you are already doing. Do not subtract anything. Do not change anything else. Give it a few weeks before you decide anything. Bodies are different. Some women notice something within the first week or two. For me, the first thing I noticed was carrying a basket of towels up from the basement without the warm pressure coming up, around the start of week two. That is the whole story. P.S. Beverly texted me last Sunday morning. She said: "Joanne. I have been thinking about that Saturday on the library steps for almost a year. Have you ever written it down?" I told her I was going to. She said: "Send it to me when you do. I want to send it to my sister." She told me her sister — the one who had been the labor and delivery nurse, the one who had told Beverly about the supplement in the first place — had been quietly asking other women in her own life if they had been feeling the warm pressure. I told Beverly her sister had started something. Beverly said: "Joanne. So have we." I am sending this to Beverly tonight. She is sending it to her sister tomorrow. That is how this works. A woman comes up the steps of a public library with three books in a tote bag. She sits down next to you. She asks you a question you do not know how to answer. You tell her something you have not told anyone. She tells you about her own sister. Six months later you meet her at the library every Saturday afternoon and walk down the eight steps together without thinking about them. A year later you write the story down for the next woman. P.P.S. Here is what I would tell you to do if you are thinking about trying it. Check with your doctor or pharmacist first. That is the most important step. Then take two capsules with a glass of water in the morning. Do not change anything else. Just add this. Give it a few weeks before you decide anything. Some women notice something within the first week or two — a little less of the warm pressure in the late mornings, a little more steadiness on the stairs, a little more of themselves at the end of an ordinary Saturday afternoon. Others take longer. Be patient with your body. P.P.P.S. Rosabella has a 90-day money-back guarantee. If you are not satisfied for any reason, every penny back. No questions asked. That is a sensible policy for a supplement. It gives you time to actually see whether it helps. P.P.P.P.S. Rosabella is a small operation. They harvest and bottle on their own schedule. I keep an extra bottle in the house just in case. Bill started taking it about two months after I did. He called his own doctor first. His doctor said the same thing Dr. Vandermolen said. Sensible thing to add. He is sixty-eight. He told me last weekend on the back porch that he had been walking the dog around the long block instead of the short block for about a month. He said: "Hon. I had not done the long block in two years." I said: "Bill. I know." My sister called me last weekend. She had been to dinner at our house the weekend before. She had watched me carry plates from the dining room to the kitchen in one trip three times during the meal. She said: "Jo. You are different. What did you do?" I told her. I told her to call her own doctor. She called her doctor that Monday. Her doctor said the same thing Dr. Vandermolen said. Sensible thing to add. She started Wednesday. She is sixty-three. She called me last night. She said: "Jo. I went to the grocery store today and walked the perimeter twice without sitting down. I have not done that in over a year." I said: "I know." That is how this works. One library step at a time. One Saturday afternoon at a time. One woman in a tote bag at a time. https://track.tryrosabella.com/cdc16426-3e48-40a7-9fad-21098084f6cf Individual experiences vary. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.