My Story- Adenocarcinoma in situ

After 3.5 years since my original diagnosis of CIS and AIS, I finally had my TVH on Thursday!

This all started when I had a bad pap back in 05. My doc recommended the colposcopy at the time which showed CIS. So we did the cone biopsy which showed both CIS and AIS. The AIS had two seperate lesions. My regular gyn wanted me to have the hysterectomy at that time. I was pretty young, 27, when this was first found and devestated that I couldn't have children. So we talked to an gyn/onc who told us that we could try for a baby if we started right away since my margins had been clear on the cone. She did, of course, mention that it was still a bit of a gamble because even with clear margins, about 20% of people still had residual disease (that was 3 years ago, not sure if the stats have changed). Because I am otherwise healthy, my husband and I decided to try for a baby and we were lucky enough to get pregnant right away. After our daughter was born, we were going to have the surgery. My paps had continued to come back clean at that time...and I (probably selfishly) wanted another baby. We had a surgery date scheduled, but my husband talked me into seeing the gyn/onc one more time (we don't have any gyn/oncs in our area, so I travel to see her). She said the same thing- if we had the baby quickly and continued to have clean tests, it was probably ok- but there was still a risk that we were missing disease. Anyway, we canceled the surgery and decided to try for a second baby. It took a little while longer the second time, but we had our little boy on Aug 7 2008. I originally had my surgery date schedule for 9 weeks later but my husband I both got a horrible stomach virus so we had to reschedule again!

I finally had my TVH on Oct 23 2008. Just over 3 1/2 years since my original diagnosis. I had paps every 3 months during that time (excpet when pregnant) and intermittent ECCs as well. I was really really nervous about the TVH but it went great! I came home from the hosptial yesterday evening and hardly have any pain when I take my pain meds. I was kind of painful and pretty queasy for the first 12 hours or so after surgery but once I got the pain under control, it has been fine. The queasiness was worse...but after a few naps, getting some food in me, and cutting down on the percocet it was much better! I hope to not have to take them much longer though, they make me feel weird. My doctor said that my uterus and cervix looked good upon visual inspection- uterus was small and symmetrical and there were no obvious abnormalities of the cervix. Still waiting for the pathology results, I should have those is about a week...but my doctor was optimistic!

I am glad that I finally got this done with. I don't regret my decision to wait on the TVH...my husband and I felt that it was the right choice for us...but it was still always there in the back of my mind- what if? I know that we are some of the "lucky ones"- we caught it early and were still able to have our family (and hopefully those path reports will come back clean!). My doctors have been really great and it makes me thankful that I have such a supportive family and friends. Well, that's my story!

All of the hysterectomy specimens came back clean!
Now I get to go back to yearly followups...