dVH/RALH: Met with surgeon - got surgery date!!!

I met with the surgeon day and I am impressed with him which is a good thing if you are going to allow someone to cut out parts of your body right? So I can check that off my list. I was diagnosed with cervical cancer after a colposcopy with biopsy and also have a uterine mass which has been causing a lot of pain and heavy bleeding. I wanted to skip right past any further biopsies and go straight to the big "H". The gyn/surgeon has other plans. I live over 3 hours from the hospital where this will be performed so the plan is as follows. Monday, May 16 - pre-op. Tuesday under general anesthesia do a full cone biopsy of the cervix and a hystoscopy with full D&C and biopsy of the uterine mass. Have a rush job done on the samples which will take 36 hours. Thursday, Do hysterectomy, hopefully da vinci but to be determined based on results of pathology. The surgeon doesn't want to plan a simple hysterectomy not knowing fully what he is dealing with before hand and then find out he should have planned for a radical hysterectomy. He took plenty of time to explain it to me, which I appreciated, and in the end I agreed with his rational. I am a nurse, but gyn is not my strongest area by far. Has anyone else done their procedures this way? How did it go? Well, at least we have a date. It is further away than I would have liked, but the surgery schedule was booked up. Not many choices up here in Alaska and I really wanted to use this surgeon. So I will use this time to prepare, mentally, and otherwise and will be ready to be a pampered princess! May 19 here we come! There is a light at the end of the tunnel!

& the light at the end of the tunnel is not a train.

I wish you the best.

Hi AlaskaNurse,

I am from a remote part of Kodiak Island and had a TAH in Anchorage on Dec. 30th, so I understand the issues with remote care here in Alaska. Nothing is easy here. I wish you all the best, and I hope you have the great care I had!