Surprise TAH with no symptoms

I was cruising along with life having no thought about 'female issues' when I was hit by a virtual brick wall. I was trying to get into a clinical trial for post-menopausal women with vaginal dryness so I was put through a series of tests to make sure I was qualified for the trial.

I was a healthy 55 year old who had gone through menopause. I had my first child by C-section 25 years ago and the surgeon accidentally attached my uterus to the wall of my stomach as he was completing the C-section. I was told I was lucky in that I'd probably never have to have a hysterectomy due to the fact that my uterus wouldn't 'drop' and cause issues.

So, back to the clinical trial testing. I passed all of their tests with flying colors and the final test was an endometrial biopsy. The first attempt at getting this biopsy was returned as inconclusive and the doctor felt like it was due to the positioning of my uterus. I was scheduled for a second biopsy and was blown away when they called to set up an appointment for the doctor to go over my results with me. Something told me this might be more than just giving me results, and when the doctor showed me the pathology report, all I could focus on was 'Stage 1 Carcinoma'. I went foggy and felt like I was in a bad dream. To go from having no symptoms at all, to now finding out I have the big C was pretty overwhelming. I was advised to go see my gynecologist and that a hysterectomy would likely be the preferred method of treatment.

Still feeling mentally numb, I arranged to go to the best Gynecologist in town within a week. I was beginning to accept the diagnosis but wanted to rid myself of the Cancer asap before it had a chance to spread anywhere else. The doctor agreed that a hysterectomy was my best option and said he'd know what kind of one I'd need once he got in there. He scheduled me for a Robotic assisted Laparoscopic Hysterectomy 4 days after my initial appointment with him.

I had planned to have a fairly quick and easy recovery since my doctor thought he could do my surgery Lap., but my body had other ideas. He attempted the Robotic Lap, but my pulse-ox would bottom out each time they got me in position to do this, so after attempting once or twice, the decision was made to do this with a Total Abdominal Hysterectomy instead. My uterus, tubes, and ovaries were removed. I woke up quite surprised that in addition to the laparoscopic poke holes, I also had the smily abdominal cut. My hospital stay was 2 nights instead of 1 night and I went home with dermabond glue on my incisions instead of staples. The hospital nurses bragged on me as being their star patient, likely because my husband is a nurse and he pushed me to walk and to do my breathing exercises and to help myself recover more quickly.

I'm now almost 4 weeks away from the surgery. I still have some soreness and swelling and have begun to have some oozing at my incision site. But overall, other than feeling like I've been run over by a truck, I'm recuperating fairly well.

I found the Hystersisters website quite by accident, just from a google search. My doctor is very laid-back, which is good, but I felt I needed more information than he provided. I've found a wealth of information on this website. I only wish the hospitals would direct patients to this website or at least give them some of the booklets available here.

Overall, I feel like I had guradian angels watching over me because I had no symptoms at all, and this was detected quite by accident. Had I not been attempting to get into the clinical trial, this would have stayed in my system until it caused other symptoms and could have spread to many other places in my body. The doctor said that from looking at the uterus, the Cancer was not aggressive at all and had not spread anywhere.

I feel so blessed. Now, on with the rest of my life!