TAH: Had surgery Discussion today with Doc.

Im not sure if I feel better or worse, but I found out I will be having open abdominal surgery because of the amount of adhesions I have. She will be removing my swollen uterus ( 9 cm) and my Cervix. She said I have a lot of adhesions on my ovaries, that they are adhearing to abdominal wall, she will try to clean them off and save them if they are not too bad. my tubes will prob be removed also, cause they are just too bad to leave in there. I guess she has her work cut out for her on this one. ALOT of scar tissues going on in there. They will also be giving me medicine to prevent blood clots and told me to make sure I walk walk walk.......pre op will be 3 days before surgery date and they are doing blood work, and will be putting blood on stand by in case I need it. would it be better for me to give my own blood in case I need it....has anyone done this? did anyone need blood from the bank? I even asked for for something to keep me calm as son as I get there. lol so I got that all set up for, im going to need it. now..........if I can only just calm down before hand.....

I have heard of women giving blood to be given back to them in case they need it. I did not do that, nor could I if I wanted to. I am too small and light to donate blood.

In general, though, I bet for all major surgeries (especially open abdominal like ours) they put a certain amount of blood on hold from the blood bank. It would just make sense.

I have read of women needing blood during surgery. I think that was more due to complications than standard surgery.

Also, follow your doctors instructions on dos and don'ts. Those can be aimed at helping prevent bleeding during surgery.

I really should have thought to donate my own blood since I am O- and it's not the easiest type to come by and there are always shortages.

Not to worry, they will have blood put aside for you I used to work in a lab and the blood bank always made sure that they had lots for the surgeries ahead.
Often people who donated their own needed it as you can only donate so many days in advance and it seemed to leave them a bit "short" and they just replentished what they gave.
That has just been my experience but don't beat yourself up about it
Lisa