TAH Scary Recovery

I was so excited to get this hysterectomy complete and get on with my life but now I am beginning to think it was not such a good idea. I do not want to scare anyone who has yet to get a hysterectomy yet, especially since my body seems to make the doctors look like liars often. Here goes my story, some of you have heard the first part of it, but not what I hope is the end.
I went in for a complete abdominal hysterectomy on August 12, 2013. I have had many abdominal surgeries in the past so I figured this would be a breeze. The doctors were taking my Uterus, tubes, and cervix. There was so much scar tissue that the doctors had to do a vertical cut instead of following the previous bikini cuts that I had in the past. It took over 6 hours for them to complete a 3 hour surgery because all my organs were stuck to my uterus. They had to cut my bladder away from my uterus, they had to cut my bowels away from my uterus, and my stomach lining away from my uterus. It is safe to say that this hysterectomy probably saved my life! I was healing great and the doctors let me go home around 10p on August 14th. By early afternoon of the 15th, I started bleeding heavily from my incision.....it did not hurt, there was nothing wrong with the way it looked, it just started bleeding. I went to the er thinking they would just add another staple or something......NOPE! After a 45 minute drive to the hospital and the er keeping me in the waiting room for 4.5 hours, i was finally taken to a room. They pulled out the wads of paper towels I had against my abdomen and was surprised to see how much I was bleeding (like I was lying or something). Then they started to worry about a huge red mark that covered my entire abdomen....somehow between home and waiting in the er, I developed a massive abdominal infection. They removed the staples, squeezed out the infection and packed it full of gauze (I have never felt pain like that in my whole life). After doing this a few times they finally put in a wound vacuum that would constantly drain my open abdominal wound and I would only have to be tortured three times a week. I was finally sent home again on 21st of August. I thought everything was going great on all these antibiotics and my three weekly trips to the hospital to get my wound vac changed and cleaned until the 23rd, where I started to cough. My daughter had a chest cold so I thought I was getting that from her. I went in for my wound vac care on the 26th where they admitted me to the hospital because I had blood clots in my lungs and a horrible case of pneumonia. The blood thinners dissolved the many small clots in my lungs so they were not too worried about those anymore if I stayed on the blood thinners. The pneumonia is a different story. I was just released from the hospital for the third time on major antibiotics for the next 6 weeks. I will have to get a central line if I start to get worse again that way I can do the IV antibiotics I was getting in the hospital at home. Needless to say, I am home again and I could not be happier. I just need to know that everything I am going through is normal?

Shannon, my heart goes out to you in all that you have endured thus far. Prayerfully, now that you are home, there will be no more set backs and you can finally just concentrate on healing. I commend you on your strength. Continue to stay strong.

Lots of (((HUGS))) to you

I haven't had your experience no, but I too am regretting my hysterectomy. Everything was a breeze till weds and I was getting sick, sore, feverish, threw up, all I did was sleep. Gave in and called dr and I went in, which was no easy task when u feel like u have been hit by a diesel. I have a kidney/UTI infection. All I do is sleep bc everything he gave me causes drowsiness. Can't take care of my kids and my grandson was born last night and I cld only stand to be there like 30 mins. I feel like such a burden. Sometimes I think my periods were better than this. hope it gets better for u!