Speaking.

Deborah gives educational lectures about Health, Fitness and Nutrition for:

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June 7, 2007

Listen Up, Everybody: I'm in Menopause

By ELIZABETH HAYT

IT was 8 a.m. on a Friday and Deb Caruana, 51, a personal trainer in Manhattan, had just finished working out with two of her clients, Jackie Greenberg, an interior designer in her 30s, and her father, Ronald Greenberg, 59, an art dealer.

The three were chatting when Ms. Caruana, who is in menopause , suddenly blurted out, “I'm having a hot flash.”

The conversation lurched to a halt, followed by uneasy chuckling.

“It was awkward, but then it was funny,” Ms. Greenberg said. “I did a double-take: ‘Did she really just say that in front of my father?' ”

Ms. Caruana, though, was unashamed. “Why hide it?” she said later of the episode, which occurred in March. “I kind of call my menopause my ‘red badge of courage.' People laugh. They're never offended.”

Thirty-five years ago, television viewers were shocked by a landmark episode of “All in the Family” when the normally meek Edith Bunker wreaked havoc on everyone around her because of a condition then delicately referred to as “the change of life.” But these days, among people of a certain age, references to menopause are just as likely to be batted across a dinner table as comments about the bouquet of the merlot.

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