I'm Sending My Gynocologist a Present!

It's been a while since I've updated anyone who is interested in my post-op hysterectomy progress. I had my laproscopic supracervical hysterectomy in mid June of this year. Things have never been better. I kept waiting for the monthly restarting of "trouble" that the forums warned me about, recurring pain, or some other "trouble"...and there's been....nothing! No trouble at all! No pain, no flows, nothing at all! I could not be happier! I truly plan on a sending some sort of gift to the doctor this year to thank them all. I was really worried about doing surgery and had lived for years with nightmarish bleeding and pain. I had anemia and little energy - well things are happy! Please feel free to email me if you need my doctor's name or information.

I'm Glad I Kept Mine......

...the ovary, that is...the one and only. I only had one ovary to make choices about for my hysterectomy, due to my prior endometriosis surgery a lonnnnnng time ago. So, of course I noticed this new health report about keeping your ovaries during hysterectomy. I just had one in June and thankfully, the doctor and I discussed that I wanted to keep my remaining ex-baby maker until it poops out on its own. Gotta keep those natural hormones when you can, I say. What we didn't realize is that I may have prevented early dementia by doing so.

A new study says women who have their ovaries removed before menopause run a heightened risk of developing dementia or other mental problems later in life — unless they take estrogen until age 50.

I have plugged them before, but I'll do it again here...if you need a very good site for information about hysterectomy and all it's effects go to www.hystersisters.com. They'll hook you up with lots of unbiased information.

Just discuss all the options with your doctor and find a really, really, good one, like I did. I still feel like I've never had an operation today!

Hysterectomy Update - Post Op Week 9

I've been getting a lot of page views of my earlier posts regarding my hysterectomy so I thought I would give an update since it has been almost nine weeks since my surgery. I cannot say how happy I've been with the results of surgery so far.

I had what is officially called laproscopic supracervical hysterectomy or LSH as those on the Hyster Sisters boards would call it. I had it due to a laundry list of ailments including: anemia, adenomyosis, excessive bleeding, and endometriosis.

I only now have 4 tiny, tiny scars where they went in and worked on me. I can't even see some of them. My only recurring symptom is what is affectionately called "swelly belly" by fellow hyster-sisters. What that means is that when I wake up in the morning, my pants fit....actually much better than before the surgery. Near the evening they get really, really tight. NOOOO I didn't eat too much - the tissues inside are still swelling as the day goes on - they are not healed up all the way. I swell more when I do more. They tell me that this usually goes away in six months to a year. I hate the word usually.

I actually forget now that I have had surgery, except for the belly thing of course. I don't have any pain, except for the same old back pain I always have that isn't related. And I'm nice and dry -'nuff said.

Back from Hysterectomy

Doing much, much better so far - I am hoping it stays this way. I have reduced posting because I can't sit here too long. But I do highly recommend the laprascopic surgery hysterectomy! Faster recovery - feeling one hundred percent better than prior surgeries!

HysterSisters.com Was a Lifesaver!

During the entire process of deciding about and going on with my hysterectomy, this website was king (ahem, princess!) Full of great advice all the way through. I highly recommend it.

Hysterectomy Surgery Tomorrow

I am finally going to have hysterectomy surgery tomorrow after bleeding for six long years. I am not looking forward to surgery, given my horrid surgery history. But I am looking forward to getting rid of the flood and whatever else may be lurking in there.

At age 22, I started having stabbing horrible pain every month, which increased drastically over a six month period. Yes, I saw a gyno, but he did nothing to suggest anything was amiss. Finally, after being doubled over in pain at work, the coworkers sent me home. I took tylenol and laid on the floor, it was so bad. I finally took it upon myself to go to a doc in a box, who took one poke at me and assumed I had appendicitis. His wife drove me to the hospital. I assured anyone who would listen that this was anything but appendicitis, including the surgeon they sent to consult. They finally listened to me and sent over my gyno at 10pm. I had been calling all day. He did an ultrasound and said he saw a "little cyst". I spent five days in the hospital with no definitive diagnosis by the doctor assigned to me (what a surprise). I had an infection, that was all they said.

Shortly after, I thankfully relocated back to my hometown and went to my old gyno and explained what had happened. He started following me on ultrasound and the cyst grew and grew, so within a few months, surgery was set. I had no idea what to expect. I don't do well on narcotic pain meds and ended up allergic to morphine. The surgery revealed extensive endometriosis and a consuming endometrioma in my ovary, which the doc thought had burst and caused my prior pain and hospitalization. That cyst wasn't little, it consumed my ovary.

Well, that surgery was successful, cause I went on to have two lovely kids via C-sections. However, neither of those surgeries were easy or without their own troubles. The first one, they did a dural puncture when putting in the epidural, which only happens to less than 2% of patients, which then caused me to have breathing troubles and the most horrible headache for two weeks. No drug could touch the headache and they even did a blood patch while I was in the hospital and it did nothing!

Amazingly, we decided to have another kid and this time I opted for spinal anesthesia to hopefully not repeat the epidural problem. Instead we got a new problem. Aside from it hurting really bad (as bad as the epidural did), it wore off. I repeat, it wore off DURING surgery. I could feel the doctors making snips with scissors, etc. I got more and more panicked but they said they could not do anything to not hurt baby. As soon as baby came out, drugs went in. Awful!

As you can see, I am not a prime candidate for much of any surgery....except twilight sleep. I have done exceptionally well with this....go figure.