TAH: Scared to death

Hi thanks for replying am so anxious its unbelievable I have had quite a lot going on in my life for the past year and a half and I think the hysterectomy was the icing on the cake. Im now taking the medication my GP has prescribed and hopefully it will work in a week or so. I feel so stupid and upset that my family are seeing me like this. Im usually very controlled and positive. Take care and keep in touch x

sharonainscough, I feel your pain. I am going in Wednesday, so I will post just as soon as I can and let you know how it went - maybe that will help! I know reading all the stories from other HysterSisters is helping me a great deal. Especially you, cgul143! I can't believe you were posting and doing so well just a few hours later! You're an inspiration!

Thanks Barbiegal! It was important for me to post right away because I had been so terrified of surgery! I want women who are just as scared to know that it really is OK and that the few days before the surgery is the absolute worst of it. I think recovery from TAH takes longer than LAVH or other minimally invasives, but the pre op, " What if I die on the table..." mental torture is horrible. The rest of it is no where near as hard.

Sweetie this is all very normal. I had a total TAH on May 31st. I was so filled with fears and anxiety that I lost 20 pounds. I needed a super lot of support. Like you I imagined all kinds of things yet I could never really pinpoint just what I was so scared about. In reality it was the unknown that was so terrifying.

But I can tell you this ..... the real thing was nothing compared to what I came up with in my mind the weeks before surgery. All went VERY well. Not a single part of the whole thing was terrible. I wasn't ever in pain, I was up and walking in less than 24 hours and when I came home I did great!

Do you have anything specific you would like to have some replies to? I would be very happy to help.

If my "I'm a Mess" by NotBrave is still on the pre-op posts you will see how terrified I was and you will also see so many helpful replies from people that helped me!

Try to relax and trust the professionals to do their job. To them it is routine (this is good). They will take professional care of you in pre-op, in surgery and in post-up. You will be amazed. Just tell yourself ....... they are pros and I am going to let them do their job and know I am in good hands. Then you do your job by following their expert advice and you will heal and be on your way!

I truly car and I am here.

Sincerely NotBrave (but I did it!)

There you go! More Sister testimony of how the pre op terror doesn't match the actual event. Here's another example, before surgery I was asking for a private room for my hospital stay and the nurse told me it was unlikely because I was such low priority. I was both relieved and insulted. :-) Yes, it is still major surgery but has become so routine that we are considered low priority. LOL! Hey, I still got my private room and the nurses were wonderfully attentive.

If you know with a clear head ( before you began to second guess yourself ) that this is the right decision, try to take comfort in that. I had my surgery on Friday and right up until they wheeled me back I wanted to cancel it. However , I knew that I had made the right decision before and that this was all nerves and that is normal ! As soon as you sign the consent papers , they can give you a cocktail and from there , it is just over before you know it. There are risks but they are small and you may have some little complications but they are manageable. You will be fine !

I am having the same procedure you are, a week later. I too had a c-section about 7 years ago and I find myself one moment "okay" next moment very anxious/scared as well. It seems what we are going through are normal (which I guess is good) and the waiting is the hardest part.

All we can do is prepare and keep telling ourselves we will be ok...trust our dr's and we can recover from this and think about being pain free after!!!!

We can do this!!!!!!

Thank you so much for your support. I wish you well on Wednesday and will be thinking of you. x

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Originally Posted by barbiegal7 Wow, I am SO happy to have found this particular thread! My surgery is this Wednesday the 25th (LAVH), and I am also having such terrible panic and that "what if I die?" feeling. I have had two laparoscopies before, but I guess it's the staying in the hospital overnight (which I have only done once- having my daughter), and being a bit overweight - not morbidly so, but definitely 25 lbs. more than I should be. My daughter moved out last month, so I've already been depressed by that and having a "change of life" from that experience, so I hate going into a surgery not being 100%. I also have all these great opportunities coming up, and I am so fearful that there will be some complication or something to ruin it. BAH! Then all the craziness of trying to get my business in order, a computer back up and running that had a hard drive crash, getting my columns up to date that I write, groceries, laundry, etc. I'm actually happy to have Vicodin for the fibroid pain as it does help to calm me down some! Talking to my doctor on Friday helped a bit. I also suffer from emetophobia (fear of vomiting), so I had a talk with her about meds to prevent nausea from the anesthesia. I've never had that problem, but it's been 12 years since my last surgery, so who knows how my body has changed. She said no problem and just to tell the anesthesiologist as they have many drugs to prevent nausea. She also told me to get the "happy juice" LOL pre-op to calm down. I'm absolutely terrified, but to read someone on here saying they had the LAVH yesterday and are on this board posting?? That fills me with a lot of hope! Glad I found you great ladies!!

I had 2 cyst surgeries before my hysterectomy on 7/12.

While I wasn't terrified, I am always concerned about surgery, so one thing I did before my last two surgeries was to make absolutely sure my affairs were all in order, my advanced directive was correct and so on. While that turned out to be unnecessary, it seems to give me a little sense of control.

In terms of weight, I was morbidly obese at my last surgery five years ago and obese for the more recent surgery. Last time, I did have blood pressure problems, but, since then, I've found a BP med that works for me and lost about 20 pounds. If you're on BP meds, be sure to keep taking them.

I didn't realize there was a name for "fear of vomiting" but boy do I have that too. As my surgery this time was much longer than previous surgeries, I had severe nausea when I got out of surgery, muttered "nausea" and they gave me something before I was out of the OR. The nausea got better over about 20 minutes and I didn't throw up. Be sure to discuss this with your anesthesiologist before you go into the OR.

Good luck!

NotBrave, it's so good to see you on here supporting other sisters and so good to see how well you are doing!!

libit, hang in there sweetie. Listen to all of the advice and support you are getting here from women who have been there. You will make it and come out better on the other side.