Surgery

This was originally posted on Multiply on August 17th 2006 (all blog entries being moved here due to the closing of Multiply)

For those who don't already know, I recently (July 2006) had surgery. A hysterectomy, supposedly Total Hysterectomy with Bilateral Salpingoophorectomy-(TAH-BSO). Which is the removal of the uterus, both fallopian tubes, and both ovaries, however when I saw the pathology report the doctor gave me, it said the cervix was not there, so I guess I still have it....lol.....but I'll confirm that when I see the doctor on the 29th.

The reason I had a hysterectomy was because I had a rather large fibroid tumor, the size of a newborn's head. Curiously enough, I didn't have any pain, but I would bleed at any given moment, which was a big pain in the you know what......lol.

It was diagnosed back in April 2005 and it took all that time to finally get it done. During that time I had numerous tests, scans, ultrasound, as well as regular visits to my gynocologist, who kept checking on the progress of the size of the fibroid. Everytime I had a scan or ultrasound done, then he would have to wait a few months to get another one done and check again, finally in early July I had a call from his nurse who said I would be going in on July 13th. I was to present myself there at 8am because they had to take another X-Ray prior my surgery to see if my lungs were clear.

The reason for that was that I had a pulmonary embolism (blood clots in the lungs) back in 2002 dur to phlebitis, and ever since then, I am on anticoagulant medication (Coumadin). So that meant that I had to stop taking those pills 7 days prior surgery and the night of the surgery they started me back on Coumadin as well as Fragmin, which is given in the form of a needle and acts immediately, whereas Coumadin would take a week to achieve the necessary result. You can read about it here  (if you want.....lol).

I was in the hospital for 7 days, until they got my blood coagulation under under control. Surgery went very well, but it would a couple of days before I was able to get around, because I had a catheter, but once it was removed I was able to get up and walk around, which was not an easy task, since the operation was an abdominal one, it was difficult to get up, but Tony was there with me every day, not all day of course, I couldn't ask anyone to do that, but he did take 2 weeks vacation to help me through my recovery. It was a big help once I got home that is for sure.

While I was hospitalised, my doctor visited me EVERY single days, to check up on my progress. I had never before seen any other doctors do that, I was rather impressed, considering I had waited so long to get to that point. He also wanted to make sure I wasn't in pain, so I was on a morphine drip, actually one where the patient controls when to get a shot by pushing a button, you can't get an overdose that way and you can control the pain, and free up the nurse's time to attend to other patients.

Once I did get out, it was very hard to sleep, as I couldn't sleep on either side, so had to sleep on my back only, and for a couple of days I slept in the recliner chair in the living room. It did take about 3-4 weeks before I was able to finally sleep on my side. Of course I couldn't do much around the house, and once again, Tony was a great help - as he always is :)

It will now be 5 weeks since my operation, and I'm feeling way better and can finally drive (the doctor had instructed me not to drive for 4 weeks).

Now one of my biggest problem is staying asleep. Now that I can sleep on either side it's great, but I have to get up about every 2 hours to go to the bathroom. I sure hope that will pass, because it's hard to get a good night's sleep. It's a good thing I don't have to work......lol, so I can catch up during the day.

Oh yeah, another thing, when I first came home and was able to sleep in our bed, I would wake up the first time (after 2 hours) and my neck and back of my head were soaking wet, so I thought I'd be getting the "night sweat" and not looking forward to any hot flashes, but I think I lucked out in that respect, that only happened a couple of times. Phew I'm definetely happy about that. Now if I could only sleep the night through.........lol

Now I just have to wait for my checkup on the 29th and hope that everything will be 100%, definetely, the scar is looking very good.

So that's my story about my surgery, hope I didn't bore you too much.....lol.