Hi, it's my first post. and it's a long one...
A friend of a friend told me about HysterSisters. She had a similar situation as mine and she found this site while she was recovering.
I had a complete hysterectomy on March 16, 5 weeks ago yesterday. I had an "enormous" (my doctor's word) fibroid on my uterus that was discovered in January.
I spent 5 days in hospital. I have some pretty interesting stories about that, maybe I'll post on a different thread.
I developed an infection in my incision in week 2, and took antibiotics for 10 days. There was alot of drainage from the incision around my navel when the staples came out, that was on day 5 - I think it may have been too soon. It could have been the way my navel had been put back together. regardless, it was not good. The drainage
finally stopped last week. That whole episode with the infection wore me down, and I didn't have much strength as it was. The antibiotics were very hard on my already nearly non-existant bowel functions. I was a mess. I was weepy, cranky, and very scared. My family doctor reassured me that it wasn't as bad as I thought, and that I'm not the only patient that this had happened to, and that I would recover. She was right.
As follow-up after surgery, I had been seeing a public health nurse 3 times a week until 2 weeks ago, then I'd go 2 times a week. The drainage stopped about a week ago, so my last appointment was today apparently. They tell me my incision is all healed, and I don't need to come back unless I have another issue. I'm still wearing a slight bandage over the incision (vertical) because the skin around the healed infection seems so fragile and dry. It's so itchy and I think all the nerve endings are coming back to life all at once. So I'm a bit nervous about uncovering it and having my clothing rubbing against it. It's been covered since the surgery and I only really looked at it last night. It's quite the long cut, about 6.5 inches, but it looks neat and tidy.
So after all of that, I'm finally beginning to feel well. Like really well. I started walking outside last weekend, not very far but I
felt like doing it. I hadn't felt like much of anything up till then. I drove my car to my appointment today, first time for driving since my surgery. I came home, had lunch and went to bed for 3 hours. I might go shopping on Saturday for an hour, but I'll probably come home and go to bed again. I guess what I'm trying to say is that my interest in something other than recovery is returning and I
want to do something out there. I don't have much stamina yet, but at least I want to go. Up till now I could care less and hadn't thought of anything out there.
This has been a big week for me, walking, driving, cooking, and the biggest change of all is that my bodily functions are finally working the way they used to. Yippee!!
Now that I feel well, I'm beginning to realize that I hadn't been feeling well in a long time. I think as the fibroid grew, it was slowly wearing me down. Little changes in my wellbeing over time really weren't noticeable. By the time February rolled around, I would come home from work and go to bed. I'd pretty much stay there till the next work day. I had issues with my lower back, bladder and bowels because the fibroid was putting pressure on them. I had very little interest in work, home or anything really. I was exhausted all the time and believed the fibroid was literally draining me. I named it "the alien".
So now I'm heading into week 6 with 2 more weeks to go before I return to work. I haven't accomplished anything on my "easy-things-to-do-while-I-recover-list", because I didn't feel well enough to
look at the list, nevermind actually do something. But now that I feel healthy, engergized, and hopeful I'm going to get the list out and attempt to do one thing each day. I'll be back to work before I know it, and I'd like to have crossed at least one thing off that list.
So, I think the next 2 weeks are going to be more challenging than any of the other weeks. Why? Simply because I haven't felt this good in a very long time and I really feel like I could take on the world, or at least start the spring cleaning. So to prevent me from
actually plotting world domination, or scrubbing walls I will make this promise to myself. I promise to pace myself and take it easy, because I'm still healing. I promise not to lift anything over 5 lbs, because all of the "do and do not" rules still apply, and I can easily injure myself. I will go when I feel like going, because I need to build up some stamina. And most importantly, I will nap when I've had enough, because I still need to rest and get even better than I feel now.
A L
5 Weeks - Big Changes
vBulletin Security provided by
vBSecurity v2.2.2 (Pro) -
vBulletin Mods & Addons Copyright © 2024 DragonByte Technologies Ltd.