Hysterectomy: A First Hand Account of Reproductive Failures

An apt way to put it...

A week ago today, I had a hysterectomy...
Again, I had taken to the internet, hoping to get a little more information than the head scratching medical descriptions the doctors give you. Amazingly, I found very little but the same medical jargon I'd gotten from the doctor. Not what I was hoping for...
It's amazing that no one shares first hand experience for other people who might be looking for the same sort of answers, a more personal account, so those of us anticipating such a surgery will have a clue what to expect from it. I understand, some people are still a bit uneasy discussing their private areas and any issues they have with them. But here, in the cyber world, no one knows who you are anyway, so why not discuss more taboo subjects that make you a bit uncomfortable?
Personally, I've never had an issue discussing topics that make other people uncomfortable and want to politely excuse themselves and slink away, tail between their legs and red faced with embarrassment. So, in the hopes that maybe I can help some other poor souls out there, I'm going to tell you what it's like when you have a bad breakup with your uterus and what to expect...

Words to live by...

Actually, my story begins over 12 years ago...
I really don't want to date myself, here... I have a birthday coming up in less than a week and I'm not feeling great about it. Like at all...
Let's just say that things did not turn out like the textbook explanation of womanhood that we're taught. I, like other women, was taught that girls began getting visits from "Aunt Flo" at around age 12 or 13, your hormones start to fluctuate in your 30s and sometime in your 50s, you go through menopause and will, from that moment on, be able to wear white pants whenever the fuck you want. Sure, there are downsides to menopause like not being able to have children anymore, hot flashes and you'll be temporarily insane until your hormone production ceases. But hey! You'll never see "Aunt Flo" again! No more cramps, pads, tampons... and you can wear white pants whenever the fuck you want! No more worries of having an unfortunate embarrassment! Most women, from the day "Aunt Flo" shows up, start counting the days until the horror is over and they reach the Age of Aquarius that is menopause.

Life sometimes screws with your head...

Like I said, my non-textbook story began 12 years ago with a pain that felt as if someone was pinching me on one side of my abdomen...
It was June or July when the pain began. Not horribly painful, just annoying. I tried everything to get it to go away. I tried rubbing in, changing positions, hoping it was just a bubble that was stuck that I could dislodge. None of these methods worked and I grew more and more annoyed with the pain. By August, I'd had enough and consulted my family doctor who referred me to a gastroenterologist. After a half-assed exam, he diagnosed me with IBS and sent me home with pills that, coincidentally, made me incredibly ill. They made me so ill that I couldn't work, so I stopped taking them. They never relieved the pinching pain anyway, so why take them?
I discovered the true nature of my issue the night of October 5th, 2006. I was at work that night and had to perform a strenuous task. I immediately felt pain in the front side of my abdomen, much like if I had pulled a muscle. The pain subsided for the most part, I reported it to my manager to cover my ass, downplaying it as the small issue I felt it was. Even when the pain returned and made me double over, my manager asking in concern if I was alright, I still brushed it off and told her it was only a pulled muscle, nothing more.
I left work soon after and soon after I arrived home, an excruciating pain shot across my abdomen, enough to make me drop to my knees. I just chalked it up to the fact that "Aunt Flo" was expected soon and went for a hot bath to relieve what I thought were killer cramps.

I need a lot of cookies...

But the bath didn't help...
I ended up passing out on the sofa and woke at 2:30AM, still in pain. By 3AM, it was unbearable... I knew then that I had to go to the emergency room. I'll never forget that horrible night... The doctor had 3 theories and the one he hoped it wasn't was an ovarian torsion.
You know it was the one the doctor hoped it wasn't...
I was rushed to a different hospital (with GYN facilities) and had to undergo emergency surgery. I learned, once I was fully awake and able to understand the doctors, that they had made a c-section incision and had removed one of my ovaries and coinciding fallopian tube. It seems I'd had a cyst the size of my fist (how it grew so large without that much pain, I'll never know) and when I had strained at work, the cyst moved which twisted the ovary and caused it to rupture. The cyst, amazingly enough, was fully intact. Wish I could have said the same for my ovary...

If only it were an ideal world...

I spent a lot of time feeling lopsided and mourning the loss of part of what made me female. It took me several months, but I finally grew accustomed to my new situation.
Then, that summer, the same pain began again on the opposite side of my abdomen...
I knew, from first hand experience, that I was experiencing the same issue. The trouble was convincing the doctor. I remember him telling me that the odds of experiencing an ovarian torsion were a million to one. Twice in the same person? The odds were astronomical. Astronomical... That was the exact words he used. But I wasn't convinced. I knew something was amiss, so I pushed for testing. They did imaging and found a cyst on the other ovary, "but it's small", he told me. Yes, I'm sure the other one started out small as well! So there I was, walking around and feeling like I had a ticking time bomb in my abdomen. And the pain was growing worse. I pushed for laparoscopic surgery to see what was going on.

Surprise...

