World Menopause Day was on Oc­to­ber 18, and this year’s cam­paign high­lights chron­ic pain, in­clud­ing mi­graine, fi­bromyal­gia and pelvic pain. Menopause is usu­al­ly de­fined as the point reached 12 months af­ter the ces­sa­tion of men­stru­al pe­ri­ods, when there is no oth­er ex­pla­na­tion for the ab­sence of men­stru­a­tion. It usu­al­ly oc­curs be­tween the ages of 45 and 55. The years of hor­mon­al fluc­tu­a­tion be­fore that point are called ‘per­i­menopause’.

Male breast can­cer is un­com­mon, but de­layed di­ag­no­sis can al­low the dis­ease to progress be­fore treat­ment be­gins.

Af­ter all, they come out of this warm, clean, oily, pro­tect­ed en­vi­ron­ment in­to damp­ness, dust and dank­ness, where, too of­ten, the first thing that hap­pens is that some un­known peo­ple take you away from your moth­er and push, prod and put you in­to a mir­rored jail, where strangers peep at you and make strange sounds.

For many peo­ple ex­pe­ri­enc­ing do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and abuse, reach­ing out for help can be one of the hard­est steps they take. But even af­ter find­ing the courage to seek sup­port, an­oth­er bar­ri­er can stand in the way: the abil­i­ty to af­ford pro­fes­sion­al coun­selling.

Di­vorce can be messy. Ja­son Cox has ex­pe­ri­enced it for close to four years. As a fa­ther of two boys, he has seen it neg­a­tive­ly af­fect his every­day life, so he took mat­ters in­to his own hands. He built an app called Zuko to shield his chil­dren from adult con­flict and help many oth­ers along the way.

The earth is the Lord’s, and the ful­ness there­of; the world, and they that dwell there­in (Psalm 24:1).

Death is one of life’s few cer­tain­ties. We know that every life must even­tu­al­ly end, yet noth­ing tru­ly pre­pares us for the mo­ment some­one or a pet we love is gone.

Free­town Col­lec­tive will be in the spot­light as the Bo­cas Lit Fest hosts a spe­cial edi­tion of Kaiso Con­ver­sa­tions. It comes as Bo­cas cel­e­brates

Shar­da Patasar has placed Trinidad and To­ba­go on the in­ter­na­tion­al map with her new piece, Au­dac­i­ty of Black Wa­ter. The track is in­clud­ed on Earth Ris­ing, Vol II: Mes­sages from the Pale Blue Dot, part of a three-vol­ume project com­mis­sioned by the UK arts or­gan­i­sa­tion, Ar­tan­gel. Patasar’s work stands out as a rare in­stru­men­tal orig­i­nat­ing from the Caribbean rather than In­dia—and the first sitar com­po­si­tion in the se­ries.

Er­il Gar­cia is gen­er­al­ly not one to al­low dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances to keep her down. So when she was di­ag­nosed with breast can­cer at 45, as scared as she was, she took time to process what was hap­pen­ing, then did what was nec­es­sary to get her­self back to a pos­i­tive place.

Per­haps your clothes fit dif­fer­ent­ly and los­ing weight feels hard­er than it used to. You may even no­tice that you do not feel as strong as be­fore.

Joseph stared at the blue­print for the de­vel­op­ment, as he had done about a hun­dred times be­fore. This was his largest in­vest­ment to date, and he had to make sure that noth­ing went wrong. When com­plet­ed, it would be one of the most sought-af­ter places to live. The acres of space, the seclu­sion, the pic­turesque views along the steep, wind­ing roads, the lux­u­ri­ous fa­cil­i­ties home­own­ers could ac­cess; he had out­done him­self this time.