STILL LOTS OF QUESTIONS!!!

Thanks to everyone for responding. This site really is great!! I am having a myomectomy. Hopefully it won't turn into a Hyst. Does anyone have experience with this?? I am told it's the same type of recovery as a Hysterectomy. it isn't any easier!? I am due to come home the day before Thanksgiving. Is it reasonable to assume that I'll be able to go to my aunt's house for Thanksgiving? Also whats the BOWEL PREP controversy? Sounds SCARY!! My bedroom id upstairs. The only thing I have to lie on is my couch. should i look into getting an extra bed from a friend to put downstairs??(I have good friends!)Oh yeah, my MD. is doing a laparotomy. The fibroid is too big to be taken apart, and also I'm insisting on an epidural instead of a general.is there anything else i should know? When I first found out last Fri. i was having surgery,I was o.k. with it. Now I'm getting nervous!1 Thanks for your support, and humor!!! ANNE

Anne-
IF you are planning to do anything on Thanksgiving also plan in it being a shorter visit than it normally would be. You are having surgery and are still going to be pretty tired on Thanksgiving day. The more tired you are the more pain you will have.
As far as steps go, you should be alright. You won't be able to run up and down and I would limit my trips on the stairs, but you should be able to go back and forth to your bedroom.
I am a "surgery veteran". With my hyster I have had 13 surgeries total, most of them being abdominal. With each surgery I noticed I would become more and more nervous as the date arrives. It's scary to put your life in anothers hands. Any fears or anxieties you are having are quite normal and common.
I did not have to do bowel prep for my hyster. However, depending on the procedures and Dr. involved, some ladies had to. It ranges from a simple enema to drinking meds to clean out.
Hang in there, soon surgery will be over, and recovery will begin. I hope that your Dr. will be able to do what he/she has to and not a hyster.

Anne,
I just had a myomectomy 4 weeks ago, and was like you hoping it didn't turn into a hysterectomy. Basically everything you read about hysterectomies here is what the recovery was like for the myomectomy except the hormone problems. You'll probably actually have even more internal stitches w/ a myo I'm guessing as they take things out and put the uterus back together - I had 5 fibroids - 2 substantial ones - that looked like there'd be quite a hole to fill.

I had to drink magnesium citrate for the bowel prep - it wasn't as bad as I dreaded. But, when they said that drinking it ahead of time would ease the gas pains, they lied! I still had all that fun stuff you read about here.

I don't know if your fibroids have caused you a great deal of pain, but mine were - and I already feel WAY better than I did pre-surgery from that perspective. And, my first period was 6 days - a huge blessing - not the 12-14 day stuff. So, that made me not as jealous of these ladies on this site - with their no periods!

You probably won't feel too much like participating in the Thanksgiving festivities, although my first day home from the hospital I felt better than I did for a few weeks afterward - I got a fever about that time that lasted until 3 weeks after my surgery.

And, the nervousness stuff is just like what you read about here. This site really prepared me for most aspects of the surgery - they are so similar. And, yes, I was terrified before surgery and realized I'd wasted too much worry - just like everybody else around here.

There's a forum I've found very helpful for myomectomy recovery at http://www.delphi.com, then find the The Fibroid Place Forum. Its sort of a mini-version of this one, except there are bunches of pre and post myomectomy folks.

Hope all goes well, and let me know if you have other questions.