Imagine my surprise (I say with a sharp note of sarcasm) when I woke up from my surgery on October 2nd, 2007, that they had to remove my other ovary and fallopian tube. Apparently the "small" cyst was wrapped around the main vein of my ovary and, had I not had the surgery, I would have suffered another ovarian torsion. Guess I'm astronomical then, huh...?
I was warned ahead of time that, if it needed removal, I would be thrown into surgical menopause immediately and that it would be a hundred times worse than normal menopause. They weren't kidding... The hot flashes, mood swings and depression over not being able to have children anymore were devastating. It took years for me to come to terms with that.
But what they didn't tell me were other important things... Losing your ovaries can up your risk for heart disease as well as osteoporosis. My mental illness became so much worse (I even developed a few new ones for shits and giggles). Physically, I'm technically older than my actual age and, man, do I feel it. My arthritis in my knees has gotten so bad I need replacements (that I'm too young for), I have arthritis in new places, I can't eat and digest foods I used to, I developed belly fat that just won't go away and I tire easily and need to nap often. Yeah, the last 11 years have been a real joy...

Enjoy your new-found panic...

But what was most unexpected was the post-menopausal bleeding... Any bleeding after menopause is considered abnormal. In 11 years time, I'd had an issue with this 4 or 5 times, had a multitude of tests and twice had procedures to find out why I was experiencing this issue and hopefully prevent it from returning. Both times they failed on all counts and, despite my desperate pleas and family history of uterine cancer, the doctors all refused to remove the only remaining part of what made me a woman, even though it was obvious that it, too, was defective...
I was beginning to think the doctors were involved in some conspiracy to torture me and possibly allow me to develop uterine cancer so they could use me as some sort of unwilling guinea pig... But then, as luck would have it, I found a doctor with some semblance of reason who agreed to finish the job and remove my malfunctioning baby box. I was thrilled! Scared (I mean, it is surgery), but thrilled!

It sounds cruel, but it's apt...

So here's where we get to the part where, no matter how informed you are, you're clueless and have no idea what you're in for...
I went in for surgery a week ago, feeling pretty confident that I knew what was going to happen. I was a little apprehensive because I had this awful feeling I would be in for a rude awakening, but I still felt pretty confident. I had all sorts of doctors, nurses, anesthesiologists... pretty much everyone and their mom coming in to inform me of everything that was going to take place. I was ready... Like a Nike ad, every fiber of my being was screaming, "Just DO it!!!"

Hospitals: getting you stoned the legal way...

Of course, that was probably the cocktail of meds they pumped me full of before hand speaking...
That was just the cocktail they pumped me full off to keep me feeling calm and relaxed on the way to the operating room. Once I got there, they pumped me full of more drugs to help me after the fact. By this point, I was thoroughly stoned off my ass and I barely remember the oxygen mask being put on before they injected the anesthesia to knock me out.
When I woke, I was in the most horrible pain... The nurse came to give me an injection of pain meds and I passed back out. When I woke once again, I was still in pain and received yet another injection of pain meds. I'm surprised I knew my name at that point, let alone what had happened to me. And, to make it even more fun, they prescribed oxycodone and had me take one before they had me get up to try and walk to the bathroom. I was so stoned that I was falling asleep while trying to eat graham crackers! I fell asleep multiple times with food in my mouth and they want me to try to walk to the bathroom... I did manage, but I felt like I was floating, not walking.

Most days...

But what you really need to know is what it's like after you go home (which, in the case of laparoscopic hysterectomy will be the same day in most cases). In my case, I have 5 incisions stretching across my abdomen that look a lot like Morse code... They look dreadful, and when the healing itch sets in, it'll feel like bugs are crawling around under your skin. You'll hurt, like you've never hurt before even with narcotics. Understandable, seeing as how they literally cut one of your body parts loose, yanked it out and sewed the top of what was left closed. But this is pain you can't possibly imagine. You'll need to hold a pillow against your abdomen when you get up, sit down, shift position... And god forbid you should have to cough or sneeze and you can't get the pillow in front of you in time because it snuck right up on you. You have pain when you pee because it pulls those sore, inflamed muscles. When anything moves through your bowels, it feels as if someone is stabbing you with a butcher knife. And the horrible pain you'll experience from the gas they blew you up with hurts almost as much as the surgical pain.

Boredom levels at maximum...

You also can't do much of anything...
You can't lift anything heavier than a gallon of milk for about 6 weeks. You can't drive for 2-3 weeks. You can only climb stairs twice a day. All in all, you'll be in pain and not be able to do much of anything for almost 6 weeks. The pain lessens as time passes (I'm told) but it will take a good 2 months to be considered fully healed.
So what can you do...? Not a whole helluva lot...
You're encouraged to get up and walk, a little further each day. I don't know who the hell would go outside for a walk... To be honest, walking a few feet to the bathroom or kitchen in enough, then I need to sit and rest. And believe me, your body will tell you when you've done too much. You'll feel very wiped out and just not right. Essentially, you'll be laying around watching a lot of TV, reading books, playing video or phone games, needlepoint, knitting, writing inane blogs... Anything to stave off the massive boredom you're going to feel since you can't do much but lay around or sit on your duff for at least a few weeks. Sounds like fun, doesn't it...?

And don't come back!

All in all, I can't complain...
It took 11 years to do something they should have done when they removed my last ovary instead of leaving it in there as an insulting reminder of what I could no longer do. And to save me another surgery...
I've had a few weepy moments since its removal, which I find odd. I lost my ability to have children 11 years ago and had come to terms with it. Now I'm suddenly finding myself weeping at stupid things and weird moments. Maybe it's because the last part of what made me female, made my body able to do something special, is now gone. Maybe it's because I just had surgery and don't feel well. That's enough to make anyone weepy.
Or maybe I'm just losing my marbles...