Recovery Progress Reports for Hysterectomy dates Mar 12-Mar 18,2012

I am 6 weeks postop TAH/BSO. Today I had my internal and my doctor said "it looks good and feels good". I told my boyfriend, who is on a fishing trip until tomorrow night, that he also said my boyfriend needs to come home right away and have sex with me, but my boyfriend just laughed. Darn! I thought he believed me!
I go back to work in two weeks! Yay! I really enjoy my work so I' m looking forward to that.
Hope everyone is doing well.

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Originally Posted by TSPiper I am overwhelmed at the effort my co-workers put into the quilt. I gather that it became a fun project that a lot of people dived into. I talked about it here not to brag about my co-workers, but more because of the lessons I have learned from the kindness and support I have received. It was pretty scary when I was diagnosed with endometrial cancer, and at first I was very private about it. Then I found it easier to just tell people what was going on since I was going to be out for several weeks. Once I said to one person that it was okay to tell other people what was going on, the word got out pretty quickly. I work for an agency that has multiple offices in the state, so the word got around among more than just my immediate co-workers. I tend to be an introvert, and while I like people, I don't socialize as much with my co-workers as much they seem to do among themselves. I am also a generation older than many of my immediate co-workers, so have a little less in common and am a little less apt to chat in the hallway. So it surprised me tremendously to get this level of support. What I have learned from this is that I need to make more of an effort myself to be aware of people I know who need an extra hand, a dose of kindness, or whatever, and to take the time to do for them some of what had been done for me.

I have been meaning to ask you about how your cancer treatment is going.
Was it all cleared during the hysterectomy op, or are you having follow up treatment?

My mother had her Hyst 23 years ago, and had radiotherapy afterwards.
She has denied having cancer and always said this was precautionary, but I think this was more denial on her part.
She is now 81, so treatment does work well.

Mrslibrarylady,
Today, the treatment for endometrial cancer is a hysterectomy. For me this involved removing the uterus, cervix, ovaries, oviducts, pelvic lymph nodes and associated tissue, and some aortic lymph nodes. These were all evaluated for cancer, except for the aortic lymph nodes. Since the pelvic lymph nodes were clear, the aortic ones didn't need to be evaluated. In my case I was fortunate. Cancer was only found in the emdometrium of the uterus. Thus, I am assumed "cured" and do not need any follow-on chemo or radiation. If it had spread to other tissues, I would probably have needed follow-up treatment. Since it was cancer, I will need to be followed up for five years, and will still get pap tests (that surprised me!).

The symptom that led to this diagnosis is that I started having post-menopausal bleeding. A vaginal ultrasound of the uterus showed that the endometrium was abnormally thickened. So that led to a biopsy, which detected cancer. And that led to the hysterectomy. I feel very fortunate. I grew up when the word "cancer" was very frightening. This is one of the less aggressive types of cancer, and if it is caught and treated early, it can be "cured" with a hysterectomy.

I think treatment over time has evolved, sort of like for breast cancer. In the past, breast cancer would automatically be treated with a complete mastecomy, with follow-on chemo. Now medical science has shown that often a lumpectomy is as effective as the complete mastectomy, and the use of chemo is also more refined.

I don't know your mom's situation. If she was given radiotherapy, someone thought there was a reason for it. It may be that at the time the medical treatment routinely included radiotherapy as a precaution for cancer or precancerous tissue. She is also a generation older than I am, so she may have even more fear of the big "C" and may find it too frightening to consider that she may actually have had cancer.

Six week check up was on Thursday, cleared for everything! Doc says all is well - go home, enjoy sex and be healed!!!

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Originally Posted by rmj66 TSPiper, I really appreciate what you've said. I found it hard to tell people that I was going to have surgery, but your story makes me realize that sharing with those around us is a good thing. Thank you for telling your story.

When I first found out about the cancer, I told my husband, of course. My son and his family were just leaving on a two-week vacation, so I decided to wait until they returned rather than send them off with bad news. After a week or so, I told my supervisor, because I wanted to give him a heads up that I was going to need a few weeks off. But I didn't tell anyone else for a while. Then I was out of town for an environmental forum, and ended up going out to dinner with one of my co-workers from another office. We didn't know each other very well, and she is still relatively new to the agency, so when we found ourselves at loose ends at the end of the day we decided to go out to dinner together. Over the course of the evening, we talked about my medical woes and about her marital woes, and that demystefied the whole situation for me.

When I filled out the FMLA paperwork, the admin person who deals with FMLA issues told me I didn't have to tell anyone why I was going to be out. But it ended up being much easier to just frankly talk about it than to be mysterious. I work for a regulatory agency, and I oversee a lot of high dollar projects that require my approval. I ended up calling the project managers for all of these projects to coordinate schedules with them and to figure out what could be done early, what could wait for my return, and what would need to be delegated to someone else in my absence. As a result, I got good at saying that I had been diagnosed with endometrial cancer, was going to have surgery, and would be out for about 6 weeks in March and April. Then I would move right on to discussing coordination issues.

Now here is the funny thing about how my mind works. I have difficulty with my weight, so I thought if I didn't tell people why I was going to be out, they might conclude that I was getting gastric bypass surgery, and then they would be surprised to see the same old me instead of a shrinking version of me!

I just want to know if it is normal to have burning and what feels like pulling and stabbing pains for the first so many days of working?

Kittie5 I had a little swelling and discomfort when I first went back to work at week 3, and small areas which feel like they are pulling (my scar is very tight) but not stabbing pains.

ses1 thanks my mom and I think it is because I am a housekeeper and went back full time because they don't offer part time or light duty.

I would check with your doctor. I teach and had to be on my feet.

ok will do