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Well, it's been a week now. I am feeling much better and thought I would let folks know I am still alive and actually doing quite well, and thank everyone for their kind wishes. The surgery was apparently horrific but fortunately they have this thing called 'anesthesia' so I didn't know it sucked until later. My surgeon said she was going to write me up in a medical journal and I told her it wouldn't be the first time (the previous time being when I had a lung removed some 24 years ago) and she told me to stop being greedy and hogging the limelight. ;-D I really like her.
So far I've read several books (good LAWRD Robert Ludlum writes purple prose! He's like the Barbara Cartland of thriller authors.) but haven't managed to watch many DVDs. Now that the staples are out it's more comfortable to sit so I will hopefully be doing more of that. And more of this. I've missed being online and reading my LJ and email.
I'll stick some gory details behind a cut because I know very few people will want to read them but some who have had similar experiences might be curious.
My surgeon (who teaches people how to do hysterectomies and is one of the best in the region) told me flat out that it was the second-worst hysterectomy she has ever done. Oh joy. :-P Not a distinction I really enjoy.
Apparently fibroids tend to grow their own vascular system. This isn't unusual. However, where most people might have between one and three new veins due to fibroids, I had more like 15-20, and they had managed to wrap themselves around my ureters (the tubes that go from kidneys to bladder) so she had to dissect them from around the ureters, a very painstaking and dangerous job, and she ended up calling in another surgeon to help her so I had two surgeons working on me. I apparently lost a lot of blood, they had to give me a couple of pints. They also nicked my bladder a little bit toward the top, which they then had to fix, and because of that I got sent home with a catheter. Ick. Fortunately they took that out yesterday.
She told me that the fibroids were even larger than they had appeared on the MRI and ultrasound images, and that what they had thought was an ovarian cyst on the left side, turned out to be an enlarged, scarred, formerly-infected fallopian tube. Between that and the uterus she said I had enough 'mass' in my abdomen to equal about a six-month pregnancy. Ugh. (It seems so weird to me that I could have had an infected/ruptured/scarred fallopian tube without ever knowing it. I guess the symptoms are very similar to ovarian cysts, so we probably thought that was what it was, whenever it happened. She said it was at least 3 years old, because that's when I started seeing her and it was 'preexisting' then.) I did actually have a cyst on the right ovary, so that was another reason why they would have assumed it was a cyst.
Suprisingly, and likely due to the skill of my medical team and the nurses afteward, I feel pretty decent. My energy levels are good and I can walk around fairly easily, and get in and out of bed, and even go up and down the stairs, but I have a lot of aches and pains in places the meds don't seem to touch and that don't make any sense (middle-right back, right shoulder, left buttock.) They tell me this is from being on the operating table for 6 hours with one shoulder/arm hyperextended, and I guess I have to believe them but it rather feels like someone was beating on me. Also everything I eat or drink, including water, tastes *weird* (I suspect due to the meds I am on). At least the bruises from all the IVs snd blood draws are starting to fade, though I will be colorful for at least a week longer, I suspect. The puffiness in my right hand and arm from the IV leaking subcutaneously has finally gone away yet.
Yesterday after getting the staples and catheter out I was feeling so good I got cocky and decided it was time to start cutting back on the pain meds. Mistake. I spent the next 12 hours trying to get myself rebalanced on those but I'm feeling better now and will not try that again for a few days. Live and learn.
So far I've read several books (good LAWRD Robert Ludlum writes purple prose! He's like the Barbara Cartland of thriller authors.) but haven't managed to watch many DVDs. Now that the staples are out it's more comfortable to sit so I will hopefully be doing more of that. And more of this. I've missed being online and reading my LJ and email.
I'll stick some gory details behind a cut because I know very few people will want to read them but some who have had similar experiences might be curious.
My surgeon (who teaches people how to do hysterectomies and is one of the best in the region) told me flat out that it was the second-worst hysterectomy she has ever done. Oh joy. :-P Not a distinction I really enjoy.
Apparently fibroids tend to grow their own vascular system. This isn't unusual. However, where most people might have between one and three new veins due to fibroids, I had more like 15-20, and they had managed to wrap themselves around my ureters (the tubes that go from kidneys to bladder) so she had to dissect them from around the ureters, a very painstaking and dangerous job, and she ended up calling in another surgeon to help her so I had two surgeons working on me. I apparently lost a lot of blood, they had to give me a couple of pints. They also nicked my bladder a little bit toward the top, which they then had to fix, and because of that I got sent home with a catheter. Ick. Fortunately they took that out yesterday.
She told me that the fibroids were even larger than they had appeared on the MRI and ultrasound images, and that what they had thought was an ovarian cyst on the left side, turned out to be an enlarged, scarred, formerly-infected fallopian tube. Between that and the uterus she said I had enough 'mass' in my abdomen to equal about a six-month pregnancy. Ugh. (It seems so weird to me that I could have had an infected/ruptured/scarred fallopian tube without ever knowing it. I guess the symptoms are very similar to ovarian cysts, so we probably thought that was what it was, whenever it happened. She said it was at least 3 years old, because that's when I started seeing her and it was 'preexisting' then.) I did actually have a cyst on the right ovary, so that was another reason why they would have assumed it was a cyst.
Suprisingly, and likely due to the skill of my medical team and the nurses afteward, I feel pretty decent. My energy levels are good and I can walk around fairly easily, and get in and out of bed, and even go up and down the stairs, but I have a lot of aches and pains in places the meds don't seem to touch and that don't make any sense (middle-right back, right shoulder, left buttock.) They tell me this is from being on the operating table for 6 hours with one shoulder/arm hyperextended, and I guess I have to believe them but it rather feels like someone was beating on me. Also everything I eat or drink, including water, tastes *weird* (I suspect due to the meds I am on). At least the bruises from all the IVs snd blood draws are starting to fade, though I will be colorful for at least a week longer, I suspect. The puffiness in my right hand and arm from the IV leaking subcutaneously has finally gone away yet.
Yesterday after getting the staples and catheter out I was feeling so good I got cocky and decided it was time to start cutting back on the pain meds. Mistake. I spent the next 12 hours trying to get myself rebalanced on those but I'm feeling better now and will not try that again for a few days. Live and learn.
From:
no subject
Glad you're ok.
I'm guessing that "fibroids" are what I called "fibrome" (because I was too lazy to search for the words)?
From:
no subject
{{hugsback}}
From:
no subject
I have two, not as big as yours, though...
From:
no subject
From:
no subject