Be forewarned, this may very well turn into a book. On August 27th, I was well....to put it in polite terms, I was being intimate with my partner of almost 10 years. Towards the end, I had this horrific pain in my right lower quadrant. It was bad enough that he called 911 and I was taken to the ER.
After doing a CT scan, the ER doctor said that I had a 4.5 cm cyst on my right ovary and in her opinion I had an ovarian torsion (due to the weight of the cyst, my ovary flipped over and cut off the blood supply) but she felt that it had resolved itself and she gave me the option of being admitted or going home and seeing my GYN in the morning. I chose to go home. The next day I called my doctor's office and just my luck, he was out of town on Friday and wouldn't be back until Monday.
I saw him on Monday and after a pelvic exam and then an ultrasound, he said that he thought that I had a hemorrhagic cyst on my ovary and he booked me for laprascopic surgery the following morning. When I woke up I was told that I didn't have a cyst, but I had stage IV endometriosis and my right ovary was incarcerated in my peritoneum. My left ovary was adheared to the peritoneum on the left side and that because my uterus was so far tilted backwards, that I was bleeding into my abdomen when I had my period. He found blood in my abdomen and my uterus was extremely boggy.
I was sent home that day and all was OK for a day or so, then my belly started to bloat out badly and the bruise under my belly button grew even larger. Sadly, I didn't listen to my online and IRL friends to demanded that I go to the ER. By the time I saw my surgeon the following Wednesday September 9, 2009 he had me directly admitted to the hospital due to an ileus (bowel obstruction).
Once I was in the hospital and after another CT scan it was decided that the only way to save my intestines and my life was to do an emergency hysterectomy. Basically, when he did the first surgery, he stirred up a hornet's nest with the endometriosis, that was all over my abdomen, intestines etc and due to all of the work that he did on the first surgery, it shut down my intestines. The only way to fix it was to remove my uterus, right tube and ovary. Thankfully, I was able to keep my left ovary. I am only 39 years old, I had no idea that I had endometriosis and zero plans on having a hyst.
He did a supracervical lap hyst on September 11, 2009, I can't say that my recovery has been anything but brutal. Mostly due to the fact that I'd basically had a hyst in two stages, 10 days apart. My heart was broken, I was already done having kids so that wasn't my 'issue', I think it was more that I had no preparation to lose my reproductive organs, I had no plans in place at home to deal with all that has happened.
I've been a surgical technologist aka scrub nurse since 1994 and I've never ever seen a case come into my OR like what I went through. My doctor said that he's only had this happen twice in his career. I guess I'm lucky #3 and the dreaded 'curse of the nurse'.
A girlfriend of mine told me about this site a few days after I got home and I was bawling my eyes out to her on the phone. I can't believe how wonderful it is to read about my other 'sisters' and to see that my recovery isn't that far off from theirs. I felt so alone and Hystersisters has been a life saver for me. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this forum for all of the information and answers to questions that I didn't even realize that I had until I read the answers.
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