Introduction//nervous

hello. I am 43 and scheduled for my adominal hyster on December 29. As I understand, there are a bunch of fibroids in there--one pendunculated and then a bunch more. My uterus is about 5 month size.

My fibroids were first diagnosed about 7 years ago. At the time, I had heard about UFE and was very interested in the procedure but the gyn I had was very dismissive of the procedure. He felt that since I wasn't having a lot of problems [well, except for staying up at night unable to leave the bathroom because of bleeding so heavily stuff . . .] that I should just keep an eye on them and not do anything.

I'd never had any sort of surgery or even a visit to the hospital and at the time, I was single without kids so I confess that I jumped on his advice and stuck my head back in the sand like a good little ostrich. Sigh, that should teach me to hide my head, hmmm?
Between original diag. and today, lots of good things happened like getting married and two fantastic kids [adopted] but in the last year, the little beasties in there started acting up again. So I went back to the gyn shortly after we came home with our second child.

The experience was singularly unpleasant. He basically felt me up and said "well, they are large and they have to come out and you have to have a full hyster and there aren't any alternatives and we can just take the ovaries if they don't look right."

Needless to say, I walked out and started looking for a new gyn.

I found a new gyn in August. Regretably, the message was mostly the same [except that she was floored that he had told me they would just yank the ovaries at my age] but at least she did an ultra sound and a careful pelvic before making the declaration. The result of the long wait was that now there are no alternatives to the adomin. hyster---everything is just too big for all the other procedures. Of course, the gyn never told me that waiting might eliminate all my options. New Gyn was amazed that I wasn't having more problems than I was because the stuff is just giant size. When they did the ultrasound, they couldn't even find my ovaries because of all the fibroids [which has dr worried but i'm "thinking about it" tomorrow, ala scarlett o'hare]. In general, I feel a lot better about the whole thing and in having this person as my surgeon.

But I'm still scared to death. In the time since the diagnois I've still never had surgery and still haven't even gone to the emergancy room. My husband is super supportive but I don't think he realizes how scared and nervous I am. I'm worried about my kids---the oldest is 7 and the younger one is 4 1/2. I haven't been away overnight from either of them since we adopted them. I've been talking to them about mama going to the hospital but coming home soon but they are both worried [which means of course, that I now have to pretend NOT to be at all concerned whenever I am home.]. The little one just caught on that mama is going away for a couple of days and got quite upset.

The real stressor is my work. My husband is a stay-home parent with our two kids and I work outside the home. While the "big boss" of our office [who is in another city] is being quite supportive and saying take whatever time you need, the people I deal with on a day-to-day basis and my immediate supervisor are not so nice. Their biggest concern is to the get most out of me before I leave and how soon can I come back and why don't I know how soon I can come back. I've taken to hiding in my office to avoid them. For example, last week, without my agreement, they went to opposing counsel [I'm an attorney but not in a lawfirm] to ask for an extension based on my being gone for personal leave and surgery. None of them understand why I got upset that they felt it was okay for them to do this. Even when I explain it, they see no need to say that they are sorry that they upset me [regardless of whether they think they were right.] The irony is that I got this nice call from opposing counsel hoping I was okay and saying he'd agree to any extension I needed which is more than any of my co-workers have ever said.

Perhaps they would be more sympathetic if they knew more details about my surgery but I've always been a very private person and I'm not at all comfortable telling people what type of surgery etc. I have this wacky idea that as a responsible grown-up human being, I ought to be able to say that I'm having major surgery which will necessitate me being gone and they should accept my word on it without questioning if I'm justified in being gone for 4 weeks. And I should be able to say that I need to take the two days before the surgery off to be with my family and no I can't work over Christmas without getting into a debate.

Can I have a co-worker transplant? Does anyone else have similiarly AWFUL co-workers? All the stories I've read about people's procedures and recoverys are really helping me to calm down and know what to expect from the surgery---now I need some stories about horrid workplaces to help me feel less alone in that arena as well.

Sorry this is so very long!

The time you take away from your job should be of no concern to your co-workers!! You will need the time to recuperate!! I had my partial Hysterectomy done on 11/29/04 and I am feeling great already!! I spent 4 days in the hospital with 2 kids at home..THe first day (day of surgery) I did not want visitors..I would have never remembered them being there. But by the second day I was up and showering and walking around and feeling ok enuf to have visitors for short periods of time.
Do not worry about anyone but yourself during this time...Since your husband is a stay at home husband he is already aware of the responsibilities.

Take your time and enjoy your time off!!

Good Luck to you!!

Hi!

I had my surgery six weeks ago tomorrow. Today is my first day back at work, and I was surprised to find out that I still had some healing to do! I, too, felt guilty about taking six weeks off, but I needed to. I am a library director, and a lot of what I do couldn't be handled by my staff. One of my board members didn't understand, but thankfully, the president is a surgery nurse and she set him straight.

