 Total Abdominal Hysterectomy: TAH - Feeling better every day |
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Well! Thank God I had the Hyster-Sister site to guide me through this  . I'm finally starting to feel like a bit of my old self again and I think it's high time I share my story with you in order to possibly help someone who is about to go through this and is scared!
I am 39 years old. I was diagnosed with bladder cancer in Sept 07 and had my first surgery to remove the tumor in Oct 07 and elected to get the Hysterectomy as a preventive method as my Urologist said that I might develop a Cancer in the Uterus. So, since I had no plans of using it...I had the hysterectomy surgery Feb. 16th at 7:00am in the morning. I remember taking something to clean my colon the night before because I new that the morphine they were going to give me would constipate me and I was trying to give my colon a break (as I have always had a huge constipation problem prior to my surgery). I got to the hospital, they made me change into the gown and started an IV as well as give me these tight socks that went from my feet all the way up to the end of my inner thigh. They were quite comfortable actually. Doctor told me it helped prevent blood clots as I was going to be lying down quite a bit. My mom and my husband had come with me to the hospital for the surgery. I went into the operating room and they started setting me up and started giving me the "drugs". Within minutes I was gone. I woke up in the recovery room begging the nurse to give me something for the pain. I don't remember much about this particular time but my mom and my husband tell me I was "green" in color and my mom & husband were terrified as I was taking a long time to come out of it and I couldn't speak very much but I was whispering for them to go away...
Later that evening, I woke up in a room with a morphine pump attached to me and a catheter. The catheter was great because it meant I didn't have to get up and I couldn't feel it at all. A nurse came in the middle of the night to stand me upwards. The pain was unbelievable but now I don't remember anything. It's great how the body repairs itself and the mind forgets how much it hurt. Much like when a woman has a baby. They forget all about the pain after a while. Anyways, the next day a nurse came in to clean me up and started squirting water on my vagina. It felt like FIRE! I told her to stop whatever she was doing that I would clean myself up. They give you this little sqirt bottle and you're suppose to fill it with hot water and squirt it on your vagina to prevent any type of infection. For some reason it was painful like a burn. I realized, after a couple of days, that it was because some of my nerves had been touched and now they were trying to get back to normal. You may get this strange sensation. I also remember sneezing that night and panicking because I thought I had opened myself up. I was soon told by all the nurses that I was sewn up real well and there were hardly any changes of that happening. I didn't have any stitches on the outside of my scar. The surgeon told me he had done everything from the inside which I thought was strange but I appreciate it now because, after only 5 1/2 weeks, the scar is beautiful. I came into the hospital Friday morning and was discharged Monday morning. I had very little bleeding at all. The first day only when I came out of surgery. The next day, it was over. They took me off the morphine pump that Monday morning and started giving me Tylenol 3 which was more useful than the morphine pump which I didn't really like. It made me itchy like crazy! And it didn't really numb the pain as I thought it would. The trip home was a bit harsh as I live 1 hour away from the hospital and could feel all the bumps. The surgeon did leave me my right ovary but had to take out the left because of complications. I started going to the bathroom (to pee) right after they removed the catheter the day before I left. I went to the bathroom for a #2 as soon as I got home and it was great! The first couple of weeks at home I didn't do much but sleep and watch tv and movies. My mom stayed with me and she cooked and did everything for me (she was an angel. I couldn't have done this without her). Every day, I would walk...more like waddle...around the house to try and get things going. I notice that half my vagina was numb. The right side. Wondered if it would be permanent but I can tell you that after almost 6 weeks, that too is starting to dissappear. I'm lucky in a way that I work from home so I started working a bit at a time and when I felt tired I would rest. I'm seeing my doctor on April 10th for a post-op appointment. I'm hoping that all is going to be well but I feel stronger and stronger everyday and just the thought of not having a period ever again...it's worth all the pain I went through!
Good luck on your up-coming surgery and post-op recovery! Stay positive and read great books like "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle. It will help you gain perspective!
 
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