LAVH - A story about one that went very well! - Hystersisters Hysterectomy Article

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LAVH - A story about one that went very well!

LAVH - A story about one that went very well!

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I had my LAVH surgery on March 12, 2001 to get rid of uterine fibroid problems. I had never heard of a uterine fibroid until a doctor noticed something amiss in January 2000, and a sonogram detected pea-sized fibroids. Watch and wait, my doctor said, which I did until dysfunctional bleeding began a few months later and I began having inexplicable urges to urinate (lots of fun during 14-hour business air travel - luckily champagne is a painkiller).

By November, a hysteroscopy showed golf-ball-size tumors in the uterine wall. My doctor still advised against a hysterectomy, even though I said I wasn’t interested in having children – she said I could wait a year, have a myomectomy, probably have a year or two before the fibroids had to be dealt with again. I’m glad I had the Internet to use for additional research on the subject – do any doctors spend more than 15 minutes with patients anymore? I read about some of the other treatments but they really didn’t seem to be the full cure I was looking for.

By the end of January 2001 I couldn’t stand the watching-and-waiting any longer and my husband agreed – get rid of the problem. I’m 38 years old, we have a houseful of great pets, we love the child-free lifestyle. Again the doctor tried to talk me out of it, but scheduled the surgery. Then she tried to talk me into having the ovaries out too, but I refused. Strangely, as soon as I scheduled the surgery, all bleeding problems ceased!

Now my quandary was, who to tell about it and what to tell? I have relatives who believe no one’s life can be happy without children – and I knew I would get traumatic ear-bending from them. To avoid stress, I chose to tell only a few people whom I thought would not pester me or wind me up prior to surgery. My advice is: tell even fewer people. Even friends who are normally sensitive will tell you stories of “the woman who had the hysterectomy and was never the same again”. And people who promised to keep it confidential will not. This is not what you need!

A few days before surgery, I went to the hospital for lab work and instructions from a nurse. This is where they have you sign the forms that tell you every possible nasty thing that could go wrong, including, to my amusement, the “risk” of sterility from the operation. The nurse informed me the hospital had been sued by someone who claimed not to know about this “risk”, so I guess the problem of doctors not discussing the situation with patients is even worse than I originally thought.

Luckily my surgery was at 8 am so the only dietary restriction was nothing to eat or drink after midnight, which wasn’t difficult. At 6:30 we arrived at the hospital and I was ushered back to the surgery holding area, where I had to get into the fashionable gown and lie on a stretcher. A nurse hooked me up with an IV and my husband came in to wait with me. Big problem – he freaks out in hospitals, couldn’t even look at the IV, had to run to the bathroom to splash cold water on his face. At least there were 6 other patients there, so we could eavesdrop on people who had worse problems than I did, and feel fortunate. The anaesthesiologist came by and put the knockout drops in the IV and….
Next thing I knew I was in the surgery recovery room and OWW my abdomen hurt. The nurses got the morphine pump going but it took several hours to get to a tolerable level. Meanwhile I distracted myself listening to the hubbub in the room. My doctor always says “you won’t remember what went on the day of surgery” but I feel like I remember it all – nurse’s conversations, other patients’ families talking to them… be careful what you say around the supposedly anaesthetized!

After about 45 minutes I was transferred to the hospital room (private – great!). My husband came in and had to run out again, more cold water on his face, can’t deal with this hospital stuff! I felt so grateful to be done with surgery, it was no problem to cope with the pain and the various tubing attached to me. Not to mention the hissing boa constrictors they attached to my legs to prevent blood clots (which are merely disquieting, not painful). The nurses were very nice, and came in frequently to take my vital signs. A minor scare developed because I had the lowest blood pressure the nurse had seen in someone still alive, and remained this way for several hours, but it eventually improved.

By twelve hours after my surgery, I felt enormously better. Pain was down to 3 on the 1-10 scale. I managed to eat some ice chips and a Popsicle. The nurses all praised my peeing abilities! I was still hooked up to the catheter, so this struck me as probably the easiest expectation I’d had to meet since childhood. I had only 3 small incisions on my abdomen, covered with surgical tape, and the morphine killed all pain from them. The swelling was disconcerting but not uncomfortable, and bleeding was minimal. At around 4 a.m., a nurse came by to remove the catheter. I was probably more nervous about this than any other part of this operation. It barely hurt, though, and soon I was able to walk escorted to the bathroom and go on my own. Once again, praise for peeing: quality and quantity! I like all this positive reinforcement.

Later that morning, the day after surgery, my doctor came by. Surprise: the problem was much worse than she thought – “it HAD to come out”. It took her 50% longer than expected to do the operation, and she almost had to go to the normal abdominal incision, because the mass of tumors had grown to 16-week-pregnancy size in 3 months. I felt vindicated! It would have been a big mistake to wait! Trust your intuition.

I was able to walk around the hospital on the second day but tired very easily. The operation left me anemic and the narcotics don’t help one’s coordination and alertness. Watch out for morphine – it can make you itch all over, and makes you nauseous after a while! This was enough to convince me to leave that morphine clicker alone and go on to the other painkilling medications. I didn’t have digestive problems, probably because the hospital had me on a clear liquid diet almost the entire time. Around midnight on the second day I had to hit my hidden stash of macadamia nuts, I was starving!

The third morning, I was allowed to go home, and had no problem riding in our Nissan Pathfinder. Walking short distances was no problem, but I really just wanted to lie down. I had to switch painkillers after my original prescription made me nauseous, dizzy, and depressed. By the third day at home, I needed only a couple of ibuprofen during the day and the prescription painkiller at night. The pain was really not a problem, but tiredness and lightheadedness sneak up on you. Simple things, like answering e-mail, can wear you out, and talking to friends is exhausting. Frequent breaks lying on the chaise or bed and reading are very helpful. Enjoy being relieved of household chores!

A week after surgery, I feel I am having a rapid recovery and it is all going much better than I had hoped. I am extra-fortunate to have a husband who works from home to look after me, and his job looking after me is easier than he thought it would be since I’m mobile. We even went out to dinner at a local restaurant 5 days after the surgery, but this was kind of a surreal and tiring experience. My biggest challenge is to avoid eating all day, being stuck at home. It’s amazing how one can transform from a faithful 3-times-per-week gym-goer to a chocolate-gobbling couch potato! I look forward to having my energy back and being able to drive and walk my dogs again…in a few weeks.

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LAVH - A Happy Ending!

LAVH - Adventure of Endo and the LAVH

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Susan D. Hunter, M.D. 626 Ed Carey Dr Harlingen TX 78550 956-428-4868	Jessica Vaught, M.D. 21 W. Columbia St Suite 101 Winnie Palmer Hospital Orlando FL 32806 321-841-6060	Michael Wong, M.D. 4282 Genesee Ave Suite 201 San Diego CA 92117 858-268-0300
Michele Cowling, M.D. 303 Nicollet Blvd Burnsville MN 55337 952.460.4000	Chanda Reese, M.D. 3001 Coral Hills Dr., Suite 300 Coral Springs FL 33065 954-341-2916	John Dulemba, M.D. 3321 Unicorn Lake Blvd #121 Denton TX 76210 940-387-6248
Sherri Levin, M.D. 929 Gessner Suite 2100 Houston TX 77024 713-464-4111	Albert Odom, M.D. 1301 taylor st suite 6j columbia SC 29201 803-254-3230	David Mainman, M.D. Desert Bloom Obstetrics & Gynecology 6452 E. Carondelet Drive, Suite A Tucson AZ 85710 520-885-5300

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