I planned to have a LAVH, and the doctor did get the ovaries and tubes out that way. When it came to the uterus, however, it wouldn't budge no matter what the doc did. So, I ended up with an abdominal incision and the LAVH incisions. Whew! I had my surgery for fibroids (smaller than yours), heavy bleeding, and because of a previous cancer I had had.

I'm so sorry your co-workers are giving you grief. But this is one time you need to be selfish. Take the time you need to heal. If you don't, you may find that you are away from work longer because of complications.

Surgery is very scarry! I have had four surgeries in the past eight years, and I still get a little nervous! Even though I still have some muscles that need to heal, I feel much, much better now than I did before the surgery. Having a surgeon you trust is important. I will send a prayer up on your behalf for a safe surgery.
Best wishes for a fast, healthy recovery.

Hi.....
I read your post and we have a few things in commom: nasty boss/coworkers and fibroids (which I had for a very long time). I was first diagnosed with fibroids when I was 25 (I'm now 47). During a pelvic exam the doctor casually told me I had benign tumours and when I sort of panicked he told me not to worry, most women have them. I believed him and forgot all about it.....had kids, lived my life, etc.....then in February I was lying in bed and found a large mass in my right abdomen. Paralysed with fear, I went to my Dr. and he was rather upset as well and immediately referred me to a gastro-intestinal surgeon. I knew he suspected a cancerous tumor, although he didn't say this out loud. When I went to the gastro-surgeon, he took one quick feel and said, 'That's a fibroid...you need to see a gyno'. He ordered an ultrasound, which showed numerous, large fibroids, one of them pendunculated. I was then referred to a gyno and she suggested a hysterectomy - she wanted to take the uterus only...and the ovaries if they didn't look healthy. She told me to go home and mull it over and come back in a month. During that month I did lots of research and the conclusion I came up with was this: alternative treatments don't work very well. With large fibroids my only choice was hysterectomy. Even if they had removed them by some other means when they were smaller, they most likely would have returned. When I returned one month later I told her 'let's go for it'....I was anxious to get rid of these masses that felt like a basketball....and my very heavy periods that were beginning to interfere with my life.
I'm 11 days post-op and I feel wonderful. I sailed through the surgery, anasthesia, pain-killers, etc. and even with the pain and swelling of the incision, I felt immediate relief. I feel so well.....the fibroids had to have been weighing me down in a big way. Don't be afraid.....modern anasthesia is so advanced and the medical staff are so good at controlling pain......honestly the recovery from child-birth was more painful! If your fibroids are as big as you say and you've been suffering for 7 years.....you won't look back.
When I told my boss about the surgery, he freaked, saying 'I can't have you gone 6 weeks', blah, blah, blah. He demanded that I go back after 4, and he also demanded that I begin 'working from home' at 2 weeks. I just ignored him thinking I'd take the 6 weeks if I needed it and if he gave me too much trouble, I'd contact the labour board. As it turned out, our company was taken over and we were all laid off. Although my line of credit is suffering, I feel much relieved that I don't have to deal with that.
Anyway, I've become too long-winded. Try to relax......a uterus full of fibroids is no fun and you may be prolonging your suffering by pursuing alternative methods. Hysterectomy surgery is very straight-forward these days.......I'm a complete nuerotic baby when it comes to medical stuff and I sailed through the experience. Good luck to you! You will be fine!

Hi,

Our situations are similar. I am 42 and had to have an abdominal hysterectomy due to the large size of my fibroids. I was very worried about the surgery, but even more worried about taking 6 weeks off from work. I am a research scientist in a University Medical Center. I work on several projects and write grants. No one could step in for me while I was gone, so the experiments would just sit there not getting done. I was certain my career would come to an end. It's not that I didn't have supportive coworkers, it's that there were no coworkers with the expertise to do what I do. So now, 3 months later, what was the fall out of this time off? It was probably the best thing I could have ever done for my career!

During your time off you will have nothing but time to think. I reevaluated my system for assigning priorities to projects and realized in a lot of cases I wasn't making conscious decisions to go with a particular choice, I was just swept along with the "urgency" of the situation, i.e. I was caught in the trap of thinking "It's urgent, therefore it must be important". I ended up making some pretty drastic changes to the way I organize my work. I came up with some fresh new ideas and I caught up on background literature that had sat on my desk for months (well, okay maybe years!). The result is that I'm more efficient, more relaxed and happier about my work. The 6 weeks off did not set me back, if anything it moved me forward.

So this time off may help you deal with your work situation better when you do return, by providing the time for you to really think about what you want and what is best for you. Like the other Sister said, don't worry about your coworkers, take care of yourself.

Christina