You're going to be ok, LIW's

Hi all you terrified sisters,
I am alive and doing very well after my TAH on 10-28. I'm just here to say that it is doable. I had a rough time, but only for one day, and then it was smooth sailing pretty much from there. I'm not going to be a pollyanna and say that it's easy, it's not-but neither is living with a diseased uterus. You can do it. You will be fine. You will feel better on the other side. Be brave. Be strong. Cry when you need to. Obssess if you need to. Then DO IT and get it over with.
God bless all of you-you are so strong and brave.
With much love,
Amy

Hi Amy,

Thanks for coming back to give encouragement to the . I'm very glad that your surgery went well and that you are feeling good.

's

Karen

which got me thinking. Let's see, I have been doing painful periods for 30 years, 1 week per month, so that is 360 weeks or 6.9 years of my life dealing with periods, plus or minus a few weeks since the PMS and bleeding got longer and worse over time. Then I have to add in the time I spent in doctors offices, emergency rooms, operating rooms, hospital beds and infertility treatment clinics. And time having miscarriages and recovering from multiple surgeries too. And time waiting to get a surgery date twelve times. Let's add a year to the figure just as an estimate.

Do some simple division and that adds up to about 20% of my life!

By having the hyster at age 41, I spared myself 10+/- more years of periods and problems. Toward the end, menstruation ruined 2 weeks of every month and put me in a supine position on the sofa on pain killers. More surgery was a strong possibility too. My poor dh was paying a price of having a wife in chronic pain too. As things progressed, I gave up working outside the home since I knew menstruation was going to make me miserable and unproductive in the workplace. This is not how I wanted to live my life.

Is six weeks of recovery to end this nightmare all that much time in comparison? And it hasn't been that bad a recovery really. Good pain control with the surgery and hospitalization. A dh that has taken the princess metaphor to heart and has done a superior job taking care of me. Even the boredom has been a wonderful experience for me. Honest, I have had worse periods than the days I spend out of the castle with my hyter. Looking at comparisons like this kept me from wanting to back out of the hyster and just tough out the pain.

Then I could dig around in the file cabinet and do some addition on all the bills from the medical treatment my uterus has caused. Well over $160,000 with the 12 surgeries and infertility treatment, easy! Maybe more. Insurance didn't pay a dime for the infertility treatment and we had to pay 20% of the gyn care insurance said was not related to infertility. Still haven't go the bill for the hyster, so that figure will be closer to $200,000 by the end of the year. Was my uterus really worth all this money? What I spent trying to get and stay pregnant was triple what I paid for a 4 year baccalaureate degree. Amazing huh?

Of course, I am going to have to cope with instant menopause, but HRT was a good fit from day one, minimal hot flashes. I am welcoming some lifestyle changes to make menopause a nice life transition. I've going to save a bundle not buying tampons. I will have undies without stains. My sheets will be safe. I will be able to commit to activities without mentally calculating what day that activity will fall in relation to my menstrual cycle. No more, nope, better not plan on that picnic since it will be on cycle day 25 crap. Hysterectomy gave me freedom! WOOHOO!

Only 15% of hysterectomies are done to save a life. The other 85% are done to improve quality of life. Keeping in mind that there are risks to any surgery, only you can decide what is best for yourself.