Gadgetgirl (Sara) - Alumni Hostess 2002

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Gadgetgirl (Sara) - Alumni Hostess 2002

Gadgetgirl (Sara) - Alumni Hostess 2002

Date : 04-29-2003 - 09:30 PM - Readers : 598

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I'm Sara, mom of 2 teenage daughters, married to a US Navy man, Greg. Currently we are stationed in the Norfolk, Virginia area. We were married July 15, 1984 and had our first child soon after! I do a lot of things on the internet. I have a business making graphics and web pages and I also host a blog site. A blog is a web journal. I have a medical journal: SimplySara I also do local computer tutoring, this is on the back burner right now as I gain my strength back from the surgery. I am a work-at-home mom who taxi's one of the kiddos, Jackie age 13, to karate and school every day. I also am involved with my older daughter's life, Jessica age 17, as she enters her senior year in high school and is actively picking out colleges.

I was just 37 on February 27, 2002, when I had my hyster done and the years building up to that point, I will never forget. I had one baby via c-section in 1985 and a second via emergency c-section in 1989. I was told then that I couldn't medically carry any more babies as my uterus was cut both horizontally and vertically. I then had to wait a year for the military to allow me to get a tubal ligation. I was 25. During the time from the tubal in 1990 and the time I had my hyster, 12 years has gone by. It's believed that my adhesions started from all the scar tissue. I began having painful periods in 1992. Really painful. I also found out that I had a tipped uterus, which helps to explains the back pain during periods as well as the back labor. I would go to the gyn each year and get my pap smear done. I would mention the painful periods and I would be given Motrin. Something I had to live with, I guess!

In the fall of 1995 we moved to Georgia. I was 31. I started noticing that my periods were further apart. I was really regular after I had kids, 28 or 30 days, like clockwork. I gained some weight after some stressful situations happened at my work. I thought that my periods getting further apart was because of this. I was now at 35-45 days for my periods. Which, actually was kind of nice, until the pain set in. I remember calling in sick during my periods to my work. I couldn't get out of bed, much less get to work and do my job. I eventually left my job and found that taking Motrin was my only real source of pain relief as it would just take the edge off of the cramps. Then my periods were at every other month. I had an u/s done in 1996. They thought they felt fibroids and wanted to make sure. Nothing was found.

We moved in 1998 back to Virginia. I went and got my yearly pap done. Still in pain and then I mentioned painful periods and painful sex sometimes to my gyn. She asked me if I wanted to go onto the birth control pill. I looked at her like she was crazy, I had had a tubal! She told me that it was for the regulation of my hormones. She never mentioned that the pain from sex wasn't normal! At this time I just had pain sometimes and no bleeding. I didn't go on the pill. But, I did get a normal pap smear back that year. I never had anything but normal pap smears.

Hubby went out to sea in the spring of 1999, for 6 months, and along with that came no periods through the whole time he was gone. I just chalked that up to stress of him being gone again. When he came home I noticed I started to gain weight, even though I hadn't changed any of my eating or exercising patterns. I thought maybe it was hormones.

Spring of 2000 I went and had my annual pap smear done. I mentioned the lack of periods and that I was having painful sex as well. She thought that maybe I was peri-menopausal and noted that my vaginal walls were atrophying (they were getting smoother), which is a sign of peri-menopause. Along with the fact that I had no lubrication and I had not had a period in a year brought her to the conclusion that I was in fact in the beginning stages of menopause. I was put on Premarin cream to use for 2 weeks. I was then taken off of that and put on Premarin pills. They helped my moods greatly, but I started to gain even more weight. I went off of those in July of 2000 and was put on Prempro as she felt my lack of sexual desire had to do with low progesterone. I went off of those on my own in Sept. 2000. I started taking herbal drugs in November of 2000. I thought that maybe I was in fact in peri-menopause and didn't want to take prescription drugs any longer, I wanted to go natural! No periods for months and months at this point.

Once the herbal drugs started I started getting odd flows, heavy for 3 days and then light for 6-8 days. This was every month at the beginning of 2001. I went back to the gyn for my annual pap in April of 2001. My gyn was just doing her job and didn't ask me if I had any problems, etc. I just wanted the pain to stop! I told her that I was still experiencing painful periods and that my periods were really odd...I told her about the days the flow were lasting. She told me that I could go on birth control pills to regulate me and that was all she could do. Well, during the summer I had started bleeding almost every day non-stop. We were on vacation in July and I remember praying that I wouldn't have a period for the whole vacation. I did, and I bled for 3 weeks out of every month, in tons of pain from July 2001 until my hyster the following February. My hubby left for sea duty once again, September 19, 2001, one week after the attacks on the United States. I bled for the whole time that he was gone. It was so painful when I wasn't bleeding that in November 2001, while on vacation with my youngest daughter I decided to see another doctor for a new opinion on what was wrong with me!

I was sent home with Prempro in a lower dose , and the blood work results showing I wasn't anemic, and told to call him in 6 weeks. Which he thought should be long enough for the hormones to work. I did call him back, but in 3 weeks as I had bled constantly since before Thanksgiving until my hubby came home the beginning of December. I was tired of bleeding! They ordered an u/s. The tech saw at least 3 fibroids on the u/s. He did both an abdominal and a transvaginal. I was in so much pain during those. Luckily though, the bleeding had stopped. I was then sent to yet another doctor for him to read the u/s results. This was on the 20th of February in a different military hospital. He told me that I have fibroids as the results weren't in my records and he did yet another u/s both abdominal and transvaginal. It was recommended that since I couldn't stand, sit or function, I get a hysterectomy. He brought in 2 other doctors, for another opinion. I was given another pelvic exam and I was told that they recommended hysterectomy as well. I then was told that they would have to do a sampling of my uterine lining to make sure it wasn't cancerous. If they were going to take it out, why did they have to do this? I was told that it had to be proved before surgery that my uterus didn't have cancer present. Then I was given a date of 2/27/02 for my hysterectomy, exactly one week from that day.

I was very upset and confused. I called all my friends and family trying to find someone my age or someone that had been through a hyster recently. Then, I went to a search engine on the internet and typed in hysterectomy. Hyster Sisters came up and I clicked on the link. I haven't left since then and I don't plan on it either! I was just made a hostess in the pre-op forum, at 7 weeks post-op and I'm thrilled and honored for this opportunity!

I recently received my pathology report and it showed chronic cervicitis which is common in women, that have given birth vaginally. It is also often associated with pregnancy and the use of oral contraceptives, probably due to an increased blood supply to the cervix as a result of increased hormone levels. I also had squamous metaplasia, which effects the lining of the cervix. Squamous metaplasia is not precancerous. My abdominal wall was adhered to my uterus, by scar tissue and adhesions, which was causing some of the pain and bleeding. I also had Adenomyosis which is the presence of endometrial glands and supporting tissues in the muscle of the uterus where it would not occur normally.

Every day I thank God for the pain free life that a hysterectomy has given me. I no longer have to worry about bleeding for weeks on end, planning my vacation or my personal life around my body. I also thank him for bringing my hubby and I to the best military hospital in the world and the gifted surgeons that took 3 hours to change my life for the better.

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